With extreme speed, Sukuna vanished from the gaze of the Sage. Instinctively, a wall of extremely dense earth spikes shot out behind the Sage, but when he turned to look, he saw only the spikes impaling an afterimage.
'That's not good...' he thought, just as a fist slammed into his chest.
The blow sent him rolling across the ground until he slammed a palm down to correct his momentum. He quickly swept Shizutoke in an arc to his side, catching Sukuna mid-dash. All of the King's momentum was instantly stolen, leaving him paralyzed in place. Taking this chance, the Sage channeled all that stolen force into raw strength, delivering a two-armed punch that shattered Sukuna's ribs.
The impact freed Sukuna from his paralysis. Healing himself instantly, he blitzed again, uppercutting the Sage before catching his ankles and slamming him into the ground. He didn't let go; instead, he tossed the Sage into the air and leaped up, spinning rapidly to gain momentum before slamming his heels into the Sage's skull.
BANG!
A shockwave burst from the impact, fracturing the Sage's skull as they rocketed toward the earth. Sukuna wasn't done yet; using the leftover force, he leaned forward and drove his knees into the Sage's head, triggering a second shockwave upon landing.
"That's hardly enough!" The Sage roared, healing his damaged skull as he slugged Sukuna in the ribs, knocking him off so he could quickly stand.
"Kai!"
Tens of thousands of Dismantles fell like rain, forcing the Sage to block as Sukuna landed and rushed forward. Dozens of punches dented the Sage's chest before the pressure finally caught up, sending him flying. As the Sage tumbled through the air in pain, he flooded his body with both RCT and Mend, healing rapidly—only for Sukuna to appear above him and spike him back into the ground.
The Sage slammed into the earth, engulfed in a cloud of smoke. From the haze, multiple large pillars of stone shot upward. Sukuna, still falling, eyed them suspiciously. His instincts were right; multiple golden lines flew from the pillars, snagging his ankle before he could air-jump out of the way.
"Fall, Pillar of Heaven!"
On the ground, the Sage raised his spear, Chian. Sukuna felt a massive amount of cursed energy forming above him as a stone pillar—large enough to crush him and the four pillars holding him in place—began to fall. The air pressure formed a visible, piercing tip from the sheer weight falling at such velocity.
"Hahahaha! Not enough!" Sukuna shouted. He unleashed a flurry of Dismantles that destroyed his bindings and began chipping away at the massive object above him.
When Sukuna landed, however, the pillar was still too large, and its durability was insane due to the cursed energy infused within it.
Boooooommm!
It fell on Sukuna. Although he had reduced it to less than half its original length, it was still gargantuan. Yet, despite it all, Sukuna held it up, preventing it from crushing him by flooding his body with cursed reinforcement on top of his already obscene strength.
"Hachi!"
Sukuna used Cleave, turning the rest of the pillar to dust just in time to sense a shift in the air. He vanished as earth spikes exploded from where he had stood. Looking up, Sukuna saw a shadow: a dragon construct made of earth circled above.
"You can't be serious. How the hell are you making it fly?" He fired Dismantles that carved deep gashes in the dragon, but the wounds healed instantly as Chian pulled more earth from the surroundings.
"It controls earth; why wouldn't it be able to levitate it?" the Sage spoke.
Sukuna deadpanned, pointing a finger and swiping it through the air, shredding the dragon to dust. "Don't speak to me like I'm stupid. I can hear it in your tone."
He caught the Sage as he fell, throwing a kick that was blocked. There was no shockwave this time; Shizutoke stole the force again, allowing the Sage to kick Sukuna back toward the ground.
"That is so annoying to fight against," Sukuna complained, healing the broken forearm he had sustained. "I'm getting tired of this cat-and-mouse game. Aren't you going to take the initiative to attack?"
"Why should I? I don't need to play by your rules, you fool," the Sage responded, landing lightly.
"I dislike defensive types the most..." Sukuna muttered, gathering his cursed energy internally.
He lunged forward once again. As expected, the Sage tried to use Shizutoke to freeze him, but this time Sukuna kicked off the ground, vaulting over the Sage. He swept his leg and elbowed the Sage in the head. In the same motion, he grabbed the arm holding the vajra and shredded it with Cleave, snatching Shizutoke for himself as he leaped away.
With the Sage dazed from the head trauma, Sukuna channeled his energy and used Cleave to completely destroy the tool. The backlash of the artifact's destruction injured the Sage, who vomited blood before wiping his mouth.
"Damn bastard..." the Sage spat, visibly upset that a cursed tool he had forged using a piece of himself had been so carelessly destroyed. He stopped holding back, no longer caring for pacing or defense.
He swung Chian at Sukuna, sending a rolling wave of sharp rocks bursting forth. Sukuna released a large Dismantle, parting the wave like the Red Sea before rushing forward. Without a way to reliably slow Sukuna down, the Sage was forced onto the offense. Two earth dragons coiled around him like a barrier, firing spears of reinforced rock from their mouths with sonic booms.
They tore through the land like heavy artillery, but Sukuna cut them down or dodged through the gaps.
Bang!
Sukuna's fist blasted through the stone dragons and connected with the Sage's face with a sharp snap. He went all in, slamming his fists into the Sage's skull over and over, his laughter grating on the Sage's ears. The Sage swiped violently in a 360-degree arc, aiming to bisect him.
"Black Flash!"
Sukuna's fist slammed into the Sage's back before he grabbed the Sage by the hair and kneed him in the face.
"Guh! You pest!"
Sharp spikes burst out again, one stabbing through Sukuna's leg. He simply used Dismantle to cut off his own limb and grew a new one with RCT as he gained distance.
"What a fool!"
A massive rock was shot from beneath them as golden lines formed a rebounding net. The rock slammed into the ground in a massive explosion.
Shing!
A massive Dismantle cut the explosion and the rock in two, nearly bisecting the Sage as Sukuna leaped upward with a crazed expression. He kicked the Sage toward the ground, but before his counterpart could land, Sukuna was already there, snatching him by the hair and dragging his face across the earth.
"Hold on tight!" Sukuna cackled, running at full speed and scraping the Sage's head against everything in their path before tossing him into a distant cliff face.
"Huh?" Sukuna looked around. They had traveled far from the starting point. "Damn, I wonder how badly this would have wrecked a city if we fought in one..."
He could feel it. The other him was running dry. Unlike himself, the Sage had been spamming high-cost techniques in a desperate attempt to kill him.
"Look at you. You can't even heal with RCT anymore, and no way in hell am I letting you land another Black Flash. So, accept your fate."
Sukuna stood tall, possessing the enhanced stamina of Heavenly Restriction and the Super Soldier Serum. He could fight for days, but the Sage was finished. His wounds were catastrophic, and his reserves were empty.
"How could I lose to a pest like you?" the Sage gritted his teeth.
"Calling yourself a pest? You must be upset that your first loss was to yourself. I understand..." Sukuna looked at him with genuine pity.
"Tch! I refuse to be looked at with pity!"
The Sage roared as a sudden spike in cursed energy flared—he had burned his own life force in an internal binding vow. Knowing what was coming, Sukuna didn't bother with a domain. He put everything he had into a single, extremely thin, and destructive line. His cursed energy dropped to zero just as he heard the words:
"Domain Expansion! Heavenly Shri—"
Shing!
The building energy in the Sage's body vanished. A net of thin lines spread across his form as the half-formed domain crumbled to dust. He had been dismantled and killed just before the vow-boosted domain could manifest. Sukuna knew that if that domain had landed, he would have died, or suffered permanent soul damage.
The system space closed, and Sukuna returned to his innate domain. The knowledge of his counterpart's techniques merged with his own. Even his domain gained a secondary feature: now, when he used it, his body would automatically be flooded with Mend, healing him while everything else was reduced to ash.
"Perhaps I can even replicate that massive explosion with the ice and fire arrow combo by myself." Sukuna smiled, deeply pleased with his gains.