Across the street from the school.
Suguru Geto, dressed in a black monk's robe, stood side by side with the Jujutsu Sorcerer Miguel, looking at the small high school before them with different expressions.
Miguel hesitated; his dark sunglasses could not hide the solemnity on his face.
"Is this our testing ground, Geto?" Miguel asked Suguru Geto in a low voice.
"That's right," Suguru Geto said as he walked toward the school gate.
Unlike Miguel's heavy expression, Suguru Geto looked as relaxed as a gentle breeze, making one feel no pressure at all.
His indifferent, gentle expression made him look like a warm, older brother next door.
The two walked through the school gate as if entering an empty space.
The security guard who had been standing at the gate was now lying in a pool of blood, breathless. Suguru Geto stepped through the gate, his boots treading on the guard's warm blood. The hem of his black monk's robe swept across the bloodstains on the ground without getting a single speck of dirt on it—his Cursed Energy had long since formed an invisible barrier around him, completely isolating him from this "filth."
"This place is far from the city center. Even if those guys at Jujutsu High discover it, except for that one person, it would take the others at least several hours to get here. We have plenty of time to conduct our little experiment."
After saying this, Suguru Geto looked at Miguel, who was still frowning, so he put his arm around Miguel's shoulder, chuckled, and continued.
"Don't worry, I know what you're worried about. If it were just to kill people, why would I have come all this way?"
"This experiment is mainly to use a newly acquired Cursed Technique to make low-level Cursed Spirits go berserk, causing them to slaughter and devour each other to produce stronger Cursed Spirits."
"The reason I chose a school with many people is to utilize the negative emotions produced by the students, providing more negative emotions for the birth of a stronger Cursed Spirit."
"So, rest assured."
Hearing these words, Miguel's furrowed brows gradually relaxed.
His tone returned to his usual cheerful self. "Alright, let's get started."
Seeing Miguel's gloomy mood swept away, Suguru Geto smiled slightly. He had always treated those who followed him as family, never forcing them to do things they didn't like; he cared deeply about their feelings.
"However, I still have a question. Is that Cursed Technique you mentioned, which allows Cursed Spirits to devour each other and become stronger, really useful? I've never heard of such a thing," Miguel said to Suguru Geto.
Hearing this, Suguru Geto's expression became serious, and he answered solemnly, "I understand your concern. Even I think it sounds a bit ridiculous, but it's still worth a try. Only in this way can our plan move forward."
"I will release one hundred low-level Cursed Spirits. As long as they can devour each other to produce one Grade 1 Cursed Spirit, our plan will take a big step forward."
Miguel nodded in agreement.
Soon, the two began their operation. Miguel activated his Cursed Energy, using a "Curtain" to wrap the entire school.
Suguru Geto, standing to the side, also began to perform his Cursed Technique, "Cursed Spirit Manipulation."
The operation began.
...
The students on the playground couldn't see the Cursed Spirits at all and could only watch helplessly as their classmates were torn apart by an unknown force.
Desperate screams immediately echoed throughout the small campus, and even students in classrooms having lessons heard them.
The sudden gloomy sky and the miserable screams made the students start to panic. One by one, they craned their necks, trying to see what was happening outside, but out of respect for the teacher's authority, they didn't dare to leave their seats for the time being.
"What's going on? What happened?"
...
Everyone was whispering, their faces filled with panic.
Rin, who witnessed all of this, widened his eyes, his face pale.
Although he didn't know what was happening, he had already guessed the mastermind behind this massacre in his heart. Only that man could control Cursed Spirits on such a large scale.
One of the four Special Grade Sorcerers—Suguru Geto.
Although he didn't know what he wanted to do, it definitely wasn't anything good. He absolutely could not just stand here and wait for death.
Rin suppressed his inner fear and thought about countermeasures, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the students in the classroom craning their necks to look outside.
A bold idea appeared in his mind.
Rin suddenly gathered all his strength and shouted with the loudest voice he had ever used in his life.
"Murder! There are monsters killing people!"
His voice, reinforced by Cursed Energy, penetrated the classroom walls, making the window glass buzz.
Everyone's expressions changed suddenly. This sentence was like a thunderbolt, shocking everyone into waking up.
The series of desperate screams on the playground caused panic to spread among everyone.
The students who were still hesitating exploded into chaos. The girls in the front row burst into tears, and a few boys in the back row pushed their chairs away and rushed into the hallway.
When they saw the blood all over the playground and the twisted Cursed Spirits, the screams were even more intense than before. Someone leaned against the wall and started vomiting, their breakfast mixed with bile splattering on the floor.
"Everyone, don't be afraid! Stay calm! Stay calm!"
Although the teacher was also scared, they were an adult after all and tried their best to soothe the students' emotions, while taking out their phone to call the police, but the call wouldn't go through.
Just as everyone was about to calm down, someone shouted again.
"Everyone run! Those monsters are coming up! They're going to kill us!"
In an instant, the crowd fell into panic again, and the teacher was powerless to stop it.
The students swarmed toward the staircase. The sounds of pushing, crying, and painful groans from falling were mixed together, and the entire teaching building instantly turned into a chaotic escape route.
This was exactly what Rin wanted; he was the one who shouted that just now.
His purpose was to make people run.
After all, compared to staying in the classroom and being slaughtered like opening a blind box, letting the students scatter and run could more effectively reduce the speed at which the Cursed Spirits "ate."
After all, there were hundreds of people in the school, and there were at most one hundred Cursed Spirits.
In such a situation, the students' survival chances were greatly improved, which would delay the Cursed Spirits, and Rin himself could blend into the crowd to increase his own survival probability.
After all, not to mention hundreds of people, even catching hundreds of pigs would take a long time.
At this moment, the Cursed Spirits that had finished killing people on the playground had already noticed that there were more people in the teaching building.
Although the students who ran out of the teaching building couldn't see the Cursed Spirits, they weren't stupid enough to run toward the playground, as people had just died there.
"Oh? Interesting."
On the rooftop of the teaching building, Suguru Geto's Cursed Energy perception was firmly locked onto Rin.
In his eyes, the young man mixed in the crowd had a weak but unusually stable Cursed Energy fluctuation. He didn't lose control and leak it like ordinary awakened individuals; instead, he knew how to use the emotions of the people around him to cover his own presence.
Unlike those low-level Cursed Spirits, the two of them, as high-level Jujutsu Sorcerers, had a strong perception of Cursed Energy.
In their eyes, Rin was like an elephant standing in a flock of sheep, which could be said to be very conspicuous.
Miguel leaned on the railing. "Should we catch him? To be able to do this just after awakening is a good talent."
He knew very well that Suguru Geto only felt disgust toward humans, because in his eyes, only Jujutsu Sorcerers were his kind; these ordinary people without Cursed Energy were just a bunch of monkeys.
He thought Suguru Geto would treat this young man like other Jujutsu Sorcerers and include him in the category of "family."
Suguru Geto, however, shook his head, a playful smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
He raised his hand and grasped at the air. A Grade 3 Cursed Spirit suddenly stopped its actions and turned to walk slowly toward the direction where Rin was fleeing.
"Don't rush, Miguel." His gaze followed the Cursed Spirit. "If he can only hide, then there's no difference between him and an ordinary Jujutsu Sorcerer. I want to see if he can give me more surprises in a desperate situation."
Hearing Suguru Geto's words, Miguel also looked toward Rin with interest.
The people who escaped from the teaching building were like frightened birds, scattering in all directions. Some chose to hide, while others chose to run toward the school gate, wanting to leave the school.
And those bizarre-looking Cursed Spirits on the playground were already chasing after them.
Some of the faster ones had already pounced on several students. Soon, the students' screams, mixed with the terrifying whispers of the Cursed Spirits, echoed throughout the campus again.
As for Rin, he didn't look back and mixed into the crowd, running toward a secret corner that only he knew about.