Chapter 36 : Unstable
Mark rose from the ocean slowly before launching upward through the water.
A second later he emerged above the surface and stopped midair before gently lowering himself onto the sea itself.
His shoes touched the water without sinking.
The ocean shifted beneath him while wind moved through his white hair and the sunlight reflected against those unnatural blue eyes.
Then Mark closed them with visible exhaustion.
"...Yeah," he muttered quietly. "I definitely need a blindfold."
Even after the simulations, keeping the Six Eyes active constantly still felt overwhelming. The amount of information entering his brain every second was absurd.
Over the last three days inside the simulation process, he had spent another six hundred thousand popularity points adapting to Gojo’s template.
Which honestly hurts.
His popularity count had basically crashed to zero because of it.
And despite all that, he still hadn’t mastered everything Gojo could do.
Not even close.
Because possessing Gojo’s abilities and using them properly were two completely different things.
Satoru Gojo wasn’t terrifying solely because of his powers.
He was terrifying because he understood them completely.
Still, Mark had successfully adapted to the two most important parts of the template.
The Six Eyes.
And Limitless.
The Six Eyes were an extremely rare ocular trait appearing once every several centuries within the Gojo clan. Those eyes granted absurd perception and processing ability while reducing cursed energy consumption to nearly zero.
Then there was Limitless.
The inherited technique capable of manipulating space itself through cursed energy calculations so complex that almost nobody besides a Six Eyes user could fully control it safely.
Separately, both abilities were monstrous.
Together, they created Satoru Gojo.
Mark slowly opened one eye and looked at his hand.
The air around it distorted slightly.
At the moment, the part of Limitless he controlled best was Infinity.
The neutral state of the technique.
A passive defense that manipulated the space surrounding his body so anything approaching him slowed infinitely before contact could ever occur. Attacks never truly reached him because the distance between object and target became endlessly divided.
A perfect defense.
And unlike in Jujutsu Kaisen, Mark’s version carried an even stranger twist.
This world had no cursed energy.
At first that should have made the entire technique unusable.
But Cyclops’ template had accidentally solved the problem.
His optic abilities weren’t generated naturally by his body. His eyes functioned like dimensional gateways connected to another plane containing endless energy.
That infinite external power source now acted as fuel replacing cursed energy entirely.
Which meant Mark no longer suffered from the biggest weakness most sorcerers faced.
Energy depletion.
The Six Eyes minimized consumption while the dimensional energy source supplied effectively endless output.
The combination was absurd.
At the moment he could already use Infinity and Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue reliably enough without damaging himself. Alongside that, the simulations had also transferred much of Gojo’s combat instinct and movement experience into his body.
But the higher-level techniques remained unstable.
Cursed Technique Reversal: Red required far more control than he currently possessed.
Hollow Purple was even worse.
And Unlimited Void...
Mark exhaled slowly at the thought.
That was something he absolutely refused to test carelessly.
Because opening a domain without fully understanding it inside this world could easily create consequences he had no way of predicting.
Still, even without that, Mark already understood how much the balance had shifted.
"Homelander can’t kill me now," he said while standing calmly above the ocean.
Mark slowly opened his eyes.
Blue light gathered instantly within them before two concentrated beams erupted forward across the ocean surface.
The sea split apart violently.
Water blasted away from the attack path while the beams carved straight through the waves, leaving a deep trench stretching far across the ocean before the water finally crashed back together again.
Mark watched silently for a moment.
The optic blasts had changed.
Originally the Cyclops template produced pure concussive force, but after merging with the Six Eyes and Limitless, the attacks now carried spatial distortion alongside the raw energy output.
The beams weren’t just striking matter anymore.
They were destabilizing the space in front of them.
"...Interesting."
Mark flexed his fingers slightly while thinking through the change.
He honestly couldn’t explain the exact mechanics behind it. The fusion between dimensional energy and cursed technique principles had evolved into something completely different from either original ability.
But the result was obvious enough.
For the first time since arriving in this world, Mark no longer felt the constant pressure of Homelander’s existence hanging over everything.
A small grin appeared on his face.
"Now," he said while looking toward the sky, "I should go mess with some assholes."
The next second he launched forward.
The air cracked around him as his body shot across the sky at absurd speed while the ocean disappeared beneath him.
Hours passed while he continued flying above endless clouds and open water, the sunlight slowly shifting across the horizon as the day moved forward.
Honestly, he had gotten too distracted testing his speed and the new perception from the Six Eyes to properly pay attention to direction.
Eventually Mark slowed down slightly while looking ahead—
then frowned.
"...What?"
Below him stretched a massive city completely different from the one he expected.
Mark hovered silently in the air for a moment before his eyes landed on the enormous clock tower rising above the city skyline.
"...London?"
He stared downward blankly.
Then slowly turned his head back toward the direction he came from.
"...How the fuck did I fly in the opposite direction?"
*****
A/N: Advanced Chapters are available on Patreon.
👉 /Mark841
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