Elbow strike, and the next move was another elbow strike!

The familiar office building.

The mangled corpse beside him and Izumino, the middle-aged man who had just finished his kill-perhaps those sights had shocked Xia Xia at first, but now they were nothing more than a boring cutscene.

I don't need to know who I am, and I don't need to know where I am. All I know is that I'm about to go on a killing spree.

"Hey, old man, mind giving me your head to use as a chamber pot?"

"Seeing a loser like you is honestly pretty boring."

Xia Xia delivered his taunts with considerable talent. His years of talking trash as a thermonuclear keyboard warrior had not been for nothing.

There was nothing complicated about it. At its core, the Culling Game was just a brutal battle royale. When the participants entered the barrier, the jujutsu-powered artificial idiot Kogane-a type of shikigami-had already announced the rules to them. Xia Xia had heard them too.

To repeat:

① Within nineteen days of awakening their cursed technique, a player must declare their participation in the Culling Game inside a designated barrier.

② Any player who violates the preceding rule will have their cursed technique removed, an action highly likely to result in death.

③ Any non-player who enters a barrier immediately becomes a player and is considered to have declared their participation in the Culling Game.

④ Players accumulate points by killing other players.

⑤ Points are assigned by the game and represent the value of a player's life. Jujutsu sorcerers are generally worth five points, while non-sorcerers are worth one point.

⑥ A player may spend one hundred points, excluding the value of their own life, to negotiate with the game and add a new rule to the Culling Game.

⑦ The game must accept a rule proposed under the preceding condition, provided it does not have a significant and lasting impact on the continuation of the Culling Game.

⑧ If a player's score remains unchanged for nineteen consecutive days, their cursed technique will be removed.

Ultimately, to a jujutsu sorcerer with a few ideas, anything moving inside this barrier was nothing more than a walking point.

Perfect. Killing this old man he kept running into and getting a point under his belt would make the trip worthwhile, wouldn't it?

"You're certainly enthusiastic, young man."

"I can tell you have a 'good heart.'"

Izumino took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the blood off his hands, then turned around and extended Xia Xia an invitation to the hunt.

Having experienced his "heart-and-guts removal" after-sales service many times already, Xia Xia naturally knew this was the windup to an Invisible Hand attack. Canceling the windup with dialogue-this old man was a real piece of work.

Should I roll out of the way?

What a joke. As an ordinary person, I had to scramble and crawl around in front of you. Now that I've got the strength of a Grade 3 Jujutsu Sorcerer, shouldn't this be a breeze?

Why should I avoid his attacks?

Xia Xia neither dodged nor ducked. With his own two hands, he blocked the incoming invisible palms head-on, actually withstanding the first round of attacks.

That's it?

You're just a jujutsu sorcerer who awakened on his own in the Culling Game. Fighting a boring guy like you is nothing but a super-hyped bot match. Enough. The pre-dinner conversation ends here. Time to enjoy my appetizer.

Xia Xia lunged forward with a Drive Rush, chaining a three-stage unbreakable grab into a Seismic Toss and a Russian wrestling slam. The physical capabilities of a Grade 3 Jujutsu Sorcerer were far beyond what he had possessed before. He executed the smooth little combo in one fluid sequence, beating Izumino until the old man barely had any breath left.

"Old man, looks like you don't get enough exercise."

He stomped hard on Izumino's face and crushed the Invisible Hand that was still struggling. Xia Xia would not give him a second chance.

Finish him!

Watch me throw out a raw super: ultimate finisher plus brutal execution!

"Last time, we left off with Wu the Constable drinking the strong liquor called 'Three Bowls Won't Cross the Ridge' on Jingyang Ridge. Slightly tipsy, with the alcohol coursing through him, he encountered a fierce tiger with slanted eyes and a white forehead. After a life-and-death struggle..."

"Wu the Constable gripped the hide atop the fierce tiger's head tightly with his left hand, freed his right, and raised a fist as big as an iron hammer. With every ounce of strength he had, he kept beating it. After fifty or seventy punches, blood burst from the beast's eyes, mouth, nose, and ears."

Elbow strike, elbow strike, and the next move was another elbow strike!

Don't ask how much skill it takes. I'm spamming the same combat move-are you scared yet? No talent? Then repeat it. A thousand hammer blows will carve a path out of the mountain!

Xia Xia had no idea how many times he had pinned Izumino down and elbowed him. All he knew was that his right arm, from his fingertips to his shoulder, was horribly sore, numb, and swollen. Then blood foam and minced flesh sprayed evenly over his entire body, soaking him through.

As for what lay beneath his knees, it was a puddle of meat paste. Just a puddle of meat paste wearing a suit. Don't overthink it. Hand-beaten until springy, it could be made into authentic Chaoshan beef balls.

Xia Xia exhaled. He had always said he had a talent for cooking. If he hadn't failed the spring recruitment back then, he would have gone straight to a culinary vocational school for proper training and graduated with a guaranteed job placement.

On to a few more boring matters.

He had hesitated at first, not intending to go quite so hard. But looking at the high school girl beside him, her eyes still open in death after Izumino had torn her apart alive, Xia Xia felt he was delivering justice on heaven's behalf.

An animal like Izumino deserved to go to hell!

Every elbow strike was another +1 merit.

Feral jujutsu sorcerers were all savages. They belonged in cages.

His clothes were filthy beyond recognition, so Xia Xia simply stripped off everything above his waist and walked straight into the shopping plaza next door.

That was one good thing about the city: clothing stores were easy to find. Although corpses and unidentified scraps lay everywhere, finding something clean and presentable to wear was a breeze.

After changing into a plain tracksuit and using his old clothes as a towel to wipe the blood and flesh off his body, the now-respectably dressed Xia Xia felt even the psychological strain of participating in a battle royale ease.

Whew. Shopping for free really feels great.

Now, with the world wide open before him, the refreshed Xia Xia stepped straight into the building's elevator shaft...

"?"

A strange sound reached his ears.

Some animal had let out a shriek. Judging by its volume and the distance it had traveled, the thing would need at least another thirty seconds to reach him.

But...

Xia Xia's eyes widened. To his astonishment, he saw his heart being torn out from behind. A pointed head burst through his chest, then the terrifying creature, something between a snake and a fish, raced away like the wind with his heart in its mouth.

Light spilling through the opening overhead dispelled the darkness in the elevator shaft. Sunlight or lamplight, orange-red, fell across Xia Xia's face.

Have my blood vessels not reacted yet? Why isn't blood spraying out? Something this bizarre can probably only happen because thought has outrun physics-jujutsu sorcerers see their lives flash before their eyes when they die. Grade 3 Jujutsu Sorcerers should get that too.

What the hell? Aren't you supposed to head off to a movie theater when you die?

Does this come with those absurd postmortem last words Jujutsu Kaisen can't do without? The after-death interview segment really is a bit awkward.

"It slipped right past me. Smooth."

How?

Teleportation plus an execution? It pierced this Grade 3 Jujutsu Sorcerer's body with its head that easily?

Alien monsters really are classics you never get tired of watching.

I'm honestly a little embarrassed I couldn't let Lord Cursed Spirit enjoy himself... Hopefully my heart will fill your belly.

How lucky to forge a bond through death.

Xia Xia collapsed in a pool of blood. Even as he died, he continued watching the blue-green light reflected by the creature's scales as it swam through the air.

It looked a little like the structural coloration of chitin in an insect's shell.

[Xia Xia was killed. A vital organ was destroyed. Killer: cursed spirit (unnamed, Grade 2).]

[Dropped 591 platinum, 60 gold, 15 silver, 3 copper.]

[No extraction rewards.]

[Respawn countdown...]

In the pure white space, Xia Xia gave a bitter smile that said, "So that's how it is." In the end, it was all down to raw stats.

A Grade 2 Cursed Spirit might not be anything impressive, but it was still stronger than some dime-a-dozen Grade 3 Jujutsu Sorcerer.

And since it wasn't human, neither its vital points nor its weaknesses were apparent from its physical form. Judging solely by its ability to pierce a person's body from behind with its head, its physical durability definitely wasn't low.

Whether it had any other traits remained unknown, but it seemed to possess teleportation or spatial-warping abilities. That was a bit of an unsolvable problem.

"I'm putting this on your tab."

"You little shit. Next time, I'm turning you into fish stew with pickled mustard greens."

Under normal circumstances, it was only natural for a Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerer to be capable of exorcising a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit. Then again, surely nobody would actually get promoted to Grade 2 and still fail to beat a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit, right?

(Note: under normal circumstances, within every rank below Special Grade, a jujutsu sorcerer is theoretically stronger than a cursed spirit of the same rank. This is basic knowledge universally accepted by the Jujutsu Society.)

Well? Should I run away, find a few more small fry to grind levels, improve my physical stats and cursed energy, then come back to avenge this humiliation?

"But that's... how a loser thinks!"

As you could see, Xia Xia was an ill-mannered, grudge-holding man of the world. Adhering to the principles that revenge should never wait overnight and mutual destruction still counted as victory, he would kill that "snake-fish" even if he had to reload his save endlessly.

What if I don't have enough information? Just die a few more times.

With the immortality granted by the "Softcore Player" trait, Xia Xia had all the time and means he needed to deal with this beast.

And so...

[Xia Xia was killed. His head was relocated. Killer: cursed spirit (unnamed, Grade 2).]

[Xia Xia was killed. He was informed of his expiration date. Killer: cursed spirit (unnamed, Grade 2).]

[Xia Xia was killed. He became a puddle of meat. Killer: cursed spirit (unnamed, Grade 2).]

On this respawn, after finishing off Izumino, Xia Xia found a box of self-heating rice and a bottle of cheap red wine on the shopping mall's shelves.

For an urban office worker, this sort of food was all too familiar-things had come to this, so he might as well eat first. Even if he died, he would die with a full stomach. A condemned man's last meal needed wine!

Premium ingredients often required only the simplest cooking methods. After dying seven or eight times and keeping busy for nearly two full hours, Chef Xia began preparing his feast.

As for the self-heating rice being unappetizing and inadequately seasoned, repeatedly recalling the gruesome circumstances of his recent deaths provided enough "dinner-worthy fails" to make it palatable.

To sum it up, this cursed spirit was pretty interesting. It ran off as soon as it had scooped out his organs, never sticking around to tussle with him. It clocked in right on time-this little thing was very well behaved. Once it finished eating a person, it left.

He needed to find a way to make it stay so he could land an effective attack. Unfortunately, the bastard was a phasing spammer, constantly chaining five flash jumps and shrugging off any pressure.

Xia Xia recalled what every one of his deaths had in common.

That thing can only teleport in darkness!

In lit areas, it can only float around!

That's right. The formula for victory has been solved. As long as I can guarantee complete illumination, the fight can begin.

After gulping down half a bottle of sour, cheap red wine that seemed to be past its expiration date, Xia Xia walked toward that gloomy elevator shaft once more.