Chapter 329: Dominance
"I should have prepared a winter coat..." hummed Gojo, looking unfazed but covered in a thin layer of frost, the result of the arena being covered in ice.
"Are you mocking me?" asked Gojo’s tenth opponent, Rukia, furrowing her brows while poised with her unleashed Sode no Shirayuki in a knees-bent, thrusting posture. With her superior speed, she had no trouble landing her attacks. Unfortunately, like those who came before her, she was unable to penetrate the imperceptible barrier around Gojo’s body.
"Mocking you? I wouldn’t dare," responded Gojo, raising his left hand with his middle finger forming a loop with his thumb. Then, as crimson Cursed Energy gathered above them, he flicked forward, sending a marble-sized sphere of repulsive energy flying at Rukia’s position.
"Tsk—"
Clicking her tongue, Rukia dodged Gojo’s attack using Shunpo, placing her behind him. The increased gravity of the arena placed a great strain on her body when moving at such speeds, but she endured it, stabbing the tip of her Zanpakuto into the ground four times before slashing at the ground to produce an avalanche’s worth of ice and snow that first erupted upward before washing over Gojo’s position like a tidal wave.
’Sheesh...this girl’s a walking blizzard...’ thought Gojo, exhaling a plume of steamy condensation from his nose as he shielded his face with his right hand and forearm. Rukia’s attack didn’t strike him directly, courtesy of his expanded Infinity’s three-meter sphere of protection, but the temperature atop the arena had plummeted to -36°C, cold enough to inflict frostbite or outright kill a normal human within minutes.
Though he was virtually impervious to the flames and ice-based attacks of Cursed Spirits, Gojo was struggling to tune his Infinity to filter out the Reiatsu forming Rukia’s attacks. Its nature was similar to Reverse Cursed Energy, but its quality was much higher, one or two steps short of Divine. As such, it was practically on another plane of existence compared to the energy he was accustomed to dealing with.
’But this is precisely why I’m participating...!’ Gojo exclaimed internally, his near-perpetual smile broadening as he spun on his left heel, his right hand following his turn as he used his Cursed Technique Lapse Blue to produce a powerful vacuum that sucked up the ice and snow in his surroundings in a ten-meter radius.
"Bakudō #61: Rikujōkōrō...!"
"Hmm...?"
Glancing down at his body, which had suddenly been impaled by six flat sheets of pale golden light, Gojo’s expression remained calm, but his mind raced. Attacks could circumvent the automatic targeting and exclusionary capabilities of his Infinity if they transcended his perception, but that was only when he used it passively. Manually sustaining it was more taxing on his reserves of Cursed Energy, but since Rukia was much faster than him, he had been activating it nigh-continuously.
"Very good. You aimed for the brief moment when my focus was on Blue over maintaining my Infinity..." remarked Gojo, shifting his gaze to where Rukia was standing with her hands extended, folded over one another like she had just fired off an energy blast. The sheets of light embedded in his body caused him to feel paralyzed, but by manipulating his head using his Limitless, he was still able to turn it and smile.