Sendai Colony.
Underground sewer system.
Dark.
Damp.
The air was thick with the nauseating stench of rot and sewage.
This was a place untouched by sunlight.
A perfect breeding ground for filth.
Screech… screech…
The crawling sounds echoed endlessly through the pipes.
Like countless claws scraping against metal.
Enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
Black shapes covered every surface.
Walls.
Ceilings.
Water channels.
A tide of insects.
Cockroaches.
Millions of them.
No—
Billions.
At the center of the swarm stood a grotesque figure.
A three-meter-tall humanoid cockroach.
Six limbs.
Bulging compound eyes.
A jagged sword held in its claws.
The Festering Life Blade.
A cursed weapon coated with countless parasite eggs.
This creature was the special-grade cursed spirit:
Kurourushi
A being born from humanity's collective disgust and fear of cockroaches.
It possessed no complex intelligence.
Only instinct.
Two instincts.
Eat.
Reproduce.
"Hungry…"
Its mandibles clicked.
"Eat… eat…"
From above the sewer ceiling—
Immense cursed energy erupted.
The battle between the colony's strongest sorcerers.
To Kurourushi—
That meant one thing.
Food.
It raised its blade.
The swarm obeyed.
"Eat them."
Millions of cockroaches surged upward through the sewer tunnels.
Ground Battlefield
Just as Yagami Sora prepared to confront Takako Uro—
The ground suddenly trembled.
BOOM!
Manhole covers exploded upward.
From beneath the streets—
A black torrent burst out.
"What the hell is THAT?!"
Nearby Culling Game players screamed.
The black wave flooded the battlefield.
Devouring everything.
Buildings.
Trees.
Debris.
But it wasn't water.
It was cockroaches.
An endless swarm.
"Ugh…"
Takako Uro's face turned pale.
Even as an ancient sorcerer—
Her instincts revolted.
"Kurourushi…"
She muttered.
"That disgusting thing…"
Nearby, Yuta Okkotsu cut through the swarm with sweeping slashes.
Cockroaches exploded into black mist wherever his blade passed.
But it was useless.
Kill a hundred.
A thousand replaced them.
Kill a thousand.
Ten thousand surged forward.
And these weren't normal insects.
Each cockroach was a cursed-energy construct.
Their bites carried rot and decay.
"Sora!"
Yuta shouted.
"There are too many!"
"We need to find the source!"
"I know."
Yagami Sora hovered calmly above the battlefield.
Looking down at the crawling black ocean.
A faint chill appeared in his eyes.
"This level of infestation…"
"…is practically spiritual pollution."
He pointed toward a manhole nearby.
From it—
An enormous cursed presence poured out.
"Found you."
Sora vanished.
In the next instant—
He appeared directly above the opening.
The swarm reacted immediately.
Screech—!!
Billions of cockroaches surged upward.
A living tidal wave.
They engulfed him instantly.
"Sora!"
Yuta's heart tightened.
But before he could intervene—
A deep humming sound emerged from inside the swarm.
BZZZZ—
The mass of insects began expanding.
White light burst from the cracks between their bodies.
Like sunlight leaking through storm clouds.
"Vector Manipulation—"
"Plasma Generation."
BOOM!!!
The temperature skyrocketed instantly.
Not fire.
Something far beyond fire.
Plasma.
Air molecules were stripped of electrons and superheated to unimaginable levels.
Hot enough to vaporize steel.
The cockroaches disintegrated instantly.
No screams.
No resistance.
They simply vanished.
A sphere of white light expanded outward.
Melting the swarm like snow beneath the sun.
Within seconds—
A circular zone hundreds of meters wide had been cleared.
The ground had melted into glass.
Heat rippled through the air.
Yagami Sora stood at the center.
Completely unharmed.
He dusted off his coat casually.
Then looked down into the glowing sewer opening.
"Come out."
"How long are you planning to hide?"
BOOM!
The manhole exploded.
Kurourushi burst out.
Its body charred black from the plasma.
The Festering Life Blade warped from heat.
"Pain… pain…"
The curse shrieked.
Its compound eyes trembled with rage.
"Eat… YOU!!!"
It swung the blade.
The eggs coating the sword writhed.
If the blade touched flesh—
Thousands of larvae would hatch inside the victim's body.
But Sora didn't dodge.
He raised his hand.
Palm forward.
"You want to eat me?"
"You're not even qualified to be fertilizer."
"Vector Manipulation—"
"Microscopic Particle Acceleration."
Invisible turbulence formed in his palm.
Nitrogen.
Oxygen.
Every molecule in the air.
Accelerated to near-relativistic velocity.
"Disappear."
BOOM.
A transparent ripple shot forward.
Silent.
Invisible.
It passed through Kurourushi's body.
No explosion.
No blood.
The cursed spirit simply…
Came apart.
Molecules separated.
Atoms dispersed.
From head to toe—
Its body dissolved into nothing.
Like a drawing erased from existence.
"Sk—"
Kurourushi's final sound never finished.
Its voice vanished with the rest of its body.
Clang.
The Festering Life Blade fell to the ground.
The only evidence it had ever existed.
Silence swallowed the battlefield.
Every player in Sendai stared.
Frozen.
Instant kill.
Complete annihilation.
A special-grade curse—
Erased without resistance.
"What… kind of technique…"
Takako Uro whispered.
Her teeth trembled.
She had seen many powerful sorcerers.
Many strange techniques.
But this—
This wasn't a technique.
It was tyranny.
Sora flicked his hand.
A gust of air lifted the filthy blade.
And hurled it far into the burning ruins.
"So disgusting."
Then he turned.
Looking directly at Takako Uro.
"Well."
He smiled lightly.
"The cockroach problem is solved."
"Now…"
"…let's deal with you."
Uro's body trembled.
She wanted to run.
But her legs wouldn't move.
Fear.
Pure fear.
For the first time—
She understood something.
Yagami Sora hadn't joined the Sendai battlefield to play the game.
He had come—
To flip the table.
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