Hajime Kashimo raised his staff and easily smashed apart two flying insects trying to approach him.
The insects' flesh and the large quantities of venom stored inside them splattered under the blow, sending bright green, poisonous droplets spraying wildly around Hajime Kashimo.
The lightning marks at the corners of his eyes flashed. With the current inside his body accelerating his reflexes, Hajime Kashimo easily tracked every drop of venom, twisting and darting to avoid them all.
"Holy shit, Kashimo! You're a god!"
Inside his body, Lu Yun couldn't help cheering after witnessing Hajime Kashimo's spectacular moves.
Hajime Kashimo's lips curled upward. He was just about to savor the moment when the whistle of something cutting through the air behind him snapped him back to attention.
While Hajime Kashimo was focused on dodging the venom, Kurourushi had pulled a bizarre insect blade from somewhere.
One of its remaining arms gripped the insect blade and abruptly stretched out, aiming straight for Hajime Kashimo's cursed energy core.
The strange-looking insect blade was called the Festering Life Sword, Kurourushi's personal weapon. Cockroach eggs covered the blade. When stimulated with cursed energy, they would grow into cockroaches, feeding on the victim's flesh.
For an ordinary sorcerer, even a mere scratch from the Festering Life Sword, rather than a strike to a vital point, would cause no end of trouble once the eggs contaminated the wound.
Unfortunately, it had picked the wrong opponent.
Hajime Kashimo reacted in time, instantly drawing back his staff and turning to block the Festering Life Sword. He successfully protected his vitals, but that momentary lapse still left a cut on his arm.
The cockroach eggs entered Hajime Kashimo's body through the wound. Delighted, Kurourushi formed a hand sign with its free hand and mobilized its cursed energy to stimulate the eggs.
"Idiot."
But all Kurourushi received was Hajime Kashimo's merciless mockery.
Hajime Kashimo's cursed energy had the properties of electricity, and it coursed throughout his body during battle. A sorcerer's own cursed energy inflicted far less damage on them than on others. Hajime Kashimo himself could withstand those currents running rampant inside him, but foreign intruders were another matter. In an environment filled with electricity, the already fragile foreign eggs had no chance of survival.
Kurourushi's call to the eggs was doomed to go unanswered.
Hajime Kashimo knocked aside the Festering Life Sword without pausing and stomped on Kurourushi's arm before it could pull back.
Cursed energy surged over his electrified staff. Hajime Kashimo swung it around and, in the instant Kurourushi froze at its failure to stimulate the eggs, brutally smashed it into the creature's flank.
With its arm pinned, Kurourushi couldn't dissipate the impact. Its eyes bulged as its body bent into a U-shape toward the opposite side, taking the full force of the blow.
The immense force tore apart the joint between its arm and shoulder, leaving only a few scraps of flesh connecting them.
He wasn't finished. Hajime Kashimo followed up with another strike.
The pinned arm finally tore free of its body. No longer held in place, Kurourushi was sent flying, rolling several times through the wheat field before finally coming to a stop.
Its lone remaining arm could no longer support its body. As the man with the staff drew closer, Kurourushi, which delighted in savoring others' fear, felt terror rising from its own heart for the first time since its birth.
"D-don't kill me!"
Its voice rasped like sandpaper. An overwhelming desire to survive drove the humanoid cockroach back to instinct, and it crawled laboriously through the wheat field.
"Laugh. Why aren't you laughing anymore? Don't you love laughing?"
A large foot planted itself on the cockroach cursed spirit's back. The immense pressure left Kurourushi unable to move another inch.
"Don't kill me!"
The mechanical plea repeated over and over, and the owner of the foot began to feel bored.
"Forget it. Just die."
Abandoning any thought of tormenting Kurourushi further, Hajime Kashimo pressed down hard with his foot, unleashing a burst of lightning.
Squelch.
No different from the cockroaches found everywhere, the cockroach cursed spirit Kurourushi died beneath the foot of a human, Hajime Kashimo.
"If you're a cockroach, then accept your fate and get stomped to death."
Like a death knell, Kogane's announcement rang out again:
"Congratulations, Player. You have earned 5 points. Your current total is 51 points."
Perhaps because it was still too early in the timeline, Kurourushi hadn't reproduced asexually as it had in the original story. The remains gradually dissolving beneath Hajime Kashimo's foot were all that was left of it.
Kurourushi, the cockroach cursed spirit and one of the Sendai Four Heavenly Kings, had been exorcised.
After fierce battles against two Special Grade opponents in succession, even a battle fanatic like Hajime Kashimo felt a little tired.
Unlike Yuta Okkotsu in the original story, he didn't have Reverse Cursed Technique to heal his injuries, nor had his victories come as easily as Okkotsu's.
Both battles had been genuine head-on clashes, and every injury he sustained had accumulated in his body.
Fortunately, none of them were serious. The worst was the slash from Kurourushi's surprise attack, which had only left a shallow cut on his arm and didn't affect his fighting ability at all.
Two of the Four Heavenly Kings were gone. Only two fighters worthy of Hajime Kashimo's attention remained inside the entire barrier.
"Who should I go after next?"
Before Hajime Kashimo could agonize over it, the other two fighters made the decision for him.
"Oh? You took down both Dhruv Lakdawalla and Kurourushi all by yourself? You've got some skill."
An empty patch of space suddenly warped, and a tall, pink-haired woman appeared beside Hajime Kashimo without warning.
He hadn't sensed the slightest trace of her presence.
Hajime Kashimo glanced back, but the pink-haired woman had already thrust out both palms.
"Thin Ice Breaker!"
Under the woman's control, the space between them shattered like a mirror.
A powerful impact struck instantly. Hajime Kashimo raised his staff across his chest to block, but his body was still hurled uncontrollably through the air.
So she's Takako Uro? As expected of the former captain of the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad, which participated in the campaign against Sukuna. She really does have a few tricks.
As he sailed through the air, Hajime Kashimo recalled the information Lu Yun had given him.
As captain of an assassination squad, Takako Uro was well versed in concealing her presence. No wonder Hajime Kashimo hadn't sensed her approach.
"Hey, hey, hey! Don't let your mind wander in a fight. Your dessert's going to spoil!"
His body shot past a building, but Hajime Kashimo still clearly saw the man with the pompadour shouting at him from its rooftop.
Blue light gathered in the man's pompadour, then blasted out with a roar.
"You're the one called Ryu Ishigori, right? The opponent Kenjaku recommended to me four hundred years ago."
Hajime Kashimo turned to face the Cursed Energy Cannon pursuing him. With an airborne swing of his staff, coated in cursed energy, he split the incoming stream of blue light cleanly apart.
He hadn't expected to get another chance, four hundred years later, at the fight he had missed in his previous life. Hajime Kashimo was just as eager.
"Interesting. Both of you at once? Perfect. Saves me the trouble of tracking you down one by one."
Hajime Kashimo spun his long staff and grinned.
"Don't get my hopes up too much."
Before you continue