Meanwhile, on the fourth floor of this abandoned factory, another battle was raging.
Bang! Bang!
Two crisp gunshots echoed in the empty workshop.
Wearing the uniform of Kyoto Jujutsu High and sporting a sharp ponytail, Zenin Mai had a piercing gaze. Her hands steadily held a sleek silver handgun instantly created by her Cursed Technique, Construction.
The bullets hit a Grade 3 Cursed Spirit shaped like a skinned hound that was trying to ambush them from the side, making it stagger as its Cursed Energy faltered.
"Tsk! Dammit!" Mai spat, performing a swift side roll to dodge an attack from another Grade 3 Cursed Spirit.
This one was bloated like a giant slug and constantly spat out foul-smelling, corrosive slime. The slime splashed onto the machine where she had just been hiding, immediately making a "hissing" sound and emitting white smoke as the metal surface was rapidly eaten through.
Sweat had already broken out on her forehead, and her breathing grew rapid.
Her tone was filled with suppressed rage and extreme dissatisfaction with the information error. "Are the bastards in the intelligence department collectively blind?! The mission brief clearly stated 'suspected gathering of Grade 2 Cursed Spirits.' Now, at least five Grade 3 spirits have popped up already! The Cursed Energy concentration in this place is so high it feels like a nest for a Special Grade Cursed Spirit! We've been set up!"
Beside her, Miwa Kasumi, also wearing a Jujutsu High uniform with long blue hair and determined eyes, held a katana reinforced with Cursed Energy. Her movements were agile and her steps swift.
Seeing an opportunity, she slid close to the skinned hound Cursed Spirit that Mai had knocked back. Her katana drew a sharp arc, the Cursed Energy attached to the blade emitting a faint hum.
With a flash of the blade, the Grade 3 Cursed Spirit was cleanly sliced in half and dissipated into black smoke.
"Miwa! On your left!" Mai shouted, while simultaneously firing continuously to suppress the skinned hound Cursed Spirit.
Kasumi understood immediately. Her eyes narrowed, she pushed off with her feet, and her body moved like lightning, sliding close to the target with a clean movement. The katana drew a perfect arc in her hand, the Cursed Energy condensed on the blade emitting a low, pleasant hum.
The flash of the blade was incomparably sharp. Before the Grade 3 Cursed Spirit could even react, it was split in two by the katana, its remains rapidly dissolving into black smoke amidst a shrill wail.
Kasumi said as she sheathed her sword, warily scanning the dark corners around them, "The mission brief was based on the preliminary monitoring by the Window."
Her voice was calm as she analyzed, "But the environment of a Cursed Spirit gathering point changes in an instant. An anomaly might have occurred before we arrived, or... something is attracting them to gather here. Be careful, Mai, I have a bad feeling about this."
Her intuition had always been accurate. The Cursed Energy here was not just thick, it gave off a feeling of... being captive? As if some more powerful existence was manipulating everything from the shadows.
Just as the two stood back-to-back, taking a moment to catch their breath and preparing to explore deeper into the factory—
BOOM!!!
A large section of the wall to their front-left, which was already crumbling from corrosion, suddenly exploded. Rubble and dust sprayed out like a rainstorm.
A massive, violent, and absolutely oppressive torrent of Cursed Energy surged out from the breach like a tsunami.
"Watch out!"
Kasumi reacted extremely quickly, grabbing Mai's arm and pushing off with her feet to retreat rapidly.
Mai pulled the trigger at almost the same time, the muzzle of her gun spitting out hot Cursed Energy flames toward the breach, attempting to block whatever attack might emerge.
However, their attacks and evasions appeared pale and powerless before that terrifying force.
A massive, dark-red giant claw, formed from countless twisted arms and pained human faces and exuding a thick, ominous aura, suddenly lunged out from behind the broken wall.
The mere wind pressure generated by the claw's appearance easily deflected the Cursed Energy bullets Mai had fired and blew the two of them away.
Bang!
Kasumi and Mai slammed heavily into an abandoned textile machine behind them with a dull thud. Although they had Cursed Energy protecting their bodies, their internal organs were still shaken, their blood churning, and they nearly coughed up blood as a sweet taste filled their throats.
A terrifying existence, whose vastness and ugliness were beyond words, was slowly "squeezing" into the fourth-floor workshop from behind the hole in the wall.
It had no fixed form, looking more like a giant, dark-red mountain of meat that was constantly writhing, proliferating, and flowing.
The surface of the meat mountain was covered with tens of thousands of eyes of various shapes and sizes, all filled with extreme pain and malice. These eyes constantly opened, closed, and rolled, oozing thick pus.
In different spots on the meat mountain, dozens of giant, cave-like mouths split open, emitting a low, chaotic resonance that sounded like countless souls wailing simultaneously, directly assaulting one's sanity.
That giant claw from before was merely a small extension of this meat mountain's massive body.
The suffocating and desperate intensity of the Cursed Energy filling the entire space far exceeded Grade 2. It was even several times more powerful and terrifying than the records they had seen in textbooks for Quasi-Grade 1 Cursed Spirits listed as extremely dangerous.
"Spe... Special Grade..." Mai's face was as pale as a sheet, her teeth chattering uncontrollably, her voice distorted and out of tune from extreme fear.
"It's a Special Grade Cursed Spirit! A genuine Special Grade! Is this some kind of sick joke?! How could a monster of this caliber... how could it appear so close to the city area without any records?!"
"Has the Window gone collectively blind?! Or did those old bastards simply want us to come here and die?!"
Her voice was filled with despair, anger, and disbelief.
A Special Grade Cursed Spirit was a disaster that required multiple Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerers or even a Special Grade Sorcerer to handle personally. Two Grade 2 sorcerers like them weren't even enough to fill the gaps between its teeth.
Kasumi's situation was slightly better, but not by much. She gripped her katana tightly, trying to stand up, only to find her body weak and powerless from the pressure of that terrifying Cursed Energy and the impact from earlier.
She tried to activate the emergency reinforcement talisman, only to find that all communication signals were completely cut off.
"It's a Curtain... a Curtain has enveloped this place... we're trapped." Kasumi's voice carried a hint of desperate hoarseness.
No way to call for help and a powerful enemy right in front of them—this was truly the ultimate dead end.
***
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