Eldritch Horror Theatre

In the dojo, Kamakura Keiji, having volunteered for the task, bore the fearless demeanor of a man marching to his death.

Even compared to the rest of the Tombkeeper Family, his condition was fairly good. Yet, in just this short span of time, his freshly changed white kendo uniform was already mottled with blood.

If anything, it only made him look more like a true Tombkeeper.

Amidst this silent critique, Fu Qian smoothly sidestepped a slash.

Unlike his own casual swings from earlier, the Kamakura Family clearly possessed a dedicated technique for wielding this bizarrely shaped long blade.

As it fell, the blade carried the eerie, wailing howl of weeping gods and shrieking ghosts.

'Could this Sword of Curses just be a tool for mental corruption?'

Fu Qian mused.

'It's a heritage that's survived for centuries. No matter how degraded it might be, it shouldn't rely solely on cheap parlor tricks.'

Leaning away from Kamakura Keiji's backhand slash, Fu Qian lightly flicked his finger against the steel, knocking the blade aside.

The last time he used this move was during his fight with the female swordswoman, Veil.

It was precisely her intense training that had given him some firsthand insight into the sword path.

Naturally, while both she and the man before him wielded swords, their styles couldn't be further apart.

Veil's twin rapiers were precise and fierce—certainly not empty flourishes—but compared to this Sword of Curses, her technique was far too orthodox and honorable.

Eerie howling aside, every movement Kamakura Keiji made felt grotesquely twisted. He looked like a deranged butcher, impatient to hack someone to pieces.

His strikes were practiced and ruthless, but it was still just the practiced ruthlessness of chopping meat.

'Could this blade be named the Pork Bone Cleaver?'

As Fu Qian silently mocked the technique, Kamakura Keiji's fluid, bizarre flurry of attacks came to an end. He withdrew his blade and pulled back to open the distance.

Unsurprisingly, the assault had achieved nothing. He hadn't harmed a single hair on Fu Qian's head.

But one always had to look on the bright side: at least Keiji had managed to hurt himself.

Clatter!

Suddenly, Kamakura Keiji lost his grip on Nightclub Queen, and the long blade crashed heavily against the floor.

His entire right arm was rapidly soaking through with blood.

A quick glance revealed several deep lacerations stretching down to the back of his hand, exposing the bone beneath.

'Just as I thought. He shouldn't be swinging that sword around; the adverse reactions are already showing.'

"I'm fine," Keiji grunted.

Even with such gruesome injuries, he forced himself to stay standing, raising his uninjured hand to signal the others to stay back.

He lifted his head, his face entirely expressionless as he fixed a dead stare on Fu Qian.

'What a display of fighting for family honor. You don't want anyone interfering because the duel isn't over yet, is that it?'

Fu Qian let out a quiet sigh of admiration and glanced down at the back of his own right hand.

It was perfectly intact, but—

Drip!

A second later, a drop of crimson blood fell onto his skin.

A fresh laceration had silently opened up on his right cheek.

He could confirm with absolute certainty that Kamakura Keiji's butcher slashes hadn't come anywhere near his face.

...

'The Rank behind this is high indeed!'

With all eyes on him, Fu Qian stared up at the ceiling, letting the blood freely trickle from the wound.

The power that had left this cut on his face was far more advanced than that of a Mid-Tier Transcendent.

It wasn't even a phantom blade striking from the void. In that split second, it felt as if his very flesh had chosen to tear itself open—an occurrence more natural than nature itself.

Whoosh!

Following a brief, stunned silence, the atmosphere among the onlookers instantly exploded.

Glancing over, Fu Qian saw that the entire Kamakura Clan—Kamakura Ki included—was beaming with jubilation, radiating an overwhelming sense of vindication.

That was a Demigod!

No matter how much others slandered them, the Kamakura Family's Cursed Swordsmanship had genuinely wounded a Demigod!

Fu Qian completely understood how they felt. Seeing them all holding their breath, too restrained to actually cheer out loud, he automatically provided the internal subtitles for their joy.

'But aren't you guys misunderstanding something?'

'This Sword of Curses that can wound even a Demigod—it's currently hacking its own user to pieces, isn't it?'

Clicking his tongue in quiet amusement, Fu Qian didn't bother interrupting their bittersweet celebration.

'People need their obsessions, regardless of how harmful those obsessions might be.'

"Well fought," Fu Qian said.

Nodding at Kamakura Keiji, Fu Qian casually walked off the sparring floor and rejoined the observation team.

"So, what do you think?"

Seeing that the entire observation team had fallen silent, Fu Qian glanced around before directing his question at the person who looked the least bewildered.

...

Addressed with such a familiar tone, even Brother Ah Kai felt slightly flattered for a moment.

He glanced around, realizing that their conversation had immediately drawn everyone's attention, and paused in thought.

"I agree with the assessment you all made earlier. This feels fundamentally different from the sword path," Ah Kai said.

"I've witnessed Dean Li Weixuan's techniques myself. They are unparalleled in their sharpness, and it's certainly not impossible to inflict this kind of wound, but..."

He stared at Fu Qian's right cheek, where the bloody gash almost looked like a second mouth.

"There's a fundamental difference. The power that caused your wound doesn't seem to be directly connected to Kamakura Keiji at all."

"I get the same feeling. This must be why the Kamakura Family's Cursed Swordsmanship can inflict damage without ever landing a blow—because the injury isn't being dealt by them at all."

Beside them, Kasi smoothly joined the conversation, nodding in agreement with Ah Kai's deduction.

"Also, has your healing ability been affected?"

He pointed at Fu Qian's face as he asked.

"To be more precise, it's being continuously sliced open, negating the healing," Fu Qian corrected.

Fu Qian ran a finger along the edge of the gash, searching for the most accurate way to describe the sensation.

"This damage seems capable of persisting for a long time. It wasn't just a momentary strike. Even as the flesh attempts to knit back together, it just gets sliced open again."

It was the truth, though for a flesh-and-blood expert like Fu Qian, nullifying this kind of damage wasn't actually all that difficult.

The only reason the wound was still bleeding was that he had deliberately suppressed his regenerative abilities.

He was a special case, after all. For the sake of the experiment, he needed the results to reflect a universal standard.

'I do hold the title of Professor at the Academy Apocalypse Institute, after all. My research must be absolutely rigorous.'

"So it seems our next step is to find the source of this power and figure out how to sever the connection."

Kasi nodded, arriving at a perfectly logical deduction.

"Dean Li's intuition really is astounding. He declared right from the start that this sword path held no value and refused to even come look."

Sighing, Kasi turned to Ji Liushuang beside him and voiced his admiration.

"Do you have any other thoughts, Liushuang?"

"...No, I don't."

Despite being asked for her input once again by the academic leader, Ji Liushuang remained low-key and modest.

"I only had a few scattered instincts earlier. I've benefited greatly from the tests and deductions the teachers just performed. I'm very fortunate to have tagged along on this excursion."

As she spoke, she naturally cast a glance at Fu Qian.

"Especially you, Mister Yun. Your insights into the sword path have given me a great deal of inspiration."

'Inspiration? From that shallow, chicken-soup-level nonsense?'

'I just spouted a random line of bullshit. Did it really have that much of an effect?'

Her glance left Fu Qian genuinely surprised. A moment later, he noticed a faint, peculiar glimmer in Ji Liushuang's eyes.

'Wait a second... have I spouted this exact same nonsense to her before?'

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