Deep in a remote mountain range far from Tokyo's bustle, the chilly wind of early spring swept through the dense woods, letting out low, mournful whistles.
Li Shunchen stood quietly in a clearing. Before him, two enormous black and white Divine Dogs, like messengers of the gods, dug rapidly into the hard earth with their sharp claws. As dirt flew, a deep pit of just the right size gradually took shape.
Beside the pit lay a pale, cold corpse that still radiated a heart-stopping sense of pressure. It was Toji Fushiguro, the man known as the "Sorcerer Killer."
Li Shunchen crouched and held his hand above Toji's corpse, faint Cursed Energy flowing through his fingertips. Closing his eyes, he made one final attempt to thoroughly analyze and extract from this unusual body with his Cursed Technique, Phantom Parade.
Yet the result remained like a clay ox sinking into the sea, like staring into an abyss. All that came back was absolute emptiness.
But this fruitless outcome was exactly what he had anticipated. Whether it was Heavenly Restriction, which did not fall within the conventional category of a "Cursed Technique" to begin with, or the utterly isolated constitution whose Cursed Energy was precisely "zero" because of that ultimate bodily vow, both meant that Toji Fushiguro himself possessed no supernatural traces that Phantom Parade could capture or copy. His strength came purely from this physical body, honed to the utmost by the laws of the world.
Li Shunchen slowly opened his eyes and withdrew his hand. Silently, he looked at the body of the man he had killed with his own hands.
Before bringing him here, Li Shunchen had actually taken the time to stitch Toji's severed head back onto his body and clean him up with extreme care. Although this body