Chingetsu spoke flatly, as though describing some trivial matter that had nothing to do with him. But Chi could feel that he was serious.
"Damn you! I'm a Semi-Grade 1 Curse User! Don't look down on me!" Chi's face twisted beneath his one-horned demon mask.
That brat earlier had been like this, and now Chingetsu was the same. Always looking so calm and unruffled.
For Chi, whose greatest pleasure lay in his enemies' despair, this was a humiliation unlike any he had ever felt.
Although Chingetsu's appearance had caught him somewhat off guard, Chi sensed no flow of a Cursed Technique from him. In other words, just as the intelligence said, Chingetsu had indeed not inherited the Gojo Clan's Limitless. What right did someone who had not inherited Limitless have to spout such nonsense before him? "I'll sacrifice you to Hannya, then drain every drop of your blood, leaving not even your marrow!" An eerie light blazed in Chi's eyes, and an ominous aura rose.
"Black Hall!"
Black mist spread once more.
Chi thrust his palm toward Chingetsu's heart.
The elusive speed with which Chingetsu had suddenly rescued Kento Nanami earlier had made him somewhat wary. There was not a trace of panic in his eyes or expression.
If he was not putting on an act, then he had to have something to rely on.
Perhaps to conceal his unease, or perhaps to test Chingetsu's strength, Chi chose to strike first.
Chi was extremely confident in this palm strike. They were so close, and he was launching a surprise attack.
Even a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer would suffer from such an ambush. His palm struck empty air.
Chingetsu's figure vanished into thin air before him. Chi froze instinctively.
"He disappeared?"
"No, that's not right. He's so fast that he made me think he vanished into thin air." Chi could swear that his eyes had never left Chingetsu.
Yet even so, he had lost sight of him.
Chi warily assumed a defensive stance, guarding against an attack that could come at any moment. "Looking for me?"
Behind me!
Chi whipped around and struck behind him with his palm. "Too slow."
The words sounded beside his ear like a demon's whisper.
A fierce blast of air swept down from overhead, and a knee slammed squarely into Chi's face. In an instant, the demon mask shattered amid a spray of blood.
Before the horror in Chi's eyes could fade, Chingetsu grabbed his off-balance body and slammed him down hard.
Crack.
Chi seemed to hear his spine snap. "Th-this... This is impossible..."
Chi raised his head with difficulty and looked at Chingetsu, who sat boldly on his waist with one leg crossed over the other. Humiliation, a sense of humiliation unlike anything he had ever known, surged through him.
He was an esteemed Semi-Grade 1 powerhouse, yet now someone was sitting on him like a dog.
Chi wanted to fight back, but the impact of Chingetsu's descent had already crushed his spine. "You look pretty unconvinced."
"Don't rush. The show has only just begun."
A cruel smile appeared at the corner of Chingetsu's mouth.
He had smashed up his establishment and injured the excellent worker he had so carefully cultivated. How could he allow someone like that a quick death?
"You... What are you going to do?"
Chi's voice trembled slightly. He was beginning to feel afraid.
Although he was only a double, he still had an independent personality, with joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness of his own.
But at that moment, all he felt was profound fear.
"What am I going to do? No, no, no. You should be asking what he's going to do!" "Killer Queen!"
The space behind Chingetsu rippled, and a pale pink silhouette gradually solidified, its cold gaze looking down at Chi, who lay like a dead dog.
Killer Queen revealed himself fully for the first time. "Th-this is...!"
"It's you! It was you!"
Chi's pupils shook violently, as though an earthquake had struck. He could not mistake that emblem.
It was identical to the skull emblem on the bomb tank Trace had projected earlier. Chingetsu was the true culprit who had silently wiped out the Q Organization's branch!
Chapter 27: A curse of despair
"Oh? You know me?"
Chingetsu looked at Chi, who resembled a beaten dog, with a faint, ambiguous smile. "Or do you know him?"
Chingetsu stood and directed Killer Queen to turn Chi's face straight toward him.
Chi's pupils trembled violently, and beads of sweat kept rolling down his forehead.
How many years had it been? As the head of the Q Organization, he had not tasted fear in many years.
And now, merely meeting the eyes of this strange "Cursed Spirit" made him feel as though he had encountered his natural predator. Even his brain had almost stopped thinking.
"Forget it. I don't have the patience to keep wasting time with you."
"I said it earlier, didn't I? How should we carry out this delightful torture?" "Where should we start?"
"Hmm, this was the hand you used to hurt Nanamin, wasn't it?" Chingetsu lightly touched his index finger to the back of Chi's right hand. "You... What did you do to me?"
Chi's voice trembled slightly.
The unknown was often the most frightening thing. "What did I do? Why, of course..." "Boom!"
Chingetsu shaped his mouth into an explosion.
Accompanying Chingetsu's mockery, Chi's right hand, which Killer Queen had touched, suddenly exploded. All its flesh dissolved in the blast, leaving only charred bones.
"Aaargh!"
Chi clutched his blasted right hand and screamed like a pig being slaughtered.
Chingetsu had deliberately controlled the bomb's power so that it would blast away his flesh without reducing his hand to dust.
This would let him experience pain to the fullest.
This Curse User of unknown origin had smashed up his bar and injured Nanami. Letting him die easily really would not suit his character.
Whether this Curse User was a pawn secretly backed by the Three Great Clans or a lackey nurtured by some religious sect. The screams gradually weakened, and Chi seemed to have passed out from the intense pain.
"Oh, come on. You can't even stand this little bit of pain? Who gave you the courage to provoke me?" Smiling, Chingetsu touched another finger to the back of Chi's other, uninjured hand. "I remembered wrong just now. You must have used this hand to hurt Nanamin." "Such a good employee of mine, and you just hit him as you pleased?"
Another soundless explosion followed. Chi's left hand burst apart as well.
Chi's mouth opened wide in terror, his eyes bulging.
The intense pain had robbed him of even the strength to scream. He could only curl into a ball and twitch helplessly. "D-damn you... Just... give me a quick death..."
Chi's face twisted into a knot from pain and fear.
Beyond the physical pain, the torment of his soul was even greater. He had never imagined that he, too, would face such despair one day. Now, all he wanted was to beg Chingetsu for a quick death.
Chingetsu seemed not to hear him.
The next second, Chi's legs were blown off at their roots. The surfaces left by the explosion were as smooth as mirrors, as though those legs had never grown there.
"Oh, sorry. I only just heard you. My apologies."
Chingetsu gave Chi a bashful smile, like the boy next door who had done something wrong. But Chi knew perfectly well that the young man before him was not nearly as harmless as he appeared. There was nothing in his eyes but derision and mockery.
He had never intended to finish him off so quickly.
Deep down, this young man's nature was the same as his: the purest evil and brutality.
Chi remembered the ordinary people who had once wept and begged beneath his hands, the civilians he had sacrificed to Hannya, who had been devoured alive and flayed.
Back then, he too had stood above them, holding their lives in his hands, enjoying their despairing screams before death. Only now...
Before this terrifying young man, he was like a fish on a chopping block, left at his mercy. "My main body... My main body will kill you..."
At that moment, Chi stared unconsciously up at the ceiling, his empty eyes devoid of light. "Your main body? If he dares to come, I'll just kill him too."
Chingetsu's face remained utterly calm. "Finish him, Killer Queen!"
Chingetsu picked Kento Nanami up from the floor and spoke flatly to Killer Queen. "My main body... My main body will avenge me..."
Chi's final mutterings vanished in Killer Queen's explosion.
Chingetsu stepped out through the door without looking back. He had already formed a preliminary judgment of Chi's identity. His most urgent task now was to get Kento Nanami to a hospital.
As for Chi's dying curse, he had not taken it to heart at all. If Chi's main body dared to come, it would merely mean...
Killing him again! Meanwhile.
Beneath an abandoned cemetery in Sendai City. "Chi is dead..."
"It was him, Chingetsu, Gojo Chingetsu!"
"Hiss... How dare he? How dare he!" "Nourishment... I need more nourishment..."
The Q Organization's leader, the Grade 1 Curse User Kimura €€suke, clutched his head in agony, two streams of bloody tears flowing from his eyes. He looked utterly crazed.
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