Demon Hour

The surging crowd was like a breached black flood, carrying cries and screams as it frantically pressed toward the exit of the shopping street.

In the face of extreme fear, morality and reason were trampled to pieces. The elderly were knocked down, children wept, and a stampede could happen at any moment.

"Don't panic! Everyone, head for the emergency passage on the left! Don't shove!"

Faced with the sudden riot, Ieiri Shoko displayed a calmness far beyond her years.

Though she was nominally a noncombatant under Jujutsu High's protection, as the future jujutsu world's "designated physician," she had seen far too many partings of life and death.

As she loudly directed the helpless civilians, she swiftly scanned the chaotic crowd for seriously injured people who might have been trampled.

At Shoko's side, shadows churned.

"Shadow Wolf, tear them apart."

Lu Ping's expression was icy as his hands crossed into a wolf-head hand sign.

In an instant, the shadow behind him spread like spilled ink, and a giant wolf nearly two meters tall, wreathed in a faint azure mist, burst out of the darkness!

Under the forced alteration of [Three Corpses Manipulation] and the possession of the "Azure Corpse," this shikigami that had originally belonged to the Divine Dogs now possessed two pairs of ghostly green eyes. Several eerie spheres formed of shadow even seemed to writhe along its spine.

The moment it appeared, it let out a deeply intimidating growl, its sharp fangs glinting with a chilling light beneath the night sky.

"Splat!"

Shadow Wolf became a blurry bolt of black lightning and instantly pounced on a Grade 3 Cursed Spirit that had crawled from the shadow of a trash can.

Before the malformed monster covered in compound eyes could spit acid at the fleeing civilians, Shadow Wolf's cursed-energy-infused fangs bit through its neck. Several shadowy arms then tore it to pieces, reducing it to foul-smelling cursed remnants.

Lu Ping gripped the replica of "Tozama," which he had just taken from the Gojo Clan's Cursed Tool Vault, in a reverse grip in his right hand. With a tap of his toes, he swept along the edge of the chaotic crowd like a swimming dragon.

The blade flashed like a ribbon, carrying the steady force of Grade 2 cursed energy as it precisely split two Grade 4 Fly Heads attempting to attack civilians in half.

"Whew..."

Lu Ping landed firmly in front of Shoko, holding the short blade across his chest, his gaze sharp.

Through the events of the past two days, he had not only fully integrated [Three Corpses Manipulation] into this body, but had also steadily raised his cursed energy from the bottom tier among Grade 2 Sorcerers to the level of a standard Grade 2 Sorcerer.

These low-grade Cursed Spirits born from panic were incapable of making any waves before him and Shadow Wolf, whose strength rivaled that of a Strong Grade 2 Sorcerer.

However, the calm did not last long.

Before Lu Ping could breathe a sigh of relief, another muffled boom suddenly came from the warehouse behind the shrine where ritual supplies were stored.

"Boom—!!"

It was not an ordinary gunpowder explosion, but a blast of cursed energy ignited purely by negative emotions!

In an instant, black resentment surged into the sky like a massive pillar of polluted smoke. Lu Ping's pupils constricted sharply. Through the extraordinary perception of [Three Corpses Manipulation], he could clearly see that the source of the resentment was the tens of thousands of Human Effigy paper dolls that countless worshippers had used during the day to "transfer their misfortune"!

The anger, greed, jealousy, and suffering from illness that had accumulated over half a year should have been purified by sacred fire at midnight. Instead, they had all been detonated in an instant.

These dense, inextricable, mixed resentments, empowered by the special atmosphere of Demon Hour, had become the finest nourishment for every Cursed Spirit present!

"Roar—!!"

Accompanied by a shriek painful enough to rupture eardrums, countless wandering low-grade Cursed Spirits began rushing madly toward the center of the explosion, biting, devouring, and merging with one another.

In only a few breaths, a massive monster composed of countless pale paper faces and writhing bristles slowly rose from the ruins.

It was... a Semi-Grade 1 Cursed Spirit!

Feeling that suffocating pressure, a fine layer of sweat seeped across Lu Ping's palm.

If only Satoru Gojo and Xia Youjie, those two monsters, were here...

The moment that thought surfaced, the Azure Corpse representing reason within Lu Ping's mind let out a sharp shriek, instantly devouring that weak emotion of relying on others.

No! I can't harbor such baseless expectations! Lu Ping fiercely berated himself inwardly.

This is a cruel world of jujutsu. If I expect the "strongest duo" to save me every time I face a crisis, then I'll only ever be someone else's subordinate! If I want to attain the Dao and become immortal, if I want to seize my own fate in this twisted world, then at the edge of life and death, I must turn all my negative emotions into the power to grow stronger!

His gaze returned to calm, and Lu Ping's mind became intensely focused.

"Shadow Wolf, let's go!"

Lu Ping roared. Instead of retreating, he charged forward, turning into an afterimage as he rushed at the enormous Semi-Grade 1 Cursed Spirit.

Shadow Wolf threw back its head and howled. One on the left and one on the right, it and Lu Ping spread out to attack from both sides.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The fierce clash erupted in an instant.

The Semi-Grade 1 Cursed Spirit was incredibly fast. Countless tentacles made of paper dolls lashed through the air like dense steel whips, producing piercing sonic booms.

Relying on battle instincts far beyond those of an ordinary person, Lu Ping weaved through the gaps between the tentacles with difficulty. The Tozama short blade traced arcs through the air with a logical beauty, each swing precisely severing one of the Cursed Spirit's limbs.

However, the gulf between Semi-Grade 1 and Grade 2 still existed.

In one fearless collision, Shadow Wolf tore apart nearly half of the Cursed Spirit's body, but Lu Ping was also struck squarely in the chest by a sudden tentacle.

With a crack, pain exploded from his broken ribs. Lu Ping was sent flying, rolling across the ground several times as blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

"Don't force yourself. Fall back!"

Ieiri Shoko's voice rang out at just the right moment.

At some point, she had already moved against the flow of the panicked crowd and reached Lu Ping's back.

A warm, soft palm gently pressed against Lu Ping's sunken chest. The next second, a pure, gentle emerald-green cursed energy overflowing with vitality poured into his body like a tide.

The high-precision healing of Reverse Cursed Technique!

Within two seconds, his broken ribs rapidly reset and healed. The trauma to his internal organs was instantly soothed, and even more than half of his depleted stamina returned.

"Thanks, Shoko!" Lu Ping sprang to his feet, wiped the blood from his mouth, and his eyes burned with fervor.

With a top-tier healer of this level endlessly sustaining him from the rear, he would even dare to take on a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit today!

"Clap, clap, clap..."

Before Lu Ping and Shadow Wolf could launch another attack, crisp applause filled with mockery suddenly came from the shadows at the side of the shrine.