Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Explosions thundered across the training ground, making the air tremble violently.
The brutal clash of close combat kicked up wave after wave of rolling dust.
Deep craters were smashed into the hard ground, while shattered stones flew and powerful gusts howled through the air.
Luke moved at high speed through the dust, dodging and counterattacking.
But Gojo seemed to be everywhere at once, appearing without warning in front of him, behind him, or to either side.
Every punch carried the effect of Blue.
Each strike was backed by terrifying attraction and destructive impact—overwhelming, precise, and leaving almost no room to escape.
Under the warped gravitational pull of Blue, Luke was repeatedly dragged toward Gojo and forced into close-range combat.
There was no time to breathe, adjust, or relax.
He had to remain fully focused every single moment.
The slightest lapse or instant of distraction would let one of Gojo’s heavy punches land, and a single clean hit could knock someone unconscious on the spot.
Luke concentrated completely on dealing with Gojo’s attacks.
The pressure on his mind was even greater than during his battle with Naoya Zenin.
Another Blue-enhanced punch came crashing toward him.
Luke swung up his right arm and met it with his elbow.
Fist and elbow collided, and a ring-shaped shockwave of cursed energy exploded outward.
As the dust dispersed slightly, Luke’s expression remained tense.
Gojo sensed his condition and pointed it out.
“Luke, the efficiency of your Reverse Cursed Technique is dropping. If this keeps up, we’re going to have to stop here soon.”
Luke’s expression grew serious.
Deep within his shadow, Round Deer was continuously releasing positive energy to heal the wounds accumulating across his body.
The problem was that Reverse Cursed Technique already consumed more than twice as much cursed energy as ordinary techniques.
Luke was also healing himself indirectly through a shikigami, which meant he had to spend additional cursed energy simply to maintain Round Deer and keep its ability active.
And his current opponent wasn’t Naoya Zenin, whose greatest advantage was speed.
He was fighting Satoru Gojo, the man standing at the peak of the jujutsu world, a fighter with practically no weaknesses.
Every collision, every gravitational pull, and every defensive exchange consumed a large amount of Luke’s cursed energy.
Less than half of his reserves remained, while the prolonged high-intensity battle was also wearing down his concentration.
His healing was starting to fall behind the rate at which he was being injured.
If the fight continued like this, Luke would eventually be completely exhausted and collapse.
Even so, he didn’t panic.
Inside the suffocating close-quarters battle, his awareness instead became clearer and clearer as he gradually entered a state of flow.
“Sensei, you’re saying that—too early!”
Luke shouted and threw a punch directly against Gojo’s Blue-enhanced fist.
The special force he had been waiting for finally erupted.
The cursed energy wrapped around his fist suddenly boiled over, becoming both violent and incredibly concentrated.
Black lightning burst and danced across his knuckles.
Black Flash.
Gojo’s eyes widened slightly.
An interested smile appeared on his face.
The deep blue gravitational force of Blue collided head-on with Luke’s fist wrapped in abyssal black lightning.
In that instant, Luke’s Black Flash-powered punch broke straight through the torrent of attraction and forcibly interrupted Blue’s restraining effect for a moment.
He clenched his fist, excitement in his voice.
“Who said I’m in bad condition? I feel great right now!”
After successfully landing Black Flash, his condition surged.
His strength increased, his cursed energy sharpened, and the Reverse Cursed Technique that had been falling behind immediately returned to full efficiency.
Gojo took two steps back and looked down at his own fist.
That Black Flash had actually left a visible wound on it.
As he healed the injury with Reverse Cursed Technique, a faint smile remained on his face.
“Using a shikigami to maintain Reverse Cursed Technique while extending the fight and waiting for a chance to land Black Flash… That’s what you were aiming for.”
Gojo had understood Luke’s strategy.
After fighting the subsonic Naoya Zenin, Luke’s reaction speed and precision in cursed-energy control had improved to under 0.001 seconds.
The most basic threshold for Black Flash, however, required cursed energy and physical impact to synchronize within 0.000001 seconds.
Luke still couldn’t produce Black Flash whenever he wanted.
His solution was simple: if the battle lasted long enough, the pressure became intense enough, and his concentration went deep enough, then eventually he might encounter that one-in-a-thousand opportunity.
Feeling the dramatic boost brought by Black Flash, Luke spoke excitedly.
“You really do have to land Black Flash first before you can call it going all out.”
Gojo raised a thumb.
“Very practical. Looking for any possible chance to create victory during a fight is exactly the kind of skill an excellent sorcerer should have.”
He seemed satisfied with Luke’s performance.
But in the next instant, cursed energy far stronger than Luke’s current Black Flash-enhanced state erupted from Gojo.
Feeling the overwhelming pressure, Luke’s excitement immediately turned serious.
Gojo smiled.
“In that case, I should raise the difficulty a little for my student.”
The moment he finished speaking, Gojo appeared directly in front of Luke.
“So fast—!”
Luke’s pupils contracted as he barely managed to raise both arms in defense.
Gojo’s heavy strike landed.
Luke was driven backward more than a hundred meters by the terrifying force, leaving two deep tracks across the ground as dust erupted around him.
He had only just managed to steady himself when Gojo’s next attack arrived.
Black shadows surged from the ground and formed a defensive barrier, slowing Gojo’s attack for a moment.
The instant the shadow barrier shattered, Luke threw a punch.
Their attacks collided.
The terrifying force traveled through Luke’s entire body.
“My muscles and bones are shaking. Even my organs feel awful…”
Luke narrowed his eyes.
Reverse Cursed Technique allowed him to remain standing for the moment.
But he also realized something.
Even after landing Black Flash, all he had really accomplished was allowing Gojo to loosen his restraints a little and use more power during their spar without worrying about accidentally killing his student.
This was the strength of the strongest modern sorcerer.
If Luke couldn’t break through his limits again during the battle, he estimated that Gojo would beat him down within another minute or two.
“Landing a second Black Flash this quickly probably isn’t realistic. In that case, the only way to break through is…”
Luke narrowed his eyes.
After landing Black Flash, he was drawing out 120% of his potential.
Inspiration poured through his mind like a spring.
Cursed-energy manipulations that had once seemed difficult and complicated now came naturally.
Problems he had struggled with before suddenly became clear. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
The scattered insights he had accumulated through training rapidly connected and fused together.
“Then… let’s try this.”
Luke continued blocking Gojo’s attacks.
The core of cursed energy within his body began operating in a completely new way.
It was an extremely difficult cursed-energy technique—Reverse Cursed Technique, which completely inverted the negative energy of cursed energy into positive energy.
Most sorcerers had no idea where to even begin when trying to comprehend Reverse Cursed Technique.
Luke, however, already had more than enough examples to learn from.
Round Deer’s ability.
The Good Chi magic from the Jackie Chan Adventures world.
His observations of Gojo using Cursed Technique Reversal: Red.
And on top of all that, the combined talents of the Lukes from multiple worlds.
The turbulent cursed energy inside him tried again and again.
Failure.
Restart.
Continue.
Until a flash of inspiration suddenly appeared in his mind.
Luke immediately seized it.
Behind the dark, negative cursed energy, bright positive energy was born.
Reverse Cursed Technique—mastered.
Luke’s eyes lit up.
Without hesitation, he poured the positive energy into his Ten Shadows Technique.
Sensing the change in Luke’s aura, Gojo, who had been relentlessly attacking to maintain pressure, stopped.
Once he realized what Luke was doing, Gojo smiled.
“So that’s what this is. This guy’s just as imaginative as I was back then…”
A trace of memory flashed through his blue eyes.
It had been a bitter summer.
A battle had taken place that would influence the jujutsu world for more than a decade afterward.
That was the day Gojo awakened and reached the peak as the strongest of the modern era.
Looking at Luke now, pouring positive energy into his cursed technique, Gojo was momentarily reminded of his younger self.
During that brief second of distraction, Luke completed the reversal of the Ten Shadows Technique.
What emerged was not the deep shadow used to summon shikigami.
Instead, a pure and immaculate white light began gathering, as though it could disperse every trace of impurity and filth.
Luke continuously poured positive energy into the light.
The aura coming from it grew increasingly dangerous.
He gave Gojo a warning.
“This attack should be pretty powerful. Aren’t you going to put up some defenses, Sensei?”
Gojo snapped out of his memories.
Looking at the white light swelling in Luke’s hands, he suddenly remembered that someone had once tried to take one of his strongest attacks head-on on the day of his awakening.
After a brief consideration, an arrogant, confident smile appeared on his face.
“It’s fine. Your teacher is very strong.”
“Then here it comes.”
Luke thrust both hands forward and released the white light.
In the next instant, Gojo was completely swallowed by the blazing radiance.