Challenger

"You're asking to die!"

Veins bulged on Miwa Seigen's forehead. He had dominated the black market for years—when had a shallow-rooted Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerer ever humiliated him like this?

"Hooktail, pierce him!"

The Burrowing Scorpion lurking behind Lu Ping received its command. Its eight short legs frantically clawed at the ground, its jet-black body turning into a blurred streak. Its emerald venom stinger, capable of paralyzing a Grade 1 Sorcerer's cursed energy, shot straight for Lu Ping's back with murderous fury.

Facing a hopeless pincer attack, Lu Ping's expression grew even calmer. This was exactly the moment he had been waiting for—the instant his opponent lost patience and made a move.

As long as he held out until Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto arrived, he would win.

...But that was the mindset of a loser.

Expectation bred complacency, and fear invited death.

Only battles fought on the razor's edge between life and death could improve one's jujutsu fastest!

Opportunities to fight a Grade 1 Curse User were rare. This was the perfect chance to test just how much damage his technique could inflict at its current maximum output!

"Crimson Shadow! Explode for me!!"

He did not choose to defend. Instead, in that instant, he poured every last bit of the mixed resentment forcibly squeezed out and devoured through the Three Corpses into the dark crimson beast already covered in cracks.

"Roar—!!"

The three-meter-long Crimson Shadow let out a shriek so piercing it was almost tearful.

At that moment, flames of cursed energy blazed within its six scarlet vertical pupils, while every bone spike along its back burst apart.

Ignoring the Burrowing Scorpion behind it, it transformed into a blazing dark crimson meteor with the tragic momentum of a creature charging to its death, and rammed headlong into the Ironhide Centipede and Miwa Seigen before it!

It was a mad act of completely detonating the very essence of the technique in a single instant!

As the technique's wielder, Lu Ping naturally knew that once a shikigami died completely, it could no longer be summoned. Its abilities could only be passed on to the next shikigami according to the established inheritance rules.

However, Crimson Shadow at this moment was not formed solely from its own cursed energy. It was also mixed with crude cursed energy converted through the Three Corpses from the negative emotions in the environment. In other words, this was—

Incomplete Shikigami Manifestation.

As long as the shikigami was not completely destroyed and still had a breath left in it, it could be summoned again!

That was also why, when Lu Ping had summoned Crimson Shadow earlier, he had ordered it to immediately bite off Shadow Wolf's head and store it in the Shadow Space.

"Rumble—!!"

An incomparably violent dark crimson blast erupted through the narrow alley, and the terrifying shockwave instantly tore several surrounding old wooden buildings into debris that filled the sky.

The destructive force churned up by that savage energy surge at its center had genuinely reached a level capable of threatening a Grade 1 Sorcerer's life!

"Damn it! This lunatic! Centipede, Ironclad Lotus! Defend!!"

Miwa Seigen had never imagined that this Grade 2 Jujutsu High student would flip the table and resort to self-destruction right from the start.

Faced with the oncoming threat of death, his expression changed drastically as he frantically manipulated his technique.

The four-meter-long Ironhide Centipede let out a shrill cry. Its massive body coiled layer upon layer in an instant, forming a huge steel sphere without a single blind spot and tightly protecting Miwa Seigen at its core.

And at the critical instant when the flames and terrifying explosion completely obscured everyone's vision—

Lu Ping hooked an arm around Ieiri Shoko's slender waist with his left hand. The shadows beneath his feet rippled violently at that moment like boiling ink.

"Sink!"

With no spare cursed energy left to maintain his form, Lu Ping took Shoko with him as his body tilted, sinking smoothly into the Shadow Space behind him as though falling into a bottomless abyss.

"Splash."

The shadow on the ground rippled with a ring of black waves, then swallowed both of them completely.

Inside the shadows was an absolutely silent, viscous void dimension without the slightest trace of air.

A powerful suffocating sensation surged into their brains like a tide, and both their faces soon gradually reddened from the lack of oxygen.

Lu Ping knew the Ten Shadows Technique's limitations very well. At his current level of cursed energy, forcibly bringing someone into the Shadow Space could only be maintained for a short three minutes at most.

If they did not emerge before then, they would suffocate to death.

But for Lu Ping, three minutes were already enough to complete this gamble.

"Boom—"

The aftershocks of the explosion outside gradually subsided, while thick smoke carrying a pungent burnt smell drifted everywhere.

"Click, click."

The layered coils of the Ironhide Centipede, "Centipede," slowly unfurled its charred body. This shikigami, known for its defensive power, had already had nearly half of the hard scales comparable to cursed tools blasted away, exposing flesh that continuously seeped dark green fluid. It looked utterly miserable.

Miwa Seigen, seated on the centipede's back, coughed several times in a wretched state. A flying shard of stone had grazed his temple, and a thin stream of blood slowly ran down his cheek.

"You bastard... you actually injured me!"

Miwa Seigen stared fixedly at the ground ahead, where a huge crater had been blasted open. His eyes were filled with almost twisted malice.

He had originally intended to use Hooktail to carve that arrogant brat into a limbless stump as soon as the explosion stopped. Yet when he expanded his senses and swept the entire area, he suddenly froze.

The crater was completely empty.

There were no bodies, no residual cursed traces, not even the faintest sound of fleeing footsteps.

Two living people had simply vanished into thin air.

Standing amid the charred ruins, Miwa Seigen closed his eyes and expanded his cursed energy perception to its limit.

A moment later, he abruptly opened them and stared at the lingering trace of unique cursed energy on the ground—heavy, dense, and viscous in texture—as well as the thick shadow that was still rippling.

As a veteran Grade 1 Curse User who had operated in the shadows for years, his knowledge far surpassed that of the lowly cannon fodder under his command.

A terrifying technique that could sink a physical body into shadows, command strange wolf-like shikigami, and unleash destructive power far beyond its current rank while still at Grade 2...

"Shadows... shikigami... spatial storage..."

Miwa Seigen's legs suddenly trembled, and an indescribable chill shot from the soles of his feet to the top of his skull.

"This, this is definitely not some ordinary shadow manipulation technique... This absolute high-tier performance... Could it be the terrifying technique passed down by the Zenin Clan of the Three Great Families for a thousand years, said to stand alongside the Six Eyes—[Ten Shadows Technique]?!"

At the thought of that possibility, dense cold sweat instantly seeped across Miwa Seigen's forehead.

Others might not recognize its value, but having once lived among jujutsu families, he knew all too well the weight behind this technique.

In the current Jujutsu World, what did it mean for someone of Zenin blood to awaken the Ten Shadows Technique?

It meant that this young man before him was very likely the Zenin Clan's designated next absolute ruler—the future clan head!

That ancient house, passed down for over a thousand years, not only possessed the enormous personal guard force known as the Kukuru Unit, made up of non-sorcerers, but also an elite corps of sorcerers that held absolute authority on the battlefield and in high-level meetings—Hei! It was a behemoth consisting of twenty to thirty registered Grade 1 and Grade 2 Sorcerers of terrifying strength.

To independent, unaffiliated Curse Users like them, the Zenin Clan was practically a minor court enthroned at the peak of the Jujutsu World, one that could not be defied!

Kill the Zenin Clan's future head?

What awaited him would be the endless, frenzied pursuit of the entire Japanese Jujutsu World. There would be nowhere for him to survive, no matter where he fled!

"Damn it, knowing too much has come back to bite me..." Miwa Seigen's expression shifted repeatedly.

Overwhelmed by shock and by the deep-rooted fear the Three Great Families inspired in him, he hesitated in place for a full three seconds.

And those brief three seconds made him lose his final chance to strike.

"Buzz."

The last lingering ripple of shadow on the ground abruptly stilled and completely merged into the boundless darkness around it.

The entrance had been completely sealed from within by Lu Ping.

Miwa Seigen clenched his teeth, his face livid.

He knew the two must still be hiding in some nearby crevice using the shadows' properties. If he patiently dug through the ground, he could definitely force out the pair once they reached the limit of holding their breath.

Yet the signal flare above him, which had been emitting a blazing white light not long ago, hung in his memory like the Sword of Damocles over his neck, frantically warning him.

A Grade 1 Curse User was certainly powerful, but before those true elite monsters at the pinnacle of Jujutsu High, he was not even qualified to meet their gaze.

Especially... the divine child of the Gojo Clan who had just awakened the Six Eyes in this generation.

"Retreat! Retreat immediately!"

Without any hesitation, the greed in Miwa Seigen's heart was completely worn away by fear in that instant.

He flipped off the centipede's back, reached down to grab the white-robed companion who had already gone into shock, hoisted him over his shoulder, and prepared to leap onto Centipede's back.

However, he was ultimately too slow.

"Boom—!!"

The seemingly indestructible black Curtain over the shrine was suddenly torn apart from directly above by a violent, unreasonable force!

A dazzling azure radiance abruptly lit up the previously dim night sky.