[The cut surface was a spherical zone centered on Satoru Gojo, and its range was not very large, only about half a meter beyond the surface of his body...]
After a chaotic exchange of flying limbs, Sukuna gradually worked out the pattern behind Satoru Gojo's "extension of the power of stasis," but all that really did was improve his ability to keep dodging the attacks.
In close combat, Satoru Gojo still held an absolute advantage...
"[Blue]."
As Sukuna fought while retreating, deliberately drawing the two of them toward the overpass, Satoru Gojo found a brief opening in Sukuna's movements and used [Blue] to yank him sideways toward the wall of a ruined building. Then, while Sukuna was still airborne, he directly set the "limit position" at Sukuna's neck.
Sukuna clearly felt the danger closing in. Drawing on the information he had just pieced together about the technique, he used Cursed Energy to shove himself aside while simultaneously launching a slash at Satoru Gojo with his recovered technique.
"[Dismantle]."
Satoru Gojo's "power of stasis" was triggered immediately, and the "limit cross section" he had set on Sukuna was forcibly canceled.
Even though Satoru Gojo followed that by punching Sukuna away again, sending him crashing through the wall and blasting him out the other side of the office building, Sukuna was smiling.
[I was right. The "power of stasis" and that strange "cross section technique" cannot be used together. And in terms of priority, the "power of stasis" comes first!]
But that realization did not help Sukuna much. If that was how it worked, then he would need to keep attacking constantly to lock down the opponent's technique extension. And in close quarters, Sukuna was at a disadvantage...
"[Purple]."
Sukuna had only just landed on the overpass and steadied himself when he suddenly saw that Satoru Gojo had appeared above him at some point, a beam of purple light reflecting straight into his eyes.
…
Satoru Gojo's real aim with that [Purple] had actually been to punch through Sukuna's brain through his eyes before he noticed. But thanks to Sukuna's absurdly fast reflexes, the attack ended up smashing into his face instead...
Seeing Sukuna take a [Purple] head on with his face and come away with nothing more than a collapsed bridge of the nose and some torn flesh, even Satoru Gojo could not help but marvel at how absurdly tough Sukuna was...
Narrowing his eyes, he gathered Cursed Energy and kicked at Sukuna. He had already been using rapid offense to keep Sukuna from counterattacking, but Sukuna had clearly started adapting to that rhythm and was gradually coming to understand the nature of his technique...
At this rate... even though he had the advantage in close combat, ordinary methods would make it very difficult to kill this "King of Curses" here and now...
A moment later, Satoru Gojo wrapped [Blue] around his hand and fired a quick strike forward, while Sukuna relied on razor sharp movement to adjust his position and barely evade it.
After another fierce exchange, the two ended up standing at opposite ends of the overpass, each taking a moment to recover.
Twisting his neck, Sukuna laughed.
"Why not use your Domain? Not confident in yourself?"
Satoru Gojo raised a hand and settled back into his stance, ready to attack again.
"I'm being considerate toward an old man like you. Wouldn't want you crying later because you can't understand the Domain's effect~~"
The truth was, Satoru Gojo genuinely could not predict what would happen if both sides opened their Domains. Thanks to the books written by Akira Zenin, "open Domains" were not exactly unfamiliar at Jujutsu High.
But understanding the theory and knowing how to use it were two different things. In actual combat, this was the first time he had ever faced someone using an open Domain.
Meanwhile, Sukuna was deliberately steering Satoru Gojo toward a Domain battle. Satoru Gojo had the upper hand in close combat, and if the rhythm slipped even a little, that "cross section technique" could deal real damage to him...
In other words, Satoru Gojo's win conditions were to keep fighting at close range, create an opening that prevented Sukuna from retaliating and triggering the "power of stasis," then use "setting the limit" to win, or else engage in a Domain battle.
And right now, Sukuna's only path to victory was a Domain battle...
Experts could use the opponent's Domain to plan their own Barrier. That meant the one who used their Domain second might be able to alter the properties of their own Barrier in response and counter it.
But the one who used their Domain first could force the opponent to take their Domain's effect first.
So whether you activated your Domain first or second, either choice increased the uncertainty of the clash. In other words, when neither side knew exactly what the outcome of the Domain battle would be, the ideal situation was for both sides to expand simultaneously...
The corner of Sukuna's mouth lifted slightly. Most of the time, he simply butchered fish already lying on the cutting board. Opportunities that required actual hunting were rare indeed...
[Then first I need to make Satoru Gojo believe that close combat offers him no chance of an absolute victory at all, and guide him into a Domain clash... The first step is finding a way to reduce the threat posed by his technique...]
In fact, a lot of the time, you did not need to understand a specific technique in detail to break it. It was enough to classify it within a broader concept...
During the close quarters fight, Sukuna wrapped his Domain Barrier around his own body, strengthened its compatibility with techniques, and then filled it with an incompletely projected Innate Domain.
That way, although he could not gain the benefit of the Domain's guaranteed-hit effect, any "technique" that touched him would "flow" into the Domain Barrier with its enhanced "compatibility," effectively breaking down the very concept of "technique."
[The drawback, though, is that if I use my own technique at the same time, it will also "flow" into the Barrier. Maybe I can load the technique into the Domain first, then use this kind of Barrier...]
Then all at once, Satoru Gojo realized that Sukuna, who had been dodging and avoiding him the entire time, had actually started fighting back. His fists could even neutralize the obstruction of the Limitless, and they could not be marked by the "limit"...
In that instant, Satoru Gojo understood what Sukuna had done.
By strengthening the Barrier's "compatibility" with techniques, Sukuna had amplified the Domain Barrier's "technique neutralization" property.
The incompletely projected Innate Domain had also discarded any alteration of the environment, keeping only the traits of "high Cursed Energy density" and "concept neutralization"...
This was... Domain Amplification?