Special Grade Cursed Object

The Abandoned Shipyard.

The salty, fishy sea breeze swept into the rusted sheet-metal workshop, stirring hollow echoes.

The warped iron door had broken off its hinges, one half crashing to the ground.

Yang Jian stepped over the door panel with a teeth-grating scrape.

The workshop stretched deep into the darkness, thick iron chains hanging from its beams.

Viscous purple liquid trailed across the floor. It was cursed residue left by dead low-grade cursed spirits, absorbed by a stronger member of their kind before it could evaporate.

In the Ghost Eye's vision, a mass of highly concentrated life signs writhed at the bottom of Dry Dock One, deep inside the workshop.

It was feeding.

Less than five meters away, the faint life signs of a living human were about to flicker out.

Yang Jian descended the rusted iron stairs.

The red light faded into his forehead, leaving only a film clinging tightly to his skin, ensuring he could see everything in the darkness.

At the bottom of the dock crouched an enormous lump of flesh over three meters tall.

Its pitted surface sprouted several pairs of arms and legs belonging to different species. Some came from fly heads, others from some kind of dog-shaped cursed spirit.

A slit opened in the center of the flesh, and it was stuffing the remains of a Grade 2 cursed spirit inside.

A few steps away, a high school student in uniform huddled in a drainage ditch in the corner.

The boy's eyes had rolled back. One leg was twisted unnaturally, a chunk of flesh had been torn from his thigh, and blood pooled across the ground. His breaths were barely coming.

Shiu Kong's intel hadn't mentioned any living people.

The boy had probably wandered in just recently, and the cursed spirit had kept him as a reserve meal.

Yang Jian's footsteps echoed across the empty dock floor.

The lump of flesh stopped chewing.

Several pairs of eyes opened simultaneously in different places, their pupils reflecting the young man walking into the darkness.

The cursed spirit's instincts told it that this thing approaching would nourish it more than all the others it had just eaten combined, yet he carried none of the sour stench of cursed energy.

"Scree-"

A piercing shriek rang out.

The lump abandoned the remains and launched its bloated body forward at a speed utterly at odds with its size, blasting a gust of foul-smelling wind through the air.

Semi-Special Grade.

If it fully digested the others, it would definitely cross that threshold.

Yang Jian didn't retreat.

He stood where he was, the flesh at the center of his forehead peeling open.

Red light spilled out unimpeded.

The pitch-black dock became a blood-red world.

A three-layer Ghost Domain unfolded.

The flesh lump's airborne body was forcibly frozen in place.

The arms and legs on its surface clawed wildly, cursed energy gushing out to counter the invading red light. But the instant it touched the Ghost Domain's boundary, it evaporated like snow falling into boiling water.

"Stop bouncing around, you pile of mismatched building blocks."

Yang Jian walked forward.

At his feet, a viscous, featureless black shadow slipped out of the red light and slid along the ground directly beneath the cursed spirit.

Ghost Shadow stood up.

The humanoid shadow, far smaller than the flesh lump, reached out with both hands and gripped the thick arms at its top.

He tore them off with a savage yank.

The flesh lump screamed as Ghost Shadow ripped two cursed spirits free, along with flesh and splintered bone.

Without pausing, Ghost Shadow turned his fingers into sharp black blades, plunged them into the opening, and pulled them apart.

The massive body's structure began to collapse.

Under Ghost Shadow's overwhelming dismemberment and suppression, every internal cursed energy circuit of this fusion creature on the verge of breaking past Semi-Special Grade was severed.

It tried to spew some kind of highly toxic mist, but the mist couldn't even spread within the Ghost Domain, pinned firmly inside that tiny space.

Ghost Shadow's arms pierced its core.

Crack.

The enormous lump stopped twitching, rapidly shriveling and turning to ash.

System notifications flashed across his retina.

[Grade 1 Cursed Spirit (mutated) killed ×1, +800]

[Grade 2 Cursed Spirit (remains) killed ×1, +50]

Yang Jian withdrew Ghost Shadow and glanced at the panel.

His current points totaled 54,330.

He turned toward the living boy in the drainage ditch.

The boy was still bleeding, his heartbeat slowing. He had already gone into shock.

Left alone, he would bleed to death in five minutes at most.

Saving people wasn't his job. Earning points was. But if this guy died here, the cleanup could attract the attention of Jujutsu Headquarters' field supervisors. It was best not to get Shiu Kong's secure network tangled up in a death investigation.

Ghost Shadow invaded the boy's body and lifted him into the air.

Ghost Shadow temporarily stemmed the bleeding from his wounds.

Red light flashed.

The two vanished from the dock floor.

Outside the emergency department of Yokohama Municipal Hospital.

The boy was placed on a stretcher by the emergency room entrance.

Before a nurse could get a clear look at whoever had brought him, nothing remained beyond the sliding doors but the dark night.

On a secluded street, Yang Jian bought a can of ice-cold cola.

His flip phone vibrated.

Shiu Kong: [Finished in Yokohama? I saw on the surveillance feed that the municipal hospital admitted a seriously injured high school student with lingering cursed spirit claw marks on his leg. Don't tell me you did that.]

Yang Jian typed one-handed: [Just helped him on my way past. Target dealt with. Next stop, Nagoya.]

Shiu Kong replied after a while: [Things have changed in Nagoya. Jujutsu Headquarters is making a move. The higher-ups are watching closely and checking unaffiliated sorcerers in the surrounding area while they're at it. You've been making a bit too much noise lately. Headquarters' hounds have sharp noses. If you go to Nagoya, you'll probably run into an official extermination team.]

If he ran into the authorities, he would have to open his Ghost Domain and brainwash them.

That wasn't difficult for Yang Jian, but he couldn't be bothered.

[Change the route. Find a blind spot in their surveillance.]

Shiu Kong: [There is one. The old sewer system along the Arakawa in Shinjuku. A few gangs own the land there, and Headquarters' Veils usually don't cover it. There are a few rats inside, supposedly refugees from other jurisdictions. One Grade 1, plus a few Grade 2 colonies. If you go, keep an eye out while you're there. Those gangs have been hauling things inside frequently lately. They might be hiding some contraband Jujutsu High is secretly investigating.]

[Send the location.]

Yang Jian promptly accepted the coordinates and tossed his empty can into a trash bin with a crisp clatter.

The Ghost Eye opened, and red light swept across the silent street.

Shinjuku.

The lower reaches of the Arakawa, two thirty in the morning.

The sewage outlet gave off a pungent ammonia smell.

The iron grating at the entrance to the underground pipe network had been violently torn apart.

Thick deposits of cursed energy lingered here. Yang Jian stepped inside.

In the center of the reservoir, seven or eight cursed spirits of varying shapes were sharing several fresh corpses.

There was a centipede-shaped one with an enormous human face, and two invertebrate creatures resembling rotting sludge.

Interrupted midmeal, the creatures all turned their hate-filled organs toward Yang Jian.

Yang Jian gave them no chance to make a sound.

The third layer of the Ghost Domain.

The red light compressed into an intensely concentrated glow, flooding the reservoir with blood-red color.

The cursed spirits lunging at him froze in midair, instinctively experiencing the terror of facing an absolute, merciless law.

There was no cursed technique windup, only brute-force immobilization.

Then the red light's concentration rose again. The Ghost Eye's gaze carried a terrifying, tangible weight, descending directly upon them as the Ghost Domain's space overlapped.

The space around the pale-faced centipede crumpled like a can being crushed by force. It couldn't even struggle before its entire body twisted grotesquely in the blinding red light.

Bang.

The Ghost Domain crushed it into an explosion of grayish-white blood mist.

The sludge cursed spirit tried to liquefy and escape, but under the Ghost Domain's all-seeing gaze, the surrounding space locked down completely.

Like an invisible millstone, the crimson light ground mercilessly over it, pulverizing its liquefied form along with the cursed grudge core inside, evaporating it outright.

Two Grade 3 cursed spirits farther away tried to flee, but the instant the red light swept over them, their bodies disintegrated inch by inch. Amid teeth-grating sounds of shattering flesh and bone, they were crushed flat-a completely one-sided instant kill.

The red light faded, leaving only puddles of unrecognizable remains on the ground.

The system panel flickered.

[Grade 1 Cursed Spirit killed ×1, +200]

[Semi-Grade 1 Cursed Spirit killed ×1, +150]

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

[Grade 3 Cursed Spirit killed ×2, +20]

Yang Jian shook his head. Too inefficient.

He turned and switched his Ghost Domain to reconnaissance mode, red light penetrating the concrete walls.

In a compartment behind the load-bearing wall at the reservoir's northeast corner sat a square wooden box covered in old talismans.

He passed through the wall into the compartment and opened the box.

A shriveled, malformed finger lay at the bottom, cushioned by blackened silk.

Its nail was blade-like, and it radiated an intense, ominous pressure.

Sukuna's Finger.

A Special Grade Cursed Object.

Yang Jian reached out and picked it up directly.

Ghost Shadow covered his hand, isolating it from outside forces.

Under supernatural suppression, that Special Grade curse was no different from an ordinary piece of dry wood.

After putting it away, he brushed the dust from his hands.

Red light flashed again, and the bloodshed and deathly silence beneath the Arakawa were buried once more in the deep darkness of night.

Not a trace remained.