Peak Level One, Rhinoceros Curse Spirit

Mahito waved a hand, and dozens of cursed spirits below Grade 1 swarmed forward.

A red gleam flashed in Lin Mu's eyes as he gripped all ten shuriken in his hands.

"HAHAHA, what is that, a toy?" Mahito clutched his stomach and laughed. "Can something that small even scratch a cursed spirit's skin?"

Lin Mu said nothing. He flung both hands outward with force, sending all ten shuriken flying.

However, Lin Mu's targets were not the cursed spirits, but the surrounding walls.

The ten shuriken flashed coldly as they shot through the gaps between the cursed spirits and struck the walls with crisp clangs.

"Ahahaha, are you here to entertain me?" Mahito simply lay on the ground and rolled around this time. "You can't even hit anything from this close. With your level, you still dared to come save someone?"

Nanami silently adjusted his sunglasses. Lin Mu's move truly left him dumbfounded.

He had hoped Lin Mu's cursed tools would produce some unexpected effect and create an opportunity to escape.

Who would have thought he would miss every single shot? It was hard not to suspect that he had done it on purpose.

A faster Grade 3 cursed spirit charged in front of Nanami. Just as Nanami was about to exorcise it—

A black flash streaked past in an instant!

A clean hole appeared in the cursed spirit's forehead.

Nanami's heart jolted. In that fleeting instant, the corner of his eye had caught that black flash.

It was one of the cursed tools Lin Mu had thrown earlier!

"Teacher, it's better if you don't move." Lin Mu's gaze was calm as he stared straight at Mahito beyond the cursed spirits.

Nanami also noticed the anomaly. The cursed tools Lin Mu had thrown had not disappeared; they were continuously ricocheting back and forth off the surrounding walls!

The collision sounds, like those of a typewriter, grew increasingly dense, while the shuriken's power continued to rise!

SPLURT—

Another black flash streaked by, and a cursed spirit on the outskirts turned to ash.

SPLURT, SPLURT—

The sound of sharp blades cutting through flesh rang out incessantly. The cursed spirits surrounding them died faster and faster!

Within a radius of five meters, countless black flashes ruthlessly harvested the cursed spirits' lives.

The cursed tools Lin Mu had thrown were not only colliding with the walls—they were constantly colliding with each other as well.

This made their positions extremely difficult to predict. Some cursed spirits exhausted all their strength dodging the black flashes coming from the front, only to have their bodies pierced by black flashes shooting in from behind.

Nanami's heart gradually filled with shock. "What incredible technique!"

"He can kill so many cursed spirits with a single attack! And those cursed tools won't stop?"

Mahito quickly noticed something was wrong as well. The cursed tools he had mocked for being unable to even scratch a cursed spirit's skin were effortlessly piercing through their bodies!

His smile vanished. He knew he could not let Lin Mu keep slaughtering them like this.

At Mahito's signal, the Grade 1 cursed spirit that had appeared earlier slowly moved its body.

It was an armadillo-like cursed spirit, wrapped in layers of hard shells.

Only a few parts of its body were exposed.

After letting out a strange roar from its humanlike face, it charged at Lin Mu, intending to break through his offensive with its hard shell.

Even if it could not kill him, it had to disrupt the rhythm of those bizarre cursed tools.

Lin Mu smiled disdainfully. That Grade 1 cursed spirit's shell was indeed hard. After ricocheting an average of twenty times, the shuriken's power had tripled.

In other words, each ricochet increased its damage by nearly ten percent.

The reason he had not directly attacked the cursed spirits with shuriken earlier was because their power had not been sufficient, and he had also wanted to exorcise them more efficiently.

As for why he did not use Majestic Destroyer Flame, unleashing such a powerful ninjutsu in a cramped sewer would definitely cause the entire area to collapse.

With their current accumulated power, the shuriken truly could not break through this cursed spirit's defenses.

But why did he need to keep aiming at those shells?

There were extremely narrow gaps where the cursed spirit's shells joined together, only a few tenths of a millimeter wider than Lin Mu's shuriken.

Even the slightest deviation would prevent them from passing through.

But for Lin Mu, who possessed the Sharingan, that was already enough.

The shuriken that had ricocheted around twenty times had also reached their limit. Lin Mu estimated that after thirty ricochets at most, they would completely lose their momentum.

It was impossible to kill this cursed spirit through the shuriken's ricochets alone.

But Lin Mu had a way to alter their trajectories while preserving their accumulated number of ricochets—and make their speed increase instead of decrease!

At a thought from Lin Mu, his Sharingan became even redder and more brilliant. The rapidly flying shuriken seemed to slow down.

Under the Sharingan's observation, the trajectories of all ten shuriken became clear.

The next second, Lin Mu suddenly swung his hand, and a kunai shot out explosively.

It collided with two shuriken that were about to strike each other in midair.

The immense force instantly deflected the trajectories of the two shuriken, accelerating them once more until they were nearly as fast as when they had first been thrown.

"Clang! Clang! Clang—"

The loud, continuous collisions gradually drew closer to the moving cursed spirit.

The twice-accelerated shuriken ricocheted rapidly back and forth off the walls, quickly stacking up to five times the damage!

"Splurt—"

Suddenly, the cursed spirit's expression twisted horribly as two black flashes shot viciously through its narrow slit and into its body.

The spinning shuriken shredded its internal organs into a bloody pulp. In mere seconds, the Grade 1 cursed spirit turned to ash.

It was exorcised before it could even enter the range of Lin Mu's cursed tools!

Nanami was too stunned to speak. Even the hand adjusting his glasses was trembling slightly.

Anyone who witnessed such an unbelievably skillful battle would have been just as shocked and shaken as he was!

Mahito's expression also lost its earlier teasing mockery and turned grave.

Of the more than fifty cursed spirits Kenjaku had given him, nearly all had died. Only one peak Grade 1 cursed spirit remained.

He had never expected Lin Mu to wipe out so many cursed spirits with just a few small cursed tools!

His feet had not even moved.

"There's something strange about those cursed tools!"

After the surrounding cursed spirits had been pierced through and killed one by one by the shuriken, Lin Mu recalled them all.

More than fifty Grade 2 and Grade 3 cursed spirits, along with one Grade 1 cursed spirit, had provided him with less than 2% inheritance progress.

The further he went, the more deeply Lin Mu felt how difficult it was to raise his inheritance progress.

At this point, the only way to significantly increase it was to exorcise Special Grade cursed spirits or slaughter ordinary cursed spirits in large numbers.

Lin Mu cast aside those unimportant thoughts and focused on Mahito and the remaining cursed spirit.

Nanami also snapped out of his shock. With no more shuriken flying wildly around, he could move much more easily.

He raised his wrist and checked his watch. It was exactly six o'clock.

"Let's work a little overtime today."

"I can't let the junior take all the glory."

For some reason, Nanami exuded an air of resentment—the resentment of an office worker—as his cursed energy rapidly rose.

"Let's go together."

After Lin Mu's earlier performance, Nanami no longer regarded him as a newcomer.

To exorcise so many cursed spirits in such a short time, whether it was due to cursed tools or not, Lin Mu's strength had earned his recognition.

And judging from what he had just shown, Lin Mu was fully capable of handling this mission.

Mahito laughed and shouted, "You're only relying on cursed tools! Stop putting on airs!"

Cursed energy surged wildly as Mahito flung several pebble-sized objects from his hand.

They rapidly expanded in midair, eventually turning into humanoid cursed spirits that flew toward them.

The other peak Grade 1 cursed spirit also launched its attack. Its entire body was as hard as steel, with a long horn growing from its head. Like an upright rhinoceros, it charged at them.

Without another word, Lin Mu rushed straight forward.

"Lin Mu! Don't let your guard down! That stitched-face cursed spirit has a very unusual ability!"

Nanami had gone through some unpleasant experiences, so he remained sufficiently cautious under all circumstances.

Yet Lin Mu's next move changed his mind. With just a slight shift of his body, Lin Mu dodged the humanoid cursed spirits in midair.

A silver gleam flashed. The kunai bloomed into beautiful silver flowers amid the humanoid cursed spirits, painlessly sending them to their graves.

"Boom! Boom! Boom—"

Having dealt with the humanoid cursed spirits, the rhinoceros cursed spirit arrived with thunderous footsteps, its long horn thrusting toward Lin Mu.

Although this cursed spirit possessed absurd physical abilities, with strength and defense reaching Special Grade standards, its concentrated, explosive attack also faintly reached the Special Grade level!