Chapter 642: John's Pen Mode, Domain Defeat
Amidst the Millennium Bug's confusion, a flood of memories and realizations raced through his mind within a single fraction of a second. An Open Domain... when on earth did Satoru Gojo master something of that caliber?!
But he immediately cast all auxiliary thoughts aside. Gojo was an individual gifted with anomalous, reality-defying talent; wasting mental processing power on analyzing his growth curve at a critical juncture like this was an absolute strategic failure.
At this exact microsecond, there was only one directive left on the board... Kill!
"A Thousand Years of Slumber!"
Within the Millennium Bug's pitch-black domain, countless ancient bronze chime bells vibrated in perfect unison. Cursed energy reverberated throughout the enclosed space through these structural mediums, exponentially amplifying the potency of his innate technique, while the domain's inherent rules guaranteed an absolute, infallible sure-hit effect.
Having historically existed as a high-tier Reincarnator wielding high-tier immortality attributes prior to his demise, the Millennium Bug understood perfectly well that against elite Reincarnators, "absolute crowd control" was infinitely more reliable and structurally devastating than a standard lethal strike.
He lacked a precise, exhaustive diagnostic breakdown of Solomon's underlying capabilities, so he decisively chose a technique designed to force a state of total, unmitigated cognitive shutdown.
Gojo's choice, by contrast, was far more direct and primal. He simply unleashed an absolute, unrestricted saturation of [Unlimited Void] across the sector.
Within the perimeter of the pitch-black domain, Captain Marvel—an entity whose raw cosmic energetic output had been sufficiently monumental to forcefully suppress Solomon moments earlier—felt her pupils violently vibrate.
She experienced an illusion that all sensory and physical reality had ground to an absolute halt. No, correction: it wasn't the external environment that had frozen; it was her own cognitive processing speed that had plummeted into an absolute, crushing state of total paralysis.
A hyper-dense aura of cosmic energy continuously rippled across Carol Danvers's skin. Her biological makeup naturally allowed her to absorb and integrate ambient energy fields upon contact, a trait that granted her a substantial degree of structural baseline resistance against standard cursed energy.
Yet, the exact millisecond Unlimited Void achieved total deployment, an unimaginably vast, redundant ocean of raw information was violently and continuously forced down her cerebral pathways. In a split second, Captain Marvel was frozen rigidly mid-air, her limbs twitching with microscopic, involuntary tremors.
This was similarly the very first time Gojo had ever witnessed a biological entity maintain physical motor reactions after sustaining a direct, unprotected strike from Unlimited Void.
Or to examine it through a cleaner diagnostic framework: she was the absolute first organism whose brain tissue had failed to undergo structural collapse when exposed to his domain's full cognitive load.
But regardless of her resilience, the tactical outcome was already set in stone!
The Millennium Bug was similarly drenched in a cold sweat. This was likewise his absolute first time directly operating adjacent to the activation parameters of [Unlimited Void]. Although Gojo possessed the unique bloodline of the Six Eyes—allowing him the most mathematically precise, sub-atomic control over cursed energy across the realms—the underlying mechanic of Unlimited Void was simply too tyrannical, too overbearing to safely stand near.
The mercenary did not fear physical death; as a bound yin spirit, his form could seamlessly reconstruct its atomic framework within the Underworld grid at any time. However, sustaining a direct hit from Unlimited Void would essentially erase his cognitive capacity, structurally disqualifying him from contesting this resurrection trial.
Gojo's eyelids lowered, a brilliant, ostentatious grin cleanly spreading across his face as the spectral chains punching through his back extended their length by several meters, their trailing links fading deeper into the cosmic vacuum.
Yet, Gojo remained entirely unbothered by the internal load. His eyes locked onto Solomon, who was similarly frozen in an absolute state of cognitive paralysis mid-air. The black-and-white energy wings unfurled across the sorcerer's back were currently radiating an exceptionally high, absolute tier of conceptual pressure.
That was a majestic, hyper-concentrated classification of energy that he had never once encountered throughout his existence in his home world of sorcerers and cursed spirits.
It was infinitely more pristine and holy than any positive energy generated by a Reverse Cursed Technique, yet simultaneously infinitely more venomous and malicious than the collective, roaring resentment of a special-grade cursed spirit.
Light and dark, holy and demonic... a mere monkey... no, a single human being had actually managed to bend these two opposing infinities to his absolute will. That so-called Infinite Dimension Space truly was nothing short of an absolute... divine miracle!
With a fluid flash of his frame, Gojo materialized directly in front of Solomon's face. He clamped a lone hand around Solomon's skull, his eyes evaluating the half-open, half-closed heterochromatic pupils, deducing that these eyes likely harbored some species of highly specialized structural authority.
It was a pity, but everything ended right here. He was structurally distinct from that Uchiha psychopath; he possessed zero professional interest in dragging out a tactical duel for personal validation.
Crack~
Reinforced by his dense cursed energy and the structural application of the Limitless, Gojo's physical destructive output was similarly monstrous. As he applied a sharp, twisting leverage, the distinct sound of fracturing cervical vertebrae echoed sharply from Solomon's neck.
But in the very next fraction of a second, Gojo's entire frame rigidly froze. Within those brilliant blue-white eyes containing the imagery of the sky and clouds, a flash of pure, unadulterated shock manifested.
Within his perfect, 360-degree field of vision, a Solomon who was supposed to be sustaining the absolute, unmitigated brunt of both the Acoustic Slaughter and the Unlimited Void... forced his eyes to snap completely open.
Those heterochromatic pupils—one brilliant blue, one deep crimson—stared straight through his position with an absolute, glassy absence of focal alignment.
Hum!
As a blinding wave of pure magical radiance erupted, Gojo instantly weaponized his velocity to break contact, blurring across a distance of dozens of meters to re-anchor himself directly behind Solomon's back.
The Millennium Bug's entire spiritual form violently shuddered. Solomon... has broken through the cognitive paralysis?!
"John's Pen Mode, engaged. Initiating real-time structural analysis of local active techniques... Hazard classification: High. Deploying corresponding defensive countermeasures: Formula Counter-Interception: Saint's Collapse."
Solomon spoke with the flat, rapid mechanical cadence of a processing automaton, his voice completely stripped of human inflection. In the next microsecond, a dense convergence of high-intensity magical circles rapidly crystallized around his coordinates.
Gojo flicked his fingers, the conflicting properties of Blue and Red rapidly condensing within his palms once more as a terrifying wave of space-tearing imaginary mass began to brew. Since the cognitive paralysis of Unlimited Void had failed to secure a shutdown, he would simply rely on absolute, unmitigated kinetic destruction to vaporize the target down to the atom!
Hollow Technique...
Pfft!
A sharp, agonizing pain violently struck Gojo's visual receptors. With a wet pfft, both of his blue-white pupils violently exploded into a spray of dark essence. Despite operating purely under a yin spirit morphology, his eyes had been structurally detonated out of thin air.
And the destruction of his physical eyes was merely the initial line of contact; simultaneously, his preternatural, instinctual capacity to mathematically manipulate and channel cursed energy was completely and flawlessly erased from his consciousness.
Boom!
Before the properties of Blue and Red could achieve complete molecular fusion, the unstable mass violently detonated right in front of Gojo's chest. His spirit body was violently shot through the air by the concussive backlash, and his pitch-black, open domain began to fracture and dissolve millimeter by millimeter.
It wasn't merely his high-tier Hollow Purple that had suffered a total structural failure; Blue, Red, and even the foundational infinity concept governing the neutral application of his Limitless had completely collapsed.
It was exactly as if the absolute, reality-defying talent gifted to him by heaven had been systematically and entirely burned away in a single fraction of a second.
"Gojo, you—"
The Millennium Bug's tactical reaction speed was exceptionally elite. At this stage of the exchange, he cleanly identified the underlying mechanic: Solomon had actually gone and structurally hardcoded Index's [John's Pen Mode] formula directly into his own biological and spiritual framework!
This freak had meticulously prepared a high-priority, automated countermeasure to govern his assets the exact millisecond his personal consciousness suffered a total shutdown!
In the next fraction of a second, Solomon—operating entirely under the automated directive of John's Pen Mode within his ascended angelic form—turned his vacant, unaligned gaze directly toward the mercenary.
"Hazard classification: Medium. Deploying corresponding defensive countermeasures: Formula Counter-Interception: Lost Tones of Babel."
As a blinding wave of magical radiance ignited, the Millennium Bug felt an unmapped, completely unidentifiable acoustic frequency instantaneously detonate inside his inner ear. In the very next microsecond, the countless bronze chime bells anchoring his domain began to violently rupture one after another like a line of dominoes.
Pfft!
Dense streams of dark blood sprayed from the mercenary's ears as his vestibular systems were completely and flawlessly liquefied by the frequency. Trapped in a state of violent, world-spinning vertigo, his frame collapsed limply onto the dirt as his pitch-black domain shattered into nothingness.
Solomon spread his black-and-white wings, his ascended frame shooting straight into the upper atmosphere. Upon re-anchoring himself over the central coordinates of New York, he raised both hands, directing his palms toward the city blocks below.
"Hazard classification: Extreme. Deploying corresponding defensive countermeasures: Formula Counter-Interception: St. George's Sanctuary — Emperor Dragon's Sigh."
The colossal magic circle enveloping all of New York began to rotate with immense velocity, a volume of magical energy so monumental it verged on pure cosmic terror beginning to churn through the atmosphere via a structural logic that completely defied the baseline laws of this universe.
Countless white feathers drifted silently through the air. A blinding, resplendent luminescence that completely and flawlessly eclipsed the peak output of Captain Marvel's Binary state began to condense right before Solomon's chest.
On the pavement below, Hela—who had just materialized directly in front of the unconscious forms of Thor and Loki—abruptly halted her stride. Behind her, Iron Man and War Machine were pinned deep inside the structural concrete of two adjacent skyscrapers, Colonel Rhodes coughing up thick ropes of blood through his ruined armor.
And across the boulevard, the massive purple titan stepping out from the orbital landing craft similarly shifted his narrow gaze away from the kneeling form of Ebony Maw.
The entity hovering in the stratosphere was currently radiating a wave of pure, unmitigated, and absolute destructiveness.
Hum~
The distorted white luminescence violently expanded. In the next fraction of a second, as if it had completely siphoned the entire energetic reserve of every active magic circle over New York, a colossal beam of pure, apocalyptic light erupted from the array before Solomon's chest.
The sheer volume of the output was so astronomically massive that even Solomon's automated John's Pen Mode appeared to experience a microsecond of structural destabilization under the kinetic recoil.
The white beam of absolute destruction, sporting a diameter of dozens of meters, plowed straight down, cleanly slicing into the Atlantic Ocean.
Boom!
In the very next instant, the Atlantic Ocean looked as if it were executing a instantaneous, cataclysmic boil. As the waters violently exploded outward, the oceanic bedrock was completely shattered. The entire continental shelf anchoring New York shuddered violently before the city blocks began to visibly sink.
Solomon strained every automated parameter to manipulate this output—a manifestation of [Emperor Dragon's Sigh] that completely eclipsed the historical metrics executed by Index within the A Certain Magical Index universe—slowly dragging the apocalyptic beam toward the central parameters of New York.
Rumble~
Like a white-hot blade cleanly slicing through soft butter, the devastating column of white light effortlessly sheared through the coastal bedrock anchoring the city, forcing the landmass to instantly buckle and collapse into the abyss before plowing straight toward the dense commercial sectors.
The primary bay vanished from the map in a heartbeat, followed immediately by the urban sectors. The underlying foundational geology fractured identically to the ocean floor, causing the entire metropolis to tilt at a terrifying angle as massive walls of seawater began to violently crash inward.
At this exact microsecond, Solomon had cleanly, flawlessly demonstrated the absolute pinnacle of destructiveness a high-tier specialized spellcaster could unleash upon a world.
His pupils retained absolutely zero cognitive focus, his body operating purely under the automated directives of his processing script. He continuously adjusted the trajectory of the Emperor Dragon's Sigh, guiding the beam toward the coordinates where his sensors captured the presence of the two highest-tier biological organisms on the grid.
The apocalyptic column of light swept across the commercial heart of Manhattan.
Hela stared expressionlessly at the oncoming wall of light. Turning her head back, she discovered that Thor had vanished from his coordinates, alongside Loki.
She let out a cold, deeply disgusted snort, her form instantly shifting into the absolute, unblemished manifestation of the Goddess of Death. Taking a single stride forward, she crossed a distance of several kilometers in a flash, effortlessly pinning down the coordinates of Loki, who was desperately dragging Thor's heavy frame through the panicked stampede.
Rumble!
By now, the entire coastal flank of New York had completely entered a state of structural collapse. With the bedrock and urban foundations completely liquefied, the entire weight of the metropolis was visibly sliding down into the Atlantic Ocean.
Thanos stood unmoved, his narrow eyes tracking the white column of light plowing toward his dreadnought. His heavy double-bladed war glaive rested against the asphalt. These insects of Earth truly possess zero understanding of their own insignificance...
The Titan took two strides forward, only to discover that the apocalyptic white beam abruptly froze its trajectory for a microsecond before violently shifting its vector back toward the open sea.
"Hazard classification: Extreme. Prioritizing absolute eradication!"
Solomon's automated processing script mechanically recalculated its targeting parameters, re-directing the total, unmitigated output of the [Emperor Dragon's Sigh] to plunge straight into the deep coordinates of the Atlantic Ocean.
Splash!
The massive tidal waves generated by the displaced ocean were structurally more colossal than anything the native population could have ever prepared for.
Having desperately dragged a semi-conscious Captain Marvel and several civilians clear of the initial shockwave, Black Widow turned her frame around, only to see a massive skyscraper tilting directly over her coordinates.
She stood frozen on the asphalt, watching the panicked, screaming masses fleeing around her, her mind settling into a state of absolute, exhausted compliance as she prepared to accept her end.
But in the very next fraction of a second, accompanied by a cataclysmic, primordial roar, the Hulk violently launched his massive frame into the air, intentionally slamming his torso straight into the flank of the falling skyscraper.
Right beside his colossal silhouette, a small, slender figure—completely and flawlessly encased in a dense armor of pitch-black energy—simultaneously crashed into the masonry.
Boom!
The upper tiers of the skyscraper were violently reduced to a spray of rubble, and the structural trajectory of the collapse was forcefully and cleanly inverted. Young Parker landed on the debris, staring down at his small hands, feeling an unimaginable, structurally perfect tide of raw power roaring through his muscles.
Looking back up at the raging, bellowing Hulk, the reality of standing shoulder-to-shoulder to battle alongside his absolute idol caused the child's heart to thud with a frantic, ecstatic velocity.
"Roar!"
The Hulk captured a monumental shift in the environment, launching his frame onto a higher vantage point to unleash a furious, sky-tearing roar toward the open ocean.
Deep within those waters, an entity possessing an incredibly high, terrifyingly ancient tier of power was on the verge of breaching the surface.
Out across the listing bay, the displaced waters plowing back toward the city carried a crisp, perfectly straight silver line across the horizon—the absolute signature of a colossal tidal surge tearing its way back from the deep Atlantic.
Standing atop the ruins, the Hulk narrowed his eyes, tracking the silhouette of an individual who was currently... stepping cleanly across the crest of the tidal wave.
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