Chapter 8 : Black Flash
"Is this the mission location?"
Genichi looked at the empty and somewhat weird hospital in front of him. He and Maki were standing in front of the hospital, each carrying a long cloth bag on their backs.
Maki adjusted her glasses and said, "It has been confirmed that the one in the hospital is a second-level cursed spirit. We discovered it a little late, and it also gave rise to some low-level cursed spirits."
"After clearing out the people in the hospital, they reported it to us. By the way, the bandage idiot really thinks highly of us. He let us deal with the second-level cursed spirits from the beginning."
The levels of cursed spirits and sorcerers are roughly divided into the lowest level four to level one and the special level above level one.
Under normal circumstances, cursed spirits of the same level and below special grade are no match for sorcerers of the same level, so Maki said this. Although she is pretty confident in herself, isn't it normal to proceed step by step?
"I'll set up the veil."
"Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure."
As Genichi spoke, he formed seals and chanted a spell, and a grey-black "veil" fell from the sky above the hospital, blocking ordinary people from entering and exiting and from their sight.
This can cover up the abnormal phenomena that may be caused by the battle and prevent ordinary people from having unnecessary negative emotions after witnessing it, thus giving rise to a curse.
Not long after Genichi and Maki walked in, they saw several cursed spirits with limbs as sharp as needles. Seeing the few small cursed spirits that discovered this place and rushed over, Maki opened the cloth bag to reveal the naginata inside. She held it in, put it behind her back with a sneer, and made a disdainful comment: "Ha! These curses, the weaker they are, the more they like to gather together!"
Maki stepped on the ground and rushed towards the cursed spirits, who were unconsciously shouting repetitive words such as "It hurts" and "I don't want to die."
When they were about to collide, she exerted all her strength, and a powerful force burst out from her waist to twist her whole body. She stomped her feet on the ground repeatedly and passed by the cursed spirits in an instant.
The naginata she held behind her back had already begun to dance with her body as she spun around, leaving circular cuts in the air.
When Maki stopped, the cursed spirits that had suddenly frozen stopped shouting and let out a low "ho ho" roar. Then purple-black blood suddenly spurted out from their necks, waists, abdomens, limbs, etc.. Then, their entire bodies fell to the ground and could not be put together again.
Just as Maki stood still, she heard a burst of crisp applause from Genichi, almost making her steps deviate.
Maki turned her head with a frown, only to see Genichi holding Zenith bow under his ribs, clapping his hands with a serious expression. When he saw her looking at him, he praised her: "Wow! Maki's knife was really powerful, so clean and neat, and it hit all the vital points..."
"Shut up! Go find the cursed spirit."
Maki, who thought she had only killed a few small cursed spirits, felt a little embarrassed and annoyed by Genichi's praise. This feeling became even stronger when the latter seemed to praise her from the bottom of his heart!
God have mercy on me! Genichi really thought that the sword was very cool. She used a sudden advance and the rotation of her body to drive the sword to cut off the vital points of those cursed spirits. Her skill was very high, okay? The key point is that it was cool!
Maki, who didn't know what expression to put on, walked in front with a cold face and a naginata in hand. Genichi waved his hand when he saw this: "I'm going to start the search from the roof. Call me if you need anything!"
After getting Maki's response without looking back, Genichi climbed the outer wall of the hospital and easily came to the five-story rooftop. His vision suddenly became wider. Looking at Maki on the ground holding a knife and rushing into the dark building, Genichi also turned around and walked into the door of the rooftop.
These cursed spirits were very weak, and Genichi had been using the Zenith bow without even trying his best. The small fry he encountered could hardly withstand a single arrow. Genichi even had enough energy to control the power so as not to blow big holes in the corridors and walls.
Another arrow shot a cursed spirit covered like a white sheet into ashes. You have to admit that this cursed spirit at least didn't have a strange appearance. It was a bit like a dark version of a sunny doll. It was pretty cute after looking at it for a long time.
Genichi, who was daydreaming, suddenly looked out the window. The annex building next to the main building had just experienced a strong surge of cursed energy, and he could vaguely hear noisy sounds from that direction.
It seems that something happened on Maki's side. Genichi did not dare to delay and left a shadow in the corridor. However, faster than him was a blue shadow, which instantly destroyed the half-person-high window at the end of the corridor.
Then Genichi jumped out from it. The surging curse energy flowed through his body, and he instantly crossed a distance of nearly ten meters. Genichi, still in the air, condensed an arrow again and broke the window of the opposite annex, where he landed.
After landing safely, Genichi adjusted his posture. After careful perception, he found that the fluctuations and vibrations were coming from below.
He was now on the fourth floor, and based on the sounds, he preliminarily judged that the battlefield should be on the second floor.
Walking up the stairs is too slow. Genichi silently said sorry in his heart, then placed his right hand on Zenith's bowstring. A dark blue arrow pointed at the floor in the distance, passed through the heavy stone buildings, and locked onto the strong fluctuations of cursed energy in his perception.
Maki's cursed power is lower than that of an ordinary sorcerer, roughly the level of an ordinary person. Hence, the huge ball of cursed power below is the cursed spirit! However, we must be careful that the aftermath will not affect Maki. After focusing and aiming for a while, Genichi finally seized a fleeting opportunity.
As he loosened his fingers, a big crater instantly appeared on the ground, leaning forward slightly. The floor could no longer support itself and began to crack.
…
After entering the gate, Maki seemed to be rushing around, but in fact, she was observing her surroundings very carefully. She could not directly observe the cursed spirits by herself, so she usually relied on the help of the cursed tools, that is, the glasses she wore, to see the figures of the cursed spirits.
Maki has no techniques, and her cursed energy is not enough to exorcise cursed spirits. Hence, she buys herself powerful physical abilities in exchange for them so that she can use cursed tools to exorcise cursed spirits.
The so-called bondage in the world of spells is to exchange specific prices for other "things." If these are executed and concluded by human will, then there is also a rare kind of bondage that is innate.
Regardless of whether the person involved is willing or not, this kind of innate bondage will forcibly take away some things from you and then give you other talents. Therefore, it is called "Heavenly Restriction."
After quickly dealing with several cursed spirits she encountered, Maki went up to the second floor and discovered another group of cursed spirits. Most of these cursed spirits were made up of grey-black rags; some were tall and narrow, while others were wide and fat... They poured out from the wards on both sides of the corridor, rushing towards Maki while making meaningless roars.
Thinking that they were just a group of small scum gathered together, Maki once again went to meet them. In this narrow corridor, Maki used her body skills and naginata to swing her sword in the corridor like a whirlwind.
The scattered and broken cursed spirits were dispersed wherever Maki walked. Just as she was about to catch up and kill the last two rag-strip cursed spirits, she suddenly became alert and faced left with the knife and only had time to make a defensive move.
Then, the wall on the left shattered with a loud bang, and several black shadows broke through the smoke and dust and shot out.
Maki only saw a few black objects like tentacles hitting the naginata that was blocking in front of her, and then the naginata was pressed down on her by this powerful force, and the whole person flew backward.
"cough..."
Maki crashed through the wall behind him and fell into a ward. She got up, looking a little embarrassed, but she was not seriously injured. Before she could catch her breath, she quickly turned over and dodged the attack again. She ran out of the ward by stepping on the ground and the wall. Only then did she see the appearance of the cursed spirit.
It was a bit like the previous rag curse spirits. Most of its body was also made of grey-black, dirty and worn-out cloth strips. There was something like black mist underneath, and there was a vaguely fleshy body wriggling in it. It was also relatively large in size, without limbs or facial features. Or was the gap between the cloth strips perhaps its "mouth"?
This curse spirit almost filled the corridor, and the flying cloth strips hit the walls and the ground like tentacles, leaving holes one after another.
Maki held the naginata, and a smile appeared on her face full of fighting spirit: "It seems that this curse spirit has some intelligence, and knows how to hide and wait for an opportunity to attack... But this is a bit challenging!"
Maki, who was rushing forward with a sword in hand, suddenly leaned forward to avoid the flying attack. Then, she supported herself with her hands and jumped up from the ground, slashing the cloth strips that were rolled over with her sword. The cloth strips fell to the ground and gradually dissipated into ashes as if they were burning.
Under the violent attack of the cursed spirit, Maki shuttled through the intersecting attacks like a fish in a turbulent stream, then forced her way in front of it and slashed the cursed spirit's body with the naginata in her hand.
The blade cut through the cursed spirit's body without any hindrance. Several large wounds also oozed out black unknown liquid and emitted black smoke. However, Maki, who was forced to retreat again, frowned: "Why does it feel like this cursed spirit is not affected at all? Did I not hit its vital point?"
The black cloth crawled like a living snake and wrapped around the wound on the cursed spirit's body. In the blink of an eye, it seemed as if nothing had happened. A cold light flashed across Maki's glasses, and all the details that had happened before quickly flashed through her mind.
"Weakness! This cursed spirit doesn't seem to have common flesh and blood bodies, as well as various weaknesses in the limbs, heart, and brain, but it must have weak points. Keep probing and attacking, find its weakness, and then kill it with one blow!"
Then Maki used the corridor and surrounding wards as terrain to fight with the cursed spirit. The not-so-wide terrain was an advantage in a sense. The strength of a single attack from the cursed spirit was not very strong. Except for a few occasional attacks from obviously thick cloth strips, Maki could cut off most of them with a single knife.
The trouble is its body, which is wrapped in layers of cloth. After being cut, it will be quickly repaired. Judging from its attack method, it should be trapping the enemy and then pulling it back to devour the enemy with the black smoke under the cloth. I think that's where the danger lies.
Just as she dodged a potent attack from the cursed spirit, Maki suddenly sensed a crash coming from... above her head! Then, in her excellent dynamic vision, she saw the ceiling above the cursed spirit suddenly shattered, and a blue, condensed arrow of cursed power flew out from it.
The cursed spirit seemed to have sensed something unusual, and the cloth strips waving around its body were ready for defence. However, the arrow disappeared in the next moment, and at the same time, a big hole appeared in the cursed spirit's body.
"Zenith arrow!"
When the roar of the cursed spirit just sounded, its body trembled and then strangely broke into two regular circular holes. Maki only vaguely saw a little trace left in her memory, and the only thing she could really capture was the remnant of the cursed energy.
However, after being injured, the body of the cursed spirit began to repair itself quickly. Perhaps it saw that the effects of these arrows were not outstanding, and no more cursed arrows fell. Instead, a figure suddenly broke through the ceiling above and smashed toward the cursed spirit.
"[Black Flash!]"
A black flash of cursed energy burst into light between the twists and turns, and the punch that fell from the sky hit the body of the cursed spirit hard. The surging cursed energy that fell with it seemed to pause for a moment, and the terrifying power that erupted afterwards blew away all the dust and gravel around it.
Half of the cursed spirit's body turned to ashes, revealing a disgusting scene under the cloth. The real body of the cursed spirit under the cloth was a twisted, tangled ball of tentacles with several strange eyes of different sizes on it.
"weakness!"
Maki was about to rush forward to fight when she saw Genichi, who had just landed, smile and clench his left fist to hit the cursed spirit.
"The second time... [Black Flash]!"
The black light flashed again, and the cursed spirit, whose howls of pain had been shattered, had no time to make any moves before the squirming ball of flesh flying in the air shattered into pieces in the twisted black light.
"Ah? I don't even try hard, why did you fall down? Eh.... nevermind."