Dhruv Lakdawalla finally stopped, paying no further attention to anything else. Severed limbs and shattered remains littered the ground around him. He glanced at Long Xi, saw that his body had already begun losing its warmth, and lost interest.
More cursed spirits were gathering in the distance, and quite a few ordinary people had left earlier, too. He still needed points. There was no reason to waste more time here.
"Let the cursed spirits eat every last scrap of you."
Dhruv Lakdawalla walked over beside Long Xi and picked up the cane someone had risked their life to pull out.
A pool of blood had already formed beneath Long Xi.
He had pierced Long Xi's heart himself, and Long Xi's cursed energy had vanished completely.
He would not survive...
The old man turned and left, walking unhurriedly out through the passage, as though certain everything was over.
Long Xi lay in the pool of blood.
The scrolling comments before his eyes flickered again and again. The whole world seemed to hold nothing but the restless, low growls of distant cursed spirits that had caught the scent of blood, one after another, drawing ever closer.
His body was sinking.
It felt unbearably heavy, yet his consciousness grew sharper as it contracted.
Although he had only just arrived in this world and had received no systematic training... he could still barely grasp the knack behind certain things.
The essence of Reverse Cursed Technique was to multiply negative energy by negative energy, turning it into positive energy, then pour it back into his body.
Before, he had only understood the concept.
Understanding was not the same as doing.
But now, with his heart mangled like this, he had to learn, whether he could or not.
Long Xi wanted to live.
Not because he feared death, but because he wanted to chase that old bastard down and kill him. He did not want that undying bastard to keep treating other people's lives as worthless.
"Come on... reverse..."
Half a breath of sound rolled out of his throat.
Cursed energy tangled chaotically inside him, like a pile of crushed steel wires. His cursed energy had been completely depleted; this new supply had only appeared because of the sudden surge in comments.
Little by little, Long Xi twisted it together, compressed it, and pushed it down a path that should not exist.
Pain erupted first, spreading from his chest through every limb and bone, as though someone were hammering red-hot nails into his flesh.
The first attempt failed.
On the second, it scattered again.
On the third, the cursed energy still failed.
Four, five, six...
Finally, on the thirteenth attempt, the instant negative multiplied by negative, Long Xi's entire body shuddered. Something gave a powerful throb where his ruined heart lay.
Thump.
The heartbeat was faint, yet it exploded beside his ears like thunder.
Once more.
Thump.
His blood began circulating again. Torn flesh knitted together at a visible speed, and strength returned to his cold fingertips.
Long Xi violently coughed up the blood blocking his windpipe. His whole body curled inward before he slowly propped up his upper body.
Reverse Cursed Technique had worked.
It had truly dragged him back from death's door.
His use of it was still crude, but if he kept it running without regard for the amount of cursed energy it consumed, he could still recover.
The cursed spirits in the distance had already closed in, their sheer numbers forming a dark mass.
They surrounded the pool of blood, scrambling to leap forward and feast on this "corpse."
Long Xi raised his head. His chest was still healing, and streams of blood continued running down his face.
Yet an outrageously wide grin spread across his face.
"You want to eat me?"
"Come on, then..."
He staggered to his feet.
At that moment, his cursed energy surged upward, like a long-blocked floodgate finally blown open. That brush with death had forcibly pushed his control a huge step forward.
The rhythm of Black Flash took clear shape in his mind as well. He no longer had only a superficial grasp of it.
[Name: Long Xi] [Age: 17] [Cursed energy: Grade 1] [Physical strength: National Athlete × 1.7] [Cursed energy efficiency: 2/5 of Satoru Gojo's] [Cursed technique: Early Access! (LV.1)] [Skills: Cursed Energy Manipulation (LV.4), Reverse Cursed Technique (LV.1), Black Flash (proficient: attacks have a 10% chance of producing Black Flash.)] [Cursed technique: Furious Flame Mound (LV.2: increased effects, increased technique strength, reduced consumption, increased understanding, new usable skills)] [Furious Flame Mound-Flame Seed (releases invisible cursed energy flame seeds that attach to the ground, walls, and opponents.)] [Traits: no heat leakage, difficult to detect with the naked eye.] [Furious Flame Mound-Void (uses flame cursed energy to rapidly heat localized air, causing an abrupt change in air pressure and generating a shock wave.)] [Traits: can inflict damage from the inside out.] [Overall evaluation: I never imagined you would make it this far! Let me fall for you, Long Xi!!!]
Flames erupted beneath his feet.
A ring of searing fire surged upward around Long Xi, swallowing the cursed spirits at the front.
The flames were not simply being released outward. They clung tightly to the few meters surrounding him, like a shield that could close shut.
Anything trying to break in was burned first, then trapped.
Although this was not a new ability granted by the system, he could still achieve this effect through his own experimentation.
"Use the Deep Study Card..."
"Raise Reverse Cursed Technique to level three!"
[Deep Study Card used!] [Reverse Cursed Technique has reached level three! New effects! Recovery speed greatly increased! Consumption greatly reduced! As long as cursed energy is available, it will remain continuously active!]
Long Xi raised his hand, and flames condensed in his palm.
Then they vanished from sight!
Around him, the air warped under the scorching flames. An immense gravitational pressure squeezed down, stretching from beneath Long Xi's feet to several meters out into Shenzhou.
Pieces of rock were crushed into fragments, one after another.
Some cursed spirits had already sensed something wrong and tried to escape, but it was useless now.
"Furious Flame Mound..."
He spread his hands, and invisible shock waves surged outward from within them.
"Void."
In an instant!
Even the supposedly powerful Grade 2 Cursed Spirits surrounding him burst apart from the inside out, becoming a sky full of bloody rain!
Long Xi lowered his hands, his knuckles still tingling.
Reverse Cursed Technique coursed through his body. An aching warmth spread through the spot where his heart had been pierced. Bones, muscles, and blood vessels knitted back together layer by layer, hurting so badly that he almost shattered his teeth from clenching them.
He had once thought pain was an alarm.
Only now did he realize it was proof that he was alive.
He was starting to like the feeling...
[He really survived.]
[Forget everything else. Turn that old bastard to ash first!]
Long Xi did not respond.
He stepped over the cursed spirits' remains and took two steps forward, then stopped.
Behind the ruins, several bodies lay beside broken concrete slabs.
Kawahara.
And several other members of the assistant personnel.
Their bodies had been sliced beyond recognition, but they still clutched their batons. One had broken finger bones, yet still held the screw infused with cursed energy in his palm.
Long Xi swallowed.
The smell of blood mixed with concrete dust invaded his nostrils, choking him until his chest felt tight. Night wind swept between the collapsed buildings, lifting a few torn paper talismans. They settled beside the bodies before the wind pushed them away again.
He had been lying here just moments ago.
His heart pierced, his body growing cold, unable to move even a finger.
Yet these people had charged forward. They were not sorcerers.
They were not Special Grade. They did not even qualify as Grade 3.
Most of the time, their work on the battlefield was simply measuring cursed residue, setting up curtains, evacuating civilians, and writing reports.
But when Dhruv Lakdawalla raised his hand to destroy Long Xi's body, these people, ordinary beyond measure, had stood in his way.
Their resistance had been ugly, and utterly tragic...
Long Xi walked over to Kawahara and crouched down.
Half of Kawahara's glasses had shattered. The work ID on his chest was soaked in blood, and the reserved face in its photograph still held a trace of nervousness that had never had time to fade.
Long Xi reached out, pulled the ID free of the bloody muck, wiped it clean, and placed it back on his chest.
"I'm sorry."
His voice was soft, scattered by a passing gust of wind.
He pressed his palm to the ground, and cursed energy flowed between his fingers.
This time, it did not burn. It enveloped.
The flames no longer devoured the air in a wild frenzy. Instead, they spread close around the bodies, forming rings of extremely fine flame patterns.
The patterns gave off no heat. They burned neither clothing nor flesh, only driving away nearby cursed residue and low-level cursed spirits.
He probably could not have done this before.
But now, it no longer cost him nearly as much.
One body, two, three.
Long Xi placed cursed energy around every one of them.
This was no advanced barrier.
In his current condition, he could not create a curtain capable of stopping a powerful enemy, either.
But at least low-level cursed spirits would not dare approach.
At least those filthy things would never touch them again.
He could do no better. There were only a little over ten seconds left before the binding vow he had made earlier expired.
After those seconds passed, he would no longer be able to use his cursed techniques.
But so what?
Long Xi picked up the poor-quality cursed tool from the ground.
It was a short blade with numerous chips along its edge, and cursed energy did not flow smoothly through it. In Jujutsu High's storeroom, it would probably have counted as "beginner transitional equipment," the sort no one would buy even at a discount.
Yet Kawahara had held it until the very end.
Long Xi tucked the blade into the tattered sash at his waist.
Blood still stained the hilt, which dug painfully into his side.
"Let me borrow this..."
He stood and looked in the direction Dhruv Lakdawalla had left.
The cursed residue was thick.
That old bastard had made no attempt to conceal his trail. Or rather, he did not believe anyone could still chase after him.
Long Xi rolled his neck as Reverse Cursed Technique continued repairing the damage inside him.
Every breath tasted of rust. His lungs had not fully recovered, and inhaling felt like shards of glass scraping inside them.
Even without his cursed techniques, what he had now was enough.
He could kill. That was enough.
He stepped forward, cracking the ground beneath his foot.
The next second, Long Xi shot forward.
Abandoned vehicles on both sides of the street rocked in the fierce wind. Broken glass shook loose from their windows. Long Xi ran across their roofs, denting the metal with shrill screeches.
He forced cursed energy into his legs to reinforce them, almost to the point of destroying them entirely. Every step propelled his body more than ten meters forward.
He could not have done this before.
His cursed energy would have scattered, and his body could not have endured the recoil.
But now it was different.
Reverse Cursed Technique worked like a repair machine with no regard for survival, patching whatever split and reconnecting whatever broke.
As long as he had enough cursed energy, he could use his body as expendable material.
It was an insane way of thinking.
But Long Xi no longer particularly wanted to be normal.
"Dhruv Lakdawalla."
He spoke the name, the taste of blood beneath his tongue.
"I will kill you!!!"
In the distance, several pterosaur shikigami swept across the sky between towering buildings.
Their flight paths intersected, slicing through the air and leaving lines of death invisible to ordinary people.
Long Xi looked up, and cursed energy exploded beneath his feet.
He gave chase.
Before you continue