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

Chapter 174 The Main Competition Begins

Xia Youjie witnessed the entire battle.

From the splitting and fusion of the Nurarihyon, to its evolution into the Goat-Headed Demon, to Tianyan's arduous battle against that four-meter-tall body, to the light of the two-colored lotus exploding in the night sky, and finally to the formation, expansion, disintegration, and fall of the Cursed Embryo, he didn't miss a single detail.

"That cursed embryo... is almost complete."

Xia Youjie's voice was very soft, as if he were talking to himself, but there was no sigh in his tone, only an objective statement: "If it could absorb enough spell power, the spell spirit would evolve to a completely new level... Unfortunately, it failed at the last moment."

"Was this also part of your plan, Lu Suo?"

Xia Youjie's eyes showed a thoughtful expression. He felt that he should overestimate the sorcerer Fa Suo, who had lived for thousands of years, as much as possible. This was the fact that he had learned from being by Fa Suo's side. That monster-like guy always had some kind of plan hidden.

Xia Youjie looked again at the lump of flesh on the ground—no, it should be called a slippery mess.

As a spectator who "watched the entire show from the best seats," one may have a better understanding of the details of the battle than someone who experienced it firsthand. If one is lucky enough, one may even discover some little-known details.

For example, at the moment the cursed fetus exploded, an abnormal fluctuation flew in another direction along with the explosion.

If it weren't for Xia Youjie's own spell spirit manipulation technique enhancing his perception of spirits, he wouldn't have discovered that Nurarihyon was actually not dead!

He crouched down, reached out, and touched the surface of the grayish-white film with his fingertips.

The fragment trembled slightly beneath his fingertips.

"This is truly an unprecedented cursed spirit!"

Xia Youjie said, his tone tinged with excitement, as if he had seen a rare Pokémon.

It was turning into a miniature version of a gourd, curled up like an unhatched egg. Its translucent outer membrane gleamed with a moist sheen in the moonlight. Through the membrane, one could see the slowly wriggling outline inside, with limbs curled up in front of its chest and its head drooping, in the same posture as a fetus.

It reverted to its most primitive form, gathering all its power into its core, like covering a lamp about to go out with a shade, leaving only the last wisp of flame burning in the dark.

It is waiting, waiting for the next opportunity for evolution, waiting for its magical power to be replenished, waiting to hatch again!

But that opportunity will never come again!

Xia Youjie stretched out his right hand, fingers spread, palm down, and pressed it on the top of Xiao Huapiao's head. The moment his palm touched that grayish-brown skin, he could feel a faint, baby-like pulse coming from his palm.

Spirit Manipulation Technique, activate!

An invisible suction force surged from his palm, spinning like a vortex. Little Nurarihyon's body trembled slightly at first, and then, starting from the edges, his grayish-brown skin began to melt like wax being steamed by heat, turning into wisps of black mist that were sucked into his palm.

Little Nurarihyon opened its eyes at the last moment, a trace of fear and resentment flashing in its turbid eyes. Its mouth opened slightly, as if it wanted to make a sound, but without the support of the magic power, its degenerated body could not squeeze out a single syllable.

Its pupils flashed with fear, and then its entire body was compressed into a sphere with a dark purple sheen, which floated in Xia Youjie's palm.

The Nurarihyon disappeared completely, and all the parts that made up that body were compressed into this fist-sized sphere.

The surface of the sphere has fine, flowing lines, like a pattern that has been folded countless times. You can vaguely see Nurarihyon's expression frozen deep inside the sphere at the last moment.

Xia Youjie looked down at the sphere: "This is... the power of evolution..."

'

His voice was very soft, almost inaudible in the night breeze: "I have it."

He held the sphere up to his eyes, peering through the dark purple light at the patterns inside: "This journey of death and destruction has at least yielded me a cursed spirit of considerable value."

"I hope this will be of sufficient help to my plans."

He withdrew his hand, put the sphere into his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbed, and he swallowed. The warm sensation slid down his esophagus into his stomach. He could feel the fragments of evolutionary potential slowly integrating into his spellcasting system, like a seed thrown into water, searching for a suitable place to take root.

He raised his right hand, and black mist surged from his palm, condensing and expanding in the air. It gradually transformed into a door about three meters in size, from which a ferocious figure appeared. Its outline was initially blurry, like a lump of kneaded clay, but then its limbs, torso, and head took shape in sequence, with armor covering it from the outside in. Compound eyes on either side of its head condensed a dark red glow.

A gigantic cockroach spirit emerged from the black mist, its dark red compound eyes gleaming coldly in the moonlight.

Its appearance is exactly the same as the one that attacked Shoko in the college's medical clinic before! Dark brown, glossy carapace, long six legs, tentacles protruding from both sides of its mouth, and that aura emanating from its body that instinctively makes people uneasy.

Xia Youjie looked at it: "Hei Mu is dead."

Hei Musi's compound eyes moved slightly, and his mouthparts opened and closed gently, as if confirming a command.

"Now, go and clear out all the remaining cursed spirits within the Osaka barrier."

Xia Youjie paused, then chuckled, "This time, let's avoid the location of Zen Temple Tianyan. Last time, I impulsively tried to probe him, but he killed me after I charged in."

"Although Hei Mu's ability is asexual reproduction, it can multiply indefinitely as long as there is enough food. However, if non-sorcerers are used as food, the efficiency is too slow. Moreover, if the ordinary people who are used as evolution materials die, the number of newly born sorcerers will also decrease, which is something I do not want to see."

"Then it's best to use a cursed spirit. Creating a Black Bathing Death requires a lot of cursed spirits, and my stock is limited, so I can't waste them."

Xia Youjie withdrew his hand: "Go."

Black Mu's compound eyes flickered, and then its body sprang up from the ground. Its six legs swung rapidly in the air, gliding lightly across the night sky. Its figure quickly disappeared into the shadows of the opposite street. Deep in the alley, hundreds and thousands of tiny cockroach spirits surged out from sewer entrances, wall cracks, and building shadows, gathering into a dark tide that rushed towards the remaining spirit aura within the barrier.

Xia Youjie glanced at the incantation that appeared in the sky: "The incantation that appeared in the sky is unfamiliar. It is obviously Lu Suo's backup plan. It seems that the purpose is to absorb enough incantation power."

"Although I don't know what will happen in the end, it wouldn't be good to let you achieve your goal so easily. Let's have a contest to see who can absorb it faster, or who can eat it faster!"

Over the next few hours, a strange change occurred in Osaka.

The low-level cursed spirits huddled in the ruins began to be dragged out of the shadows by something. They came in all shapes and sizes: some looked like charred wild dogs, some like twisted human figures, and some were just a blurry black mist.

But they all met the same end: dark brown cockroaches emerged from the darkness, covering their bodies, and then the cockroaches began to devour them, absorbing their bodies made of cursed power and transforming them into more offspring!

Like a dark tide, the offspring of the Black Bath Death spread rapidly through the streets, alleys, and inside buildings of Osaka. They climbed along walls, passed through broken windows, and infiltrated underground pipes and drainage systems, wreaking havoc in every possible hiding place of the cursed spirits within the barrier.

Those low-level cursed spirits that survived the previous melee, those who slipped through the net hiding in the shadows of the buildings, and those newly recruited cursed spirits attracted by the explosions, were all swallowed up by that dark brown tide.

The number of cursed spirits in Osaka has dropped sharply, and those figures that once roamed the streets are disappearing one after another. But at the same time, the concentration of cursed power permeating the city is slowly increasing.

Although the Black Bath's offspring devoured the cursed spirit's body, the cursed spirit began to dissipate cursed power mist after its death. A considerable amount of this mist would dissipate into the air and be trapped by an invisible barrier, floating in the air with nowhere to go.

They accumulate inside the barrier, becoming increasingly concentrated, like gas trapped in a sealed container. Each time a new cursed spirit dies, new cursed power is injected into this container.

Tianyan stood on the rooftop of a building, his purple-gold wings folded. His gaze fell on the street below, which was gradually returning to silence. The dense curse energy in the air made him very uncomfortable, like a sticky film on his skin. With each breath, he could feel that energy slowly seeping into his body.

He sensed the increasingly dense cursed power in the air, and the energy released from the remnants of the cursed spirits being devoured was converging towards the top of the barrier. His brows furrowed more and more as he looked up at the barrier in the sky, where an ominous glow was emanating from the surface of the purplish-black film.

"The cursed spirits are being eliminated... but the concentration of cursed power is actually increasing."

He said in a low voice, his tone carrying a certainty that he had confirmed a certain guess: "This barrier..."

They are collecting magical power for some purpose.

As soon as he finished speaking, the first ripple appeared on the surface of the barrier in the sky. The ripple spread from the edge of the barrier, like a pebble being thrown into the water, spreading outwards towards the center in concentric circles.

Then more ripples appear simultaneously from all directions, intertwining, overlapping, and interfering with each other, forming a complex interference pattern on the surface of the barrier.

The color of the ripples was changing, slowly shifting from the original purplish-black to dark red, like a plate of iron being heated, gradually changing color from the outside in. Dark red runes began to appear on the surface of the barrier, initially just scattered points of light, then those points of light began to connect and weave together, forming a huge net that covered the dome of the entire city.

Tianyan closed his eyes and used his soul power to sense the direction of the runes' extension. Then he opened his eyes, his pupils contracting slightly.

The runes not only spread across the surface of the barrier, but they also extended outwards!

Through the barrier itself, through the void above the city, it grows like roots, along some unseen veins, reaching further into the distance.

As dawn approached, the night sky over Osaka slowly receded, changing from deep black to inky blue, and then from inky blue to a murky grayish-white. However, the light within the barrier did not brighten; instead, it became even more eerie than before. The light seeping through the barrier membrane was filtered by the dark red runes, casting a dark red shadow on the ground that resembled diluted blood.

In mid-air, a huge outline is taking shape.

It emerged from the void, as if pulled out of another space by some force. First, there was a blurry skeletal structure, then a bone-white carapace covering it, and finally the dark red runes on the surface.

The thing was about ten meters tall, suspended in mid-air, with six thick arthropod legs extending to the sides, and an oval-shaped abdomen. Its overall shape resembled a giant scarab beetle magnified countless times.

Its head was an inverted skull, its surface covered with cracks and runes, and eerie green flames burned in its two sunken eye sockets, making it appear particularly sinister against the dark red sky.

The enormous, bone-white scarab beetle hovered in mid-air. It didn't move, but its very presence carried a suffocating sense of oppression, as if something was watching everyone below through its skeleton.

Tianyan recognized it as the little helper that every player had, only it had become much larger.

Then, it opened its mouth.

The voice carried the rhythm and intonation of a stage host, each word clearly echoing throughout the entire barrier, like a tolling bell, its lingering sound repeatedly refracting between buildings and spreading to every corner.

"Congratulations, everyone! You have successfully passed the qualifiers!"

The sound echoed through the empty street with a deliberate theatricality, as if announcing the opening of a grand event.

Those survivors still huddled in the ruins, those sorcerers searching for their companions in the streets, and those ordinary people hiding in the corners of buildings—all of them looked up at the huge silhouette in the sky at the same moment.

Xia Youjie shook off the cursed spirit blood from his hands. He looked up at the sky, his expression shifting. He had heard that tone many times during this period; it was Lu Suo's voice!

"The qualifiers were quite exciting. Some chose to fight, some chose to hide, and some chose to kill their compatriots to gain points. Every choice contributed to the symphony of this grand event."

Lu Suo paused, as if waiting for the audience to process his words: "However, the preliminaries are just a warm-up. From now on, the Death Migration will enter the main competition stage."

Tianyan stood on the rooftop, his gaze fixed on the bone-white golden beetle in the sky, his fingers tightening slightly in his pocket.

"During the main event, the barrier area will no longer be limited to Osaka."

As he finished speaking, dark red runes lit up the barrier above Osaka, covering the city's dome. The runes meandered through the air, carrying a sense of ancient mystery.

They converged towards the center along the dome of the barrier, forming a huge vortex-like pattern. Then the runes began to extend outward, growing outward along the invisible veins in the sky, spreading rapidly like tree roots, reaching even farther places.

The sound of the lute rang out for the last time, carrying a pleasant tone, like a closing remark.

"Dear players!"

Enjoy this feast to the fullest!

Because this time...

The scarab beetle's mouthparts opened slightly, and dark red runes flashed on its shell for a moment, like a signal that some kind of ritual was completed.

"No one can stay out of this anymore!"