Harvest

Adachi Ward was unnaturally quiet late that night.

Yang Jian emerged from the shadows of an alley, carrying a brown paper bag in his right hand. It held five million yen in cash, fresh from Satoru Gojo.

The guy had pulled that much out of his dorm room drawer without a second thought and tossed it over without even counting it, looking as casual as if he were lending someone a pack of cigarettes.

The coin lockers stood beside the abandoned apartment building. Their metal casings were covered in rust, and most of the bulbs were dead.

Row C, locker seven.

He stuffed the paper bag inside, inserted a coin, and locked it.

The metal key spun once between his fingertips before he flicked it into a drain.

Clink.

It dropped into the water.

That concluded the transaction.

Yang Jian turned away, took out his flip phone, and opened the coordinates Shiu Kong had sent him-Chichibu City, Saitama Prefecture, the Old Quarry, second underground level.

The drive from Adachi to Chichibu normally took two hours.

But Yang Jian did not need two hours.

A flash of scarlet light, and he was gone.

The outskirts of Chichibu City.

Eleven forty that night.

A rusty iron fence sealed the entrance to the Old Quarry, its faded "Keep out" sign swaying in the wind.

There were no streetlights nearby. A cold mountain wind swept toward him, carrying the smell of rotting vegetation.

Yang Jian emerged from the shadow of a dead tree, crushing stones beneath his shoes.

Within the Ghost Eye's detection range, something was moving underground.

More than one thing.

He went around the iron fence and followed the slope down.

The deeper he went, the thicker the air became-not from humidity, but from a pressure that clung to his skin and made every hair stand on end.

Residual cursed energy, in high concentrations.

The first underground level was a broad excavation platform, with thick dust coating the ore-cart tracks.

Shriveled animal carcasses lay scattered in the corners: rats, stray cats, and a fairly large raccoon dog. All were dehydrated, reduced to skin and bone, as though something had sucked out every last drop of moisture.

The sudden livestock deaths Shiu Kong had mentioned were connected to this place.

Yang Jian kept going down without stopping.

The entrance to the second underground level was a fissure chiseled into the rock wall, just wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways.

The fissure was pitch-black, but Yang Jian's Ghost Eye did not need light.

He turned sideways and squeezed inside.

Beyond the fissure lay a natural limestone cavern half the size of a soccer field. Uneven stalactites hung from the ceiling, and a shallow layer of groundwater covered the floor, its surface tinged an unnatural blue-black.

Something crouched in the very center.

It was a size smaller than an adult human, curled up in a puddle.

It resembled a frog with elongated limbs. Beneath its translucent, grayish-white skin, a network of dark red blood vessels pulsed slowly.

Its head had no facial features.

Only a round, gaping mouth pointed upward, its rim lined with inward-curving keratin teeth.

A Grade 1 Cursed Spirit.

Several white bones floated in the puddle around its mouth.

Human ribs.

Yang Jian stood at the mouth of the fissure, thirty meters away in a straight line. The frog-shaped cursed spirit's mouth twitched, then slowly turned toward him.

No eyes, no ears.

It located prey by sensing the moisture inside living bodies.

The water beneath his feet began gathering toward the cursed spirit, and the ground rapidly dried and cracked.

Yang Jian gave it no chance to make a second move.

The center of his forehead split open, revealing the Ghost Eye.

Scarlet light poured from the slit, a red membrane spreading outward with him at its center to envelop the entire cavern.

A three-layer Ghost Domain.

The stream of water gathering around the frog-shaped cursed spirit froze in midair. Its limbs were pinned in place, and its translucent skin began to blister.

Three low-grade cursed spirits darted out of the shadows along the cavern walls-two Grade 2s and one Grade 3. They were probably the colony Shiu Kong had mentioned. Red light swept over their bodies.

The moment the Ghost Domain unfolded, it crushed the Grade 3 outright, leaving it no time even to struggle.

The two Grade 2s resisted for only a moment within the Ghost Domain, letting out shrieks that pierced to the bone despite their lack of vocal cords.

The Ghost Shadow rose from the shadow beneath Yang Jian's feet.

The Ghost Shadow glided over the water so fast that no spray rose.

One of the Ghost Shadow's arms pierced the chest of the Grade 2 on the left, while his other hand clamped around the neck of the one on the right. The two Grade 2s struggled in his grasp for less than three seconds before their bodies broke down, turning into black residue that fell into the water.

Three lines flashed across the system panel at the edge of his vision.

[Grade 3 Cursed Spirit ×1 killed, +10]

[Grade 2 Cursed Spirit ×2 killed, +100]

Yang Jian walked toward the center of the cavern.

The frog-shaped cursed spirit's mouth opened and closed frantically, its keratin teeth grinding with the sound of scraping metal.

It was still trying to draw the moisture from his body, but under the Ghost Domain, that ability had been suppressed to almost nothing.

Yang Jian stopped three meters in front of it.

The cursed spirit stretched its mouth as wide as possible and fired a jet of high-pressure liquid from deep in its throat-not water, but concentrated cursed energy. It shot into the Ghost Domain's red light and evaporated without a sound.

It did not even get the chance to splash onto his clothes.

The Ghost Shadow shot up from the ground, his fist punching through its mouth and out the back of its head.

The Ghost Shadow invaded it through the point of contact.

The cursed spirit's translucent body cracked from within. Its limbs spasmed twice, and its keratin teeth shattered one by one.

Then-it burst apart.

It was not a physical explosion. Rather, supernatural power had burned through the creature's entire cursed energy circuit from within. Its body lost its cohesion and crumbled into grayish-white powder across the ground.

[Grade 1 Cursed Spirit ×1 killed, +500]

Yang Jian withdrew the Ghost Shadow.

The cavern fell silent.

Cursed spirit residue and fragments of human bone floated in the puddles.

He glanced down.

He glanced down at the remains. The two missing sorcerers had no cursed energy left; they had been drained completely dry. It had not been a pretty death.

Yang Jian turned back, taking a few steps before pulling out his flip phone.

Shiu Kong's intelligence had been accurate.

The location, grade, and patterns of activity had all been right.

That had been money well spent.

He composed a message: [The Saitama goods have been collected. Speed up verification on Yokohama and Nagoya. Check that bonus lead at the Abandoned Shrine too.]

He sent it.

His flip phone vibrated.

Shiu Kong replied with a brief message: [Received.]

Three seconds later, he added another: [There's new information on the Yokohama lead. The target's range has expanded. It may already be devouring the lower-grade ones around it. Any further delay risks it advancing a grade. Should I send the coordinates separately, or wait and send them with Nagoya's?]

Yang Jian checked the time.

Twelve seventeen in the morning.

He replied with one word: [Send.]

The coordinates arrived.

An abandoned shipyard in Yokohama City. The target was suspected to be Grade 1 and had recently been devouring its own kind. The possibility of it advancing to Semi-Special Grade could not be ruled out.

Yang Jian snapped his phone shut and walked out of the quarry.

The mountain night wind was a little warmer than the air inside the cavern.

Standing on the gravel slope, he drew in a deep breath of cold air and stretched.

Current points: 53,480.

Compared to paranormal invasion rewards that routinely reached a hundred thousand, farming cursed spirits for points was certainly slow.

But Shiu Kong's network was up and running. Things would only get faster from here.

Scarlet light shimmered.

Yang Jian vanished.

Only a pair of footprints remained on the gravel slope, along with a chill that had yet to dissipate from the air.

By the time he arrived in Yokohama, something had already battered the shipyard's iron gate out of shape from the inside.

The concentration of cursed energy seeping through the gap in the gate was at least three times higher than in that cavern in Chichibu.

The signals from the Ghost Eye indicated two life signs.

One extremely strong, one extremely weak.

The extremely weak one was human.