[Exorcised Special-Grade Cursed Spirit – Greed. Obtained 5,000 Curse Soul Points]
[Mission completed. Rewards have been distributed]
...
Hearing the system notification, Shinji finally stopped channeling cursed energy and ended the state of Crimson Scale Surge · Load.
With a dull thud, his body collapsed backward, his chest heaving violently as he gasped for air.
This special combat state could drastically amplify his speed and strength—but the burden it placed on his body was equally immense.
On top of that, he had loss a massive amount of his own blood during the battle and sustained numerous injuries along the way.
Not to mention the enormous cursed energy expenditure required to forcibly activate an Extreme Technique at the very end…
The fact that Shinji had managed to hold on until now before collapsing was already impressive.
At this moment, all he wanted was to lie on the ground and rest quietly for a while.
With the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit eliminated, the Innate Domain immediately dissipated, and the surrounding environment began reverting to normal.
"Hey, are you dead or what? If you're not dead, hurry up and pry me off the wall, then put me back together…"
Ignoring Hidan's loud shouting, Shinji took advantage of the moment to check his rewards.
First, exorcising the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit – Greed granted a base reward of 5,000 Curse Soul Points, which was ten times that of a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit.
It seemed that once a cursed spirit reached the Special Grade, the rewards underwent a qualitative leap—no longer the measly three or five hundred points from before.
And after experiencing this battle firsthand, Shinji genuinely felt that Special-Grade cursed spirits were fundamentally different creatures compared to anything below that level.
No wonder the reward gap was so enormous.
Second, defeating this Special-Grade Cursed Spirit caused an item to drop.
---
Cursed Object: Greedy Eyeball
Effect: Clearly detects cursed spirit auras within a 500-meter radius
Activation Requirement: Feed it flesh and blood
PS: Once I'm full, I'll help you find your next prey!
---
This Greedy Eyeball was actually one of the eyes of the Special-Grade cursed spirit he had just exorcised. Just looking at it made one's skin crawl.
That said, its effect was undeniably practical.
In the future, it could help Shinji quickly locate cursed spirits, greatly improving farming efficiency while also preventing ambushes.
Of course, the premise was that he'd need enough flesh and blood to feed this embodiment of greed.
But that wasn't much of an issue.
After all, the activation condition didn't specify that it had to be his flesh and blood—animal meat should work just fine.
Besides that, the mission related to Hidan had also been successfully completed.
Bond Value +100, bringing the total to 600 points. He seemed one step closer to constructing a domain!
5,000 Curse Soul Points—meaning that just killing this Special-Grade Cursed Spirit alone netted him a total of 10,000 points.
And finally, the reward Shinji was salivating over the most—
Black Flash!
---
[Black Flash]
A spatial distortion produced when the impact of a strike and the surge of cursed energy occur within 0.000001 seconds of each other.
Average power: 2.5× that of a normal attack
---
In simple terms, it meant coating one's fist with cursed energy and attacking.
When the physical impact of the blow and the explosive release of cursed energy occurred almost simultaneously—with a margin of error within 0.000001 seconds—an astonishingly destructive force would be unleashed.
This force typically amounted to 2.5 times the usual power.
Normal attack + critical hit.
That was basically the idea.
What Shinji valued most wasn't even the "critical hit" effect of Black Flash, but the fact that executing it required extremely precise control over cursed energy within the body.
And that—
Was a true watershed in cursed energy mastery.
Lying on the ground, Shinji quietly absorbed the experience and insights brought by Black Flash, joy welling up in his heart.
The gains from this mission were massive—far beyond expectations.
After a long while, Shinji finally opened his eyes and climbed to his feet.
If he had to fight that bald, four-eyed cursed spirit again now, he was confident he could beat it to death with his bare fists.
Meanwhile, Hidan had finally run out of energy to curse—but his eyes were still wide open.
Smack!
"What are you staring so hard for? Trying to scare me?"
Shinji didn't tolerate nonsense and gave him a clean slap on the forehead.
"Bastard! You dare hit me—ow, ow, ow! That hurts, stop it… I said stop it! Damn it, you're still hitting me—!"
In his current state, Hidan couldn't fight back at all. Before long, his forehead was already red from being smacked.
If looks could kill, Shinji would've died over a dozen times by now.
Unfortunately, Hidan didn't possess something like the Sharingan—so glaring alone couldn't kill anyone.
"Alright, stop hitting me! What do you want, anyway?!"
Hidan was getting desperate. Whether from frustration or pain, it looked like something was welling up in the corners of his eyes.
"I told you a long time ago—stop charging in everywhere just because you've got an immortal body. Use your brain more!"
"Look at you now. If it weren't for me, you'd still be hanging there waiting to dry into a mummy."
Hidan was unconvinced.
"If that four-eyed freak hadn't sneakily stolen my weapon when I wasn't paying attention—and then attacked me from behind—I wouldn't have lost… at least not this badly!"
Pure stubbornness.
Shinji didn't even know what to say anymore.
But what could he do?
After all, this was his own dog.
He'd already hit him, already scolded him. Whether he listened or not wasn't something Shinji could control.
With no other choice, Shinji stopped arguing and manually pried Hidan's dismembered body parts off the wall.
Then, with obvious reluctance, he cut his finger and squeezed out some blood.
Blood formed needles.
Blood became thread.
Just like that, Shinji began stitching Hidan back together.
Unfortunately, his craftsmanship was… atrocious.
Before he'd even finished part of it, Hidan couldn't help shouting:
"Hey, hey, hey! Can't you stitch me a little prettier?!"
"You're a grown-ass man—why are you obsessed with looking pretty? Want me to embroider a bow on you while I'm at it?"
Shinji rolled his eyes, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
Hidan gritted his teeth.
"Forget the bow—but at least stitch it right! What are these crooked rows of stitches?! If one arm ends up longer than the other, are you taking responsibility?!"
Shinji glanced down.
…Oh.
He really wasn't wrong.
After stitching both arms, one was clearly longer than the other.
But given someone's thickness of skin, admitting fault was impossible.
Shinji immediately put on a stern face.
"If that happened, it's obviously because a piece is missing. How could that be my fault?"
"Bullshit! Take these two arms off right now and compare them! If one's missing a piece, I won't be called Hidan anymore!"
"Call you Waste-dan?"
"I'LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU!"
"Enough whining. Are you letting me stitch or not? I've never seen someone so picky."
Hidan's face flushed red, his teeth grinding so hard they nearly shattered.
Finally, under Shinji's impatient stare, he forced out a single word:
"…Stitch."
I'm tired.
Just end the world already.
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20 Power Stones= 1 additional chapters.