[Just as your right hand was about to exert force, ready to swing the Soul Liberation Blade and slice the foul-smelling special grade cursed spirit before you to pieces, a piercing, teeth-grating sound like countless shells scraping violently together suddenly came from the humanoid body formed of countless cockroaches.]
["Dead... The contract is over!"]
[It actually spoke human words.]
[Hearing those rough, distorted words, you showed no surprise.]
[After all, in that previous simulation, you had already personally encountered Mahito, Jogo, and the other two highly intelligent, humanlike special grade cursed spirits.]
[Compared to the trivial detail of a cockroach cursed spirit being able to speak, what concerned you far more-and sent chills down your spine-was the deeper meaning of what it had said.]
[Although its broken roars mentioned no specific name, in this extremely unusual and sensitive context, the one it called "dead" could only have been the mysterious woman whose brain you had just pierced with the Soul Liberation Blade, shredding the core of her cursed technique!]
[And the supposed "end of the contract" was clearly no metaphor, either, but the cruelest literal truth-the binding vow and contract that woman had established with these terrifying cursed spirits had been forcibly severed and rendered void at this moment because her life had ended completely.]
[So... this nationwide disaster really was directly caused by that dead woman after all?!]
[You clenched your teeth, an indescribable surge of regret and dread rising within you.]
[In the end, you had overlooked a step. In that seemingly flawless calculation of a guaranteed kill, you had never anticipated this situation.]
[Combined with Masamichi Yaga's nearly despairing report over the phone just now, the number of cursed spirits released into the real world simultaneously because their contracts had expired was probably astronomical.]
[Your mind raced