Successful Rescue

Kenjaku jumped down from the tree and quietly turned to leave the scene.

After tonight's series of observations, the results left him extremely satisfied.

Cursed Spirit Manipulation, this special ability capable of swallowing and enslaving monsters without limit, was simply a tailor-made, perfect experimental tool built for his grand plan for the coming millennium.

Taking over Suguru Geto's body had been officially placed as the top-priority plan for his next step.

As for Lu Ping and Kamo Chitsubaki, who had accidentally broken into the situation,

one held the Ten Shadows Technique, and the other held Crimson Blood Manipulation.

Although these two variables disrupted the rhythm a bit, they were still within an acceptable margin of error.

Kenjaku had not lacked dealings with the group of Ten Shadows sorcerers over the long years.

He knew the temperament of these people far too well.

These fellows who inherited the top-tier heritage of the Zenin Clan were all like gas canisters ready to ignite at a single touch.

They did not care about tactical pressure at all.

Once they encountered a strong enemy they could not defeat, or when the situation turned slightly unfavorable, the first reaction of these madmen was never a strategic retreat.

Instead, they were very likely to flip the table directly.

The previous Ten Shadows user seemed to have flipped the table of the head of the Gojo Clan during a sparring match, and the two died together.

Once the pressure was high, Mahoraga, which came with their technique, was like an unstable nuclear bomb; whoever brushed against it was unlucky.

Precisely because of this, unless he held an absolute, certain-to-win trump card in his hand, or possessed special means capable of instantly obliterating Mahoraga, Kenjaku would never provoke a Ten Shadows sorcerer on the verge of high pressure.

The weaker the opponent was, the further away he would hide.

He had countless chances for trial and error, while the opponent only had one life.

As long as time was sufficiently abundant, combined with his thousands of years of experience and foundation, no one in this world could survive until the end against his chess game.

If I cannot win steadily, can I not outlast you to death?

As for the young Kamo Clan girl who used Crimson Blood Manipulation, she aroused even less of his interest.

The previous identity he had abandoned was precisely an ancestor who had conducted a series of horrifying human experiments within the Kamo Clan.

The Cursed Womb: Death Paintings, which later generations called Special Grade Curses, were merely the products of his boring experiments.

Where the limits of Crimson Blood Manipulation lay, he knew better than anyone else.

Everything was within expectations, without a shred of novelty.

Only this teenager named Lu Ping.

His strength had not yet crossed the threshold of Grade 1, yet in just now's extreme, perilous, and ultra-high-pressure desperate situation, he displayed astonishing resilience and composure.

He did not choose to detonate himself at the very first moment he was controlled by illusions; this emotional control ability alone already surpassed ninety percent of the Ten Shadows sorcerers in history.

Even rarer was that this kid's foundational sorcery skills were frighteningly solid, and his seasoned experience amidst tactical weaving even surpassed many veteran Grade 2 sorcerers who had struggled on the line of life and death for half a lifetime.

Given time, he would definitely become a person of great capability.

Kenjaku narrowed his eyes slightly, a sharp glint flashing through his pupils beneath the stitches.

He had a strong premonition that this teenager who did not play by the rules would very likely become the greatest obstacle to his future seizure of Suguru Geto's body.

If he sought an opportunity to make a move in the future, he had to deploy a foolproof strategy in advance to dispatch this potentially troublesome fellow far away.

The conspirator atop the mountain peak was still plotting future assassinations.

Meanwhile, at the foot of the mountain.

Lu Ping and his group had already passed through patches of ruins, arriving at the edge of an extremely concealed wasteland behind the village.

Overgrown with weeds, the ground here was covered in shattered rubble.

The teenager suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He closed his eyes, guiding the Three Corpses dormant within his body to spread his perception outward.

His keen capture of cursed energy fluctuations allowed him to precisely lock onto an extremely weak yet exceptionally stable energy source within this chaotic magnetic field.

Lu Ping opened his eyes and walked straight toward a dry well in the center of the wasteland.

The wellhead was randomly covered by a few heavy stone slabs, with moss spread all around.

He reached out, pushed the stone slabs open without any effort, and peered down into the gloomy bottom of the well.

Leveraging the dim light, the scene at the bottom of the dry well was clear at a glance.

Suguru Geto, touted by the outside world as a once-in-a-millennium encounter bearing the strongest moniker of a Grade 1 Sorcerer,

lay there right now with his eyes closed tight, breathing evenly and deeply, his chest rising and falling with a regular rhythm.

One could even faintly hear a few carefree, soft snores.

Lu Ping did not hesitate at all, leaping down into the depths of the dry well.

The light at the bottom of the well was extremely dim.

The top-tier genius pinned with high hopes by the outside world was currently sprawled out in the muddy water.

His sleeping posture was extremely serene.

Lu Ping extended his right hand and patted the mud-stained black-haired sorcerer.

Suguru Geto hazily opened his eyes.

He instinctively wiped the sludge off his face.

After seeing the face of the newcomer clearly, this favored son of heaven was stunned for half a second.

"Good evening, you're sleeping quite soundly. Care to keep the music playing and keep dancing?"

Lu Ping dropped a piece of banter in a steady tone.

This untimely greeting made the other party feel a wave of awkwardness.

Suguru Geto smiled bitterly.

He did not refuse the helping hand extended by the teenager, borrowed the momentum to stand up, and dusted the dirt off his body.

"Thanks. I owe you a huge favor this time."

The two then left the bottom of the well and exchanged brief intelligence.

The overall outline was more or less consistent with Lu Ping's previous deduction.

As the possessor of a technique with special grade potential, this sorcerer with a boundless future had gone through smooth sailing during the initial subjugation.

He pushed all the way through with his formidable Cursed Spirit Manipulation.

It was not until he was drawn into the domain of that incompletely formed snake god cursed womb that the situation reversed.

That was a closed space with extremely tedious rules.

He consumed a massive amount of mental effort and cursed energy inside, pulling open a gap by force only after exhausting all his trump cards.

Who would have thought that the moment he stepped out of the edge of the domain,

at the very instant when his mental defense was at its slackest, he un31guardedly ran right into the hallucinatory technique laid down by the Mountain Spider.

"The moment of escaping trouble is the moment of getting caught; the last time I was this unlucky was the last time."

Suguru Geto patted the mud spots on his cuffs, a hint of helplessness and self-mockery leaking from his tone.

Listening to your words was just like listening to your words.

Lu Ping gave a precise evaluation in his heart.

Still, being able to stand here safe and sound was already the greatest misfortune among fortunes for this series of interlocking death traps.

Kamo Chitsubaki led the way ahead, walking toward the village entrance.

Seeing her unhurt companion, the heart she had kept hanging finally dropped back into her stomach.

The hard power of this genius sorcerer Suguru Geto had not suffered substantial weakening; he had merely been forced to sleep for a long time.

On the contrary, Lu Ping beside her made her feel an inexplicable worry about his current state.

Her gaze fell on the teenager's slightly thin back.

He had performed long-duration, high-intensity, multi-threaded extreme operations.

Unlike the Six Eyes constitution required by the Gojo Clan's Limitless Technique and the Reverse Cursed Technique adapted by the Kamo Clan's Crimson Blood Manipulation,

the Ten Shadows Technique was naturally the technique that demanded the most cursed energy among the Three Great Families.

Wielding tyrannical shikigami in battle, or even fusing multiple shikigami to conjure up more advanced entities, all required massive amounts of cursed energy as support.

Long-term battles punching above his weight class could very well cause the cursed energy circuits within the sorcerer to overload and sustain damage.

Once irreversible hidden injuries were left behind, the activation efficiency of his technique would be affected in the future.