Under Control~

That night, at Jujutsu High's assembly point in Shibuya's residential district.

Shoko, Jujutsu High's medic, withdrew her cursed energy from the unconscious, poisoned assistant supervisor lying before her.

"The poison's been purged. Now he just needs a week of rest."

Having finished the treatment, she lit the cigarette hanging from her lips and turned her faintly dark-circled eyes toward the relieved Kiyotaka Ijichi.

"I've reported the situation here to the higher-ups. Reinforcements will arrive soon. I just hope Mr. Lin Ichiro can hold out a little longer."

Could Lin Yi hold out? He could hold out far too well.

Boom!

The Cursed Spirit's tentacles swung like steel whips, effortlessly smashing through concrete walls, yet they failed to hit Lin Yi as he darted and weaved through its attacks.

As he maneuvered, the twin pistols in Lin Yi's hands—"Ebony" and "Ivory"—fired together, aiming straight at the female curse user who had kept her distance from him. However, another Cursed Spirit standing before her blocked the shots.

The other Cursed Spirit beside her targeted Lin Yi's cover. Its human-faced mouth opened wide, spraying dozens of cursed-energy shells toward his position.

Lin Yi was straightforward about it. He ignored the shots that would miss and fired only at the cursed-energy shells certain to strike his cover.

Bullets wrapped in cursed energy collided with shells formed entirely from cursed energy. Explosions rang out without pause, and smoke and dust filled the air.

But Lin Yi did not relax. He merely used the smoke as cover to widen the distance between them once more.

Sorcerers did not observe the world with their eyes alone. Cursed-energy sensing was another method. Lin Yi knew very well that, under the passive camouflage effect of his technique, he looked like an underdeveloped Heavenly Tyrant—similar to Maki Zenin. He possessed cursed energy, but not much; far less than an ordinary person. His physical abilities were simply much better.

But in this residential district temporarily cleared out by Jujutsu High, that tiny bit of cursed energy was like a firefly in the dark, flickering visibly within the enemy's sensing range.

Whoosh!

Sure enough, the instant Lin Yi left his cover, a tentacle pierced through the smoke and struck where he had been. The spike at its end released an unknown corrosive liquid, dissolving the concrete the moment it hit.

Bang!

Lin Yi shot off the Cursed Spirit's tentacle, casually pocketed it, and widened the distance again.

Watching her shikigami repeatedly suffer losses at Lin Yi's hands, the female curse user's expression turned cold.

She expanded her cursed-energy sensing and watched the fluctuations belonging to Lin Yi within its range. With a thought, the three Cursed Spirits surrounding her vanished into the air and crept toward where Lin Yi was hiding, while she attempted to stall him with words.

"Mr. Ichiro, I'm actually quite curious about a man like you. Judging from your skills, you aren't really a sorcerer. Why involve yourself in the world of sorcerers?"

"Shouldn't you be answering that? Why are you so fixated on me? You even set me up with a fake job request. If I hadn't arrived late that day, I might've ended up like that girl—one of your test subjects."

"Mr. Ichiro truly lives up to the name City Hunter. Your mind is so sharp. But you saw what happened to that girl. She became a genuine sorcerer."

"And what was the price?"

The ones who answered in the female curse user's place were the three Cursed Spirits she had sent out. They emerged from the smoke and struck Lin Yi's hiding spot with thunderous force. Once her Cursed Spirits sent back confirmation that they had hit their target, the female curse user revealed herself as well.

She did not care what miserable state Lin Yi was in after such an attack. As long as he still had a breath left, it would do. Once she brought him back, the person behind her could heal Lin Yi with a single Reversed Cursed Technique.

But what she saw was not Lin Yi's body, but a section of tentacle previously shot off a Cursed Spirit, along with a phone still connected to a call.

Click!

The sound of a trigger being pulled rang out, followed by gunfire so rapid it nearly became a single line.

The female curse user reacted swiftly. The instant she heard movement behind her, she brought her three Cursed Spirits before her to shield her from the bullets fired from behind.

Sorcerers could reinforce their bodies with cursed energy and attain superhuman physical abilities and reactions, but that did not mean they could entirely ignore the damage caused by modern firearms or become invulnerable to blades and bullets.

If their cursed energy was insufficient, a single sniper round could very well kill a sorcerer. Attacks without cursed energy could not completely kill a sorcerer, though; instead, they might allow the sorcerer a second life as a Cursed Spirit. But that ugly form was certainly not something any sorcerer wanted.

Under Lin Yi's fingers, the bullets in the cursed-tool pistols Ebony and Ivory were fired dry. Sixteen cursed-energy-wrapped bullets formed a single line, tearing through the Cursed Spirits' defense and leaving a bloody mark across the female curse user's shoulder.

Feeling the stabbing pain in her shoulder, the female curse user laughed in fury.

"What an unexpected tactic, Mr. Ichiro. You injured me this way? If you were a sorcerer, you'd probably be very formidable. But you're out of bullets now, aren't you? This farce should be over."

Seeing that his smooth combo seemed to have enraged her, Lin Yi gave a little bear-like shrug, honestly tossed his twin pistols to the ground, and teased, "Heh, can we make peace?"

The female curse user did not answer. She merely withdrew the Cursed Spirits serving as her cover and removed the long whip hanging at her waist, seemingly intending to slowly torment Lin Yi, this crafty rat.

"Mr. Ichiro, you probably haven't looked into us sorcerers very closely. Sorcerers are generally divided into two types: those born with a sorcerer's brain structure and an Innate Cursed Technique, and those with a sorcerer's brain structure but no Innate Cursed Technique. I'm the former. My Innate Cursed Technique is called Tiger Ghost. Simply put, I select a target, make them experience absolute pain before they die, then kill them by means other than cursed energy and extract their soul to turn it into my shikigami.

Mr. Ichiro, your body is excellent. I think that if I turn you into my shikigami, that person will accept it too. After all, all she wants is your body, Mr. Ichiro. I..."

Certain that victory was hers, the female curse user openly explained the principles of her technique before Lin Yi. Lin Yi knew this method of explaining one's technique on the spot as Technique Disclosure.

Sorcerers could enhance the effects of their techniques by revealing their principles this way. Of course, their opponents might also learn those principles and defeat them.

But in the female curse user's eyes, Lin Yi, without his cursed-tool pistols to defend himself, was already hers for the taking no matter how strong his body was. There was no harm in Technique Disclosure.

Yet before she could finish revealing her technique, she felt her body growing heavier and heavier, her eyelids drooping.

Only then did she notice that the wound Lin Yi had inflicted on her shoulder was beginning to change color.

And on Lin Yi's raised palm, he produced a bag of Cursed Spirit blood as if performing a magic trick. It was the blood of her shikigami!

"You?"

The female curse user's face changed drastically. Before she could finish speaking, her eyes rolled back and she fell straight to the ground. The three shikigami Cursed Spirits around her also vanished into smoke and were drawn back into her body.

Lin Yi casually tossed away the anesthetic poison he had collected from the other side's shikigami Cursed Spirit tentacle, shoved both hands into his pockets, and wore a regretful expression.

"I knew it. You curse users are so used to steamrolling easy matches out in the shallow end that you never even consider the possibility of losing. Play too much PVE, and this is all you've got in PVP? Let this be a lesson. Let this be a lesson..."

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