The battlefield was chaos.
Varnontras hovered in the air, untouched by the surrounding devastation, his dragonic wings spread wide as cursed energy and destruction churned around him like a storm. Despite the combined efforts of Gojo, Sukuna, Yuta, Mahito, Mahoraga, and Rika the behemoth of an enemy refused to falter.
Yuta slammed into the ground, blood running down his cheek. "Damn it… we're hitting him with everything we've got!"
Sukuna growled, scars across his arms glowing from energy backlash. "This is getting annoying."
Varnontras let out a cold, guttural laugh.
"You are all strong... for mortals. But this world will crumble beneath me."
Just then, Gojo, floating midair, narrowed his eyes. His Six Eyes flickered intensely scanning every inch of Varnontras as the battle raged. While the others fought, Gojo stopped attacking focused completely on something else.
"Why...?"
he muttered to himself.
"Why is he not retaliating properly to spatial manipulation?"
He watched carefully. Every time Varnontras clashed with Yuta or blocked Mahito's cursed techniques, there was precision but when Gojo used Limitless or distorted space around Varnontras… the reaction was slower. Almost… delayed.
"His body reacts perfectly to power… but not to distortion."
Then it clicked.
"It's not him…"
Gojo whispered.
"It's something controlling him or protecting something."
He looked again, deep into Varnontras' chest using his enhanced vision where the cursed energy converged unnaturally. It wasn't just aura it was like a shell. A core. Or…
A vessel.
"He's not just a dragon. He's a construct."
Gojo's voice turned sharp, loud enough for the others to hear.
Sukuna glanced over, dodging a claw strike.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Gojo responded quickly, weaving through debris.
"There's something inside him something hiding. Varnontras is like a puppet wrapped in cursed power."
Mahito paused for a second. "You mean… he's being piloted?"
"No. Guarded,"
Gojo said, his eyes locked on the center of Varnontras' chest.
"There's something or someone inside him. That's his weak link. All that power… it's just armor."
Varnontras, suddenly, staggered, as if aware of Gojo's realization.
"You've seen too much, Satoru Gojo."
His voice now echoed not with arrogance, but with subtle tension.
"Gotcha,"
Gojo smirked.
"Everyone! Aim for the chest there's something inside!"
Mahito grinned maniacally.
"Now we're talking!"
Yuta raised his sword.
"Rika! Smash through his core!"
Sukuna's eyes burned with intensity.
"Then let's see what you've been hiding, lizard."
As they all began to converge their attacks, focusing on Varnontras' chest, the great dragon's aura spiked defensive, desperate.
"I will not allow you to reach it!"
He roared, and a pulse of black energy sent shockwaves across the battlefield, sending some flying back but they weren't giving up now.
For the first time, Varnontras wasn't just playing. He was protecting something. And that made him vulnerable.
Flames roared, cursed energy crackled, and the air shattered like glass with each clash.
Varnontras unleashed a deafening roar, his black wings sweeping down and creating shockwaves that leveled entire city blocks. His scales shimmered with void-like energy, absorbing every blow they threw at him.
Gojo wiped the blood from his lip, his Limitless barely holding.
"He's not like anything we've faced before," he muttered.
Sukuna, eyes gleaming with fury, lunged with his Cleave technique.
"Then we hit him harder!"
But the moment his blade struck the dragon's chest, it merely scratched the surface. Varnontras retaliated with a pulse of gravity magic, crushing the ground beneath them and sending Mahoraga tumbling.
From the side, Mahito morphed his arms into monstrous claws, leaping at Varnontras.
"Let's see if you bleed!"
He swiped but Varnontras vanished and reappeared midair, striking Mahito with a wave of black fire. Mahito crashed into a building, his form partially melting from the hit.
"He's using teleportation now?" Yuta growled as Rika shielded him from a falling debris storm.
They regrouped quickly. Gojo hovered just above the ground, panting.
"He's adapting,"
Gojo said. "Every second we delay, he's learning more about our techniques."
Yuta clenched his fists. "So what do we do?"
"We change the rhythm."
Gojo's eyes gleamed with determination.
"He expects direct combat. Let's overwhelm his senses make it chaotic."
Sukuna cracked his neck. "Finally something fun."
Gojo snapped his fingers.
"Scatter!"
In an instant, the battlefield turned into a war zone of illusions, feints, and overlapping domains.
Mahoraga charged forward, drawing attention, while Mahito attacked from the shadows, distorting reality around Varnontras.
Yuta synchronized with Rika, slashing in harmony, while Gojo blinked in and out with his Hollow Purple charges, not firing but baiting.
All the while, Sukuna was silent building up energy for a massive, unseen strike.
For the first time, Varnontras began to show signs of pressure.
He roared again, sending a wave of cursed pressure that fractured the sky.
But as his focus wavered for a brief moment Sukuna moved.
From behind, without a sound, he appeared above Varnontras.
"Die."
He drove his attack straight toward the dragon's head but just before contact, a barrier of ancient runes activated, stopping the blade inches from the skull.
"Tch." Sukuna leapt back, frustrated.
Varnontras growled.
"You've forced me to take this seriously. Congratulations… mortals."
His body started to glow with an ominous black-gold aura, cracks forming on his skin.
"But now... behold my final form."
As the light engulfed him, the sorcerers stepped back, bracing themselves.
The battle was far from over.
The sky trembled. The ground cracked. The air itself grew heavy with a pressure that bent the laws of nature.
Varnontras' body glowed with black-gold radiance, runes spiraling over his scales as cracks spread across his form like burning veins.
"Get back!!"
Gojo shouted, eyes wide with shock.
"He's releasing something we've never seen before MOVE!"
But it was too late.
BOOM!
A blinding explosion of cursed energy and divine power detonated from Varnontras' body, turning night into day for a brief, searing second. The shockwave ripped through everything buildings vaporized, the earth split open, and even the air burned.
Sukuna was thrown across the city skyline like a ragdoll, blood trailing in the wind.
Yuta and Rika were buried beneath a crumbling building, barely shielded by a desperate barrier.
Mahito had half his body melted just trying to regenerate in time.
Mahoraga's wheel cracked, spinning erratically under the pressure.
And Gojo he stood his ground, hands raised, a bloodied grin on his face as Limitless barely held.
"This power… it's on a different level."
Above them all, Varnontras reformed no longer a beast, but a humanoid dragon god cloaked in celestial armor, his wings made of void, and his eyes glowing like twin dying stars.
"Now,"
his voice echoed across space,
"Behold what Itarim truly left behind."
The presence of this new form felt like dozens of Domains compressed into one being. Reality twisted. Gravity collapsed. And even cursed spirits began to disintegrate under his gaze.
"This world belongs to me now."
The heroes, shattered and broken, could only stare in horror.
Gojo, kneeling, blood dripping from his eyes, whispered,
"If Jin-Woo doesn't return soon… we're all dead."
Amid the destruction and chaos, Gojo Satoru stood alone, barely able to hold himself up. Blood soaked his uniform, but his Six Eyes gleamed, burning with focus.
Varnontras floated above the city like a dark sun, his transformed body crackling with unstable power.
"You're trembling,"
Gojo muttered, smirking despite the pain.
"Why? You scared someone finally figured you out?"
Varnontras' expression faltered for the first time.
"Silence."
Gojo ignored the warning.
"You've been guarding your chest the whole time… Every time we got close, your movements changed. You're not invincible you're hiding something in there."
The ground shook again as Varnontras roared.
"You presume too much!"
But the roar felt… unsteady.
"No,"
Gojo said calmly, raising a shaking hand.
"I finally see it. You're powerful, but you're not perfect. That thing in your chest… it's not a power source, it's a prison. You're containing something or someone."
Varnontras clenched his fists. The void around him cracked.
Gojo's voice dropped cold.
"And I'm going to rip it open."
In a flash, he activated everything he had left Limitless, Reverse Cursed Technique, and a newly formed Hollow Purple core, compressed and condensed into the size of a marble, glowing like a dying star in his palm.
He whispered,
"This is for all the lives you nearly erased."
Then, with everything he had, Gojo teleported straight toward Varnontras aiming directly for the chest.
The dragon god's eyes widened in panic.
"NO!!"
A blinding clash exploded in the sky as Gojo slammed the Hollow Purple directly into the chest-plate.
Varnontras screamed.
The celestial armor cracked a glowing red eye briefly appeared within, pulsing like a heart. Something inside stirred.
"You fool do you know what you've done?!"
Varnontras howled, falling back for the first time.
Gojo dropped to one knee in midair, exhausted.
"Yeah… I woke up the real monster, didn't I?"
The others, battered but watching, realized something terrifying
There was something deeper than Varnontras. Something locked away.
And now… it was awake.
Varnontras shrieked, the crack on his chest glowing with unstable red energy. Gojo's strike had exposed something ancient, something buried and now everyone saw it.
Sukuna smirked.
"If he's bleeding, he's dying."
He darted forward with Cleave and Dismantle, striking faster than lightning.
Mahoraga followed, its wheel spinning with relentless adaptation. The cursed shikigami slammed into Varnontras with a divine punch, shaking the sky.
Mahito, deformed but alive, twisted his body into hundreds of spikes and launched himself like a missile.
Yuta and Rika attacked in perfect harmony, slicing through the broken armor, aiming directly at the glowing core.
"This is our chance!" Yuta shouted.
"Go all in!"
Gojo, barely standing, grinned through bloodied lips.
"Let's end this!"
He raised both hands and fired a compressed Hollow Purple a massive beam roaring like a dragon itself.
Sukuna, Mahoraga, Mahito, Yuta, Gojo, and even weakened sorcerers joined forces, all aiming every ounce of their power at the same spot.
The sky turned white from the energy output.
Varnontras' eyes widened in disbelief.
"NOOOO!!"
With a final explosion, the combined assault struck the core directly
Cracking it open.
Varnontras screamed in agony as his form began to unravel, fragments of dark energy dispersing like shattered glass.
And then Silence.
The wind stopped. The sky cleared.
Varnontras was falling.
As his body collapsed toward the earth like a dying meteor, something still pulsed in his chest.
Something… still alive.
Everyone stood frozen.
Gojo whispered,
"This fight isn't over yet…"
The battlefield remained eerily still, the wreckage of the fight scattered like a forgotten warzone. For a moment, it seemed like the battle was over Varnontras' broken body lay smoldering, his enormous form crumpled to the earth like a defeated god.
But then, a faint sound came from within him a low, eerie hum, as if something was stirring, something dark.
"He's still alive."
Gojo's eyes narrowed, his hand trembling.
"Impossible… we hit the core directly."
And then, from the shattered remains of Varnontras, black smoke began to rise, slowly taking shape. The smoke coalesced into a dark, humanoid figure an apostle, its presence overwhelming and suffocating.
A deep, guttural voice echoed from the smoke.
"The fight is not over, mortal."
The apostle stepped forward, its form becoming clearer one of the beings that Varnontras had been protecting within his chest.
Its voice echoed again, but this time, Varnontras' body disintegrated into dark dust, leaving only this towering figure.
"You've only released me from the prison I've been contained in for eons," the apostle said, grinning.
Gojo, Sukuna, and the others braced for another onslaught. They didn't need to wait long.
The apostle raised its hand, and instantly, the ground trembled as an aura of dark energy spread outwards.
"So, you think you've won? Foolish humans…"
The apostle's body began to twist and split open, revealing multiple other apostles hundreds, all crawling from the remnants of Varnontras' broken form. These creatures were humanoid, but their faces twisted with ancient malice.
The air thickened as they released their cursed energy in a massive wave.
Gojo, still kneeling, wiped his bloodied mouth.
"This is it. We've been played from the start…"
The apostle spoke again, its voice calm, almost mocking.
"Do you really think this world could survive after the awakening of the Apostles of Itarim? No. You see, your world is nothing but an experiment. A tiny speck in a universe I'll destroy and recreate as I see fit."
A flashback surged through the apostle's mind, a memory of a time when it was first sealed away by a higher being.
"It was Itarim who gave me life. He, the true creator of universes, sought to bring about a new age. Our purpose was clear: to break the laws of existence, shatter the boundaries of reality, and create a world where the gods are not bound by the whims of mortals. This Earth, your pathetic existence, was never meant to survive. It will be wiped clean, and we will reshape it into something worthy of Itarim."
The apostle's eyes glowed, and for a moment, the sky darkened, the planet itself groaning as if reacting to the apostle's words.
Gojo clenched his fists.
"No. We won't let you destroy everything."
Sukuna, growling, stepped forward, eyes wild with excitement.
"Then let's show them how mortals fight back."
The other sorcerers took their stances Yuta, Mahito, Mahoraga, and Sukuna all getting ready to strike. The apostles gathered into a battle formation as their dark, twisted figures continued to rise.
"We won't back down. This ends now," Gojo said, his Limitless flaring to life.
Then, in unison, Gojo, Sukuna, Mahoraga, Mahito, Yuta, and the others launched themselves toward the apostles, attacking with everything they had.
The battle had only just begun.