Dead silence

Countless tiny steel pellets blasted from the shotgun's muzzle, forming a net of death that engulfed Yagami Jue in an instant!

"That brat's dead meat!"

The lackeys broke into cruel grins.

But then.

In the next second.

Every grin froze on their faces!

Clang, clang, clang!

A rapid barrage of metallic impacts rang out!

The pellets, powerful enough to riddle a human body with holes, erupted into showers of sparks the instant they struck Yagami Jue!

Then they dropped limply to the ground.

They hadn't even scratched his skin!

Dead silence!

The entire place fell as silent as the grave!

The scarred man's eyes bulged. His shotgun clattered to the ground, and his eyeballs looked ready to pop out of their sockets!

"What... what the fuck?!"

"He stopped bullets with his body?! Is he the goddamn Terminator?!"

"A ghost! He's definitely a ghost!"

The gangsters were scared out of their wits. Their legs shook so badly they could barely hold their machetes!

"Bullets?"

Yagami Jue slowly rose from the car roof.

He brushed a few pellets off his chest, his gaze utterly frigid.

"They're not even fit to scratch an itch for me."

Boom!

A sonic boom erupted!

Yagami Jue vanished into thin air!

An incredible 152 points of speed!

To an ordinary person, it was practically teleportation!

Thwack!

Before the scarred man could react, a hand like an iron vise had clamped around his throat!

Yagami Jue lifted him into the air with one hand as though he were a chick!

"Urgh... let... let me go..."

The scarred man kicked wildly in midair, his face turning purple and his eyes filled with boundless terror!

He could feel it. If Yagami Jue applied even a little more pressure...

His neck would crumble like a crisp biscuit!

"Who was asking for twenty million yen just now?"

A devilish smile curled across Yagami Jue's lips.

"B-boss! I was wrong! I ran my filthy mouth! I deserve to die!"

Not a trace of the scarred man's earlier arrogance remained. Tears and snot instantly covered his face.

"I'll pay! I'll give you money!"

"Our Rabid Dog Group has ten million yen in dirty money in the safe at this abandoned station!"

"It's all yours! Please spare my worthless life!"

Ten million yen?!

Yagami Jue's eyes lit up.

Just what he needed, right when he needed it!

"Lead the way."

Yagami Jue slammed the scarred man onto the ground like a bag of trash.

"Yes, yes! This way, boss!"

Five minutes later.

Looking at the stacks of pristine Fukuzawa Yukichi banknotes in the safe, Yagami Jue unceremoniously stuffed them all into a black travel bag.

"System, deposit it all!"

[Ding!]

[Detected 10 million yen in cash. Deposit successful!]

[Current account balance: 10 million yen]

The delightful notifications put Yagami Jue in a wonderful mood.

Holding the empty travel bag, he turned toward the trembling scarred man and his men.

"Get lost."

"From now on, this abandoned site is my private property."

"If anyone dares set foot in here again..."

Yagami Jue stomped hard on the solid iron anvil beside him!

Bam!

The anvil, weighing hundreds of pounds, shattered beneath his foot!

"This is what'll happen!"

"Yes, yes! We'll never dare again! Thank you for sparing us, boss!"

The gangsters scrambled out of the abandoned station, wetting themselves as they fled and wishing they had another pair of legs!

Time passed.

Night fell.

Ten o'clock that evening.

The abandoned slaughterhouse on the eastern side of the city.

This had once been Sendai City's largest pig slaughtering facility.

A horrifying dismemberment case several years earlier had led to its complete abandonment.

Even now, the air was thick with the lingering stench of blood and rotting meat.

"Drip... drip..."

Rainwater dripped from the rusted sheet-metal roof.

Asakura Yuki wore a cheap gray tracksuit and clutched a baseball bat she had taken from the sports equipment room.

Standing before the slaughterhouse's sinister entrance, she couldn't stop trembling.

Cold.

A sinister chill that seeped into her bones!

It felt as though countless unseen eyes were staring at her from the darkness!

"Y-Yagami?"

Asakura Yuki summoned her courage and called out weakly.

Everything around her was quiet. There was no response.

Only the wind moaned against the sheet metal, sounding like the sobbing of ghosts.

"He... he wasn't lying to me, was he?"

Asakura Yuki bit her lip, her eyes reddening again.

She was terrified.

This place was ten thousand times more frightening than yesterday's alley!

But remembering Yagami Jue calling her a "useless burden" brought her deep-seated stubbornness surging to the surface.

I can't back down!

If I don't even dare go inside, I'll spend my whole life as a weakling everyone bullies!

Asakura Yuki took a deep breath, gripped the baseball bat tightly in both hands, and walked into the dark slaughterhouse one step at a time on trembling legs.

Behind her.

Atop an abandoned tower crane more than thirty meters above the ground.

Yagami Jue stood with his arms folded, looking down on it all.

"The bait is in place."

Yagami Jue's gaze was cold.

With eyesight that surpassed human limits.

He could clearly see that, as Asakura Yuki entered as a living human...

The purple-black cursed energy residue that had lain dormant throughout the slaughterhouse began churning and boiling wildly!

"Hee hee hee hee-!"

A shrill laugh that made her scalp prickle suddenly rang out above Asakura Yuki's head!

"What was that?!"

Asakura Yuki jerked her head up.

One glance was enough to make her scream and fall onto the sewage-covered concrete floor!

"Monsters! Aah-!"

There, on the rafters of the slaughterhouse hall.

Five or six cursed spirits hung upside down, their bodies resembling monkeys but their faces looking like skinned, fat pigs!

They had long, sharp claws. Their scarlet eyes fixed on Asakura Yuki below as greedy saliva dripped from their mouths.

Grade 3 cursed spirits! Livestock Curses!

"Living flesh... smells so good..."

"Tear her apart! Eat her!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Several Grade 3 cursed spirits pounced from the rafters in an instant, their sharp claws aimed straight at Asakura Yuki's throat!

"Get away! Stay back!"

Overwhelmed by terror, Asakura Yuki shut her eyes and swung her baseball bat like a madwoman!

Bam!

The baseball bat struck a cursed spirit on the head.

But without cursed energy reinforcing it, an ordinary wooden bat was little more than a tickle to a cursed spirit!

Crack!

The baseball bat snapped in two!

The cursed spirit gave a vicious grin. Its sharp claws had already touched Asakura Yuki's pale neck!

They had even drawn a bloody line across her skin!

Am I going to die...?

Asakura Yuki closed her eyes in despair.

The last image that surfaced in her mind was, unexpectedly, Yagami Jue's cold, merciless profile.

BOOM-!!!

At that critical instant!

Someone stomped through the slaughterhouse's rusted sheet-metal roof from outside with brutal force, smashing it to pieces!

Shards of sheet metal whirled through the air amid the rain!