A brand-new cursed tool

"You have no shame."

Feng did not pause for an instant. He stepped forward into the foul-smelling bodily fluids spraying from the cursed spirit's severed arm.

His slender, well-defined hand left a blur in the air as he seized the hilt of Mikazuki Munechika, which was still twisting and deforming.

The instant he touched it, the terrifying corrosive power carried by the Festering Life Sword erupted.

Thick black cursed energy slithered up Feng's fingers like living venomous snakes, staining the pale back of his hand and his forearm a deathly black in the blink of an eye. It was a vicious curse capable of dissolving an ordinary jujutsu sorcerer's flesh.

But Feng simply twisted at the waist, using his forward momentum to swing a long leg out with a shrill sonic boom. The sole of his shoe slammed squarely into the junction of Kurourushi's battered chest and abdomen.

Bang!

The enormous special grade cursed spirit was forced several steps backward by the sheer force of the kick, its massive body plowing two deep furrows through the muddy ground.

Feng used the recoil to spring lightly back a step.

"Looks like your cursed technique has contaminated my sword. Like Nanami's blunt blade-a weapon with a cursed technique stored in it."

He lowered his eyes slightly, studying the weapon in his hand, which had changed beyond recognition.

The once understated and elegant Mikazuki Munechika now radiated a nauseating, sinister aura.

The blade's curve had grown sharper and more distorted. Most horrifying of all, a blood-red eyeball abruptly squeezed out amid folds of flesh at the sword's guard.

Its pupil spread like an insect's, swiveling frantically in its moist socket as it greedily surveyed everything around it.

"Its appearance changed. Has it stored a cursed technique? It's incomplete..."

Holding the hilt, Feng casually swung the sword twice through the air.

As the blade hummed through the air, black blood sprayed from it in a radial pattern, carrying the smell of thick herbal medicine scorched in the pot.

The black blood landed on a nearby concrete planter. The hard stone immediately sizzled, its surface melting into pitted holes.

"I see. So it can corrode its surroundings? I'll accept this gift."

With that, he casually opened his fingers. The altered weapon, an embryonic special grade cursed tool, dropped straight into the deep standing water at his feet.

A tiny ripple spread across the surface before the water swallowed it completely.

The water inside the domain instantly formed a high-density sealing vortex, isolating the sword's presence entirely beneath the ground.

Now unarmed, Feng gave his opponent no time to catch its breath.

The muscles in his legs abruptly tensed. He became a streak of black lightning tearing through the curtain of rain, closing in directly in front of Kurourushi in an instant.

There were no flashy movements. He clenched his right fist and drove it viciously into the abdominal armor his kick had just caved in, carrying enough terrifying kinetic force to punch through armor plating!

Boom!

Kurourushi's massive body left the ground again. As though struck head-on by a huge truck, it flew backward toward the school building's thick load-bearing wall.

On the unfinished building in the distance, the curiosity in Kenjaku's eyes had turned entirely into a deep chill.

Using water pressure to imitate Ryomen Sukuna's slashes, enduring the poisonous corrosion of a special grade cursed tool barehanded, and even turning the remnants of an enemy's cursed technique to his own use.

Such wildly inventive applications of cursed energy and cursed techniques had completely shattered his established model of Heavenly Restriction.

Amid the ruins, however, Kurourushi did not die as it hurtled toward the wall.

Its survival instincts as a special grade cursed spirit drove it to make a desperate response in midair.

Its abdomen, nearly punched clean through, suddenly folded outward in a grotesque motion.

Hundreds of hard, fleshy tendrils as thick as wrists burst from its exposed organs.

Their tips were covered in fine serrations. They thrashed wildly in midair like an octopus's tentacles, stabbing deep into the walls on either side and the ground to forcibly cancel its backward momentum.

Then the tendrils contracted sharply like springs, launching Kurourushi's ruined body back at Feng with unprecedented speed. A vast net of flying insects and venom descended on him once more.

It was a desperate counterattack heedless of the consequences, determined to tear off a piece of its opponent even if they both died.

Venom and exploding insects filled the air, weaving an impenetrable web of death. Driven by a special grade cursed spirit's suicidal frenzy, it swept toward the edge of the rooftop.

"I thought you were disgusting and couldn't be bothered to fight you. Did you think I couldn't beat you?"

Feng frowned slightly, his crimson eyes utterly calm.

Facing an attack capable of consuming the entire building, he merely took a casual half-step to the right.

His shoulders tilted at an impossibly supple angle. He slipped through the gap between the venomous jets and the swarm, cutting precisely into the blind spot of Kurourushi's final line of defense.

Without wasting any time gathering strength, his right fist tore through the air like a cannonball and smashed into the chest the special grade cursed spirit had exposed while spewing venom.

Squelch!

A sickening sound of shattering bone and tearing flesh rang out.

Feng's entire right arm pierced Kurourushi's hard shell without resistance, burying itself deep in its writhing organs.

Feeling the foreign intrusion inside its body, Kurourushi let out a desperate, frenzied shriek.

Its remaining fleshy tendrils immediately curled back, trying to crush the arm along with Feng's body.

Yet in the next instant...

The arm embedded inside the cursed spirit suddenly lost its solid form. Flesh and bone dissolved in an instant, becoming a vast volume of high-pressure, high-density water.

These liquids, highly compressed by cursed energy, surged like floodwaters through a broken dam, pouring through Kurourushi's blood vessels and the gaps between its organs. In an instant, they filled every corner of its enormous body.

Kurourushi's compound eyes bulged violently. It tried to mobilize its immense negative cursed energy to assimilate or expel the deadly liquid, but it was already too late.

With a muffled boom, the special grade cursed spirit's bloated body exploded from within like a cheap balloon inflated too far!

Black flesh and shattered shell fragments flew in every direction, turning into dark mist that rapidly dispersed in midair.

The raging domain quietly collapsed at that moment.

The heavy clouds and oppressive gravity-laden downpour within the formerly enclosed space gradually faded, replaced by the true, unbroken natural rain of an autumn night.

Fine threads of rain drifted down from the night sky, washing over Feng. The filthy blood spattered across his cheeks and clothes was quickly rinsed away.

As the rain soaked him, the minor scrapes on his body and the physical wear from his earlier overexertion healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, restoring him to perfect condition.

"Perfect. I can recover a little cursed energy..."

On the roof of the unfinished building in the distance.

Kenjaku stood in the shadows, having watched the entire process.

The wariness in his narrow eyes grew ever deeper.

"Turning his own substance into fluid, then triggering a physical explosion directly from within..."

He murmured softly, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the edge of his sleeve.

Even after living for a thousand years, he had rarely encountered a method that so completely ignored external defenses and was so difficult to guard against.

If he fought Feng at close range without knowing about it, even he would suffer a serious setback.

More troublesome still, his opponent could apparently achieve nearly lossless recovery and replenish his cursed energy simply by coming into contact with natural water.

At that very moment, amid the pouring rain, Feng was rapidly returning to peak condition. This was certainly no time to strike.

"He's a tremendous variable, but as long as I understand the mechanism, he remains within controllable limits."

A cold smile curved Kenjaku's lips. "Until that 'strongest' one is sealed, I'll let you stay active a little longer."

He raised a hand slightly, and ripples spread through the empty space behind him.

A massive flying cursed spirit resembling a monstrous bird silently emerged.

Kenjaku turned and stepped onto the cursed spirit's back. Soon, he vanished into the depths of the rainy night, leaving not a trace of his presence.

The streets of Kawasaki City were especially deserted on that rainy night.

The dim yellow glow of the streetlights cast long reflections across the waterlogged road.

Rain dripped from the roadside billboards with a monotonous patter.

Feng's leather shoes splashed through the puddles. He strolled idly down the empty street, letting the rain strike his shoulders.

"Hmm... who did Gojo say was here again? I'll take a walk."

At the corner at the end of the street, the neon sign of an old movie theater flickered faintly through the curtain of rain.

In the dark alley beside the theater, several faint but unnaturally distorted traces of cursed residue slowly seeped out, mingling with the cold rain.