The second phase of Maximum: White was the activation of the attractive force from Blue, pulling everything that was previously obliterated by the repulsion of Red into the center of the imaginary mass. And right at the center was Purple, where everything pulled by the attractive force of Blue simply... ceased to be as soon as they got within range of the tiny, apple-sized Purple. It was efficient, but also extremely taxing. The real difficulty came in ensuring each function of Infinity performed as commanded and did so in the required time frame. It didn't cost much, however, and that was its saving grace.
Maximum: White was meant to erase entire armies, to ravage cities, and tear mountains apart. It was pure destruction. Ultimately, however, the technique was little more than a clever application of Blue, Red, and Purple, the melding of the three – for some odd reason – resulting in a bright, white light.
Hence, the name.
But he'd never actually used it before, Satoru mused; at least, not in the same scale. The few times he practiced with it necessitated a much, much lower output than the one he just used. Otherwise, he'd end up blowing holes in cities and even Satoru would be able to charm his way out of the consequences if he starting doing that. The problem with the technique was that small-scale applications took about as much concentration as the larger ones. At lower ends, it was simply more time-efficient to use a simple and direct blast of Hollow Technique: Purple as it took far less time to create.
Within moments, a kilometer-wide radius of material – buildings and roads and, likely, more than a few of the giants - just... disappeared, erased in a blinding flash of white light. There was no grand noise or roaring explosion to herald the destruction that came. The ground did not shake and the air did not sizzle with heat. There was only silence, a quiet that seemed to encompass all of reality. Satoru grinned as he looked on from the highest tower of a gothic cathedral of some sort, Six-Eyes watching the devastation left behind by Maximum: White, a kilometer-wide crater, half as deep, its edges perfectly smooth and flat. It was destruction perfected.
But it still could be better. Nah, it was far from perfect. It could, in fact, use a lot more refining.
The expansion, repulsion, attraction, and annihilation should've occurred with almost no interval, making it appear as though the whole thing was instant. However, that was not what happened. There was lag between each detonation, milliseconds at most, but a lag nonetheless. He'd have to work that out with the next one. Sufficiently fast and nimble enemies could surge right through the very brief opening; Sukuna could definitely do it and Toji probably could. Already, Satoru saw how to alter the mechanics of the technique, the tiny edges and corners that could use some sanding. But, as with everything else about Limitless, things were always easier in theory as opposed to practical application. But, he'd do it.
Nothing was impossible. Or, more specifically, nothing was impossible if it was by his hand. He was Gojo Satoru, after all.
But, he'd have to deal with that later, when he had time to think and reflect on everything that'd happened to him, starting with the fact that he died and came back from the dead. Would Yuji, Yuta, and the others be capable of taking on Sukuna and Kenjaku and win? He'd just have to hope that they could. Yuji, most of all, certainly had the potential to be even stronger than Sukuna; if only the boy realized his true strength.
Oh well, if nothing else; he had faith in them. Somehow, someway, they'd get through it. They'd win.
Satoru's Six-Eyes narrowed as he looked on from his perch at the very top of a skyscraper of some sort, tall enough that it overlooked a good portion of the mega city. Maximum: White killed over two hundred giants. The rest of them, he noted, had fanned out, seemingly becoming even more desperate now for whatever it was they were searching for. He could take a guess, however, in the possibility that they might've been looking for that Sorcerer woman, or – specifically – they were looking to prevent her from summoning Kairos, who was most definitely a threat to just about everything on the planet. Though, to be fair, Kairos seemed like an okay individual – not a maniac like Sukuna – despite its power.
Was it just a simple rebellion, then? Satoru wondered. It seemed like there were a lot of things going on that he was left in the dark about. However, the lack information and context made it difficult to draw any sort of conclusion. What he did know, however, was that things were never as they seemed and, more than likely, this hadn't been just a simple resistance. Something must've warranted the presence of thousands of those giants. Just a hundred of them, Satoru mused, likely would've been enough to be a serious threat to every nation on the Earth he knew. A thousand of them... was unnecessary in the quelling of a simple rebellion.
Satoru shrugged as he turned away from the lingering storm of dust and light. At the end of the day, it really wasn't his problem. He was curious about it, true enough, but not enough to pick a side in whatever conflict was going on. And there was a conflict, Satoru knew that much. There had to be one, before the rebellion ever occurred. But, again, he didn't care. Satoru still wasn't even sure what he wanted to do here, in this entirely new universe or something, cut off from all that he knew and all that he loved. Did they even have his favorite snacks or was everyone eating some sort of gray space goop?
Ugh, that was hard to think about.
The ground shook and the skyscraper shook with it, glass windows exploding and cracks and jagged furrows spreading upwards. The whole building was gradually collapsing. Raising a silvery brow, Satoru leaned forward and glanced down. Ah, they found him already? Just what sort of tracking device were these guys even using? He thought they would've taken, at least, a little more time, to find him, but it seems he was wrong. Were they tracking his bio-signature or something? It made sense, Satoru mused, if they had some kind of technology that allowed them to track living creatures by way of biochemical activity; he wasn't entirely sure of something like that could even be blocked by Limitless. Even if it could be blocked, a perceptive-enough individual could detect where it was getting blocked and track him through that, anyway.
But, that was just a theory, Satoru admitted. Human technology hadn't been his forte in the 21st century and his knowledge of it certainly did not improve when he woke up... in what was probably the 100th millennium or something. Still, Satoru mused, since this was his new reality now, it'd be terribly complacent of him if he didn't even extend the effort to try to understand the technological capacity of his enemies. Even a cursory and basic understanding, he figured, would be a great boon. Maybe, Satoru mused, he could ask Kairos about that when they met again in three days. If nothing else, a Cursed Spirit as ancient and as powerful as that was bound to know a lot about... well... everything.
Yawning, Satoru turned away, ignoring the massive bullets that stopped a meter away from him, and glanced at a distant tower, about twenty or so kilometers away. And then, with an extension of his will, Satoru stepped forward, shrinking the open gap between himself and the rooftop of the distant building, using Blue. Grinning, he brought his hands together and, in the blink of an eye, reappeared elsewhere.
Separating his hands, Satoru collapsed the shrunk space and glanced around him. He frowned and scratched the top of his head. Just how large was this city? Twenty kilometers was not a very short distance and he still couldn't see the edge of it. Satoru shrugged as he glanced around him, finding an entryway at the central portion of the rooftop, likely leading down. He approached it and found that... well... it was either locked or, the simpler explanation, he didn't know how to open the damn thing. It seemed mechanized. There was a panel to the left of it. Raising a brow, Satoru approached the panel.
"Huh... well, I guess I was bound to run into this problem eventually." There were... letters and characters on it, some weird offshoot of the Latin Alphabet, he figured.
They always do this in the movies. Satoru thought as he sent a Cursed Energy enhanced fist right through the panel, sending sparks and mechanical bits flying in every direction. His fingers brushed upon several wires and cables inside, which Satoru then promptly ripped right out and threw away. He turned to the door and found that it did not, in fact, open. It was entirely possible, then, that he might've just broken apart an electrical box of some kind and not the panel that controlled the door.
"Oh well," Satoru shrugged and blasted a hole on the door's surface with a simple application of Red, bending and ripping apart a sheet of metal that was apparently a foot thick. If there was one thing, he mused, that could be said about these future humans, then it was they built there stuff to be resilient. Satoru walked in. The interior was dimly lit by a series of candles. In the darkness, he removed his blindfold and inserted it in his pocket. There were... a lot of books here, but that wasn't what caught his attention, no; it was the giant screen at the center, greenish in tint and emitting only a constant static. His Six-Eyes immediately traced the wires to a circular device that, honestly, looked a lot like a DVD player. The discs on the wall were a testament to that comparison.
"They still use DVD's in the future?" Satoru raised a brow. That was... interesting to know. DVD's, as far as he was aware, had fallen out of favor as the Earth became more and more digitalized. It was still, however, commonly used by those who had no immediate access to the world wide web. Satoru glanced around some more, flipping through the books, written in a language he couldn't understand, and idly eyeing the numerous discs, each one bearing a unique label. Was this an information storage facility of some sort, then?
Shrugging, Satoru pulled one of the discs and placed it on the device that looked like a DVD player, but probably wasn't. A series of lights flickered on and off, before the giant screen at the center of the room came to life. There was a man there, standing in front of what was likely a camera – one cybernetic eye, a cool hat, and a silver "I" dangling from his chest. Behind him was a woman, bound to a large chair with numerous chains.
Satoru's eyes narrowed. There were wards on the chains. Was this some form of sorcerous ritual, perhaps? If he had to guess, the binds were preventing the woman, who was probably a Sorcerer, from making use of Cursed Energy. Interesting. Similar devices existed on Earth, as far as Satoru was aware, but they were extremely rare, used to chain up the most dangerous Cursed Spirits, such as the Spirit of War that emerged during the second world war. To make use of something like that just to bind a Sorcerer... the woman must've been powerful.
"Log #6," The man in the recording said. Satoru wondered if he was also a sorcerer. But, even Six-Eyes couldn't detect Cursed Energy through video recordings. "The Witch continues to deny us information about her cult. She is stubborn, but I shall break her in the Emperor's name. The fate of this system depends on my success; if we cannot find the cult members, then I will have no choice but to call on the Wolves of Fenris to cleanse this world, lest its corrupted spread. I pray that such a thing does not come to pass. Spiritual interrogation has not borne any fruit, thus far. I am hopeful that physical pain might be enough to pry her heretical mouth open. The Emperor Protects."
The man turned to the woman, who glared at him defiantly, and the feed suddenly ended.
"Interesting."
Six-eyes narrowed as he turned to the stack of discs.
AN: If you're interested in reading advanced chapters, then there are already three chapters (with more to come) on my Patr(eon). That said, this story will always be free and Patr(eon) is simply a means to read ahead of everyone else. After this one, I'll be updating once a week, every Friday. Hope you enjoy this chapter!