After settling on his plan, Sukuna did not immediately drag Satoru Gojo into a Domain clash. Instead, he threw himself back into another round of close quarters combat.
His fists, packed with terrifying Cursed Energy, struck at Satoru Gojo again and again, each blow paired with Domain Amplification to neutralize the Limitless.
The moment Satoru Gojo saw that, he simply dispelled the Limitless. Borrowing the momentum of Sukuna's attack, he spun and kicked him away, blasting Sukuna into the wall behind him.
Before Sukuna could even recover from the shock of that force, Satoru Gojo was already on him again, driving a kick into his stomach. Sukuna scraped wildly across the ground, crashing through several walls before barely managing to stop...
Before Sukuna could make another move, Satoru Gojo attacked again. Hovering in midair, he swept a hand upward, and the fractured ground beneath Sukuna surged into the air. The crushing sense of supergravity forced Sukuna flat against it...
Then Satoru Gojo swung his hand down again, smashing the entire slab of ground, along with Sukuna on top of it, into another building. The whole structure instantly collapsed into countless chunks of rubble and became ruins in the blink of an eye...
"Since my technique can't act on you... I'll just use it on the surrounding environment instead..."
After sending Megumi Fushiguro away to evacuate the crowd, Satoru Gojo's fighting style became even less restrained. There was nothing else he needed to worry about now. All he had to do was eliminate the Curse User in front of him.
As the smoke cleared, Sukuna, with only torn clothing and no real damage to his body, had already leaped onto the roof of another building. Wisps of white steam rose from his surface wounds as Reverse Cursed Technique healed them.
At this point, neither of them cared about the surrounding environment anymore. Sukuna did not hesitate for even a moment before forming hand signs.
Seeing that even his relentless assault had failed to put Sukuna down, Satoru Gojo formed hand signs as well.
"Domain Expansion. [Malevolent Shrine]."
"Domain Expansion. [Unlimited Void]."
In an instant, a grotesque shrine rose from beneath Sukuna's feet. Countless twisted white bones piled up around it, and the ground turned into a shallow sheet of water. There was no black Barrier enclosing it. It was still an open Domain.
It emphasized the Innate Domain's [guaranteed-hit effect] and [Cursed Energy density], while weakening the physical isolation property of the [Barrier] itself.
At the same time, Sukuna also used the "complete removal of the Barrier shell" as a Binding Vow in exchange for "greater range" and a "more pronounced guaranteed-hit effect."
Beside Satoru Gojo, a black spherical Barrier appeared, enclosing the two of them inside.
Standing within his Domain, Satoru Gojo stared at Sukuna before him.
At that moment, neither of them was being affected by the other's Domain. Akira Zenin's prediction had been right. When a [closed Domain] and an [open Domain] collide on equal footing, what interferes with each other are the guaranteed-hit commands on both sides.
But in that case, Sukuna's Domain, with "slashing" as its technique, would directly attack the outside of [Unlimited Void] in the areas where the commands were not canceled out...
Still, Satoru Gojo had complete faith in Akira Zenin's prediction from the books. The moment he expanded his Domain, he directly reversed the strength of the Barrier's inside and outside.
The Barrier that would normally "prevent those inside the Domain from escaping" was switched into one designed to "prevent outside interference from affecting the Domain."
As a result, the outer shell of the Domain became highly resistant to attacks from outside, while inside the Domain, the guaranteed-hit commands had been canceled out, making it impossible for [Malevolent Shrine] to directly attack the inner wall of the Barrier...
On top of that, Sukuna had to keep his full attention on Satoru Gojo and had no room to manually attack the Barrier with slashes...
[All I need to do is heavily injure Sukuna inside the Domain, make him unable to maintain it, and let [Unlimited Void] hit him. Then it's over...]
Once he settled on that approach, Satoru Gojo immediately closed in and launched into another brutal close quarters exchange. But he quickly realized that even inside the Domain, Sukuna was still carrying that technique neutralization effect...
But as long as it was a matter of Cursed Energy manipulation, nothing could escape Satoru Gojo's eyes...
[So that's how it works... First he loads the technique onto the Barrier of the Domain, then uses a Barrier enhanced for "compatibility" to perform the amplification. That way, his own technique does not "flow" into the "amplified Barrier," which removes the mutual interference.]
Meanwhile, Sukuna kept dodging while using [Malevolent Shrine] to attack the outside of [Unlimited Void]. But aside from waves of violent tremors, nothing happened.
"Tch. Turtle shell..."
After that brief remark, Sukuna immediately shrank the boundary of his Domain until it pressed right up against the outside of [Unlimited Void], increasing the effectiveness of his slashes.
Then he voluntarily released the guaranteed-hit command in the area where the two Domains overlapped, strengthening the guaranteed-hit command on the outside of his Domain and further boosting the power of the slashes...
"Bzzzz... Boom!"
Just as expected, under that double reinforcement, [Unlimited Void] lasted less than three seconds under the violent shaking before it was sliced apart, exposing Satoru Gojo directly to the endless barrage of slashes.
The instant [Unlimited Void] collapsed, Satoru Gojo was hit by thousands upon thousands of slashes, and his entire body was reduced to a mass of blood...
But Sukuna was not in good shape either. To strengthen the technique's effect on the outside, he had shut off the guaranteed-hit command where the Domains overlapped. Which meant that for the three seconds before [Unlimited Void] broke, he had taken [Unlimited Void]'s guaranteed-hit effect head-on with his own body...
Sensing that Sukuna seemed a little dazed, Satoru Gojo looked like he wanted to smile and mock him, but all he managed was a twitch of the corner of his mouth through flesh that had already been cut to pieces...
Satoru Gojo immediately restored his body with Reverse Cursed Technique and charged straight at Sukuna.
New wounds kept opening across his body and healing just as fast. Normally, when using Cursed Energy at full output to reinforce the body, it should be impossible to use Reverse Cursed Technique at the same time. But Satoru Gojo had a method for using Cursed Energy and Reverse Cursed Technique simultaneously. Hollow Technique [Purple].
That meant that even though he could not use his technique during burnout, by applying the method behind the Hollow Technique, he could both "reinforce his body with Cursed Energy to withstand the slashes" and "use Reverse Cursed Technique to heal the damage" at the same time.
Sukuna, his mind still muddled, had only just regained his senses when he realized that Satoru Gojo was already right in front of him. A single punch nearly blasted through his abdomen...
The sheer damage made it impossible for Sukuna to maintain his Domain, and he was sent flying.
At that point, both Domains were released at the same time.
Wiping away a nosebleed, Sukuna swayed back to his feet. That brief Domain clash had made the difference between their techniques painfully clear to him...
Satoru Gojo could endure the slashes of [Malevolent Shrine] by combining Cursed Energy reinforcement with Reverse Cursed Technique, but Sukuna had endured [Unlimited Void] for less than three seconds before the pain in his brain became unbearable and his movements started to slow...