I Alone, Honored (3K Subscription Request)

Satoru Gojo’s severed head rose from the sea. Clear black curse marks appeared on his eyelids and forehead, like closed eyes.

The silvery-white hair on that head grew wildly, becoming a massive cloak dancing in the wind in the blink of an eye. The black and crimson cursed energy around it remained clearly visible even within the Lord of the Realm’s domain.

Without question, cursed energy was also a soul-side power. Seeing Satoru Gojo in this state, Bai Cangshu showed an intrigued expression.

Clatter, clatter…

Chains in the void continued to extend. The next moment, the headless corpse was dragged out of the void by the chains. It raised both hands as though catching some extraordinary crown, then placed it upon its own neck.

Satoru Gojo shook his neck, and the wound had already vanished. His smile twisted into something grotesque. That pure malice, accompanied by the negative energy of cursed energy, surged wildly and without restraint through the skies above the Atlantic Ocean.

Bai Cangshu clearly saw large numbers of Spirit World Creatures begin to emerge voluntarily from the void of the Spirit World, drawn by that cursed energy.

A skeletal whale several hundred meters long emerged from the sea and swam through the sky. Countless fish and birds, their mouths filled with sharp teeth, drifted around Satoru Gojo as well.

At that moment, Bai Cangshu seemed to truly see the form Satoru Gojo would have taken in the Jujutsu Kaisen worldline he had experienced—if neither he nor White Face had managed to successfully perform the Mount Tai Imperial Lord Ritual, and Satoru Gojo had ultimately fallen to become the King of Curses.

That sky-reaching evil, that brutality which seemed determined to slaughter every weak thing, was utterly different from Satoru Gojo in his normal state.

But cursed energy was precisely that kind of power. The more negative the emotions, the stronger the cursed energy they stirred up. The more extreme the fear, the more powerful the cursed spirits it spawned.

As the bearer of the Six Eyes, Satoru Gojo had been born with the mission of becoming the world’s strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer. His very existence made every cursed spirit and Jujutsu Sorcerer in that world feel fear.

Other than an ancient monster like Two-faced Shōnen, he was already practically the new monster of the modern Jujutsu World.

Bai Cangshu drifted lightly backward. He was very curious to see just how far Satoru Gojo in this state could go.

More importantly, he had seen something rare and valuable!

Bai Cangshu narrowed his eyes. Satoru Gojo’s Six Eyes were essentially a "special cheat" that allowed nearly perfect control over cursed energy. Yet at this very moment, the cursed energy around the cursed-spirit-transformed Satoru Gojo was raging in an almost berserk state.

It was not that the Six Eyes could no longer control the cursed energy. It was that Satoru Gojo… had given up.

Yes, the Limitless Cursed Technique, which required Six Eyes-level precision to use, had forced Satoru Gojo to maintain perfect control over his cursed energy nearly every moment of every day.

But now, Satoru Gojo had abandoned that control. He allowed his cursed energy to run wild, just as he allowed the emotions he had suppressed for so long to run wild.

Within Bai Cangshu’s eyes, it was as though he could see the heart inside Satoru Gojo’s flesh beneath that intense cursed energy, contracting and expanding with terrifying force.

Every beat seemed to vent his anger and dissatisfaction;

Every throb sprayed the resentment in his heart at being toyed with by the Creator into every corner of his body alongside cold blood.

Satoru Gojo was, at his core, an exceedingly Prideful person. He regarded himself as the strongest and accepted without hesitation the fate of being born the strongest.

Then, together with his friend Suguru Geto, another outstanding figure of their era, he had developed another kind of compassion built upon that pride.

If Suguru Geto’s ideals during his Jujutsu High days had been founded upon a "greater good" born from his own upbringing as an ordinary person—a high sense of morality born from education, moral standards, and empathy for his own kind—

Then Satoru Gojo’s compassion toward ordinary people was a form of condescension.

He was practically bestowing "kindness" upon the world with the mindset of someone at play.

Because he was the strongest, an individual born to shatter the world’s balance, almost like a Divine Child, he possessed a certain detachment from the love, hatred, and entanglements of those weak humans.

Satoru Gojo called the higher-ups rotten Tachibanas, yet he never refuted others for calling humans without cursed energy monkeys. The only reason he chose to stand with the Jujutsu Sorcerers against cursed spirits was because he had been born human. It had nothing to do with morality or reason.

But after Suguru Geto’s betrayal, Satoru Gojo began to think deeply because of the loneliness that such a Divine Child could never escape. He began trying to solve the problem, and his ultimate answer was to become a teacher.

He wanted to "teach" powerful individuals capable of speaking to him as equals, then reform the world together…

Satoru Gojo raised his head. White long hair, mixed with liquefied cursed energy, clung to the surface of his skin.

The Limitless Cursed Technique had been released. Or rather, he had abandoned the practice of keeping the Limitless Cursed Technique active at all times due to his lack of security.

He had grown stronger. He was strong. At this moment, he was unimaginably… strong!

After being resurrected by Black Mud, Satoru Gojo had already come to loathe those mediocre mortals. He resented that the destiny for which he had been created was to serve this pack of mediocre fools.

That disgust had been planted earlier, during his adventures through the Infinite Dimensional World with Bai Cangshu.

He had seen ordinary people in other worlds still making choices, still changing, even in the face of unmatched power.

But the mortals he had encountered—no, the monkeys—had waited in the same place from beginning to end. They did nothing but emit endless cursed energy, making the world even more polluted.

In the story depicted by Millennium Worm, he had ultimately been nothing more than a failed Divine Child, unable to save the world or protect himself.

Satoru Gojo hated himself as well.

Amidst this hatred for the world, the Creator, everyone, including himself, Satoru Gojo’s cursed energy finally transformed into that of a cursed spirit after being steeped in the Yellow Springs.

Thump!

As his heart pounded wildly, an unusual ripple began to spread. It was a light woven from black and crimson, emerging in circles from the void.

Behind Satoru Gojo, it caused the space at his back to rise and fall like the surface of the sea.

Satoru Gojo once again pointed one hand at the sky and one at the earth. But then he slowly lowered both hands and brought them together before him.

That world was too small, and the Creator who had made him was equally too small, unable to see the broader world beyond.

He had already seen the truth. The false Divine Child no longer needed to bestow Prideful compassion.

From this day forth, he would be Satoru Gojo, acting entirely according to his own will…

Watching this scene, Bai Cangshu’s mouth nearly split into a snake-like grin. He almost wanted to applaud Satoru Gojo.

This transformation of Satoru Gojo’s was not something he had expected. Based on Bai Cangshu’s previous understanding of the heart, even—

He had believed that Satoru Gojo was an aberration closer to himself. The more such an aberration one was, the harder it was to perceive the existence of one’s own heart.

On the contrary, weak, wretched, struggling ordinary people found it easier to touch their own truth.

Yet at this moment, this King of Curses, Satoru Gojo, was showing him bit by bit exactly how a heart pulsed after fully accepting the self.

You have touched the incomplete Heart Light: I Alone Am the Honored One

The next moment, Satoru Gojo seemed to seize something in the air with both hands and began tearing it apart to either side.

Roar!

A resounding Dragon Roar echoed through the sky. Before Bai Cangshu’s smiling eyes, the half-black, half-white two-headed giant dragon was actually torn apart, and the black-and-white mysterious light cracked apart with it.

Looking at the black ripples that completely blocked the black-and-white mysterious light outside his body, Bai Cangshu felt that Satoru Gojo at this moment stood entirely independent within heaven and earth.

He was bearing witness to his own existence.

In other words, Satoru Gojo was completing self-observation, self-recognition, and self-construction.

It was an utterly undisguised pride.

Satoru Gojo suddenly turned around. His blue-white Six Eyes were astonishingly bright. His face was twisted, and his mouth was stretched into an equally exaggerated arc.

"Let’s happily slaughter each other, host~!"

His tone was strange, as though he might lose control in the next instant. Yet that self-enraptured expression made it impossible for Bai Cangshu to conceal his smile any longer. His own smile twisted as well.

At this moment, Satoru Gojo had won his complete approval.

No more restraints of any greater good, no more using the so-called "strongest" to bind himself. Satoru Gojo had completely become a beast intoxicated by his own power.

That was his truest self.

"Ha~ You bastard… not bad. You’re very good, Satoru Gojo!"

Bai Cangshu spoke, exhilarated. He no longer mocked the other man as Two-and-a-Half Gojo. The next moment, Bai Cangshu became a golden ray and pierced through the white dragon with a pfft.

He spread his arms wide, pulling upon a golden sinew with both hands. Amid the giant dragon’s mournful cry, Bai Cangshu vanished. Before the sonic boom could erupt, his afterimages had already filled the sky.

Ultimate speed, ultimate strength—this was what it meant to be powerful!

On the other side of the sky, Satoru Gojo gave a strange laugh as well. His body instantly smashed through the half-baked Limitless Cursed Technique before the black dragon’s body.

Chains stabbed fiercely into Youying’s body one after another. Then Satoru Gojo violently pulled both hands apart, and terrifying repulsive force erupted.

Pfft!

As Dragon Blood rained down, he tore the black dragon apart by brute force.

Seeing the positive energy of the Reverse Cursed Technique emerge within the dragon’s body, Satoru Gojo formed a hand seal with one hand and uttered that familiar yet unfamiliar name in a twisted, strange voice.

"Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void~"

A black domain condensed in an instant, but in the next moment, Satoru Gojo tore with one hand, and the entire space began to shatter along with the black giant dragon.

The giant dragon froze in place and made no further response.

Satoru Gojo turned his head, only to see Dragon Blood exploding outward like mist in the sky a thousand meters away.

The pure-white giant dragon had been pounded into a state even more pulverized than minced flesh.

Not a single intact piece of flesh remained.

Satoru Gojo froze upon seeing this, then his smile became even more exaggerated.

This guy… had actually killed that dragon by force, enduring even the healing of the Reverse Cursed Technique?!

What a… monster. Heh.