Meanwhile, Gojo finally emerged from the debris.
His blindfold was gone.
Strands of white hair, tinged faintly with silver, fluttered wildly across his forehead, framing his face. His piercing sapphire eyes blazed with an otherworldly light, not just a glow of power, but the glimmer of something ancient, something vast, like the edge of a collapsing star packed into human form.
He swept his gaze over his opponents, his lips drawn into a solemn line.He wasn't standing here out of arrogance. If anyone could measure the exact difference between their strengths, it was him.
No, this was deliberate. He needed them. Pressure creates diamonds. Facing either one alone wouldn't bring the kind of crushing, annihilating pressure he required. But together…
Together, they were the forge he needed.
His eyes narrowed.
'Su Qingshi.
Her advanced sword intent imbued every attack with pure, refined lethality. Even with his durability, taking her full offensive force head-on would be idiocy, her sword intent didn't just cut flesh; it cut the world itself. But if he could get close, he could take her down swiftly.'
'Li Tianheng..'
Gojo's gaze flicked sideways.
An unusually resilient shaman, cloaked in a baleful aura, far tougher than most at his level.' Gojo's fists clenched.
'That bastard… he's still hiding more, isn't he?'
A ripple tore through the battlefield.
Su Qingshi floated forward, boundless Yuan Power and sword intent spiraling around her in golden streams.
"Hundred Sword Array!"
Countless swords burst into existence, surrounding her in a storm of shimmering steel. They blazed with killing intent, their edges radiant with an impossible glow. One by one, they swiveled toward Gojo, pointing directly at his heart.
Li Tianheng laughed lowly, his silhouette darkening as a shadow opened behind him.
A small purple creature's head emerged, its mouth opening unnaturally wide, and out slid a long, red-and-black three-sectioned staff, pulsing with a dark glow.
Gasps erupted from the stands.
"That's… the Li Clan's Totem Weapon!"
"Could it be?! This brat… is he the next clan leader?!"
"I heard that weapon boosts physical strength by several dozen jin! Isn't that...illegal?!"
The elders didn't move. Weapons were allowed; rules were rules.
But that wasn't the end.
Suddenly, shadows erupted under Li Tianheng's feet. Two hulking shapes materialized beside him, radiating baleful demonic aura.
To his left, a monstrous demonic ape, its fists crackling with black lightning.
To his right, a serpentine beast, its enormous python-like body sprouting wings and clawed limbs like a Western dragon. Frosty mist hissed from its fangs, its eyes glowing with murderous intent
The crowd erupted.
"Grade 5 beasts… TWO?! No way!!"
"While still at the EARTHLY YUAN REALM?!"
"This guy, he's a walking disaster!!"
Gojo exhaled slowly. His fists trembled at his sides. His heart thundered in his chest.
And then, he moved.
The ground exploded beneath his feet as he shot forward, vanishing in a blur.
The attacks came all at once.
Su Qingshi's countless swords sliced through the air like lightning, every edge honed to perfection, faster than bullets, sharper than light. Gojo twisted his body, weaving between the deadly rain, his footwork precise to the millimeter. But he wasn't just dodging.
From his flanks, twin waves of destruction surged toward him.
On the left, a crashing cascade of black lightning. On the right, an avalanche of freezing frost.
Gojo clenched his jaw, Yuan Power bursting from his core, shattering the space around him into glittering shards, a dimensional shield. The elemental waves slammed into the barrier, roaring, crackling, shivering, but Gojo held.
Until...
His Six Eyes flickered.
In a split-second, Gojo kicked back, his body corkscrewing just as the three-sectioned staff ripped through the spot he'd just been, tearing the battle platform in half.
'That would've crushed my ribs'… Gojo thought grimly.
But there was no time to think.
A massive fist, wrapped in demonic lightning, thundered toward him from the left, while razor-sharp claws tore through the air from the right. And in front, Li Tianheng, staff raised for a killing strike.
Behind, Su Qingshi's swords loomed, shimmering, waiting to carve him into ribbons.
The perfect pincer.
The crowd roared.
"They're forcing him back!!"
"Chen Zhen's just....just defending! He's not even TRYING to attack!!"
From the stands, MeiYing bit her lips anxiously.
Her grandfather, the First Elder, gave a small sigh.
"It's alright, girl. Even if he loses… he's already won our hearts."
Xiao Wusheng scoffed from his seat. "What game are you playing, you idiot… Just end this farce already…"
The clash reached its peak. A thunderous BOOM rocked the stage. Gojo's body flew back, three of Su Qingshi's swords driven into his shoulder and side. His feet dug deep trenches into the stone, skidding all the way to the arena's edge.
He fell to one knee, coughing blood onto the ground. Li Tianheng didn't hesitate. His beasts lunged, Su Qingshi's swords tore through the air, and Li himself shot forward, staff spinning in his hands like a deadly cyclone.
Gojo twisted, barely dodging the ape's crashing fist, but Li Tianheng's staff slammed directly into his chest, sending him flying across the arena. His body hit the ground hard, sliding, unmoving, blood pooling beneath him.
"It's over…"
"Chen Zhen… lost?"
The presiding elders hesitated. Normally they would announce the winner immediately. But something… something was wrong.
Even they could sense it.
Suddenly....
CRRRRACK.
The air itself split.
Not just the arena. Not just the earth. The world.
A groaning, otherworldly sound filled the air, like the scream of the heavens being bent out of shape. All eyes turned to the shattered figure lying near the arena's edge.
Around Gojo's body, shimmering cracks spread through the space itself, delicate yet devastating, like fractures in the skin of reality.
Tiny pulses of void energy flickered in and out.
Like reality testing its limits. Like the universe bending, breaking, and reweaving itself, centered on one point.
MeiYing gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.
"Wait—those cracks… They were forming the whole time?!"
Xiao Wusheng's eyes sharpened.
"Tsk. What a lunatic"
They understood.
Gojo hadn't been fighting to win.
He had been fighting to break himself.
Inside his battered body, his dantian roared, swollen with chaotic spatial energy. Not clean, not refined, pure violence. He had let every attack, every strike, every shattering blow smash into him, outside and inside.
Why?
Because Gojo was using their power, the pressure of two top geniuses and their monstrous beasts, to temper his own core.
He wasn't dodging.
He wasn't resisting.
He was fusing the chaos, hammering his dantian, his meridians, his very flesh against the storm of collapsing space.
It was foolish. Reckless. Suicidal.
Any sane cultivator would risk permanent crippling, or death, attempting this in the middle of battle.
But Gojo needed it.
Because to break through the third layer of the Earthly Titan Physique, smooth cultivation wasn't enough.
You needed force.
The kind of force that could tear apart mountains, rupture space, collapse reality itself.
And Gojo…
had found it.
The cracks spread outward, rippling through the battlefield. Pebbles floated. Air bent and twisted. Su Qingshi instinctively retreated, eyes wide with alarm. Li Tianheng shouted for his beasts to fall back, but it was too late.
BOOM.
A pulse of spatial shock burst from Gojo's body, shattering the air.
Not an explosion, a collapse.
Light bent inward. Sound vanished. The very arena trembled.
For one heartbeat, Gojo stood at the center of a miniature black hole, his body a singularity of raw, compressed space.
And then...
It rebounded.
The void snapped outward, a reverse shockwave tearing across the battlefield.
Ground fractured in clean, perfect lines.
Air twisted like water.
Swords veered off course.
Beasts roared, staggering as the space around them distorted.
And at the center...
Gojo rose.
Blood dripped from his wounds. His chest heaved with every breath. But over his battered skin, a faint, shimmering armor of compressed spatial force flickered into existence.
His sapphire eyes blazed, wild and untamed.
A crooked grin tugged at his lips.
"Damn… I'm such a fool."
He flexed his fingers, feeling the surge of terrifying new power coursing through his veins.
"But it worked."
The crowd held its breath.
Gojo had done it.
By using the crushing weight of his opponents' combined might, by forging himself in the fires of battle, by dancing with annihilation itself. He hadn't just survived. He had broken through.
Now, Gojo didn't just stand on the battlefield.
He was reshaping the very space around it.
And the real fight…
was about to begin.
A/N: Sorry guys. Been away for a while. Comment, Donate and Review.