Rin completely ignored the Mantis Cursed Spirit still struggling on the wall, abruptly turned his head, and looked towards the source of that unfamiliar Cursed Energy. At the end of the corridor, a woman covered in blood stood silently.
She was short and frail, as if a gust of wind could blow her over. A thick mass of black hair cascaded from her head, dragging all the way to her feet, completely obscuring her face. Only faint dark red bloodstains on the hem of her clothes were vaguely visible.
Yet, it was this seemingly fragile appearance that made Rin dare not underestimate her in the slightest. Because the Cursed Energy fluctuations emanating from her body clearly indicated: this was a Second-Grade Cursed Spirit.
With such a slender build, she definitely doesn't fight using physical techniques. To have survived until now, she must possess Cursed Techniques.
Rin quickly assessed in his mind, 'I don't know what her Cursed Technique is yet, so I shouldn't act rashly. It's best to wait for her to make the first move, understand her methods, and then plan a counter-strategy.'
Having made up his mind, he slowly moved towards the Long-Haired Cursed Spirit, while keeping an eye on the movement behind him. Sure enough, the Mantis Cursed Spirit, which had been stuck in the wall, had climbed out. Although it looked somewhat disheveled now, with bits of plaster clinging to its exoskeleton, it still exuded ferocity. Its cold compound eyes were fixed on Rin's back, like a beast locking onto its prey.
This Cursed Spirit's intelligence was already low, and at this moment, its eyes only held the human who had just brutally beaten it.
It let out a sharp shriek, completely oblivious to the additional Long-Haired Cursed Spirit in the corridor, and charged directly at Rin.
Feeling the urgent footsteps behind him, Rin immediately accelerated, his body like a bullet fired from a gun, rushing towards the Long-Haired Cursed Spirit at the end of the corridor.
In this narrow corridor, less than fifty meters long, one human and one Cursed Spirit engaged in a chase.
Without the enhancement of its wings, the Mantis Cursed Spirit's speed clearly slowed down. It was consistently kept five or six meters behind Rin, unable to catch up or launch a slash.
Just as Rin's distance from the Long-Haired Cursed Spirit grew shorter, the Cursed Spirit finally made its move.
One tomoe, Insight!
The Sharingan in Rin's eyes spun rapidly, clearly capturing the Cursed Energy within the Long-Haired Cursed Spirit's body beginning to surge. This was the prelude to activating a Cursed Technique!
Indeed, in the next second, the Cursed Spirit's cascading black hair suddenly surged like ocean waves. The ends of the hair instantly hardened, transforming into sharp spikes, dividing into five strands, and shooting wildly towards Rin.
The speed of the spikes was astonishing, reaching him almost in the blink of an eye.
But Rin was already prepared.
The moment the Long-Haired Cursed Spirit activated its Cursed Technique, he suddenly accelerated, slamming sideways into a classroom door beside the corridor. With a 'clang', the door was forced open, and he rolled into the classroom, narrowly dodging the fatal blow.
However, the Mantis Cursed Spirit behind him was not so lucky.
Five hair-spikes, like iron spears, shot straight at it. The Mantis Cursed Spirit's charge was too fierce, giving it no time to dodge. It could only hastily raise its scythe-like forelimbs to block.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
The crisp sound of metal colliding echoed through the corridor, sparks flying. Although the spikes were blocked by its forearms one by one, causing no substantial damage, they forcefully halted the Mantis Cursed Spirit's charge.
But the attack did not end there.
The black long hair suddenly became soft and tough, like flexible water snakes, coiling around the Mantis Cursed Spirit's body.
In a flash, the Mantis Cursed Spirit was bound like a zongzi, its limbs and wings tightly restrained, unable to move.
Although it was a strength-type Cursed Spirit, its body structure still retained the characteristics of an ordinary mantis. Arthropod joints are inherently fragile, and once restricted, it became difficult to exert force.
Seeing this, the Long-Haired Cursed Spirit immediately tightened its hair, intending to strangle the Mantis Cursed Spirit to death. However, the Mantis Cursed Spirit's exoskeleton was hard, and the hair could not penetrate it for a while, only futilely sinking into the gaps of the exoskeleton.
A stalemate thus began.
The Cursed Energy within both Cursed Spirits was rapidly depleting, and neither could immediately kill the other. But Rin saw clearly that if he didn't intervene, the Mantis Cursed Spirit would surely lose. It had already expended a large amount of Cursed Energy fighting him earlier and couldn't possibly endure the Long-Haired Cursed Spirit's war of attrition.
Hiding behind the classroom door, Rin had also completely seen through the Long-Haired Cursed Spirit's Cursed Technique: her long hair could be hard or soft, long or thick, and extremely tough, but it had one fatal flaw—the total volume of her hair would not increase.
This meant that she could only use as much hair as she had on her head; it would never increase out of thin air.
This was also why, after binding the mantis, she could no longer spare any extra hair to continue attacking.
"Killing them now would be simple, but..." A cold smile played on Rin's lips, and a plan to maximize his strength began to form in his mind.
He walked out from the classroom's back door, slowly circling behind the Mantis Cursed Spirit.
At this moment, the Mantis Cursed Spirit was tightly bound by the long hair, only able to twist its body in vain.
Feeling Rin's presence, for the first time, fear and panic appeared in its originally indifferent compound eyes. It clearly remembered how this human had just suppressed it, leaving it utterly helpless.
The Mantis Cursed Spirit struggled frantically, its only movable head desperately biting at the hair wrapped around its body, but the black hair was as tough as steel cables and simply could not be bitten through.
The Long-Haired Cursed Spirit sensed its resistance and increased its force, tightening the hair even more, even leaving shallow indentations on the mantis's exoskeleton.
"Bang!"
Rin forcefully plunged the iron rod into the ground, emitting a muffled thud. Then, with a light leap, he landed steadily on the Mantis Cursed Spirit's shoulder.
His calm expression, in the eyes of the Mantis Cursed Spirit, was like the smile of the grim reaper.
It desperately shook its head, trying to throw Rin off, but in the next second, a terrifying force suddenly came from above its head. Rin's hands were firmly clasped onto its skull.
No matter how much the Mantis Cursed Spirit struggled, its head could no longer move an inch.
It could clearly feel that the grim reaper's hand had already touched the top of its head.
"Retaining the structure of an ordinary mantis, yet possessing strength and speed far beyond common sense, and a hard exoskeleton..."
Rin's voice was cold, as if stating a fact, "But you also retained the most fatal weakness — arthropod joints are always fragile."
The moment his words fell, the muscles on Rin's arms suddenly bulged. His legs stomped heavily on the Mantis Cursed Spirit's shoulder, leveraging the force. With two crisp sounds of bone cracking, "Crack! Crack!" the Mantis Cursed Spirit's head was forcibly twisted one hundred and eighty degrees by him, then, like pulling a radish, it was completely torn off along with strands of entangled nerves and purple blood.
Rin had already covered his entire body with Cursed Energy, isolating himself from the splashing blood. He flipped back to the ground and casually tossed the head aside.
Almost the instant the Mantis Cursed Spirit was declared dead, the Long-Haired Cursed Spirit immediately retracted its hair, vigilantly staring at Rin, its internal Cursed Energy beginning to surge again.
But Rin completely ignored it, only staring at the Mantis Cursed Spirit's corpse, the Sharingan in his eyes suddenly lighting up.
As the corpse transformed into wisps of Cursed Energy and was entirely absorbed into his body, a cold smile finally appeared on Rin's perpetually indifferent face.
Meanwhile, Miguel, hiding in the dark corner of the corridor, his pupils suddenly contracted. He clearly saw that the one tomoe in Rin's blood-red eyes had, at some point, already transformed into two spinning tomoe.
Sharingan: Two Tomoe