第30章 加茂家的一级术师

The crimson blood arrow sliced through the air, neatly severing the web of intertwined cursed energy threads.

A violent gust howled through the narrow pipe, filling the air with a thick, metallic stench.

In his pocket, the phone that had been ringing incessantly suddenly fell silent.

The glow of the screen went out, and the underground sewer sank back into darkness.

Tap, tap.

Steady, crisp footsteps sounded from the far end of the corridor.

Heavy black combat boots stepped into the muddy water, producing a rhythmic series of dull thuds.

The newcomer walked slowly, unhurriedly emerging from the depths of the darkness.

She was a tall woman.

She wore a modified black Jujutsu High uniform. Her neat black hair was tied into a high ponytail behind her head, swaying slightly in the air with every step.

Her face was pale, and her sharp gaze cut through the layers of mist like a blade, instantly locking onto Mitarai Shizuru in the distance.

She raised her slender right hand, several wisps of crimson blood still lingering at her fingertips.

"A Grade 1 Sorcerer fighting a Grade 2 Sorcerer really is a little unfair."

She tilted her head, her ponytail tracing an arc through the air. Her voice rang especially clearly through the empty underground tunnel.

"Count me in as well."

Lu Ping stood where he was and relaxed slightly.

He looked at the blood aura swirling around her fingertips and sensed the thick, heavy, overwhelmingly oppressive fluctuations of cursed energy. He immediately reached a conclusion.

This was not ordinary cursed energy discharge.

It was a technique that used one's own blood as a medium, compressing and controlling it to the limit through cursed energy.

The inherited technique of the Kamo Clan, one of the Three Great Families—Crimson Blood Manipulation.

The woman before him was a genuine Grade 1 Sorcerer.

Lu Ping's gaze swept over the insignia at her collar, his expression remaining calm.

Sorcerers raised by the Three Great Families were fundamentally different from unaffiliated sorcerers.

There might occasionally be one or two extraordinarily gifted geniuses among unaffiliated sorcerers, but after a thousand years of inheritance, the Three Great Families had long established an extremely efficient system for developing their core techniques, allocating combat resources, and accumulating experience against curses.

At the same grade, a Grade 1 Sorcerer from the Three Great Families meant a higher ceiling, a higher floor, and more trump cards.

That kind of foundation was far beyond what a Grade 1 Curse User hiding underground through underhanded means could rival.

Sensing her gaze, Mitarai Shizuru's expression changed completely.

He stared fixedly at the cursed energy net that had been sliced in two by the blood-red gleam.

He had expended a great deal of cursed energy and used the terrain to construct that absolute stronghold.

Yet in her hands, it had not even lasted a single move.

As a seasoned Curse User who had lived for over forty years, Mitarai Shizuru had survived until now not by bravado, but by an almost animalistic instinct for danger.

The newcomer's cursed energy was unfathomably deep, and her technique naturally countered his Binding Spirit Lock.

Blood flowed faster than his threads and possessed greater destructive power.

"Someone from the Kamo Clan..."

Mitarai Shizuru's voice was hoarse as the runes on the surface of his black iron gloves instantly dimmed.

He did not leave behind any threats, nor did he spare Lu Ping another glance.

The instant his stronghold collapsed, his massive body slid sharply backward using the lingering shadows within the pipes.

Boom!

A dense cloud of black mist erupted beneath his feet, mixed with rotten mud and water, instantly swallowing his figure.

By the time the airflow blew the black mist away, a vent above the tunnel had already been shattered apart by brute force, and Mitarai Shizuru's presence was more than a hundred meters away.

He had fled with extreme decisiveness.

The woman with the high ponytail looked in the direction where Mitarai Shizuru had vanished, but did not choose to pursue him.

This was a maze of interconnected underground pipes. Blindly chasing a Grade 1 Curse User skilled at concealment would not only waste her blood for nothing, but could also lead her into one of his unknown traps.

She withdrew her gaze, turned around, and looked at Lu Ping.

"Lu Ping, so you were here."

She looked Lu Ping over from head to toe. Seeing no obvious wounds on him, the coldness in her eyes faded slightly.

The two of them had met several times around Jujutsu High before.

"I'm Kamo Chitsubaki, a third-year Grade 1 Sorcerer at Jujutsu High," she introduced herself in a steady voice.

"I came to investigate a case involving a suspected cursed spirit attack on female high school students. I tracked the residuals all the way through this drainage system, and I didn't expect to find this scene after following the commotion."

Lu Ping nodded slightly. "I also tracked a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit here, then got attacked by a Curse User."

Kamo Chitsubaki raised an eyebrow slightly, then smiled in understanding.

"It's normal for unexpected situations to arise during missions. You have to learn to protect yourself."

"When I was getting routine treatment from Shoko the day before yesterday, she specifically asked me to keep an eye on you, so Jujutsu High's young fighters wouldn't get themselves killed before they had the chance to grow."

"Thanks for the concern." Lu Ping put away the horn bow and replied blandly.

"Enough catching up for now." Kamo Chitsubaki turned toward the direction Mitarai Shizuru had fled, as well as the dark room farther inside where faint light leaked out.

"There's something strange about this place. The bloody smell in the air is too mixed up. It doesn't seem like it came from cursed spirits—it smells more like human blood."

Lu Ping continued, "If I'm not mistaken, there's a Pan Star Religious Group base inside. It seems to be conducting some kind of experiment."

"The Pan Star Religious Group... that gathering of fanatical ordinary people?" Kamo Chitsubaki's gaze turned cold.

"Looks like they've finally reached into a field they should never have touched. Come on, let's take a look."

The two walked side by side toward the dark room deep within the pipes.

The air grew increasingly damp, while the fluorescent lights overhead emitted a buzzing electrical hiss.

After breaking the Curtain's blockade, the place's true appearance was completely exposed before them.

They pushed open the iron door that had been blasted apart by Nue's Feather, and the scene within the dark room came clearly into view.

At the center stood a cold steel operating table. Dark red bloodstains had dried upon it in layer after layer, giving off a nauseating stench.

The metal shelves along the walls were lined with densely packed glass containers, each filled with formaldehyde-soaked, mutilated limbs and mutated tissue.

A large number of yellowed documents lay scattered across the floor, each bearing the black seal of the Time Vessel Association.

Kamo Chitsubaki walked to the table and casually picked up several scattered pages.

They recorded extensive experimental data, all concerning how external stimulation might be used to awaken cursed energy in ordinary people.

The lines were filled with cold anatomical terminology and shockingly high mortality rates.

"Long-term biological experiments on human subjects... Were the attacks on female high school students also meant to replenish their experimental materials...?"

Kamo Chitsubaki's fingers tightened slightly, crumpling the documents in her hand.

"What a bunch of cockroaches hiding in the dark. This evidence is enough to make those old fools in Jujutsu High's upper ranks sit up and take notice. Take every document we can carry. We need to submit a detailed mission report when we return."

Lu Ping crouched down, sorted several core experiment logs, and stored them in his shadow space without any haste.

As Kamo Chitsubaki cleared the scene, she watched Lu Ping from the corner of her eye.

Ever since they had entered, the boy's emotions had not fluctuated in the slightest.

Whether he was facing the life-or-death threat of a Grade 1 Curse User or witnessing such a horrific experimental site, he had remained far too calm.

So calm that he did not seem like a teenager.

"Hey, Lu Ping." Kamo Chitsubaki leaned against the damaged wall, her arms folded across her chest.

"Outside just now, I saw the corpses of three Grade 2 Curse Users. One had been smashed into a wall, one had his heart blasted apart from the front, and the last one... had his head blown apart by an arrow."

She paused, her gaze sharp. "Did you take down all three of them by yourself?"

Lu Ping zipped up his backpack, rose to his feet, and calmly met her gaze.

"Lucky."

Kamo Chitsubaki took a deep breath. She had personally examined those three corpses.

The cursed energy lingering around the fatal wounds had been incredibly violent. That pure destructive force and extreme long-range accuracy were not something an ordinary Grade 2 Sorcerer could achieve.

What was more, the three Curse Users had been killed in succession within an extremely short span of time, barely putting up any meaningful resistance.

"Without using the Ten Shadows shikigami, you relied solely on that cursed tool bow to kill three opponents of the same grade in consecutive combat."

Kamo Chitsubaki looked at Lu Ping and spoke slowly.

"Looks like Shoko wasn't exaggerating. Your combat ability is fully worthy of applying to Jujutsu High for a Semi-Grade 1 evaluation. At your age, there are only a handful of people in the entire jujutsu world who could do this. If we had to rank the current Grade 2 Sorcerers..."

She straightened up, walked before Lu Ping, and said each word distinctly, "Calling you the strongest Grade 2 right now would not be an exaggeration."

Lu Ping's expression did not change. He merely said, "Not enough."

Against a monster of Grade 1, he still did not have a guaranteed chance of victory.

"Tch. You're really no fun. Would it kill you to be a little proud?"

Kamo Chitsubaki looked at his indifferent face and suddenly sighed.

Then her body swayed, and she had to press half her weight against the wall before she could steady herself again.

"That Piercing Blood I used to make such a stylish entrance seems to have been a little too much."

Lu Ping tilted his head slightly and looked at her somewhat weakened profile. "Anemia?"

"Yeah. A hereditary Kamo Clan problem. Every time I use too much blood, my blood sugar drops."

Kamo Chitsubaki weakly rubbed her temples and gave Lu Ping a curious glance.

The Zenin Clan's future heir probably isn't that poor, right?

Forget it. I'll just have him treat me to a meal to even things out. Shoko recently said a new beef hotpot restaurant opened in Shinjuku, and it's supposed to be pretty good.

Having made up her mind, Kamo Chitsubaki cleared her throat and spoke.

"Ahem. I just saved your life from a Grade 1 Curse User, so by all rights, you have to treat me to a huge meal this afternoon. I want meat—lots and lots of meat. I need to replenish the blood and blood sugar I lost, understand?"

Lu Ping smelled the faint metallic scent on her body and knew that she had indeed shed that blood to help him.

Although he had just spent quite a bit of money buying oxygen tanks, treating her now would undoubtedly be a major expense. Still, he nodded in agreement.

"Okay."