Survivor

The mud beneath their feet glowed with a sickly green phosphorescence, a sign that the residual cursed energy had grown dense to a certain extent.

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 snake-like shadows. They had no physical form, yet they writhed constantly in the air, giving off sticky hissing sounds.

Beside the ancient well at the village entrance, a blue stone slab had been overturned. A thick, scale-covered tail flashed past before retracting into the depths of the well, accompanied by the teeth-grinding scrape of scales against the well wall.

Smack.

Lu Ping stepped onto the shattered blue stone slab. Black cursed-energy residue immediately spurted from the cracks like dried ink being stirred back to life.

The cold wind carried intermittent crying, drifting uncertainly from some intact woodshed or cellar.

"Most of the ordinary people are already dead."

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

"This place has now completely become a cursed spirit's nest."

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

He could clearly sense an unusual restlessness stirring within the Ten Shadows Technique in his body.

It was an intense resonance born from the technique's instincts, as if some shikigami deep within the shadows were responding from afar 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 in devouring, biting, constricting, and crushing its prey.

Yet now, Lu Ping felt as though his shadow had become as heavy as a mountain. Something was frantically calling to him, trying to burst out of the shadows.

That call carried an ancient, chilling presence that blended perfectly with the air here.

The edges of his shadow even began stretching outward uncontrollably, turning into tiny black tendrils that greedily captured the residual filth drifting through the air.

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

She turned her head and looked at Lu Ping's utterly placid double-pupiled eyes, her brows drawing tightly together.

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 during yesterday's battle at Hoshimi Shrine before finally self-destructing.

By conventional understanding, the destruction of shikigami would inevitably place an enormous mental burden on a sorcerer, possibly even leaving them incapable of fighting for some time.

"Don't force yourself here." Kamo Chitsubaki's voice remained cold and firm, but she noticeably slowed her pace.

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

Lu Ping glanced at her and nodded slightly.

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

The Great Serpent's unrest was not caused by weakness. Rather, the environment here was causing the technique's construction to undergo some bizarre 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 dense fog ahead. "Time is tight. I originally wanted to..."

She had intended to suggest splitting up.

Lu Ping, with his sharper eyesight and skill at long-range sniping, would search the outskirts for possible survivors, while she would head alone for the ritual site at the village center and contact him using Jujutsu High signal flares.

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

Rustle, rustle, rustle—

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

Black serpentine monsters several meters long slithered out from the thick fog.

Twisted human faces grew on their bodies, and the stench they emitted instantly made the air feel viscous.

"They're all Grade Twos?!" Kamo Chitsubaki's pupils abruptly contracted.

This was nothing like the rabble of weak Fly Heads from before.

A rough glance showed that more than half the black tide of snakes pouring out possessed Grade Two cursed-energy fluctuations.

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

Three blood-red eyeballs were arranged in a triangular pattern on its forehead, every one of them filled with cold brutality.

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

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

It was a genuine Grade One cursed spirit.

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

To this monster born from the villagers' immense resentment and ancient faith, the abundant and pure cursed energy within these two Jujutsu High sorcerers was the finest living sacrifice it could offer to the ritual deeper within.

Boom!

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

The dense serpent bodies forcibly cut off the street amid the earth-shaking tremors, instantly flooding the ground beneath them and violently scattering the two apart.

Battle erupted in an instant.

The Snake King swung its massive body and leaped over the snake swarm, lunging straight at Lu Ping.

Although the ambush came with extreme speed, Lu Ping's superhuman five senses, strengthened by the Three Corpses, let him predict its attack trajectory the instant it appeared. With a flicker of movement, he brushed past it.

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

"Watch yourself!" Kamo Chitsubaki shouted coolly.

The next moment, the blood in her body surged like boiling lava, and a dark-red glow faintly emerged across the surface of her skin.

[Crimson Blood Manipulation: Red Scale Surge]!

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

She did not retreat. Instead, using that explosive force, her entire body became a streak of red light.

Her legs stamped deep craters into the ground as she charged forward in broad, forceful strides, smashing apart several monster snakes blocking her way.

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

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

Facing the dozen or so monster snakes lunging toward him, he did not even draw his longbow's string with any force. He merely brushed his right hand casually.

Hum.

Several arrows formed purely from shadows flew from his hand, pinning themselves precisely into the ruined walls on either side of him.

Dense shadows instantly spread across the walls, turning into a bottomless black curtain.

The instant before Lu Ping's charging body collided with the snake swarm, he eerily fell backward, his entire body merging without obstruction into the shadows clinging to the wall.

Rip!

Dozens of monster snakes slammed hard into the ground where he had been standing, shattering the solid blue stone paving, but they struck nothing.

When they turned their heads in confusion, Lu Ping had already completed a silent passage through the shadows with his absolute control over them through the Ten Shadows Technique.

He directly avoided the snake swarm's most terrifying frontal charge, slipped out from the shadow of a collapsed window, and darted into another secluded alley.

Gray-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 sent every movement within a hundred meters back into his mind.

In the world perceived through the Five Senses enhanced by the Three Corpses, he sharply caught an extremely faint breath, nearly stagnant.

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 beams and heavy rubble.

He extended his left hand, his long fingers gripping a granite slab weighing several hundred pounds, then let out a slight burst of cursed energy.

Boom.

He casually tossed the heavy slab aside as though it were a bundle of straw.

In the gap beneath the rubble lay a little girl of around seven or eight.

Her face was covered in black mud and dried blood, while her rough cloth clothes were tattered beyond recognition.

Most shocking was her left leg. A thick beam had pinned it down, leaving her entire lower leg bent at a horrifyingly unnatural angle.

Her bone had clearly broken, and the intense pain and blood loss had caused her to fall unconscious.

Lu Ping crouched down with an impassive expression.

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

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

Crack.

The dislocated bone was forcibly set back into place.

Using several scattered wooden strips as splints, Lu Ping simply secured the girl's injury and applied pressure with the cloth strips.

He did not possess the miracle of the Reverse Cursed Technique, capable of regenerating flesh and bone, but treating this level of external injury was merely a casual task.

During the bandaging, the cold residual filth condensed by fear around them continuously flowed into Lu Ping's body, rapidly converted into pure energy by the Three Corpses. His hands did not tremble in the slightest as he worked.

"Ah... ngh..."

The intense pain made the unconscious little girl suddenly open her eyes. They were eyes filled with fear 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 saved, nor did she thank the person who had rescued her.

After seeing the flames and thick fog filling the surroundings, the little girl seemed to remember something utterly terrifying. Her whole body began to shake violently, and tears burst from her eyes like a breached flood.

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

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

"Everyone... everyone died because of me... I killed Mom and Dad... it's all my fault..."

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

She needed this emotional release.

The Three Corpses within him began to pulse madly after sensing that incomparably pure despair and guilt, absorbing the black curse emanating from the little girl.

Lu Ping looked outside the house, guarding against cursed spirits that might be drawn by the negative emotions and crying as he calculated inwardly.

A sacrifice who had escaped.

An enraged Snake God.

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

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 by the entire village's superstition and fear, 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 an earth-shattering explosion.

A violent blood-red blast of cursed energy tore through vast swaths of gray mist and shot into the sky!