Chapter 186: Satoru Gojo's Transformation: The True Strongest, the Ceiling of the Jujutsu World
BOOM—!!!
A terrifying mass of purple light tore across the sky above a small Middle Eastern country ravaged by years of war.
Sand and dust billowed through the air, mixing with the crimson haze of blood until the ruined city below looked like a scene from the end of the world.
More than half of the already devastated urban district vanished beneath the destructive beam.
Craters, collapsed buildings, and shattered streets were swallowed whole. Reinforced concrete, twisted steel, and everything else caught in its path were erased before they could even crumble.
"Monster..."
"He's not human! That bastard's a god!"
"Run! Get out of here! That white-haired demon can't be beaten!"
At the edge of the ruins, several foreign Special Grade Curse Users who had barely survived stared upward in horror.
Their bodies trembled uncontrollably.
These men were among the most vicious criminals operating in this war-torn region—killers who had survived countless battles and slaughtered their way through enemies without hesitation.
They had come because of the underground bounty.
One billion US dollars.
That was the price placed on the head of the strongest young sorcerer in the jujutsu world.
It had been enough to attract desperate Curse Users from across the region, each convinced that numbers, preparation, and their own lethal Cursed Techniques would be enough to bring him down.
They had been wrong.
Painfully wrong.
Everything they had once taken pride in—their techniques, combat experience, traps, and killing methods—looked like children's toys before the man floating above them.
Satoru Gojo hovered silently in the air.
His short silver-white hair whipped wildly in the violent wind.
There was no expression on his unnaturally handsome face.
Behind his small round sunglasses, however, the Six Eyes burned with a disturbing intensity.
"Too weak."
Gojo lowered his gaze toward the surviving Curse Users.
His voice held no warmth.
"You guys aren't even good enough for a warm-up."
Ever since Suguru Geto had defected in Shinjuku, Gojo's life appeared to have changed very little on the surface.
He was still arrogant.
Still overbearing.
Still obsessed with sweets.
Still the troublesome student who enjoyed getting on Principal Yaga's nerves.
But anyone who truly knew him could see it.
The separation from his closest friend had carved a wound far deeper than Gojo ever allowed anyone to notice.
To support Geto's plan.
To shoulder the future of the jujutsu world.
And above all, to make sure the same kind of tragedy never happened again.
Gojo hadn't allowed himself to sink into despair.
Instead, he had thrown himself into training with an intensity that bordered on self-destruction.
Every dangerous overseas Special Grade mission the Higher-Ups were eager to dump onto someone else?
He took it.
Every battlefield considered too unstable, too bloody, or too dangerous?
He went there.
He deliberately threw himself into situations where hundreds—even thousands—of enemies and Cursed Spirits could descend on him at once.
Again and again, he used genuine life-or-death combat to force himself past limits he could no longer see.
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red."
Gojo raised his right hand, index and middle fingers held together.
A brilliant red light condensed at his fingertips.
No chant.
No preparation.
The concentrated repulsive force erupted immediately.
BOOM!
A crimson blast struck one of the Curse Users below just as the man attempted to escape underground.
His body disappeared in an explosion of blood.
"Still not enough..."
Gojo watched the fading red glow around his fingers and frowned.
"The activation speed and output are better, but Cursed Energy consumption is still a problem."
During the past several weeks, whenever Gojo returned to Tokyo Jujutsu High, he had dragged Yami into increasingly insane sparring sessions.
Calling them sparring matches was generous.
Neither of them held much back.
Their attacks carried enough force to kill if the other failed to react in time.
The underground training facility beneath Tokyo Jujutsu High—built specifically to withstand punishment from sorcerers—had been reduced to rubble more than once by the aftermath of their fights.
Masamichi Yaga had nearly suffered a heart attack over the repair costs.
There was nothing he could do about it.
During those repeated clashes, Gojo had used the Six Eyes to scrutinize every trace of energy moving through Yami's body.
Something about it fascinated him.
Yami possessed no Cursed Energy whatsoever.
Yet the power generated through his Breathing Techniques operated with a circulation system so efficient that it was almost absurd.
Every breath.
Every movement.
Every swing of his blade.
Every explosive burst of strength.
His energy flowed through his body in a complete cycle, constantly circulating alongside his breathing rather than simply being spent and lost.
That was why Yami could maintain high-intensity combat for so long.
Even after unleashing terrifying attacks again and again, he rarely showed the kind of complete energy depletion that should have followed.
Gojo still remembered their conversation amid the wreckage of the training ground.
Both of them had been lying among broken slabs of concrete, breathing heavily after another destructive match.
Gojo had turned his head toward Yami with an excited grin.
"Your Breathing Technique really is interesting."
His Six Eyes gleamed behind his sunglasses.
"If your stamina can circulate naturally with every breath..."
"Then why can't I do the same thing with Cursed Energy?"
Why should he need to consciously control every stage of it?
Why couldn't the strongest make Cursed Energy flow as naturally as breathing itself?
From that day onward, Gojo had become obsessed with the idea.
He wanted to overturn thousands of years of conventional understanding surrounding Cursed Energy.
Rather than treating it like a reservoir that gradually emptied with every technique, he wanted his body to circulate it automatically.
Breathing.
Heartbeat.
Cursed Energy.
All of it operating together without conscious thought.
And the war-torn ruins surrounding him were the perfect testing ground.
"Come on."
Gojo slowly released the Infinity surrounding his body.
"Let's see if you trash can at least make yourselves useful."
For a moment, the remaining Curse Users below froze.
Then madness flashed across their faces.
"He dropped his defense!"
"He's out of Cursed Energy!"
"Kill him! That billion dollars is ours!"
Greed overwhelmed what remained of their fear.
Cursed Techniques erupted from every direction.
At the same time, the Special Grade Cursed Spirits lurking throughout the battlefield finally revealed themselves.
Hideous figures surged through the ruined city.
A torrent of attacks powerful enough to flatten what remained of the district converged on Gojo from every direction.
He did not dodge.
He did not counterattack.
Gojo simply closed his eyes.
Inhale.
He allowed his perception to spread.
The Six Eyes observed every movement of Cursed Energy within his body with microscopic precision.
Instead of forcing that energy forward through conscious control, he allowed it to move with the rhythm of his breathing.
Circulate.
Return.
Flow again.
Exhale.
His Cursed Energy swept through every part of his body before completing the cycle and beginning again.
BOOM—!!!
The attacks struck.
A deafening explosion engulfed the sky.
Dust, fire, debris, and violently colliding Cursed Energy swallowed Gojo's figure completely.
"Did we get him?!"
One of the Curse Users gasped for breath, staring into the enormous cloud with greed and anticipation burning in his eyes.
Then the dust began to clear.
His expression froze.
His pupils contracted.
"How..."
His voice trembled.
"How is that possible...?"
Gojo was still floating exactly where he had been.
His clothes had been torn in several places.
Thin streaks of blood marked his pale skin.
But the instant each wound appeared, Reverse Cursed Technique activated.
Automatically.
There was no visible pause in Gojo's thought process.
No deliberate decision to heal.
The energy responded the way a body would instinctively close a hand around something placed in its palm.
The injuries vanished almost immediately.
"Pfft!"
Gojo suddenly coughed up blood.
This time, the enemy had nothing to do with it.
His attempt to force Cursed Energy into an entirely new circulation pattern had overloaded the internal pathways through which it flowed, causing violent backlash throughout his body.
Blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
Gojo didn't bother wiping it away.
Instead, his lips slowly stretched into a grin.
Then he laughed.
"Hahaha... hahahaha!"
The sound sent a chill through every surviving Curse User below.
"That's it."
Gojo's grin widened.
"That's exactly it!"
His eyes opened, bright with manic excitement.
"If Yami can do something like this..."
He spread his arms slightly as attacks continued converging around him.
"Then there's no way I can't!"
Gojo closed his eyes again.
He ignored the increasingly frantic assault surrounding him.
One day passed.
Then two.
Then three.
Gojo remained among the ruins like a man possessed.
Again and again, he deliberately placed himself on the edge of death and forced his body to adapt.
Again and again, Reverse Cursed Technique repaired the damage caused by his own experiments.
His brain.
His body.
The pathways through which his Cursed Energy flowed.
Everything was pushed to its limit and restored, only to be pushed again.
Pain became irrelevant.
Fatigue became something to study.
Failure became another piece of information.
And with every attempt, Gojo's understanding of Cursed Energy changed.
Rapidly.
Violently.
Completely.
By the seventh morning, something finally clicked.
The first golden rays of dawn broke through the thick smoke hanging above the ruined city and fell across Gojo's dust-covered white hair.
He opened his eyes.
"Haa..."
A long breath escaped his lips.
The air within ten meters of him distorted.
No hand signs.
No chant.
No conscious surge of Cursed Energy.
Yet Infinity appeared around his body.
Naturally.
Effortlessly.
Gojo did not activate it.
His body did.
His brain did.
His Cursed Energy did.
The operation of Limitless had become as automatic as breathing.
Reverse Cursed Technique followed the same principle.
There was no longer any need for him to consciously maintain every stage of the process.
His body, brain, and soul had incorporated the operation of his techniques into their natural rhythm.
As long as Satoru Gojo lived...
As long as he breathed...
Infinity would remain.
And because Reverse Cursed Technique continuously maintained his brain while his Cursed Energy circulated with unprecedented efficiency, the burden caused by keeping Limitless active had been reduced to an entirely different level.
The strongest had eliminated one of his greatest remaining flaws.
For the first time, Satoru Gojo stood at the threshold of something truly complete.
"Hmm..."
He raised his right hand.
His index and middle fingers came together.
Red light appeared.
Cursed Technique Reversal: Red.
Then blue.
Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.
Both manifested at his fingertips at the same time.
Two opposing forces.
Attraction and repulsion.
Ordinarily, controlling both simultaneously demanded extraordinary precision.
Yet beneath the perception of the Six Eyes and Gojo's newly refined control, neither force showed the slightest instability.
They obeyed.
They converged.
They fused.
Gojo's expression became calm.
"Hollow Technique: Purple."
BOOM—!!!
Purple light erupted across the battlefield.
It was several times larger than the attack he had unleashed before.
Everything in its path disappeared.
Ruined buildings.
Cursed Techniques.
Special Grade Cursed Spirits.
The surviving Curse Users.
Those who had remained alive until that moment didn't even have time to scream.
Purple tore through the battlefield and erased everything ahead of it, leaving nothing behind.
No corpses.
No fragments.
Not even ash.
Then silence returned.
A breeze passed through the devastated landscape.
Gojo stood atop the ruins, staring at the remnants of violet energy crackling faintly around his fingertips.
A wide, arrogant smile spread across his face.
"Yami. Geto."
His fingers slowly lowered.
"I'm ready."
The morning wind swept through his white hair.
"Whatever Kenjaku is planning..."
His smile sharpened.
"Whatever monsters are waiting for us..."
"I'll crush every last one of them."
The strongest had completed his transformation.
Satoru Gojo had pushed himself to a level never before reached within the modern jujutsu world.
Its ceiling had risen with him.
But fate had never cared how strong a single person became.
Its gears continued to turn.
And far away, on the other side of the world, two other monsters were changing as well.
The King of Curses.
And the conspirator who had survived for more than a thousand years.
Just how far had they evolved?
…..
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