The Ever-Coiling Shadow

Dark green liquid continued to drip from above onto the massive serpent egg at the center of the altar.

Lu Ping slowly exhaled and rapidly crossed his hands before his chest.

His ten fingers interlocked in a staggered pattern, forming the ancient hand seal of the Ten Shadows Technique Taming Ritual.

Surging cursed energy flowed backward through his meridians, spilling from his fingertips like black ink.

He bent down and allowed the cursed energy to flow through the shadows beneath his feet, tracing complex cursed seals with astonishing precision, identical to those on the stone walls.

By then, the surface of the Twin-Snake Egg behind him had become covered in spiderweb-like cracks. Dark green ghostly light poured madly from the gaps. Hatching was only moments away.

Just as the stone shell was about to completely shatter,

a scalp-prickling sound of scales grinding against one another rose from the shadowy abyss beneath Lu Ping's feet.

The masterless Great Serpent descended.

Bolstered by the unreasonable cursed energy enhancement of the Three Corpses within this particular environment, this shikigami, making its first appearance in the Living World, was so enormous that it was nearly out of control.

Its thick body shot upward like a derailed train car, filling the altar's roof area of dozens of square meters in an instant and blocking out the faint light overhead.

Without the restraints of a taming contract, the shikigami that had just appeared in the Living World possessed no reason at all.

A massive shadow instantly engulfed Lu Ping.

The Great Serpent instinctively opened jaws large enough to swallow a sedan whole and viciously bit toward its nearby summoner amid a foul, fishy gale.

Lu Ping remained calm, not even blinking an extra time.

He had anticipated it.

Just as those rows of ghastly white fangs were about to pierce his body, Lu Ping melted into the deep shadows beneath his feet like a raindrop falling into a lake, without the slightest resistance.

Boom!

The Great Serpent missed. Its heavy lower jaw slammed into the hard stone floor, erupting with dazzling sparks and a dull crash.

At the edge of the altar dozens of meters away, Kamo Chitsubaki took in the entire scene. A flash of undisguised shock crossed her normally composed face.

How was that possible?

Information gathered from both the Jujutsu World and curse users rapidly flashed through her mind.

In yesterday's brutal battle against a powerful enemy, Lu Ping's Ten Shadows Shikigami had clearly self-destructed and been destroyed on the spot.

According to the ironclad laws of the Jujutsu World, once a shikigami was destroyed, the Ten Shadows Technique connected to it would inevitably suffer a powerful backlash.

The sorcerer would then enter a Technique Burnout period lasting several days.

During this punishment phase, the caster would be unable to draw upon even the slightest summoning power.

Yet the young man before her had not only reconstructed his technique without the slightest delay, he had even dared to forcibly initiate an extremely dangerous solo Taming Ritual while trapped in an enemy's domain at a life-or-death juncture!

The blood gathering in Chitsubaki's palm nearly boiled.

Should she rush down to save him? Or use the opportunity to directly attack the Cursed Womb?

Two completely different tactical impulses repeatedly tore at her heart.

But when she recalled the inhuman steadiness Lu Ping had displayed over the past few days, along with his unquestionable instruction moments ago, she finally took a deep breath of blood-scented air.

She forcefully dispersed the red glow from her fingertips, maintaining a defensive counterattack stance as she chose to wait and see.

At that moment, Lu Ping was completely concealed within the cold, dark Shadow Space.

Although he had avoided the first deadly attack, his thoughts churned violently.

Using an untamed, masterless shikigami as bait and forcibly stuffing it into a sacrificial ritual for a heretical god—

There was simply no precedent for such an act, and the chain reaction it might trigger was entirely unpredictable.

In the worst-case scenario, the Great Serpent's essence would be completely erased by the sacrificial ritual, and he would permanently lose this powerful shikigami companion.

At the thought, a genuine ache uncontrollably rose in Lu Ping's chest.

Within the Ten Shadows Technique's lineup, the Great Serpent's strategic value was immeasurable.

Its silent infiltration ability and one-hit killing devouring trait made it an exceptional assassination weapon. Apart from those legendary Special Grade Shikigami, it was currently one of his most essential combat assets.

Regret, reluctance, even a trace of fear toward the unknown consequences—these negative emotions quietly sprouted in his heart like weeds.

But in the next second, a resolve as sharp as ice splitting snow flashed through Lu Ping's eyes.

No madness, no survival.

If he could not see through the deathtrap before him, every notion of preserving his strength was laughable empty talk.

Only by overcoming this trial would he earn the right to keep making moves in the future!

The instant his thoughts became clear, the Three Corpses lurking within him seemed to smell exquisite nourishment and immediately pounced on those burgeoning negative emotions.

They greedily chewed and swallowed them, then smoothly transformed them into purer, more violent cursed energy and fed it back into every part of Lu Ping's body.

The situation outside had already been pushed to the cliff's edge.

After losing Lu Ping as its target, the Great Serpent twisted its body frantically atop the altar.

At the same time, the Twin-Snake Egg at the center exploded apart.

A strange cursed spirit burst from its shell, its body flowing with dark green corrosive fluid, two vicious serpent heads growing from it, and a massive tail swaying behind it.

One head had its eyes tightly shut and emitted a weak aura, clearly still asleep.

The other, awakened head abruptly opened its eyes and immediately locked onto the enormous Great Serpent on the altar.

Its immense body was even larger than the already gigantic Great Serpent!

Under the sacrificial ritual's underlying logic, the Great Serpent, engraved with the standard cursed seals, was a ready-made perfect sacrifice.

The Two-Headed Serpent God Cursed Spirit did not hesitate in the slightest. Its huge body wrapped tightly around the Great Serpent like an iron hoop.

Dark green cursed energy corroded the shikigami's scales like concentrated sulfuric acid. The assimilation process had officially begun.

At that critical moment,

Lu Ping, hidden within the shadows, accurately seized the instant when the Snake God Cursed Spirit was wholly focused on assimilating the sacrifice and the Great Serpent shikigami's defenses were at their weakest, relying on the Three Corpses' extreme sensitivity to cursed energy fluctuations outside.

Black shadows bulged upward like boiling asphalt.

Lu Ping's figure returned to the Living World like a ghost.

During the few seconds he had remained in the Shadow Space, he had completed every step in one smooth motion: taking out the Nue Feather Arrow, bending the horn bow, and drawing the cursed-energy bowstring to its limit.

He had finished charging in advance.

The instant he broke through the shadows, the bowstring was full as the moon and the arrow flew like a meteor.

Accompanied by an explosive crack that tore through the air, the black arrow became a blur and struck precisely into the fatal weak point seven inches below the Great Serpent's neck.

Violent cursed energy exploded within the shikigami along the arrowhead, instantly destroying its frenzied life force.

Shikigami Great Serpent, kill confirmed.

Taming Ritual, complete!

The enormous white serpent body went limp and collapsed into a heavy shell.

The newly born Two-Headed Serpent God Cursed Spirit could not understand this sudden change at all. Its beastlike instincts drove it to open its gaping maw and swallow the Great Serpent's remains, along with the cursed seals on its body, in a single bite.

Gulp.

The muffled swallowing sound echoed back and forth through the sealed barrier.

Witnessing everything, a faint smile finally appeared on Lu Ping's ice-sculpted, indifferent face.

His senses extended downward along an unseen thread of causality.

Deep within the Two-Headed Serpent God Cursed Spirit's stomach pouch, filled with corrosive cursed energy, he felt the Great Serpent's response with incomparable clarity.

It was an absolute sense of control, as natural as moving his own arm.

Not only had the taming succeeded, the Great Serpent's body had not been rejected by the barrier and had truly infiltrated the enemy's inner core!

The second step of the plan had gone through without a hitch.

Without the slightest hesitation, Lu Ping immediately issued his coldest command through their mental link.

Inside the Two-Headed Serpent God Cursed Spirit's body, the Great Serpent, which had supposedly "died," suddenly opened its icy serpent eyes.

Under the domain's rules, once the swallowing action had been completed, the sacrifice and the god were considered one inseparable whole.

External attacks could not harm the Snake God's core, but at that moment, the Great Serpent was a sharp blade parasitizing the Snake God's body.

The black giant serpent writhed madly amid the dark green flesh walls, opened its barbed fangs, and viciously tore through the Snake God Cursed Spirit's abdomen. It burst out and bit toward the connected, still-unawakened "sleeping serpent head."

That was an important source sustaining the Snake God Cursed Spirit's power.

Hiss!

The Two-Headed Serpent God let out an agonized scream beyond measure.

Its awakened head thrashed wildly, utterly unable to understand why such deadly pain was coming from within its own body.

Driven by its instinct to survive, the awakened serpent head abruptly bent backward, bit open its own abdomen, and brutally clamped down on the tail of the Great Serpent, which was voraciously devouring its other half.

Bizarre, bloody, absurd.

The two colossal creatures with similar essences formed an extremely twisted sight at the center of the altar.

The Great Serpent mercilessly devoured the sleeping head, while the Snake God's other head frantically chewed through the Great Serpent's tail.

They were linked head to tail, tearing into and swallowing each other as they began a vicious ouroboros cycle with no end until death.

This was a pure contest of essence. What they fought over was not merely power, but ownership of this body and even the entire domain!

Violent waves of cursed energy swept through the surroundings like a hurricane.

The hard white-bone steps shattered inch by inch, while the snake swarm on the ground was swept into the sky like fallen leaves, raining down in a "snake shower."

Lu Ping lightly tapped the ground with his toes and retreated swiftly like a drifting leaf, quickly withdrawing from the center of the power clash before landing steadily beside Chitsubaki.

"You're insane, but at least you're lucky enough to still be alive."

Seeing Lu Ping return intact, Chitsubaki's tightly wound nerves finally eased slightly.

"Hard to say."

But Lu Ping's brow remained tightly furrowed.

Ignoring the flying rubble and spilling poisonous blood, he fixed his hawklike gaze on the center of the storm.

The consequences of beings with the same origin devouring each other were entirely unknown.

He was still worried that the command just now would cause him to lose the shikigami he had only just tamed at the risk of his life.

If the Great Serpent's essence was completely erased in this war of attrition, the loss would be irreparable.

The cold sweat in Lu Ping's palm had yet to dry, and the cursed energy within him remained at a peak where it could erupt at any moment.

Time passed second by second.

The teeth-grinding sound of bones and flesh breaking apart ahead, along with the shrill hissing, began to weaken uncontrollably.

The rolling massive serpent bodies gradually slowed their movements.

Dark green and ghastly white blood intertwined, silently flowing down the steps.

At last, every sound completely returned to deathly silence.

The victor seemed to have emerged.

Lu Ping held his breath and tried to sense the final outcome from the pile of mangled remains.

At that moment of absolute silence,

ripples suddenly spread through the depths of his mind without warning.

A cryptic, ancient incantation seemed to cross the river of time and appear directly in the depths of his soul.

Like an inborn instinct, it urged him to call out a brand-new name.

Lu Ping instinctively recited that summoning prayer:

"Coiling within shadow, undying through the ages."

"—Appear, Ever-Coiling Shadow Serpent."