Long Xi darted between high-rises, his body reinforced with cursed energy.
The broken billboard dipped beneath his foot. A second later, he had cleared a gap three stories high and landed on the fire escape outside the office building opposite.
The steel frame groaned under his weight. With a tap of his toes, he launched himself onward.
Wind whipped past his ears, carrying dust and the smell of burning.
Before, he wouldn't have dared move like this even in his dreams.
Now, he had to make it work.
His reinforced muscles were like a drawn bow. Ankles, knees, waist, and abdomen worked together, driving each landing's impact into his bones before releasing it with his next leap.
An ordinary person would have seen, at most, a shadow streaking between buildings-not even enough time to get out a "holy shit."
[Sir, what do you do for a living?]
[Newton: You know what I'm supposed to say.]
[Don't get cocky. You nearly became a bug platter yesterday.]
Long Xi ran across a tilted glass curtain wall, shards crunching beneath his soles.
"Quit rushing me. I want to play it safe too."
He answered the chat, but didn't slow down.
Sendai Business Plaza lay to the north.
He had memorized the route map Kawahara had given him.
The survivors in the parking garage couldn't spare anyone else, so he had to make this trip alone.
His job was simple: reach the shopping center, find the trapped assistant personnel and ordinary people, clear out the cursed spirits blocking the way, and bring everyone back to the parking garage.
It sounded like an errand.
In the Culling Game, it meant risking his life to deliver someone else's takeout.
Long Xi cleared a low building and landed on the edge of its rooftop, fine cracks spreading through the concrete beneath his feet.
He paused for half a second and looked down to check the street.
A few low-level cursed spirits wandered below, their bodies twisted into strange shapes like carelessly crumpled balls of paper.
They hadn't noticed Long Xi above them. They merely prowled among abandoned cars, sniffing for the scent of living people.
Can't get bogged down in a fight.
Delays were the biggest danger on this rescue run.
"Save them first, then find a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit to finish the mission." Long Xi tightened his bandages another turn.
"Hope they hold out until I get there."
He had barely finished speaking when Kogane emerged beside his shoulder, the little golden speck bobbing twice.
"Current identity confirmed: Culling Game player."
"Current points: 0."
"Friendly reminder: please earn points promptly!"
Long Xi stopped short.
"You're still alive..."
Kogane circled him once without answering.
He guessed Kogane still hadn't forgiven him for that slap. Long Xi hadn't expected the little fellow to still be alive...
After all, Kogane was pretty unusual. Those cockroaches probably couldn't eat Kogane, but points would have to wait...
[Still at zero points? Our streamer really is untouched, huh?]
[111, hit us with some point jokes.]
"Don't throw around words like 'untouched.'"
Long Xi leaped again, sailing through the gap between two buildings and landing on a narrow pedestrian bridge.
Half the bridge had collapsed. He slid down its broken railing, then vaulted across to the other side of the street using a bus shelter's roof.
In the distance, another surge of cursed energy flared above the city.
That energy was thick and heavy, as though someone had stuffed an entire building into a cannon and casually fired it at the city.
Meanwhile.
Farther away, on the top floor of a high-rise, Ryu Ishigori sat at the edge of a cracked balcony, holding a dessert he had scavenged from some shop.
The cream was no longer fresh, but he ate with great care.
People from ancient times rarely got to enjoy things like this.
No matter how chaotic the fighting in the Sendai Colony became, it couldn't interfere with his obsession with dessert.
Of course, dessert came in two forms.
He put the last spoonful into his mouth, paused with it on his tongue, then suddenly turned toward the other side of the city.
"That brat's still alive..."
Ryu Ishigori raised an eyebrow, interest flickering across his face.
Yesterday, Kurourushi had chased that kid half to death, and then he had been caught in the blast of Ryu's own Cursed Energy Blast.
Normally, even if he had survived, he should have been lying in the rubble waiting for someone to pick him up.
Yet now, his cursed energy had not only recovered, it was even more solid than yesterday.
The quantity wasn't remarkable, and the quality wasn't top-tier either.
But it was tenacious.
Like a stone thrown into a fire, cracked by the heat yet stubbornly refusing to shatter.
"Interesting."
Ryu Ishigori opened another cup of pudding. Just as he plunged his spoon into it, a different surge of cursed energy pressed into his senses from farther away.
This one was completely different.
Vast, steady, and astonishingly heavy.
A newly arrived player.
Already over thirty points.
Yuta Okkotsu.
Ryu Ishigori stared in that direction, licked the sweetness from his lips, and smiled more broadly.
"Compared to that zero-point brat, that one looks more like a main course."
With that, his gaze returned to the area where Long Xi was.
There were swarms of insects nearby.
Black and densely packed, they crawled along the streets and walls.
There weren't many, but they were irritating.
They were spreading out in the direction Long Xi was moving. Some were low-level cockroach cursed spirits left behind by Kurourushi, while others were merely vermin drawn in by that cursed residue.
Ryu Ishigori watched for a while, then lowered his brows.
"So noisy."
He stroked the hairstyle he took such pride in, easing his irritation a little before aiming his pompadour.
Cursed energy gathered at the top of his head, compressing into a brilliant point.
A second later, a cursed energy cannon blast tore across the city.
Boom!
An entire street in the distance vanished beneath white light. The insects exploded along with the buildings' outer walls, the shock wave shattering nearby windows in sheets and whipping dust into the air.
Long Xi slammed to a halt mid-journey, dropping into a crouch at the edge of a mixed-use building's rooftop.
He looked toward the blast.
Only several seconds later did its aftermath sweep over him, making his clothes snap in the wind.
"Ryu Ishigori really is..."
Long Xi stared at the devastated block in the distance, then spotted a mass of black insects writhing in the flames.
"Always firing one off. Even a high school boy staying up alone at home has more self-control than you..."
"Hope it doesn't get in my way..."
Long Xi didn't linger.
Ryu Ishigori taking on Kurourushi's remaining insects was good news for him. At least it took a lot of pressure off his route.
He jumped from the rooftop, stepping off air-conditioning units in succession before landing on the outskirts of the business plaza.
This place was worse than the area around the parking garage.
The shopping center's main building had been caught in the earlier melee. Its glass doors lay shattered across the floor, the escalators stood motionless in the darkness, and wires dangled from the ceiling.
Cursed energy had torn several large holes in the exterior walls. Cold wind whistled shrilly through the building.
A few traces of cursed energy lingered at the entrance.
Very faint.
They were probably markers left by assistant personnel using the Simple Barrier Technique.
Long Xi crouched and brushed his fingertips over half a scorched paper talisman on the ground.
Still fresh.
The people hadn't left long ago-or they were still trapped inside.
He looked deeper into the shopping center.
In the darkness, he heard low-level cursed spirits crawling.
More than one.
Long Xi rolled his shoulders, and flames lit up in his palm.
"Time to clock in."
[Rescue mode activated.]
[Don't get so caught up in looking cool that you forget to save mana.]
[This mall's creepiness is maxed out. What normal person would shop here?]
"The normal people already ran."
Long Xi stepped through the broken doorway, firelight illuminating the dried blood beneath his feet.
"The ones left are the ones who couldn't."
Before you continue