Final Act

Kamo Chitsubaki shook her slightly groggy head and gave Lu Ping, who had walked over, a thumbs-up in congratulations.

She knew there had been an element of luck in this victory.

Being able to land a killing blow across different states was entirely because that monster had outsmarted itself.

Chitsubaki had always suffered from a rare condition known in modern medicine as "Polycythemia Vera."

This condition made her blood far denser than that of ordinary people, extremely viscous, and barely able to flow through her veins.

Turning blood into poison and injecting it into a cursed spirit's body was a standard combat method of Crimson Blood Manipulation.

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But because her blood was too viscous, the toxins in her body took far longer to take effect inside a cursed spirit than those of other Crimson Blood Manipulation users.

However, everything came with both a price and a reward.

The slow onset came in exchange for a multiplied buildup of toxin concentration.

Once it erupted completely, its destructive power would rise geometrically.

If the poison had acted up immediately after entering its body, it would certainly have aroused the intense vigilance of that naturally suspicious monster.

Yet after its sneak attack succeeded, it spent a full three minutes circling at high speed in midair without pause in search of some so-called perfect opening.

Its violently pounding heart and overloaded cursed energy forcibly pumped the concentrated lethal toxin perfectly into every corner of its body.

The timing of the toxin's complete spread had been just right.

At that instant, it was not merely a mistake in the Blood Bat Cursed Spirit's movements. The poison had begun to take effect.

It looked like it was attacking, but in truth, it was already beyond saving.

After confirming that the threat had been completely eliminated, Lu Ping casually hid the unused Nue's Feather back in the shadows behind him and walked over to Chitsubaki.

"Nicely done."

The boy gave a brief assessment.

"Just luck. I almost died here."

Chitsubaki pulled out a roll of bandages from her tactical pouch. As she expertly treated the puncture wound in her ankle, she looked up at Lu Ping.

"What do you make of tonight's situation?"

Lu Ping looked around.

The ruined houses, the cracks covering the ground, and the pungent remnants of cursed energy still lingering in the air.

He stated calmly,

"Different attributes covered for one another, every step linked tightly together. Bait, attrition, control, assassination. It was practically a chained trap tailor-made for Suguru Geto. There's no way this cluster of monsters formed naturally."

The two exchanged intelligence, but Lu Ping chose to conceal his deductions about Kenjaku.

At this point in time, he absolutely could not reveal that he knew the other party's true background.

If he drew Kenjaku's attention in return, it would not only bring unnecessary trouble, but completely disrupt the familiar course of events and cost him his greatest advantage.

He had to continue playing the part of a sorcerer who had stumbled into this mess.

Chitsubaki nodded in full agreement, never noticing the depth in the boy's eyes.

She briskly tied off the bandage, stood up, and tested how much weight her ankle could bear.

"Never mind who's pulling the strings behind the scenes. At least we've torn open a gap in the current situation."

She looked toward the deep mountains behind the village, where the constant sound of trees breaking echoed.

"Let's go check on your new shikigami. Once we deal with that loach, we still need to pull that once-in-a-millennium genius out of whatever mud pit he's stuck in."

"No problem," Lu Ping answered.

The two settled on their plan.

The next steps were clear: help the shikigami win, rescue Suguru Geto, and carry out a final cleanup and inspection of the village.

Lu Ping called over Shadow Wolf. On its back was the short-haired little girl who had been trembling when he found her in the ruins, a girl born with the ability to see cursed spirits.

Once the mission was fully over, he could bring her to Hoshimi Shrine and have her receive training at Jujutsu High alongside those two girls.

When Chitsubaki saw Lu Ping summon Shadow Wolf and carry the survivor on its back, her eyes lit up.

Had the intelligence gathered by the Kamo Clan and the curse users about Lu Ping's shikigami self-destructing yesterday all been wrong?

Using a shikigami self-destruct while keeping the shikigami from dying completely was something only those who had mastered advanced shikigami techniques could do—

Incomplete Shikigami Manifestation.

When a shikigami appeared in an incomplete form, it could be subjected to a certain degree of "Binding Vow."

For example, making it larger reduced the likelihood of the shikigami being completely destroyed, improving its survivability.

At the same time, it also allowed the sorcerer to temporarily wield the shikigami's abilities, creating more varied attack methods.

But it had its pros and cons. A shikigami manifested through the Incomplete Shikigami Manifestation technique, as well as the abilities gained from it, was not as powerful as the shikigami in its original complete manifestation.

If an incompletely manifested shikigami already looked powerful, then injecting the same amount of cursed energy into the original shikigami would produce even greater results.

But...

Was he actually a sorcerer of this caliber?

When the two first met, Chitsubaki had immediately recognized the famous Ten Shadows Cursed Tool Series from the Three Great Families in Lu Ping's hand.

With the support of a high-grade cursed tool, dealing with a few scattered curse users would not have been a problem. Only that final Grade 1 Curse User could have posed a genuine threat to him.

But after their successive coordinated battles tonight, she realized that Lu Ping was not only skilled with cursed tools. He was also strong at controlling shikigami and understanding barrier techniques.

"Maybe your strength has already reached Semi-Grade 1. Once we return, I'll submit a recommendation application to the higher-ups."

With her hands clasped behind her head, Chitsubaki glanced at Lu Ping beside her as they advanced.

"Perhaps. After subjugating the Great Serpent, I do feel that my strength has improved quite a bit."

Lu Ping responded blandly, his expression still serious.

Even if the Great Serpent won the battle, he still could not be sure that the situation had stabilized. After all, the biggest mastermind had yet to appear.

Once that Special-Grade Sorcerer known as a natural disaster showed up, no one present would be a match for him, and they had no means of dealing with him... aside from Lu Ping's own legendary move.

Hopefully, he knows how powerful that move is and decides to back off.

As night deepened, the two figures swiftly vanished into the dark path leading toward the back mountain.

Large stretches of the dense forest on the back mountain had been flattened, and the rugged ground had been forcibly crushed into a broad trail of ruins.

The air was thick with a powerful stench of blood.

Following the broken tree trunks, Lu Ping and Chitsubaki reached the end of the battlefield.

In the enormous crater ahead, the victor had already been decided.

The vastly enlarged Ever-Coiling Shadow Serpent resembled a mountain range of black steel, pinning the once-arrogant Snake God Cursed Spirit firmly beneath its body.

Layer after layer of the cursed spirit's originally hard scales had shattered. Dark green corrosive fluid continuously poured from its wounds. Its enormous body had been twisted into bizarre angles, leaving it capable of only faint convulsions.

After receiving an excessive infusion of cursed energy from the Three Corpses, the Great Serpent displayed exceptionally brutal combat power.

There was no emotional fluctuation in those molten-gold vertical pupils. Like a meat grinder, it relentlessly devoured the Snake God Cursed Spirit's life force.

Sensing its master's approach, the Great Serpent suddenly opened its massive jaws and accurately clamped down on the core of the monster's neck below.

Crack.

Accompanied by a dull sound of bones breaking, its fangs instantly pierced the enemy's vital point.