Disdain

"Eight Gates Formation, first gate! Opening Gate! Open!"

"Boom!"

Yagami Jue's strength doubled again!

"Can you take this fifty-million-yen punch?!"

"Great Barrier!"

Mechamaru roared frantically, pouring out all his cursed energy to form layer after layer of heavy steel armor in front of him.

"BANG!!!!!"

A deafening blast rang out.

Yagami Jue's fist instantly punched through Mechamaru's supposedly indestructible armor as if it were tofu.

It slammed straight into the core in Mechamaru's chest.

"Crunch!"

Mechamaru's metal shell instantly caved in and warped, while the cursed energy circuits inside him completely collapsed under the blow.

Like a crushed soda can, he hurtled backward over a hundred meters, knocking down more than a dozen trees so thick it would take two people to encircle each one.

"Mechamaru!"

Noritoshi Kamo was utterly dumbstruck.

His hands shook so badly he couldn't even nock an arrow.

"Don't worry. You're next."

Yagami Jue turned his head, his eyes brimming with savage brutality.

He was just about to step forward and finish Noritoshi Kamo off.

Suddenly, a terrifying, chilling surge of cursed energy erupted from deep within the forest.

Some force tore a massive hole through the Curtain overhead from the inside.

"Hmm?"

Yagami Jue stopped and looked up.

A monster covered in tree-like markings slowly emerged from the shadows, its gaze tranquil yet holding an intensely suppressed power.

The special grade cursed spirit-Hanami.

Several curse users in black robes followed behind Hanami.

"Humans..."

Hanami's voice sounded directly in everyone's minds, carrying an inexplicable sense of sanctity and destruction.

"Your harm to the earth ends here."

"You again, you lousy tree monster?"

Yagami Jue frowned, but the grin curling his lips grew even wilder.

"You really never learn."

"I let you get away last time. Since you've delivered yourself to my doorstep this time..."

Yagami Jue clenched his fists, and a towering surge of blood energy erupted from the crown of his head.

"I'll chop you down and turn you into thick stacks of cash!"

Noritoshi Kamo looked at the special grade cursed spirit before him, then at the excitement on Yagami Jue's face. His brain completely froze.

This guy... his first thought when he sees a special grade cursed spirit is money?!

Is he a madman or a god?

The atmosphere within the forest changed abruptly.

A lavish feast of violence and money.

Had begun once again!

Above the dense forest, the dark purple Curtain resembled an enormous overturned bowl, cutting off every distress signal.

A peculiar, fresh, earthy scent filled the air, emanating from Hanami.

Noritoshi Kamo stared fixedly at the one-eyed wooden monster nearby, the sweat from his palms already soaking his bowstring.

"Special grade... it really is special grade..."

"Why would a monster of this level show up in a competition like this?!"

Noritoshi Kamo's heart pounded wildly.

Behind him, Mechamaru, whom Yagami Jue's punch had driven into a tree trunk, spat glaring sparks from his internal circuits and spoke in a hoarse voice.

"Warning... cursed energy fluctuations... unable to analyze... run... run..."

Yagami Jue stood in the center of the clearing with his hands in his pockets, studying Hanami fearlessly with black eyes tempered by his second evolution.

"Hey, you rotten piece of wood."

"I let you escape in Roppongi last time, and instead of finding a tree hollow to hide in, you actually dared to show your face in front of me?"

Yagami Jue bared his teeth in an extraordinarily vicious grin.

"Do you think you've lived too long, or do you think your little 'cursed spirit savings account' has too much money in it?"

"Human... arrogant human..."

Hanami's hollow voice echoed directly in everyone's minds.

"The earth is weeping... the forest is groaning..."

"For the balance of nature... you... must return to dust..."

As Hanami finished speaking, the ground beneath it split apart. Countless verdant roots, each thick enough to take two people to encircle, lashed toward Yagami Jue like giant deep-sea pythons, filling the air with piercing whistles.

"This again? Don't you cursed spirits have any fresh ideas?"

Rather than retreating, Yagami Jue looked utterly disgusted.

"This garbage isn't even fit to shine my shoes!"

"Boom!"

Yagami Jue blurred into motion, and the ground instantly exploded into a deep crater several meters across.

With his speed exceeding a hundred thousand, he had effectively ceased to exist in the eyes of Noritoshi Kamo and the others.

His movements had surpassed the limits of what their eyes could track.

"Riiiip!"

A flurry of tearing sounds rang out.

Those terrifying roots, powerful enough to shatter a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer's bones, were little more than roadside weeds before Yagami Jue.

His hands became blurs. With every swing, great swathes of roots were torn apart and shredded by brute force.

Green sap splattered across the ground, giving off a bitter smell.

"Holy shit... is this guy even human?!"

Hiding in the distance, Mai Zenin stared wide-eyed, the revolver in her hand trembling slightly.

"That's a special grade cursed spirit's cursed technique! And he just... tore it apart with his bare hands?!"

She had thought she already knew how terrifying Yagami Jue was.

But now it seemed that back on the mountain, he had only been helping them "warm up."

"Whoosh!"

The instant Hanami's attention slipped, Yagami Jue abruptly appeared right in front of its face.

His extreme speed even left a faint black trail in the air.

"Caught you, three hundred million yen!"

Yagami Jue grinned savagely, clenching his right fist.

"Get on your knees!!!"

This punch concentrated all one hundred twenty-five thousand points of Yagami Jue's terrifying strength.

Before his fist even arrived, its tremendous pressure forced the ground around Hanami to sink several inches.

"Bzzzt!"

A flicker of horror passed through Hanami's hollow eyes.

It could feel it.

This punch could shatter its soul core completely!

"Wood Release: Sea of Flowers Illusion!"

At the brink of death, Hanami unleashed an unprecedented surge of cursed energy.

Countless colorful flowers instantly bloomed beneath Yagami Jue's feet, releasing waves of a delicate fragrance that induced drowsiness.

This was a special cursed technique that robbed people of their will to fight and plunged them into hallucinations.

Trying to put me to sleep?

Don't you know I'm the founding father of Jujutsu High's 'sleeping style'?!

Yagami Jue ranted furiously in his mind.

At that moment, his constitution of a hundred and ten thousand displayed an absurd level of resistance.

The hallucinatory fragrance was potent enough to overwhelm a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer instantly.

But the moment it entered his nostrils, the blazing blood energy within him burned it away completely!

"BANG!!!"

Yagami Jue's fist slammed squarely into the left arm Hanami had raised in front of itself.

That arm had been reinforced with countless rare woods and cursed energy, making it as hard as diamond.

But at that moment.

"Crack!"

The crisp sound of splintering set everyone's teeth on edge.

Under Yagami Jue's punch, Hanami's thick arm was like a biscuit crushed in a hydraulic press.

It burst apart inch by inch, sending wood chips flying!

"Aaargh!"

Hanami let out an agonized scream as the force of the punch lifted its enormous body off the ground.

It flew backward over a hundred meters, crashing through more than a dozen ancient trees before finally coming to a stop against a cliff face.

The cliff collapsed, burying half its body in rubble.

"Tch, still not dead?"

Yagami Jue landed and shook the wood chips off his hand, looking somewhat dissatisfied.

"Special grade cursed spirits really are tough."

"System, how much gold did that punch drop?"

[Ding! Since the attack did not inflict a fatal injury, the dropped gold reward is: 20 million Japanese yen!]

"Only twenty million?"