"Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine!"
Under the rhythmic, haunting cadence of Sukuna's incantation, an open-type domain with a radius spanning hundreds of meters manifested, blanketing the shattered cityscape. The King of Curses stood atop his gruesome altar, looking down at Souma Gojo with eyes brimming with sadistic anticipation.
"Ant! Entertain me to your heart's content!"
Facing the inevitable onslaught of the shrine, Souma did not immediately counter with his own domain. Instead, he lowered his center of gravity, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade in a classic draw stance.
"New Shadow Style: Simple Domain."
Known as the "Domain of the Weak," it remained the most effective countermeasure sorcerers had devised over a millennium to survive a guaranteed-hit environment. In Souma's hands, however, this technique was elevated to an art form.
An endless torrent of invisible slashes hammered against the barrier of the Simple Domain, the sound like a million knives grinding against glass. The earth around Souma was carved into a lattice of deep trenches, yet he remained untouched.
However, even though the Simple Domain neutralized the guaranteed-hit effect and dampened the output of the slashes, the barrier was visibly eroding, peeling away under the sheer pressure of Sukuna's cursed energy.
Sukuna narrowed his eyes, his brow furrowing in irritation. "Not going to open your domain? Do you intend to play the turtle until you rot?"
He flicked his right wrist with a casual, predatory grace. "Cleave!"
A nearly fatal strike tore through the air. Unlike the indiscriminate "Dismantle," "Cleave" adjusted its output based on the target's cursed energy to deliver a decisive, one-shot kill.
Slash!
A massive gash opened across Souma's chest. Blood erupted like a geyser, painting the ground a visceral crimson.
"Still not opening it?"
Sukuna's irritation turned to genuine fury. He blurred across the distance, appearing directly in front of Souma. He reached out with a clawed hand, a feral grin stretching across his face. "Then I'll just carve you into ribbons!"
Suddenly, Sukuna caught the faint curve of a smile on Souma's lips. His heart skipped a beat, a cold sensation washing over him.
"I've been waiting for you to get close!"
Souma's hands wove a seal with blinding speed, his cursed energy exploding in a tidal wave of golden light.
"Domain Expansion: The Stainless Realm!"
In an instant, Sukuna's mind began to reel. To reign supreme in the Golden Age of Sorcery, Sukuna required more than just overwhelming power. He had survived countless assassinations, forbidden taboos, and treacherous plots through his greatest innate talent: a hypersensitive, almost supernatural intuition for danger.
At this moment, that intuition was screaming. Every cell in his body was shrieking a single, desperate command: Escape!
The mysterious, mocking smile that usually graced Sukuna's face vanished, replaced by a mask of grim realization. His instincts told him that if he were pulled into that domain, he would die.
He tried to retreat, but at a distance of only a few meters, there was no escaping the rapidly expanding boundary.
Desperate, Sukuna bit back a snarl. Just as the Stainless Realm was about to seal shut, he exerted his absolute control over the external Malevolent Shrine, commanding it to focus every ounce of its indiscriminate power on a single point.
"Dismantle!"
CRACK!
The Stainless Realm closed completely.
Within the domain, Sukuna finally understood the source of his terror. The moment he entered this space, the cursed energy that had defined his existence for a thousand years vanished. He felt hollow, empty, and profoundly mortal.
He was no longer the honored one between heaven and earth; he was a man standing in a world that had forgotten how to breathe. He still possessed a physical form far beyond any human, but against Souma Gojo, that flesh was as fragile as parchment.
Souma didn't give him a second to process the silence. He lunged forward, his eyes burning with the cold light of the Six Eyes.
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue."
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red."
"Hollow Technique: Purple."
A purple sphere, no larger than a palm, lanced through the air. It struck Sukuna squarely in the abdomen, and the resulting force was catastrophic. Muscle, bone, and internal organs were pulverized into a fine mist of gore.
Crank. Crank. Crank.
Just as the blow landed, cracks began to spiderweb across the bright, crystalline sky of the Stainless Realm. The fissures grew at an impossible rate, spreading until they covered the entire horizon.
With a sound like a world-sized mirror shattering, the Stainless Realm fell apart, collapsing into shimmering shards.
In the final microsecond before his cursed energy had vanished, Sukuna had successfully triggered the "Malevolent Shrine" from the outside. The indiscriminate slashes had hammered the exterior of Souma's barrier. Because the Stainless Realm was a closed domain, its outer shell was its only weakness—and Sukuna had exploited it with the precision of a master.
As the domain shattered, the guaranteed-hit slashes of the shrine slammed into Souma, covering him in a web of deep, bleeding lacerations.
But Sukuna had paid a heavier price. The Hollow Purple had struck while his cursed energy was suppressed. Even though his powers flooded back the moment the domain broke, the damage was already done.
BOOM!!!
The Purple tore through his waist and exploded behind him, carving a crater a hundred meters wide into the cityscape.
"Pfft—"
Sukuna coughed up a lungful of blood, his body collapsing backward. He stared with wide, disbelieving eyes at his own legs, which remained standing exactly where they had been.
The Hollow Purple had literally bisected the King of Curses.
Simultaneously, the Malevolent Shrine groaned and buckled, the massive structure crumbling into dust as Sukuna's concentration broke.
"Dammit!"
Sukuna roared, blood spraying from his lips. He used one hand to prop up his upper torso and the other to grab his severed lower half, awkwardly dragging the two pieces together like a broken doll. He immediately began pumping Reverse Cursed Technique into the wound, desperately trying to reattach his spine and flesh.
Reverse Cursed Technique could heal the body, but it was a slow, agonizing process when dealing with a total bisection. Unlike the "World-Cutting Slash" of canon that severed the fabric of existence, this was a wound of raw destruction; it could be mended, but only if he were given the time.
He glared at Souma, who was standing a few dozen meters away, his body a map of overlapping red lines where the shrine had flayed him. Sukuna let out a jagged, manic laugh.
"Close! So close!"
"Impressive, brat! If I hadn't moved the shrine to break your domain from the outside at the last second, I would be dead right now!"
"Fine! I acknowledge you!"
Sukuna's eyes turned cold as he saw the hundreds of slashes on Souma's body beginning to knit together under the glow of Souma's own Reverse Cursed Technique.
"But even so, it's better if you just die!" Sukuna snarled. "Dismantle!"
The invisible blades raced toward Souma. But as they neared his skin, they slowed to a crawl before being violently repelled by an invisible force.
"Infinity?!"
Souma slumped down onto the debris, panting heavily as he stared Sukuna down. "Yeah. It's a shame. I really thought that would finish you."
Sukuna's eyes flashed with genuine confusion. "How? I forcibly broke your domain. Your brain should be fried. You should be in a state of technique burnout, unable to use your innate abilities!"
Souma let out a dry, hacking laugh and pointed a blood-stained finger at his own forehead. "It's simple. I just destroyed the part of my brain where the technique is stored and rebuilt it with Reverse Cursed Technique."
"..."
Even Sukuna, a man who had seen every horror and madness the world had to offer, could only stare in stunned silence at the sheer, suicidal insanity of the man before him.
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