With the power system damaged, every light in the shopping center had gone out. Electrical sparks occasionally flickered inside broken incandescent light strips, sizzling.
Classic. A textbook setting for a ghost story.
Having been killed several times in a row by an unidentified creature, Xia Xia could certainly appreciate that. Humans naturally feared dark, forbidding places, but there were always brave souls willing to charge into danger for something.
Blade of light, please protect this city once more!
If there was no way to make light, then light up this vile darkness the most primitive way possible!
Fire!
Xia Xia struck a match, raising a feeble spark. Since his opponent could teleport whenever the light fell below a certain threshold, he might as well start a roaring blaze.
Nameless cursed spirit, if I cannot free this mall from your rule, then let this elevator shaft burn!
Fire! Fire! Fire!
The ten-year veteran of the FFF Group officially began today's light show.
The match touched a pile of clothes nearby, igniting an orange-red blaze. Thick smoke billowed upward as the flames reduced another shop to blackened embers.
What a fine fire! Even better than the fire at Yiling!
Perhaps the cursed spirit sensed the darkness being driven back. It shrieked and darted out of the elevator shaft, its scales flickering in the firelight but stripped of their former luster.
It could not understand what this human was thinking. Arson meant rotting in prison. Once a fire this big spread through the entire mall, it could still float out of there, but how the hell was a flesh-and-blood human supposed to escape?
You're overthinking it. Your Uncle Xia never intended to get out alive.
He had started this fire precisely to take it down with him!
Flames soared and smoke churned. Without its teleportation, this cursed spirit was merely a tough-as-iron fish that could briefly float through the air!
Xia Xia reacted instantly. Channeling cursed energy, he tore down a nearby curtain and wrapped it around the cursed spirit. He had once worked at a parcel depot to make a living, and his packing speed rivaled a professional packaging machine.
In the blink of an eye, layer after layer of cursed-energy-infused curtains covered the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit's eyes and restricted its movements to some extent.
Naturally, it struggled like a ribbonfish hauled out of the water, but struggling took time. Seizing that precious opening, Xia Xia finally closed in...
"They're not getting away!"
Iron-Fist Jujutsu Sorcerer, activate!
As the saying in Elbow Kaisen went: pour in enough cursed energy, and even a Special Grade gets wrecked; keep those elbows coming, and even Sukuna gets nervous.
Eat my iron fists and steel elbows, you bastard!
The shopping center had four floors arranged in rings around a standard central atrium. Thrashing wildly, the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit carried Xia Xia to the railing.
But that did nothing to stop him from mechanically punching it over and over.
The kid had no skills, but he was holding down the basic attack button for dear life.
Straight punch, elbow strike, straight punch, elbow strike!
Basic attacks mixed with normal attacks, with the Kun Gate's ancestral Iron Mountain Lean at close range. Just keep dealing damage and leave the rest to cursed energy. If fire damage would not stick, that simply meant he had not supplied enough cursed energy. Xia Xia directly enchanted the flames with cursed energy. The damage was low, but something was better than nothing.
The Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit was losing its mind. It seriously suspected this human was insane. The flames became hotter and harsher with cursed energy added, but while it was burning, the human riding its back could not escape either!
You'd better have fire immunity, you little shit!
Of course he did not.
Xia Xia's body also suffered severe burns as the flames roasted him. His skin charred and carbonized all over, and his melting subcutaneous fat turned him into a burning candle-but none of that mattered!
The flames added precious elemental damage to his punches and elbow strikes. A Grade 3 Jujutsu Sorcerer could only kill an opponent above his level by giving everything he had. He could not afford to waste a single point of damage!
Don't talk to me about casualty ratios. I don't want a casualty report. I just want to see that cursed spirit exorcised!
Amid the inferno, Xia Xia looked more demonic than the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit as he punched it in a frenzy. A smile hotter than the flames spread across his melting face:
"Run! Fucking run! Why aren't you running now? Don't like running anymore? Weren't you hot shit a moment ago? Why are you wriggling on the floor like some mangy snake now? Are you a fish or a maggot? How are you this useless?!"
"Tell me, do you like Daddy's blazing fists?"
No one answered. There was only the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit's defiant roar beneath him, with the faint crackle of flames as background noise.
A cursed spirit at this level could neither understand nor speak human language. Only an elbow strike delivered with all his strength could get any reaction out of it. Attacks from a low-level jujutsu sorcerer like Xia Xia barely scratched it.
Punch after punch, elbow after elbow. Even when the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit's roars turned into cries of anguish, Xia Xia kept at it.
His lower limbs had already roasted crisp, charred outside and tender within, dripping fat and grease. In the searing heat, his consciousness was fading too.
His cursed energy was nearly exhausted, but the flames still burned.
Orange-red flames, orange-red curtains, and the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit's scales, roasted white by cursed-energy-infused fire and gradually peeling away.
This could not go on. A human body certainly could not outlast a cursed spirit. A battle of attrition did Xia Xia no favors. Continuing would lead to only one outcome: he would die, and the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit would escape with minor injuries and barely a scuff.
How could I give up at a time like this?
In his daze, Xia Xia seemed to see a small figure dancing with red silk amid the flames. Whipping through the wind was something sharper than any sword...
A palm.
Drag out every last bit of cursed energy. Its core is in the lower body. Squeeze every drop out before you burn to death. Only a pure cursed energy strike can kill a cursed spirit.
Strike a snake at its weak point. A snake-fish is still a snake.
Nezha churned the sea and slew a dragon. A sea of fire is still a sea.
On the verge of death, Xia Xia grasped the essence of the elbow strike!
Holding the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit down with all his might, he drove his cursed-energy-coated knife-hand forward like a siege engine, smashing through scales and the cursed spirit's flesh and blood, if it had any, then pushing deeper...
Deep inside, he flexed his fingers and gouged downward with brutal force!
This strike was swift, precise, and vicious, severing the life cycle of a cursed spirit that was essentially an aggregate of energy. His hand cut down through its spine from behind, stripping away its connective tissue. Reduced by the heat to bone and a layer of charred skin, Xia Xia's withered arm tensed. He clenched his hand and pulled out its entire spinal cord in one piece!
"Fly, fly, fly! Go on, fly again!"
"Today, I'm going to split! Your! Dragon! Spine! You dead fish!"
With a thunderous shout, Xia Xia pulled the slippery "Dragon Tendon" out of the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit's body. Amid an earth-shaking wail, the cursed spirit retaliated wildly, violently flinging him off its back and slamming him into a wall.
But that was merely its last gasp. Before the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit could launch another attack, its body began to dissipate.
Xia Xia's cursed energy had dismantled its entire life. All it could do was collapse into an ugly heap, like ramen left sitting too long.
The thick, charred synthetic curtains lay over it, making it look like a pile of household trash dumped without being sorted. Toxic, hazardous, and nonrecyclable. Trash belonged in a trash can.
"Heh. That's all?"
"Nothing but a stubborn grain of sand on my path forward..."
As Xia Xia watched the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit being exorcised, he, too, was naturally approaching death, having already exhausted everything he had.
He was nearly dead, but his mouth remained defiant. His body had carbonized, but his spine would sooner break than bend. It remained straight because his entire body was embedded in the wall, with plenty of support.
What was he thinking at a time like this?
Was he wondering how much longer the fire would burn, whether it could reduce the entire district to scorched earth and earn him a few more kills? Or was he wondering whether a torrential downpour would come, just as it had when Zhuge Liang tried to burn Sima Yi to death?
Stop flashing my life before my eyes. Let me take another look...
Countless thoughts echoed through his mind, then settled on the "Dragon Tendon" clenched in his right hand, which was also gradually fading away. The cursed spirit was dead. Unless a part of it had been made into a cursed object or cursed tool, it would inevitably dissipate.
Still not quite satisfied. What a waste.
Using the last of his strength, Xia Xia lowered his head, touched his lips to the silvery-white spinal cord of the cursed spirit, and took a large bite. He gave it a few token chews.
If he had been Suguru Geto, he might have gained another equipment slot or follower slot this time and happily changed classes to a summoner. The world teemed with heroes, yet he was just such a weak, ordinary man.
The flames shone on his eyes, already melted by the heat and blind.
His breathing stopped, and so did his heart. Xia Xia had actually died long ago. All that remained was a body struggling on instinct, embedded in the wall as its final trace of life slipped away.
It burned.
It burned out.
Only snow-white ash remained.
[Xia Xia was killed. They could smell you roasting from three kilometers away. The killer was fire.] [Dropped 591 platinum, 60 gold, 15 silver, and 3 copper.] [Conditions completed: 1] [Rewards pending settlement.] [Respawn countdown...]
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