Survivor

The mud beneath their feet glowed with a sickly green phosphorescence, evidence of cursed energy residue concentrated to a certain degree.

Lu Ping and Kamo Chitsubaki walked side by side into the village streets, and the sight around them made Chitsubaki's expression grow increasingly grim.

Beneath the low wooden houses by the roadside hung shadows like long snakes. They had no physical form, yet they constantly writhed through the air, making sticky hissing sounds.

By the ancient well at the village entrance, a bluestone slab had been overturned. A thick, scale-covered tail flashed past before withdrawing into the depths of the well, accompanied by a teeth-grating scrape of scales against the walls.

Smack.

Lu Ping stepped on the shattered bluestone slab, and black cursed energy residue immediately surged from the cracks like dried ink being stirred back to life.

The cold wind carried faint, intermittent sobbing. It drifted unpredictably through the air, impossible to tell whether it came from some intact wood shed or cellar.

"Most of the ordinary people are already dead."

Kamo Chitsubaki lowered her gaze to the dried dark-brown bloodstains near her feet, her voice as cold as ice.

"This place has now completely become a nest for cursed spirits."

As they ventured deeper, Lu Ping suddenly felt his heartbeat quicken.

He could clearly sense the Ten Shadows Technique within him beginning to stir strangely.

It was an intense resonance born from the instinct of his technique, as though some shikigami deep within the shadows was responding across a distance to the lingering Snake Sacrifice Ritual in this village.

It was the Great Serpent.

In the traditional Ten Shadows Technique, the Great Serpent was a massive shikigami skilled at devouring, biting, constricting, and crushing its prey.

Yet at that moment, Lu Ping felt his shadow growing as heavy as a mountain. Something was calling desperately to him, trying to break out from the shadow.

That call carried an ancient, chilling aura, blending perfectly with the air around them.

The edges of his shadow even began extending outward uncontrollably, turning into tiny black tendrils that greedily captured the stray residue in the air.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?" Kamo Chitsubaki keenly noticed Lu Ping's momentary pause.

She turned her head and looked at Lu Ping's utterly calm double pupils, her brows knotting tightly.

The intelligence gathered by the Kamo Clan, along with the curse user's public statement, indicated that Lu Ping's shikigami had suffered widespread damage in yesterday's battle at Hoshimi Shrine before ultimately self-destructing.

Under normal circumstances, the destruction of shikigami would inevitably place an enormous mental burden on a sorcerer, perhaps even leaving them unable to fight for a while.

"Don't force yourself here." Though Kamo Chitsubaki's voice remained cold and hard, she noticeably slowed her speech.

"If we really run into a powerful enemy later, stay in the rear and support me properly. Report anything immediately, and don't blindly charge ahead."

Lu Ping glanced at her and gave a slight nod.

Not only was he not weakened, but the surging resentment of the dead within this village had pushed his cursed energy to an unprecedented peak.

The Great Serpent's agitation was not caused by weakness. Rather, this environment was causing the construction of its technique to undergo some strange transformation.

"The cursed energy fluctuations inside the village are too chaotic. We need to investigate the village center, where the ritual originated."

Kamo Chitsubaki pressed the leather guard around her wrist and looked past the thick fog ahead. "Time is short. I originally wanted to..."

She had intended to suggest splitting up.

Lu Ping, whose eyesight was better and who excelled at long-range sniping, would search the outskirts for any possible survivors, while she would head straight for the ritual site in the village center. They could communicate through Jujutsu High signal flares.

However, before she could say it, the ground began shaking violently.

Rustle, rustle, rustle—

Countless dense scraping sounds erupted from the alleys on every side, the collapsed rooftops, and even the drainage ditches beneath their feet.

Several-meter-long black serpents slithered out from the thick fog.

Their bodies bore twisted human faces, and the stench they gave off instantly made the air feel thick and viscous.

"They're all Grade 2?!" Kamo Chitsubaki's pupils contracted sharply.

This was nothing like the ragtag mob of low-level Fly Heads from earlier.

A rough glance revealed that over half the black serpent tide pouring forth possessed Grade 2 cursed energy fluctuations.

At the very center of the serpent tide, a thick Snake King as wide as a water barrel slowly raised its body.

Three blood-red eyes sat on its forehead in a triangular formation, every one of them filled with cold brutality.

"Two... excellent... sacrifices..."

A rough, hoarse voice squeezed from the Snake King's gaping maw. As it exhaled dark green poisonous mist, it revealed that it had developed incomplete intelligence and could speak human words.

It was without question a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit.

Its three red eyes instantly locked onto Lu Ping and Kamo Chitsubaki at the street entrance.

To a monster born from the villagers' immense resentment and ancient faith, the abundant, pure cursed energy within these two Jujutsu High sorcerers was simply the finest living sacrifice to offer the ritual in the depths.

Boom!

Driven by the Snake King, the serpent tide surged forward like a black flood bursting through a dam.

The densely packed snake bodies forcibly cut off the street amid violent tremors, instantly swallowing the ground beneath their feet and separating them.

The battle erupted in an instant.

The Snake King swung its enormous body and leaped over the snakes, lunging straight at them.

Though the ambush came with terrifying speed, Lu Ping's superhuman senses, enhanced by the Three Corpses, allowed him to predict the Snake King's attack trajectory the instant it appeared. With a blur of motion, he brushed past it.

He and Kamo Chitsubaki exchanged a glance, both seeing the same meaning in the other's eyes—this was not the time to waste cursed energy.

"Watch yourself!" Kamo Chitsubaki called coldly.

The next instant, the blood in her body surged wildly like boiling magma, and a layer of dark red light faintly emerged over her skin.

[Blood Manipulation: Red Scale Surge]!

By precisely controlling her internal blood flow, body temperature, and red blood cell count, Kamo Chitsubaki's physical abilities instantly soared to their limit.

She did not retreat. Instead, borrowing that violent burst of power, she transformed into a streak of red light.

Her legs stamped deep craters into the ground as she charged forward, smashing apart several monstrous snakes blocking her path.

Amid black residue spraying through the air, she forced her way through the dense serpent tide toward the ritual site at the center of the village, leaving behind a straight crimson trail.

On the other side, Lu Ping's movements seemed exceptionally strange and elegant.

Facing the dozen or so monstrous snakes lunging at him, he did not even draw his longbow with any force. He merely swept his right hand casually.

Hum.

Several arrows formed purely from condensed shadow flew from his hand and struck the ruined walls on either side of him with perfect accuracy.

Thick shadows immediately spread across the walls, turning into bottomless black curtains.

Just before Lu Ping's charging body collided with the snakes, he bizarrely fell backward and slipped without obstruction into the shadow clinging to the wall.

Rip!

Dozens of monstrous snakes slammed viciously into the spot where he had been standing, shattering the hard bluestone slabs, but struck nothing.

By the time they turned their heads in confusion, Lu Ping had already completed a silent traversal through his absolute command over shadows with the Ten Shadows Technique.

He directly avoided the most terrifying frontal surge of the snake horde, slid out of the shadow cast by a collapsed window, and darted into another secluded alley.

Grayish-white fog filled that alley as well.

Lu Ping held his bow in one hand, and not a speck of mud stained his black Jujutsu High uniform.

He closed his eyes, released his suppression of the Three Corpses within him, and let every movement within a hundred meters feed back into his mind.

Through the senses enhanced by the Three Corpses, he sharply caught an extremely faint breath, so weak it was nearly stopped.

It came from beneath the ruins of a completely collapsed mud-brick house to his front left.

Lu Ping walked over and stopped before the pile of broken roof beams and heavy rubble.

He extended his left hand, his slender fingers gripping a granite slab weighing several hundred pounds, and released a slight burst of cursed energy.

Boom.

He casually flung the heavy stone slab aside as though he were tossing straw.

In a gap among the ruins lay a little girl of around seven or eight.

Her face was covered in black mud and dried blood, while her coarse cloth clothing was tattered beyond recognition.

Most horrifying was her left leg, pinned beneath a thick roof beam. Her entire lower leg was bent at a grotesque, alarming angle.

Her bone had clearly broken, and she had fallen unconscious from the intense pain and excessive blood loss.

Lu Ping crouched down with an indifferent expression.

He reached out with both hands and swiftly, precisely tore off a relatively clean strip of cloth from his own clothes.

Then he gripped the broken lower leg and exerted a little force.

Crack.

The displaced bone was forcibly set back into place.

Lu Ping used several scattered wooden strips as splints, then used the cloth to simply secure the girl's wound and apply pressure.

Though he did not possess a miracle like the Reverse Cursed Technique, capable of restoring flesh to bare bones, treating an external injury of this degree was merely something he could do in passing.

As he dressed the wound, the cold residue that had condensed around them from fear continuously flowed into Lu Ping's body. The Three Corpses rapidly converted it into pure energy, leaving his hands completely steady as he worked.

"Ah... ngh..."

The intense pain made the unconscious little girl suddenly open her eyes. They were eyes full of terror and confusion.

She stared blankly at the cold-faced young man before her, dressed in a strange black uniform.

There was no joy at being rescued, nor did she thank the person who had saved her.

Once she saw the fires and thick fog filling the surroundings, the little girl seemed to remember something utterly terrifying. Her entire body began shaking violently, and tears burst from her eyes like a breached flood.

"It's me... it's my fault... I should have been this year's sacrifice..."

The girl's voice was hoarse and despairing. "It's because I was scared and ran away... that the Snake God became angry... it's punishing us..."

"Everyone... everyone died because of me... I got Father and Mother killed... it's all my fault..."

Lu Ping watched her silently. He neither comforted her nor stopped her wailing.

She needed this emotional release.

Sensing the utterly pure despair and guilt, the Three Corpses inside him began pounding wildly as they absorbed the black curse emanating from the little girl.

Lu Ping looked outside, wary of cursed spirits that might be drawn by her negative emotions and crying, and calculated inwardly.

A sacrifice who ran away.

An enraged Snake God.

It seemed the truth behind this so-called Major Gas Leak Incident was far darker and more twisted than the intelligence held by Jujutsu High Headquarters.

This seemingly isolated Snakebone Village had likely concealed some bloody sacrificial ritual all along.

And the so-called Snake God was probably a collection of curses that had been worshipped for years through the superstition and fear of the entire village, only to completely lose control overnight.

Before he could think further, a sudden change occurred.

Rumble—

From the direction of the village center in the distance came a world-shaking explosion.

A violent crimson blast of cursed energy tore through vast swathes of gray mist and shot into the sky!