Underhanded Tactics +1

Intuition differed from cognition. Rather than wondering whether this was all just his imagination, he only needed to run a simple test now.

Kana Shizumi stepped out of the basement, looked around briefly, and finally found a suitable target.

A gray Cursed Spirit perched on a tree trunk not far away.

It resembled a fly, but it was as large as a five-year-old child. It didn't look aggressive, but if it latched onto someone for long enough, it could easily affect the victim's mind.

Tch, looks like I'm swatting flies today.

Kana Shizumi turned slightly sideways and silently raised his right hand.

Cursed energy stirred, flowed, and took shape.

Before it fully formed, Kana Shizumi deliberately guided the cursed energy around his left shoulder once.

Then... he distinctly sensed a change.

The blood sphere gathered at the tip of his right index finger began spinning at a visible speed, gradually turning a duller shade.

If the blood extracted through Crimson Blood Manipulation had originally been bright, carrying a sense of freshness, then this newly extracted portion exuded a gloomy, restrained aura from within and without.

Simply put—

This stuff looked poisonous at a glance...

Though theoretically, the blood of half-human, half-Cursed Spirit beings couldn't coexist with that of ordinary humans. Like Kana Shizumi and Choso, their blood possessed a certain degree of invasive properties.

But the blood Kana Shizumi had extracted now had clearly undergone a further change.

What exactly was the reason behind it?

He couldn't find an answer for now, so after taking aim, he made a firing gesture without hesitation.

Crimson Blood Manipulation: Blood Arrow.

As a technique Kana Shizumi had created himself, he understood this attack method better than any other.

He could easily adjust its power, speed, conversion efficiency... literally customizing its settings within a certain range.

Whoosh... crack!

Like a bullet, the Blood Arrow shot out and struck the fly Cursed Spirit squarely in the body.

The flesh around its abdomen was instantly torn apart and pierced through. Like a startled horse, it let out a wail and took off... its wings beat frantically as it shot more than ten meters away in the blink of an eye.

Yet it quickly "crashed."

Kana Shizumi watched it fall like a kite with its string cut, finally slamming headfirst into the school's athletic field.

He walked over slowly and watched the fly Cursed Spirit struggle and wriggle, leaving a twisted trail of dark purple blood behind it.

"As expected..."

Kana Shizumi leaned back slightly, his expression one of understanding.

He hadn't aimed for a vital spot from the start. Cursed Spirits weren't like humans; even when injured, their movements shouldn't have been hindered.

But that wasn't the case here...

The fly Cursed Spirit's body kept convulsing, as though its central nervous system had been attacked. Its entire body began trembling uncontrollably.

The poisonous blood of half-human, half-Cursed Spirit beings had no effect on these things, but this reaction... clearly had nothing to do with Crimson Blood Manipulation itself.

Kana Shizumi moved closer. Before he could even crouch down, he heard a series of short, sticky sounds.

Pop, pop-pop-pop...

Its compound eyes, back, and head.

Every visible part of its body split open one after another, oozing tiny beads of blood.

Soon... a thick layer of blood appeared over the fly Cursed Spirit's body, completely covering its surface.

Gurgle... gurgle...

After a final bout of convulsions, it stopped struggling.

It was dead.

Kana Shizumi silently reached out, trying to lightly touch its body.

Then...

As if shocked by electricity, Kana Shizumi pulled his right hand back slightly and held his fingers before his eyes for inspection.

The pad of his finger had split open.

Literally—like it had been cut apart by something sharp, flesh and skin separated, leaving an incredibly smooth curve along the wound.

As the fly Cursed Spirit died, its body gradually scattered and vanished. After it disappeared completely... Kana Shizumi saw some glittering fragments scattered in front of him.

Under the moonlight, they shimmered brilliantly, yet were extremely fine.

Kana Shizumi silently crouched halfway down and tried pressing his right hand toward them... though this time, he wrapped his palm in cursed energy.

He briefly examined what he had picked up in his palm, and soon, a subtle expression appeared on his face.

"This is..."

Some extremely sharp fragments.

The material was unknown, but the test just now made one thing clear... this stuff was absurdly sharp.

And there were an absurd number of them. If scaled proportionally, the fly Cursed Spirit's body had probably been stuffed full of these things.

No wonder it was bleeding all over.

If your body were stuffed full of blade-like things like these, wouldn't you bleed?!

Of course, jokes aside, the important part was something else.

After weighing the fragments in his hand and thinking for a moment, Kana Shizumi looked toward his left shoulder.

If he wasn't mistaken, this was probably the special ability brought by the Abyss-Severing Blade.

"It can enhance my technique by mixing these blade-like substances into my blood..."

Following that line of reasoning, the change in his blood's color earlier was most likely because some "fresh material" had been mixed into it.

Once it entered an opponent's body, these substances—about as thin as glass fibers yet incredibly sharp—could pierce through the body from within, producing a multi-point burst effect.

That was impressive.

Turning someone into a literal blood-soaked figure was one thing.

More importantly, it caused internal damage to the target—after all, these tiny fragments could further cut up their internal organs, inflicting even more damage.

That's really underhanded.

Kana Shizumi couldn't help clicking his tongue.

Though theoretically, the poisonous blood of half-human, half-Cursed Spirit beings had the advantage of being impossible to heal with Reverse Cursed Technique, the Abyss-Severing Blade's fragment attack carried more of an impossible-to-guard-against quality.

Even against an enemy with Reverse Cursed Technique, the information gap made it easy to give them a vicious hit!

At that thought, a thoroughly satisfied expression naturally appeared on Kana Shizumi's face.

There was practically nothing to criticize.

All he had to do was compare it horizontally with the Sky-Covering Jade... that thing had merely gained an insignificant flying ability, while this one had gained a much more useful means of "ambushing" opponents.

And the increase of five points in cursed energy output was equally obvious. Like that Blood Arrow just now, Kana Shizumi had deliberately restrained it, yet it still produced an effect like a bullet.

Thinking of that, Kana Shizumi couldn't help letting out a long breath and nodding slightly.

This trip hadn't been in vain...