Grade 2 Cursed Spirit

The instant Naobito Zenin's palm touched Lu Ping's shoulder, the air seemed to freeze.

The rules of [Projection Sorcery] took effect immediately:

Anyone touched by the sorcerer's palm had to move in increments of 1/24th of a second. Failure would disrupt their movements and freeze them in place for one second.

Lu Ping's body stiffened instantly, locking him in place like a frozen image for one second.

However, before Naobito could pull back his force, a sticky resistance gripped the soles of his feet.

The shadows Lu Ping had spread earlier were like a swamp, clinging tightly to his cloth shoes.

Naobito's forward momentum suddenly shifted. He stumbled, swaying to one side.

With his technique activated, his body also paused for an instant.

The risk of Projection Sorcery was that planned movements could not be corrected halfway through. If one made a movement that disregarded physical laws and one's trajectory too severely, one would be frozen as well.

One second passed, and the immobilization was lifted.

Lu Ping used the opening to leap backward, putting two meters between them.

Naobito steadied himself but did not continue his attack. He looked at the young man before him, and a piercing gleam erupted from his clouded eyes.

"Good! Good! Good!"

Naobito said "good" three times in a row.

He had only meant to test Lu Ping and had not gone all out, but the gulf between a Grade 1 Sorcerer and a Grade 2 Sorcerer was even greater than that between a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit and a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit.

Not to mention that he was the battle-hardened head of the Zenin Clan.

He had imagined Lu Ping struggling to defend himself, but he had never expected the brat to turn the tables on him.

"Impressive." Naobito straightened up, his tense muscles relaxing. "After just a few days, you've developed your cursed energy senses to this extent. Sending you out for practical experience was the right call."

He handed over both the gift box and the jade box. "Take them. Now I can rest easy handing them over to you."

Lu Ping reached out to accept them, and his hands sank from their weight.

Naobito said nothing further. Together with Maki and Mai, he escorted Lu Ping all the way to the gates of the Zenin estate.

Watching Lu Ping's figure vanish at the end of the mountain path, Naobito stood beneath the eaves, untied the flask from his waist, and tipped back a mouthful.

The fiery liquor slid down his throat, but it could not suppress the tangled emotions in his heart.

Deep within the Zenin Clan's Cursed Tool Vault, genuine Special Grade Cursed Tools were indeed sealed away.

But for a Grade 2 Sorcerer to carry a Special Grade Cursed Tool on missions was like a child carrying gold through a crowded market.

While carrying out missions outside, he would undoubtedly be targeted by those bloodthirsty curse users.

A man was ruined by his wealth.

Without the strength of a Grade 1 Sorcerer, not only would he be unable to unleash a Special Grade Cursed Tool's full potential, he would instead invite disaster. The drawbacks far outweighed the benefits.

A breeze swept past, stirring several strands of white hair at Naobito's temples.

He could not help thinking of the Gojo Clan's "divine child," that monster born with the Eyes of the Azure Heavens. He did not need any cursed tool to strengthen himself at all.

Satoru Gojo himself was a Human Effigy Special Grade weapon.

"We're only human, after all..."

Looking at his callused palm, trembling faintly, Naobito muttered to himself.

He had not mastered the Reverse Cursed Technique. As he aged, both his physical abilities and cursed energy had declined far below their former peak.

Naobito took another sip of liquor, and bitterness spread through his mouth.

He hoped that before he died, he would see Lu Ping reach the realm of that monster, Satoru Gojo.

If that day truly came, the Zenin Clan might be able to walk toward a real future, and he could die without regrets.

On the mountain path, Lu Ping was hurrying along with his head lowered.

He did not know what the old clan head was thinking, but the Three Corpses within him keenly caught the emotional ripples coming from behind.

They were complex ripples mingled with sorrow, passion, and heavy anticipation.

Lu Ping tightened his grip on the gift box. He understood that becoming stronger as quickly as possible was the best way to repay that old man.

As he walked, he sorted through his current combat style in his mind.

Previously, he could only take an ordinary cursed tool dagger and engage his enemies in close combat, leaving him with limited options.

But now, with this new equipment, his tactics had undergone a qualitative leap.

Once battle began, he could summon shikigami to engage the enemy in close quarters out front, while his real body hid in the shadows using their concealment.

After opening up the distance, he could rely on the terrifying destructive power of the [Piercing Ox Horn Bow] for long-range sniping.

Finally, at the critical moment, he could use the one-time cursed tool [Nue's Feather] to deliver the decisive blow.

The details still need refining, but this is so much better than before.

Lu Ping felt exhilarated, and his steps became much lighter.

Before he realized it, he had reached a bustling district of Tokyo, with traffic flowing all around him.

A massive department store stood ahead. It was the very place where he had first summoned Shadow Wolf the day before yesterday.

Suddenly, Lu Ping came to an abrupt halt.

The Three Corpses inside him instantly stirred, and his cursed energy senses locked firmly onto an undisguised, violent aura.

A somewhat familiar ripple of cursed energy lay dormant atop the building.

The nature of that cursed energy was almost identical to that of the Semi-Grade 1 "Caterpillar" Cursed Spirit that Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto had effortlessly crushed the day before yesterday.

But their strengths were worlds apart. The one atop the building before him was, at most, a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit.

During that battle the day before yesterday, Lu Ping had personally shattered one of that Semi-Grade 1 Cursed Spirit's dozens of clones, so he remembered this aura vividly.

"How could it have been reborn so quickly?" Lu Ping frowned tightly.

Logically speaking, while the origin of a Cursed Spirit, as a conceptual existence, would not vanish forever, once it had been exorcised at a single point in time, it would usually take decades or even centuries to be nurtured anew by humanity's negative emotions.

For this Grade 2 Caterpillar to reappear after such a short time, there had to be more to it.

To investigate the matter, Lu Ping did not hesitate in the slightest.

He tore open the gift box and gripped the pitch-black [Piercing Ox Horn Bow] with both hands.

He bent his knees slightly, lowered his stance, and planted himself firmly. Cursed energy surged through his entire body like an enraged tide—every inch of muscle was reinforced.

Especially the hands gripping the bow's limbs: veins bulged across them as though he were wrestling a savage bull, exerting every ounce of strength just to subdue its violent resistance.

Man and bow became one. He slowly drew back the stringless bow, and between its massive horns, black cursed energy gathered madly, forming a shadow arrow that radiated an ominous aura.

"Thrum!"

At the absolute instant the shadow arrow was fired, Lu Ping vanished from where he stood, his entire body merging directly into the darkness carried by the arrow.

The next moment, the arrow formed of shadows tore through the sky with a shrill whistle, shooting toward the top of the building like lightning.

As the arrow soared, Lu Ping's figure appeared in midair. Gripping the longbow with both hands, he used the tremendous force of the charge to hang briefly in the air before firing an arrow.

A black beam pierced through the space on the top floor.

It nailed the Grade 2 Cursed Spirit, which had no time to react, firmly to the rooftop floor!