"Where are you?"
Eclipse's voice suddenly rose, turning shrill and piercing as all its eyes widened at once.
Its tentacles jerked up from the ground, flailing through the air as they lunged toward Wangchuan.
"Mommy!!!"
Wangchuan rolled his eyes. "I'm not your mom. Why are you screaming at me?"
Eclipse charged at him.
That enormous blackish-purple body hurtled toward him at a speed utterly at odds with its size.
More than a dozen tentacles lashed like whips at Wangchuan's head, chest, and limbs.
They carried a foul-smelling gust and a piercing shriek like a crying infant.
Wangchuan stood where he was.
He even yawned again.
About ten centimeters from his body, those tentacles suddenly seemed to strike an invisible wall.
All their force, speed, and direction were deflected in an instant.
The air around Wangchuan briefly distorted.
Shi's massive body was violently yanked sideways by an invisible force, its dozen-odd tentacles tangling together along with its entire body.
Boom!
It crashed headfirst into the wall on the right side of the corridor.
Eclipse's tentacles were still twitching, its eyes flickering in the dust as it gave confused, pained whimpers.
"Waa... Mommy...?"
Wangchuan stood there, slipped his hands into his pockets, and tilted his head at the crater in the wall.
"I told you I'm not."
"Don't go claiming random people as family."
He started walking unhurriedly toward Shi, his leather shoes making faint crunching sounds against the wood splinters and plaster dust.
"And let me tell you something."
He looked down at that still-twitching blackish-purple body.
"You killed so many people."
"You're that ugly, you make a filthy mess when you work, and you even smashed up the hospital's wall. If your mom really gave birth to you, she'd probably regret it."
Eclipse's tentacles suddenly sprang up, trying to coil around Wangchuan's ankles again.
Wangchuan did not even lift his feet.
The tentacles curved a dozen centimeters in front of his shoes and were pushed away again.
"Still haven't figured it out?"
"You really are trash among Special Grades."
Wangchuan smiled as he spoke.
This was Wangchuan's Innate Cursed Technique.
The Moon Force Field derived from it was a defensive skill.
It automatically maintained a gravitational barrier around his body, and the gravitational field would deflect the trajectories of all approaching physical and Jujutsu attacks, sending them skimming past him.
Its effect was similar to Satoru Gojo's Limitless, but the underlying principle was completely different.
One prevented contact; the other made attacks get out of the way.
Wangchuan crouched, rested both hands on his knees, and tilted his head at the blackish-purple body still twitching in the crater in the wall.
Dust slowly settled in the emergency light's green glow, and several eyes blinked as they tried to focus.
"Go on."
Wangchuan's voice was airy, carrying a little of the patience used to coax a child before a shot. "How do you want to die?"
Shi's dozens of eyes contracted at once.
Then it suddenly erupted.
The outburst came without warning.
All its blackish-purple tentacles went rigid at the same instant.
It shot out of the dent in the wall, its torso swelling as dark red light burst from the cracks across its skin.
A powerful surge of Cursed Energy exploded outward from it like a bomb.
The glass windows on both sides of the corridor shattered simultaneously, spraying shards as the plaster peeled away, and the lights across the entire floor flickered twice before going out completely.
Boom!
Wangchuan remained crouched where he was.
A few strands of his hair blew up, and his shirt collar fluttered. Nothing else happened.
Those shock waves, glass shards, and torrents of Cursed Energy all curved the instant they approached his body.
Glass fragments flew past mere centimeters from his ears.
The Cursed Energy bent into a crooked arc of light that slid past his shoulder and behind him. Not a single speck of dust landed on his head.
Wangchuan clicked his tongue.
"Ah... What a temper."
He reached out and brushed a little plaster dust off his trouser leg, though he did not know when it had gotten there.
His tone carried distaste.
"I was still talking to you, and you suddenly blew up. Where are your manners?"
Shi's tentacles lunged at him a second time.
This attack was fiercer than the last, with a dozen-odd blackish-purple, umbilical cord-like appendages coiling toward him from every direction like pythons.
"Ah."
Wangchuan sighed.
He did not even change his posture, remaining crouched as he simply extended his right index finger and casually raised it a little.
The tentacles suddenly froze in midair.
Then.
Smack.
Shi's entire body was slammed toward the ground by an invisible force.
The force came too fast and too hard, as though an entire mountain had suddenly pressed down on its spine.
Its skin began deforming first, its folds flattened and its bones making teeth-grating cracking sounds. Then came its limbs.
Those long, thin blackish-purple limbs were forcibly flattened against the floor like a plastic bag crushed underfoot.
"Aah!!"
Shi let out a distorted howl.
All its dozens of eyes bulged, some crushed outright and leaking dark fluid.
Its torso rapidly collapsed under the gravity, its originally two-meter-forty frame compressed to less than a meter tall within seconds.
All its tentacles lay flat on the floor like a lump of modeling clay that had been run over.
Wangchuan stood up and looked down at the thing still writhing feebly on the floor.
"You can withstand a hundred times normal gravity."
"Not bad, huh?"
Shi gave faint whimpers.
Its remaining intact eyes slowly turned in the gaps along the floor, their gaze finally holding fear as they looked at Wangchuan.
"...Mom..."
"Still calling me Mom?"
Wangchuan raised his eyebrows.
He curled his five fingers slightly inward.
As though seized by an invisible hand, what little remained of Shi's body began rapidly contracting.
All its tentacles, skin, bones, and remaining eyes were compressed toward a single central point.
It did not even manage a full scream. Only half a hoarse whimper squeezed out of that ever-shrinking sphere before cutting off entirely.
Wangchuan relaxed his fingers.
Only a black ball of flesh the size of an egg remained on the floor.
Then it turned to ash.
"That's taken care of..."
The corridor fell completely silent.
He waited for that familiar, cold mechanical voice to ring inside his skull, waiting for the progress bar to rise.
But nothing happened.
Wangchuan frowned.
"Hey, a Special Grade, and you won't even give me one percentage point?"
Still silence.
"Fine, then here's another question. System, am I really not allowed to rob a bank?"
This time, after a pause of about two seconds, that flat synthetic voice finally sounded.
"Correct."
"The funds required to exchange for Demon Coins must be legally obtained by the host through normal societal channels."
"Illegal proceeds will automatically be deemed invalid assets and cannot be converted."
Wangchuan scoffed, flicking dust off his shoulder with his fingertips.
"Normal channels?"
"Getting Tso Lan's progress bar to a hundred percent takes 670 billion yen. How many missions would I have to take?"
"And how long would it take to collect all seven of the remaining demon templates?"
"Sigh..."
"I accept my fate. I'll take it slow."
Wangchuan turned and headed toward the stairs, his leather shoes crunching over broken glass.
"Time to go."
He took out his phone and checked the time: 8:24.
Only a few minutes had passed from the time he entered to the time he finished.
"I'll have Ijichi treat me to a good meal."
Wangchuan muttered to himself.
Soon, Wangchuan walked out of the hospital.
"Hey!"
"Ijichi!"
Ijichi stood up from beside the flower bed with the suitcase in his arms. He visibly relaxed when he saw Wangchuan come out.
"Wangchuan! Is it taken care of?"
"Done."
"That fast...?" Ijichi glanced at his watch.
Then he looked at the hospital behind Wangchuan.
His expression held that complicated mix of feelings: though he knew Wangchuan was powerful, he still found himself shocked every time.
"But that was a Special Grade..."
"Special Grades aren't all that." Wangchuan walked over, took his suitcase from him, and pulled up the handle.
"Let's go find somewhere to eat."
"Huh? Now?"
"Yeah. Working overtime means replenishing your energy." Wangchuan turned to look at him, the corners of his mouth curving upward. "Your treat, Iji."
Ijichi opened his mouth.
But seeing Wangchuan's utterly matter-of-fact expression, he swallowed his words and sighed.
"...All right. There's a pretty good ramen shop nearby..."
"Come on, let's go."
Before you continue