How are you still alive?

Dhruv Lakdawalla stopped atop a seven-story commercial building.

His Shikigami's trajectories had already sliced through half the building. Its outer walls had collapsed, leaving rebar exposed to the air.

A cold wind swept past, stirring his tattered robe and the cursed residue left by the Pterosaur Shikigami behind him.

He was in no hurry to leave.

The destruction of his Giant Shikigami had indeed cost him dearly.

Especially with the other three around. Ryu Ishigori and Uruhenko might not attack him, but that insect was an exceptionally effective counter to him.

If it had any brains at all, there was no way it would leave him alone.

So guarding against it, or simply killing it outright, had become his most pressing concern.

But to Dhruv Lakdawalla, this was not yet a hopeless situation.

He had lived too long and seen too many Jujutsu Sorcerers struggle before death.

Some cried, some begged for mercy, some staked everything on a counterattack, and some grasped new techniques at the very last moment.

But the dead were still dead.

A pierced heart, interrupted cursed energy, a body surrounded by cursed spirits.

There was no reason that young sorcerer should have survived.

And once he died, that thing Kenjaku had mentioned would naturally free Dhruv Lakdawalla from his current predicament.

Still, he was curious. What exactly had that man seen in the brat?

Enough to pay such a steep price to have him killed.

Leaning on his cane, Dhruv Lakdawalla looked down at the distant street, and his last lingering doubts vanished.

Still... no matter what was special about that brat, he had already killed him for good.

What trouble could he possibly stir up now?

"So even someone Kenjaku took an interest in amounted to no more than this..."

The words had barely left his mouth.

A low-rise building exploded in the distance.

It did not explode from the outside. Some invisible force crushed the building's entire midsection! Glass, walls, and rebar burst outward together, crashing into the street with a deafening boom!!!

A figure shot out of the dust.

Dhruv Lakdawalla's fingers froze.

The man pushed off falling concrete slabs, compressing the flames beneath his feet into sharp bursts. At every landing, the ground caved beneath him, yet he only accelerated.

Long Xi looked up.

Their gazes met through the rubble.

For the first time, Dhruv Lakdawalla did not immediately speak.

He saw the newly grown flesh on Long Xi's chest, the blood-soaked clothes, and the battered blade at his waist.

Most absurdly of all, the man even raised a hand and waved at him.

"Yo."

Long Xi landed on the opposite rooftop, sending loose stones tumbling beneath his feet.

"Long time no see."

Dhruv Lakdawalla stared at him, his aged face filled with astonishment, his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets.

"Is this for real?"

"How could you still be alive?! After an attack like that!"

Seeing his astonished face, Long Xi once again flashed a deeply contemptuous smile and slowly tore apart the clothes covering his upper body.

"As real as it gets. Alive and kicking!"

The wound left by the cane piercing his heart was still visible, but it had completely healed and scabbed over!

Long Xi pressed a hand against his chest. A faint ache remained there. Reverse Cursed Technique repaired him quickly, but it could not erase the memory of death.

Dhruv Lakdawalla put all other thoughts aside and regarded Long Xi gravely.

"Reverse Cursed Technique?"

"Correct!"

"When your cane pierced my heart, when you killed the people I wanted to protect!"

"I was furious! That anger drove me to devote every ounce of my focus to Reverse Cursed Technique!"

"Cursed energy is negative energy. Even if it can strengthen the body, it can't regenerate it. So you multiply negative energy together-two negatives make a positive!"

"That's Reverse Cursed Technique. I thought it would take me ages to learn!"

"I'm a genius, right?! I only tried it once today. Just once, and I learned it!"

He tore away the rest of his shirt, exposing broad swaths of muscle to the air. His once carefully groomed hair hung in disarray, and with the blood smeared across his face, he looked utterly deranged.

Yet Long Xi had never felt so gloriously alive!!!

"This guy..."

"Has he lost his mind...?"

Dhruv Lakdawalla tapped his cane against the rooftop as Pterosaur Shikigami circled behind him.

In the distance, the remaining cursed energy of another large Shikigami had completely dissipated, but nearly seventeen small Pterosaur Shikigami were still approaching through the air.

A dense web of trajectories spread across the sky.

"On the brink of death! My anger kept me going!"

"I grasped the core of Jujutsu!!!"

"You failed because you didn't completely pierce my heart! Because you provoked me with other people's lives!"

"And because you didn't cut off my entire head!"

"You learned Reverse Cursed Technique, and that made you think you could come after me?"

"...You actually think I failed? The fight has only just begun!"

Dhruv Lakdawalla tried to keep his voice as level as possible, but the fierce fighting spirit Long Xi had stirred in him answered the challenge.

He still carried the arrogance unique to an ancient sorcerer.

But his will to fight had awakened!

"Really?... Right, maybe you're right!!!"

"You think this alone will let you defeat me?! You've lost your cursed technique! Once a binding vow takes effect, its price doesn't disappear just because you came back to life!"

Long Xi did not deny it.

Earlier, to kill the Giant Shikigami, he had made an extremely severe binding vow: he would permanently lose access to his flame cursed technique within the instance.

Normally, that would be a dead end.

Once a Jujutsu Sorcerer who relied on his cursed technique lost it, all he had left was cursed energy reinforcement, Reverse Cursed Technique, and that battered blade.

What was he supposed to fight Dhruv Lakdawalla with?

His head?

Long Xi looked at the web of Shikigami behind the old man and suddenly smiled.

"Honestly, I was thinking the same thing a moment ago."

Dhruv Lakdawalla frowned.

Long Xi raised his right hand and spread his fingers. Cursed energy burns still marked his palm.

Right after reviving, he had confirmed something with the system.

This was an instance. Even if his body here were diced into mango-sized cubes, it would not affect his real-world self.

Binding vows, death, and injuries were all settled within the instance alone.

In other words-

This round, he could go all in.

Long Xi spoke softly:

"I offer half my life as the price!"

Dhruv Lakdawalla's expression finally darkened.

"In exchange for lifting the restriction on my cursed technique."

The air went still for half a beat.

Fine cracks burst across the rooftop beneath Long Xi's feet. Blood trickled from his nose, only to be swiftly stopped by Reverse Cursed Technique.

"And for the battle to come, I will enhance Furious Flame Mound's output, control, and cursed energy conduction."

The binding vow took effect.

Boom!

Flames erupted beneath Long Xi's feet.

These were not the simple crimson flames from before, but a deeper, heavier fire edged in black. The flames had actually reached an azure blue!!!

Rather than lashing outward, they pressed into his muscles inch by inch along his arms, spine, and legs, as though forging his entire body into a red-hot blade!

His bones made a teeth-grinding noise.

Veins throbbed at Long Xi's temples. The sensation of the binding vow draining away half his life was brutally immediate.

His vision darkened, and a ringing exploded in his ears.

It felt as though a hand had seized his heart and viciously twisted it.

But his cursed technique was back! And fiercer than before!

[Now that's the advantage of being an instance player.]

[Who cares whether you live or die? Have a blast fighting first!]

Long Xi nearly laughed at the scrolling comments.

"You people really don't care what a life costs as long as you get a good show."

"...Don't worry. I'll give you what you want!"

Watching the changes in Long Xi's cursed energy, Dhruv Lakdawalla lost every trace of disdain.

"Madman."

"Thanks for the compliment."

Long Xi raised his foot, and the rooftop instantly exploded!

Two Pterosaur Shikigami in front of Dhruv Lakdawalla immediately swooped down, their cutting trajectories intersecting as they closed in.

Long Xi did not retreat far. He thrust a hand forward.

"Furious Flame Mound-Void."

An invisible impact blasted from his palm.

The two Pterosaur Shikigami had barely traced half a circle before their bodies burst outward from their abdomens. Their cursed energy cores shattered at a distance, and their remains trailed black smoke as they plunged toward the street.

Dhruv Lakdawalla slammed his cane against the ground.

The remaining Pterosaur Shikigami changed their flight radii, pressing more trajectories toward Long Xi.

These were no ordinary aerial attacks.

Their flight paths themselves were domain boundaries.

Anything that touched them would be sliced apart.

Long Xi pushed off, slipping through the gap between two trajectories. A barrier grazed his shoulder and sheared away a strip of flesh, but Reverse Cursed Technique restored the wound a second later.

He closed to within thirty meters of Dhruv Lakdawalla.

Dhruv Lakdawalla finally raised his hand.

"Revealing my cursed technique."

The old man's voice carried outward. His speech involuntarily quickened, his tone filled with unmistakable urgency.

"My Shikigami's trajectories constitute a domain of Inviolability. All who cross their paths shall be cut."

The boost gained by revealing his cursed technique made the aerial trajectories even denser.

At the same time, two small Pterosaur Shikigami beside him let out shrill cries. Their bodies disintegrated on their own, turning into black cursed energy that poured into the remaining Shikigami.

Long Xi could not tell what he had gained in exchange.

But it did not matter.

He only needed to kill them all. Whatever his opponent did would become irrelevant!!!

Flames condensed into a point in Long Xi's palm.

Then he punched through the air toward the building where Dhruv Lakdawalla stood.

"Void."

The seven-story commercial building's midsection collapsed instantly.

No flames shot skyward.

An invisible impact pierced the entire building from within. Its load-bearing columns snapped simultaneously, and the floors sank with a thunderous crash, as though someone had hollowed out its center.

Dhruv Lakdawalla used a Pterosaur's trajectory to lift himself clear of the collapse, but his earlier air of watching a spectacle was gone.

Long Xi burst out of the falling building, clutching the battered blade.

It was a poor blade.

But once he poured his cursed energy into it, the blade buzzed on the verge of breaking apart.

"Old bastard."

Long Xi shattered a falling billboard beneath his foot and charged right up to Dhruv Lakdawalla.

"Now I'm going to kill you! It won't even take a minute!!!"