MARTIAL UNIVERSE: The strongest

"Fuck! I'll just have to capture you myself then!!" Mo Xie cursed, his voice filled with venom. His wings of dark bone unfurled from his back, and with a powerful beat, he shot into the sky, his eyes locked on MeiYing's fleeing figure.

The chase was on.

*

*

BANG!

The cave shook violently, nearly a third of it reduced to rubble from the relentless battle between two monsters locked in a death struggle. The dust, thick and choking, finally began to settle, revealing the aftermath of their latest clash. A massive shadow loomed in the distance, its presence suffocating, its power undeniable.

Slitted purple eyes glowed with a sadistic hunger, reveling in the taste of silver blood that dripped from its fangs. Slowly, the monstrous figure emerged from the darkness, its gaze locked onto the broken body before it.

Gojo Satoru.

If anyone in his world had been told that Gojo Satoru, the man who once claimed to be the strongest, would one day lie at the mercy of such a creature, they would have laughed. They would have called it a fairytale.

Yet, this was reality.

The left half of his body had been devoured. What remained of him lay sprawled across shattered stone and splintered wood, the cold air biting at his exposed wounds. His Six Eyes, once filled with arrogance and amusement, now stared blankly at the sky above, as if resigned to his fate.

He couldn't take it anymore.

No more.

It was unimaginable to think that Gojo Satoru, the sadist, the prodigy, the untouchable wanted to give up. But there was no denying it. He didn't stand a chance.

The Flaming Striped Python was stronger. Faster. More durable. And no matter how much he struggled, he simply wasn't enough.

Fighting when you had no chance of victory was not bravery. It was stupidity.

He had felt this once before, when Sukuna's World Cutting Slash tore through him. Back then, he had been at his peak, delivering three consecutive Black Flashes in the span of a heartbeat. His Reverse Cursed Technique had been restored. He had touched the impossible.

And yet, he still lost.

He had accepted his death.

Infinity was more than just a technique. It was a barrier, a wall that separated him from the rest of humanity. It had made him invincible. But at the same time, it had made him lonely.

Despite the students, despite the allies, no one could ever reach him.

Except Suguru.

He had died knowing that his loneliness would finally end. When Sukuna bypassed Infinity, it wasn't just an attack. It was the first time in his life that another sorcerer had truly reached him. In that moment, he was no longer an untouchable god.

He was human. And that… was a relief.

His eyelids grew heavy. His vision blurred. This was the end.

But then, a thought, like a sudden slap across the face shattered his resignation.

Had he really fallen so low?

Since when did he start comparing a nameless snake to Sukuna?

Since when had he accepted the idea that he was inferior?

Inferior?

His eyes snapped open. A cold realization struck him like a thunderbolt. Sukuna had never truly killed him. It wasn't the slash that ended him, it was his own shattered ego.

Since when had he, Gojo Satoru, ever allowed himself to be beneath anyone?

His entire life, his very existence, had been proof that he stood above all. That no one could touch him. That no one could ever surpass him. And yet, he had let himself believe otherwise.

A laugh, hoarse and ragged, escaped his lips. He had been wrong. Had he truly wished to live back then, he would have survived. His power wasn't what failed him, his will had.

He was not inferior.

Not to Sukuna.

Not to the Python.

Not to anyone.

He was Gojo Satoru.

The air trembled. A pulse of something divine rippled through the cave. A force that had been buried, dormant within his soul, finally awakened. The skies darkened. Thunder boomed. Lightning ripped across the heavens. It was as if a god was descending from the celestial plane.

A golden beam of pure law descended from the heavens, striking his heart.

Gojo's eyes widened.

A force beyond comprehension surged through him, unraveling something deep within his very being.

For the first time, he felt it.

The Dao. Not just as an abstract concept, not as something written in ancient texts. He felt it as truth. As reality. As something that had always been there, waiting for him to grasp it. His will crystallized.

This was his creed.

This was his mission.

This was his Dao.

And as the realization struck him, his body healed. His severed flesh regenerated instantly, his form restoring itself as if he had never been wounded at all. Power surged through his meridians, his soul resonating with the very fabric of existence.

A slow smirk crept across his lips.

'So this is what a Dao Heart truly is… To think I can only reach enlightenment on my deathbed.' The realization settled. His Dao Heart had formed. Absolute Supremacy. He was neither equal nor below anyone. He was an unshakable force of Nature.

A concept as elusive as it was sacred. It provided no immediate power boost, no new flashy technique, yet, it was more valuable than any technique could ever be.

With a Dao Heart, one no longer encountered bottlenecks in understanding the Heavenly Dao. Their will was unyielding. Their path was absolute. A veteran cultivator could chase after this enlightenment for centuries and never grasp it.

And yet, in this moment of near-death, Gojo had ascended. His smirk widened into a full-blown grin. His head tilted toward the Python, a cruel light glinting in his six eyes.

"To think I almost believed you were superior to me…"

His belief was absolute.

His will was unbreakable.

He took a step forward.

His fingers flexed. Silver Yuan Power crackled around his fist, a deep toll of ancient bells echoing in his mind. The shattering of mirrors, the unweaving of space itself.

"This is going to hurt a lot."

The battle resumed instantly.

The Python struck first, its monstrous jaw clamping down on his body once more, fangs sinking deep into his flesh, reveling in the taste of his silver blood.

But Gojo didn't break. His Six Eyes flared. His fists clenched. Power surged. Silver Yuan Power crackled around his fist, distorting space itself.

The toll of bells chimed.

The shattering of mirrors echoed.

BANG!

His punch connected. The Python's purple eye erupted in a shower of blood and shattered bone. A shrill, blood-curdling wail ripped through the cave. The Python thrashed, blinded and writhing in agony. Gojo landed, fully healed in less than a second.

It was time.

With a crazed grin, he pulled out ten Honey Peach Fruits from his Qiankun bag and stuffed them into his mouth.

A sane man would've been horrified.

An expert in the Heavenly Yuan Realm wouldn't dare eat more than two.

But Gojo?

He was a lunatic.

The energy inside him went berserk, ravaging his body from within. His dantian twisted, stretched, and cracked, trying to contain it. He gritted his teeth.

"Suppress!"

A silver rune ignited within him, stabilizing the raging energy.

His plan was simple. He wasn't trying to break through. He was going to end this fight.

50 seconds. The countdown began. The Python recovered, its rage blinding. Its massive tail lashed out.

BANG!

Gojo crashed through pillars, rocks, and stone.

40 seconds. A column of magma-infused Demonic Qi swallowed him whole.

His body burned. And healed. Burned. And healed.

15 seconds. His face twisted into a smirk. He couldn't die. Not yet.

He had to save MeiYing. His Six Eyes flared. The countdown reached zero.

Gojo's hands clasped together at his chest, fingers pressing tightly as his body trembled from the sheer force of the energies contained within him. His veins burned like molten metal coursed through them, his bones creaking under the weight of an unimaginable power.

The Python lunged forward, its colossal fangs bared, eyes flashing with relentless malice. Its enormous maw, lined with jagged obsidian teeth, descended upon him like an inescapable abyss.

But Gojo didn't move. Not yet.

Instead, he inhaled, a slow, measured breath.

His six eyes shifted.

The world became crystal clear.

Every vibrating particle of dust. Every fracture in space caused by his overwhelming Yuan Power. Every flicker of dimensional instability spiraling out of control.

His entire being attuned to the unraveling of reality itself.

Time seemed to slow. The very fabric of space hummed as it struggled to maintain its form.

Then he took a single step forward.

"Titan's Step, 1st Step: Spatial Quake."

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

The moment his foot touched the ground, existence ruptured. The air screamed. The world convulsed.

A pressure unlike anything before rippled outward, erasing sound itself for a fraction of a second.

Then reality shattered. The cave walls vanished. Not crumbled. Not burned. Not torn.

Vanished.

As if they had never existed.

A deep, unnatural sound reverberated through the world, not a noise carried by air, but a vibration that pulsed through the bones of reality itself.

It was the sound of dimensions overlapping.

The Python halted mid-lunge.

Its monstrous body froze, suspended, trapped in the merciless grasp of a force it couldn't comprehend.

Then space folded. The world around Gojo fractured into jagged shards, splintering like a broken mirror.

Through the shards, glimpses of other realms flickered in and out of existence.

A city of floating monoliths, abandoned in the abyss.

A warped battlefield where two gods clashed, their bodies made of pure law.

A lifeless planet, swallowed by an all-consuming void.

Parallel dimensions, woven too closely together, now colliding chaotically.

Gojo stood at the eye of the storm, his body pulsing with limitless power, his mind barely clinging to control. He could feel everything. The weight of entire universes pressing against his skin. The fabric of space resisting his very existence. He was no longer standing in a cave.

He was standing between worlds.

Titan's Step was the last Divine Ability he had received when he broke though into the second layer of the Earthly Titan Physique. The technique weaponizes the user's very presence, exerting an overwhelming spatial force with a single step. By compressing and releasing the surrounding space in an instant, the user erupts with an omnidirectional shockwave that forcibly repels, crushes, and even shatters reality itself.

But this, what Gojo was doing, was unscripted. He was literally bending the laws of reality with his understanding of the technique from the six eyes.

And then, the bass dropped. Time reasserted itself. The shattering of dimensions reached its climax.

And then detonated.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

A supernova of distorted space erupted, sending shockwaves rippling across reality.

The Python's massive body buckled.

Blood, if that black, ethereal substance could even be called blood, burst from its wounds, twisting and spiraling into the void.

The ground beneath them ceased to exist, replaced by an unfathomable abyss stretching into eternity.

The Flaming Striped Python let out a final, nightmarish screech, a wail that transcended dimensions, before its form was ripped apart.

The laws of existence itself crushed it.

For a moment, silence.

Then Gojo's body gave out. He felt himself falling. His consciousness fading. The last thing he saw was not of this world.

A colossal eye, gazing down from the Heavens. Not with emotion. Not with hatred.

But with absolute judgment.

The Eye of the Heavenly Dao. The embodiment of Justice, Retribution, and Punishment. Its scanned. It judged.

And then it vanished. As if it had never been there at all.

A/N: I spent the whole night basically editing this chapter over and over till I was half satisfied with it. Please bless me with your stones and your reviews. Creation is hard..