While I was chanting a curse, the system said I was Xiao Yan?

Chapter 167 The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons

Six low-level cursed spirits of various shapes lay haphazardly on both sides of the alley, slowly dissipating into black mist. Nanami Kento sheathed his sword, flicked off the dark purple liquid remaining on the blade, and fixed his gaze on the corner fifty meters ahead.

Haibara Yu quickly caught up from the side, lowering his voice: "The sounds of those cursed spirits ahead are getting louder... we shouldn't be far from the river."

Hiromi Hiroshi walked slightly behind the middle of the two, twirling the judge's gavel between his fingers. He was getting used to it; he had even killed one of the cursed spirits he had encountered before.

This made the light in his eyes much brighter than before, with an excitement as if he had just discovered some new possibility. His pace quickened, and he almost passed Nanami and Haibara.

Haibara Yu noticed this and gestured to stop him, saying, "Mr. Nichisha, wait a moment."

Hiromi Hiraka paused slightly and turned his head to look at him.

I understand how you feel.

Haibara Yu's tone was a bit more serious than usual: "When I first awakened, I also felt like I could do anything, and I wished I could wipe out all the cursed spirits in one go. But you have only just mastered the power and are not yet fully familiar with your own spells. It would be very dangerous to rush to the front rashly."

Hiromi Hiraka was silent for a moment. He did not refute, but his expression did not seem to indicate that he had listened. Rather, he seemed to be suppressing some kind of impulse that was about to overflow, and trying to keep his tone as calm as possible: "I know, but I have already learned how you use your magical power to strengthen your bodies."

Haibara Yu and Nanami exchanged a glance. Nanami didn't say anything, but his brow twitched almost imperceptibly.

Hiroki Nichisha raised his hand, the muscles in his right arm tensing slightly. A thin layer of mist-like magical energy covered the surface of his forearm. Although it was not yet solid, it had indeed formed a preliminary strengthening effect.

"You've used it three times already, so I basically understand how to cover and protect it. So don't worry."

Haibara Yu's lips twitched. He opened his mouth, then turned his head to look at Nanami, his eyes conveying a clear meaning: What's up with this guy? It took me almost three months to learn this stuff.

Nanami did not respond to that gaze. He simply looked at the slowly dissipating membrane of cursed power on Hiromi's arm and realized that the person in front of him clearly had excellent aptitude for cursed arts. With proper training, he would be a great asset.

He paused for a moment: "To achieve this level on your first encounter with magical power is indeed quite impressive, but..."

""

"Let's get through the next corner first. Keep your distance and don't go too far or we won't be able to rescue you in time."

Hiromi Hiraka nodded, but the nod was very small, more like confirming that he had heard than expressing agreement.

Nanami and Haibara Yu exchanged a glance and nodded to each other.

The three of them turned the corner.

The street after the corner was wider than the previous one, with two-story shops on both sides. The signs were crooked and most of the glass was broken, but the road surface was relatively clean. In the middle of the street, three cursed spirits of different shapes were facing away from them, as if they were circling in place, or as if they were searching for the aura of living beings.

The one on the far left is just a huge wheel, a size larger than a normal car tire. Embedded in the center of the rim is a human head. The head's expression is distorted, its mouth is slightly open, and tiny sparks seep from its lips. Dark red flames burn around the edges of its body, and each roll leaves a charred mark on the ground.

The one in the middle has a slender body, covered in pale green scales. It has no legs, but instead has a thick snake tail that crawls along the ground. Its upper body is humanoid, but its arms have two bone blades with a dark luster and sharp edges that make people's hair stand on end.

The one on the far right is wearing a dark kimono with wide sleeves and the hem trailing on the ground. Its head extends upwards from its neck into an extremely long, snake-like structure, suspending itself three meters in the air. Its face is deathly pale, and the positions of its facial features are indistinct, but you can see a smile on its lips, a smile that looks particularly eerie.

The three cursed spirits sensed the presence behind them at the same time. The human head on the wheel slowly turned, its murky eyes locking onto the corner. The snake-man's tail lashed out on the ground, turning its body towards the three. The long-necked woman's head swooped down from a height of three meters, its blurry face magnified in a very short distance, almost touching the frontmost Sun Chariot's face.

Hiromi Hiraka instinctively took a half step back, his hand gripping the judge's gavel tightly, the thin membrane of spell power he had just learned covering his forearm and the handle of the gavel once again.

"Back off, these are level two cursed spirits, be careful."

Nanami's voice came from behind her, her short sword already drawn, the runes on the blade gleaming coldly in the darkness: "Haibara, the snake-like one on the left is very fast, suppress its movement range first."

Haibara Yu already held the short sword in his hand: "Understood."

The three cursed spirits launched their attack at the same time.

The wheel at the front spun violently, and dark red flames shot out from the edge of the hub, forming a fire ring more than two meters in diameter, which spun and crushed towards the three people.

The long-necked woman's head suddenly shot forward, her blurry face deforming in mid-air, her mouth opening to a size beyond human limits, revealing a ring of fine, sharp teeth, heading straight for Haibara Yu.

The snake-man was the fastest. Its tail sprang from the ground, and its entire body shot out like an arrow. Two bone blades opened on its sides, slicing through the air with a sharp hiss, heading straight for Nanami Kento.

The three of them dispersed at the same time.

Nanami slid to the right, his blade rising from below, precisely striking the side of the snake-man's first bone blade. The collision was accompanied by a piercing metallic scraping sound. His blade was not deflected, but instead, a precise deflection force was applied at the point of contact, pushing the snake-man's attack trajectory to the side. The second bone blade missed its target due to inertia, grazing Nanami's shoulder.

As Haibara Yunori retreated, he completed a sideways movement. The moment the long-necked woman's head bit down from the side, he blocked with his short sword in front of him. The blade collided with the row of sharp teeth, producing a dull thud. The long-necked woman's head was bounced back, like a rubber band that had been stretched and then loosened, quickly retracting to a position three meters high.

The car was wide enough that it did not reverse.

He charged towards the ring of fire that was crushing towards him, twirling the judge's hammer halfway in his hand before smashing the hammerhead upwards at the wheel hub, the cursed power condensing into a thin layer of impact on the hammer's surface.

The hammer didn't explode the moment it touched the flames. Instead, it smashed a gap in the flames like a stone thrown into water, and the wheel head let out a low growl.

Seeing that no one was pursuing him, Hiroshi Hiroshi used the recoil to take a step back, widening the distance again. His breathing was slightly more rapid than before, but his eyes were bright: "...You can fight."

During a lull in the second wave of attacks from the snake-men, Nanami glanced sideways and saw that Hiroshi Hitani was handling the situation, so he focused on his own opponent.

The snake-man is indeed very fast, but its attack pattern is monotonous, alternating between frontal stabs and horizontal slashes, lacking variety.

Having already mastered its rhythm, it was only a matter of time. After parrying, his knife did not retreat but slid in along the side of the snake-man's blade, cutting a deep gash that exposed bone at the base of the snake-man's right arm.

Liquid gushed from the wound, and the snake-man hissed as it jerked its body backward, trying to create distance. Nanami swiftly stepped forward and slashed down with his sword!

Haibara Yu has also found a way to deal with the long-necked woman. The long-necked woman's head attack speed is extremely fast and the range is wide, but after each launch, there is a very short, almost imperceptible pause. That pause occurs at the moment when the head retracts to its highest point.

After dodging for the third time, Haibara Yu seized the opening. Instead of aiming his short sword at the long-necked woman's head, he followed its retreating trajectory and slashed at the slender neck itself.

The moment the blade pierced the middle of the long-necked woman's neck, it felt like cutting into a frozen rubber tube—tough yet elastic, but it still severed it. The long-necked woman's head fell from a height of three meters, bounced twice on the ground, and the light in her blurry eyes quickly dimmed before her body fell backward.

Hiromi Higurashi's battle was nearing its end. He had already hammered Wheelhead's wheel several times, leaving three cracks. The intensity of the flames had weakened by almost half compared to the beginning. When the flames rolled over again, Hiromi Higurashi did not retreat but charged into them. He smashed the Judge's Hammer into Wheelhead's forehead from the front, the hammerhead penetrating the bone and disappearing completely.

The wheel suddenly stiffened, then the entire wheel tilted to the side, rolled twice on the asphalt road, and extinguished the last flame.

The three reunited in the center of the street, where the three remains of cursed spirits on the ground were slowly dissipating.

Haibara Yu took a breath, sheathed his sword, and turned to look at Hiromi Higurashi: "You weren't hurt when you rushed into the ring of fire, were you?"

"no."

Hiromi Nichisha's breathing was also a little rapid, but his expression was calm: "I strengthened my body with my magic power beforehand."

Haibara Yu was silent for a moment, then muttered under his breath, "...So he's already using it in battle?!"

That's really impressive!

The three continued forward, and the view at the end of the street suddenly opened up after turning past the last row of shops.

A wide river stretched out before us, its current slow and its surface a murky gray-green. The sidewalks on both sides of the riverbank were packed with people.

The figures were of various shapes and sizes. Some crawled on the ground, some hung from the railings on the riverbank, and some floated on the water with only half of their bodies showing. They were all facing the middle of the river, near the opposite bank, where a bald, humanoid cursed spirit stood, its size twice as large as the cursed spirits around it.

The cursed spirits surrounded it, some bowing their heads, some prostrating themselves, and some spreading their arms as if to face the sky. Although their movements were not uniform, the collective arrangement of them facing a central entity naturally brought the word "worship" to mind.

Hiromi Hirashō's gaze locked onto the bald, humanoid spirit: "That must be their leader."

Nanami Kento did not respond immediately. His self-light swept across the densely packed cursed spirits on the river surface, roughly estimated their number, and then quickly made several deductions in his mind before speaking in a low voice.

"There are too many of them. If we force our way in, our spell power will be greatly depleted. Moreover, we are currently in Osaka, and we don't know how many other lurking curse masters and high-level curse spirits are wandering around. Excessive consumption of spell power in this environment is not a wise choice."

He raised his chin and gestured towards the cluster of high-rise buildings behind the river: "Look over there."

Haibara and Hiyori followed his gaze. About two kilometers across the river, there was a high-rise office building that had not yet completely collapsed, its rooftop silhouette faintly visible in the gray fog.

Three figures stood on the edge of the rooftop.

The distance was too far to see the details clearly, but three outlines could be vaguely discerned. The one on the left was exceptionally tall, with shoulders more than twice the width of an average person, and a pair of folded, wing-like structures on its back.

The one on the right is tall and slender, with an elongated human figure. It stands on the edge of the rooftop with a very light posture, like a leaf that could be blown away by the wind at any moment. The one in the middle is the shortest, much smaller than an average person. It is not very conspicuous standing between the two tall figures, but judging from its position, it may be the one with the highest status.

Nanami's voice was even lower: "If I'm not mistaken, the one on the left looks like a tengu, the one on the right is unclear, and as for the small one in the middle, it should be Nurarihyon. They are all legendary great demon images. If they really correspond to their legendary levels, they are at least level one, or even special level."

"Since none of the three of us have the ability to attack from a distance, I suggest we retreat for now."

Haibara Yu's gaze shifted from the three silhouettes. He looked at the hundreds of worshipping spirits on the river, then at the three higher-ranking beings on the distant rooftop, and silently gripped his short sword: "You're right, making a move now is indeed not the best option."

Hiromi Hiraka was silent for a moment, his gaze shifting back and forth between the bald, humanoid cursed spirit on the river and the three silhouettes on the distant rooftop. Then he looked down at the judge's gavel in his hand, his fingers gently rubbing the handle a few times, as if confirming something.

"I have an idea," he said, his tone calm, lacking the previous excitement, and instead displaying a more composed...

It was as if he had already rehearsed it in his mind with absolute certainty.

Nanami and Ai Haibara both looked at him at the same time.

Hiromi Hiraku raised the judge's gavel to his chest and flipped it over: "This gavel appeared when I awakened the spell. It is not a spell tool, not a weapon obtained from outside, but part of the spell itself."

He paused for a moment, as if organizing his thoughts: "Since it's part of a spell, it should be able to be recycled and regenerated. I tried it during the battle just now."

He raised his hand and gently tossed the gavel above his head.

The hammer tumbled twice in the air, then hovered briefly for half a second at its highest point before disappearing into thin air, as if wiped off the screen by a hand. At the same time, Hiromi's right palm lit up with magical energy again, and the judge's hammer reappeared in his hand in the same instant, the handle fitting perfectly into his palm.

Haibara Yu's eyes lit up: "It can be recycled? Doesn't that mean it can..."

"7

"It can be thrown from a distance!"