Most Jujutsu Sorcerers' Cursed Techniques are innate. Without a Cursed Technique, a sorcerer has only Cursed Energy and nothing more, so they seek out other skills to fight with—and the New Shadow Style is the choice of the vast majority.
The New Shadow Style is a formidable school, with a long history and a well-refined body of methods.
Both Kusakabe and Miwa Kasumi use the New Shadow Style, relying on it to support their fighting with blade and Cursed Energy. And the Simple Domain—that peculiar, uncannily effective Cursed Technique—also belongs to the New Shadow Style. Clearly the style is formidable, and the founder who created it must have been an extraordinary Jujutsu Sorcerer.
"A thousand years ago, just how gifted a person created this art?" People often let their imaginations wander like this. They would grow curious. But the truth was beyond knowing.
Those who learned the New Shadow Style could not even find its current "Head"—let alone uncover a truth a thousand years old. Yes, as a school, the New Shadow Style did have a "Head."
But the Head was truly mysterious, hidden in plain sight among the crowds, never once showing a face in public. And yet the truth lay beyond anyone's guesses.
The position of Head of the New Shadow Style had never once been "passed down."
The present Head of the New Shadow Style was the very founder who had created it with her own hands a thousand years ago. She was an old crone—like Kenjaku, like Tengen, a Jujutsu Sorcerer who had lived for a thousand years.
An ambitious old immortal whose wicked heart still refused to die.
"From today on, you serve me." In the forest, wind slipped through the leaves, stirring up a rustling murmur.
Before the stone steps of the shrine, at the very center of a crowd of blade-bearing disciples with long swords at their hips, the newly initiated disciple knelt respectfully, head bowed, listening to the words of the old woman seated in the highest place. "I hope that in the trials to come, you won't disappoint me."
The old woman's frame was hunched, her complexion withered, her face a mass of wrinkles like the bark of an ancient tree, aged beyond all reason—from her looks alone, if you'd said the old hag had Alzheimer's disease, no one would have found it strange.
But look closely, and you would notice that beneath her rotten-wood exterior, a sly, cunning glint flickered in her eyes.
She was the current Head of the New Shadow Style—and its founder from a thousand years past.
In truth, she would not normally have come out in person to recruit followers and disciples.
The old woman harbored vast ambition and venomous desire.
Her immortality stemmed from a trap she had secretly laid within the New Shadow Style—she could continually steal the lifespans of those who learned it, absorbing them into herself. And the purpose of her long life was to keep expanding the power of her New Shadow Style, and so gradually seize control over the very lifeblood of the entire jujutsu world.
She was a schemer of grand ambition.
By the original story, she should have stayed hidden away in some old shop in a village or town, forever nameless, a hand working from the shadows. But now the timeline had shifted, and against all her usual habits she had come out herself to raise an army, cultivating Jujutsu Sorcerers and followers of her own.
It was undeniably astonishing.
It was because she had caught the scent of "opportunity."
"Have you understood?" the old woman asked, looking down from on high at the newly initiated disciple below.
"I understand, I understand." The disciple nodded again and again, still kneeling, his tone reverent. "From now on I'll surely follow your teachings."
"Then open your system panel now," the old woman said. "Let's see what grade you are."
"Ah, right."
Not daring to dally, the disciple did as he had been taught, reaching out to summon a glowing insect and opening a system panel.
—And that panel was, unmistakably, the panel of the Culling Game!
It was covered in all sorts of system points and Cursed Energy data, and among the many details, the skill column was labeled "New Shadow Style," while the Jujutsu Sorcerer level column read grade two.
"Er, Teacher, your disciple is grade two…"
"Grade two?" The old woman on the high seat snorted through her nose. "Not bad, I suppose."
Yes—the so-called [scent of opportunity] this old hag had caught was the Culling Game's [Passage].
The first [Passage] Mahiru encountered was the one at the haunted house.
But in fact, long before the haunted house, a [Passage] of the Culling Game had already quietly descended upon this world—and "quite by coincidence," this [Passage] had opened right in the old woman's face.
The old hag had risen one morning, seen the Culling Game's [Passage], and realized it was a thing that could endlessly manufacture "people with Cursed Energy"—and she perked right up.
You can make people with Cursed Energy, and I can turn people with Cursed Energy into fighters—we're a match made in heaven!
Her back no longer ached, her legs no longer hurt. The old woman had to consider whether this Culling Game might be the one and only chance of her entire life.
So she stepped straight out from behind the scenes into the open, relying on the [Passage] to expand her strength, raising an army, using the power of the Culling Game's [System] to turn great numbers of ordinary people into Jujutsu Sorcerers and take them on as disciples.
The assassination of Riko Amanai was partly their doing as well.
Because in the old hag's eyes, to control the jujutsu world, taking out Tengen was a necessity.
And to have Riko Amanai in hand was, in a sense, to hold the key to whether Tengen could go on living. The "trials to come" she had just mentioned to her disciple in fact referred to the assassination missions ahead.
What was the level of a grade-two Jujutsu Sorcerer like?
Objectively speaking, already quite good!
Sure, it was thanks to the Culling Game's system points… but a grade-two Jujutsu Sorcerer was genuinely elite fighting strength—and this was only the opening move.
But the Culling Game's system had already raised the old woman's sights!
As long as she had enough points, killing a few more ordinary people, she could manufacture plenty of grade-two Jujutsu Sorcerers—and indeed, she already had many grade-one sorcerers among her followers!
That so-called Miwa Ran was Jujutsu High's newly arrived grade-one prodigy? She had debuted at only grade one and the jujutsu world was already singing her praises to the skies—yet over here, as long as I kill enough ordinary people, anyone can be "grade one from debut."
When I say "my followers > the once-in-a-century genius of the jujutsu world," do any of you get it?
After gaining the Culling Game's help, the old woman's confidence had swollen to enormous size.
And she said as much to the followers beneath her.
"In this [trial], your only true enemies are that brat of the Gojo Family and that brat who uses Cursed Spirit Manipulation. As for that blue-haired brat… she's actually beneath you, honestly not worth mentioning! The so-called title of 'genius' is so laughable before you and me… they're all just ordinary mortals!"
I, who possess the power of the Culling Game, have long since become a being all Jujutsu Sorcerers can only gaze up at and never reach!
Only the beings on the Culling Game system's built-in "high-risk target list" were worthy of giving her a headache!
Satoru Gojo, for instance. Suguru Geto. Yuki Tsukumo. And then… there was one more—someone flagged on the system's "high-risk list" but given no name.
No name was given, seemingly because giving a name would have been meaningless.
But the system had reproduced a copy of that being's Cursed Energy signature, so the old woman and her disciples could feel it and commit it to memory.
As long as she could sense the other's Cursed Energy, she would recognize them.
In truth, when the old woman first learned of this being's existence, she had been rather on edge, because the Culling Game system had specially marked this mysterious being as "the most troublesome calamity." Out of wariness, she had even sent disciples to investigate, checking every named and known figure in the jujutsu world.
But they found nothing.
It seemed that, like Yuki Tsukumo, that being was not currently in the country. Ha-ha.
Not even in Japan—so what was there to fear?
Nothing to fear at all. Now the old woman felt her momentum was unstoppable.
"As long as the Star Plasma Vessel can be killed, Tengen will be in trouble. Bring me her corpse, and I can trace the vine to its root and find still more curses aimed at Tengen.
"Of course, the time for you all to sortie in full force hasn't come yet—you must keep lying low. Wait. Wait just a while longer… I deliberately posted a bounty to send countless assassins after the Star Plasma Vessel precisely to wear down their spirits. Only once the Gojo Family brat and the Cursed Spirit Manipulation brat are utterly exhausted will it be time for you to enter the field and reap the Star Plasma Vessel's life…
"This is a trial. Only by overcoming this trial can you reach a new realm!"
She was still lecturing the disciples below.
As the old woman talked on and on, she worked herself into ever greater excitement.
But in the next moment, a disciple came rushing over from the side, saying he had urgent news to report.
"What is it?"
"Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto have been gravely wounded!"
"What?"
"And—and there's more…" the disciple said loudly, his face blank with bewilderment. "The Star Plasma Vessel has been killed as well…"
"Huh?" The old woman's mouth fell open, her face wavering with shock. "Who did it?"
"It was that… that blue-haired brat you called not worth mentioning." The disciple's voice grew smaller and smaller.
The old woman's face twisted, her expression turning utterly comical.
That blue-haired brat… how was it possible?
It simply wasn't possible.
By any common measure, a brat who debuted as a grade-one Jujutsu Sorcerer certainly had her merits, but there was no way she could stand on the same line as the Gojo Family brat and the Cursed Spirit Manipulation brat—let alone take both of them down single-handedly and then kill the Star Plasma Vessel on top of it.
Even if that blue-haired brat were several times stronger, she still might not beat the Gojo Family's Six Eyes prodigy.
"…Ah, I see now… ha-ha! Hahahaha! So it was a backstab all along!"
The old woman felt she had figured it out. That was it! Absolutely it!
That blue-haired brat must have gravely wounded Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto through some backstabbing trick, and so completed the mission of assassinating the Star Plasma Vessel—wasn't that it?
Yes—she had heard it too: that blue-haired brat had made a last-minute request at the jujutsu higher-ups' meeting to join the Star Plasma Vessel's bodyguard squad.
Think it over carefully now, and it was truly suspicious! She had surely set her eye on the bounty for killing the Star Plasma Vessel, and that was why she'd joined the bodyguard squad—pretending to build good relations, protecting the Star Plasma Vessel alongside them, while secretly waiting for the chance to backstab Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, thereby completing an assassination no ordinary person could ever manage, and finally claiming an impossibly enormous bounty to climb to the peak of her life!
And most important of all—she had actually pulled it off!
With her feeble abilities she had gravely wounded Gojo and Geto—and accomplished the very task the old woman had expected to spend ages plotting and many sacrifices to complete!
"Hahahaha… what a clever and cunning little rat!" The old woman grinned wide and laughed.
The turn of events was truly beyond anyone's expectations.
For the old woman, this was nothing short of good fortune fallen from the sky!
"Then… what do we do next?" the disciple asked, a little hesitant.
"Next? First we get our hands on the Star Plasma Vessel's corpse." The old woman narrowed her eyes, the smile not yet faded. "Has that blue-haired brat reached out to us on her own?"
"She has." The disciple nodded quickly. "She's already contacted us through the bounty site, saying she wants to trade 'the Star Plasma Vessel's corpse' for the reward."
The old woman broke into a sinister cackle. "Then invite her here. Make sure she brings the Star Plasma Vessel's corpse—and no one is to follow her. She wants a reward, doesn't she? Then I'll give her a reward."
Of course, there would be absolutely no bounty.
How could she ever produce a reward of such an enormous sum?
Still, she could grudgingly take the girl on as her own disciple, her own follower.
After all, the jujutsu world of the future would be one ruled solely by her New Shadow Style—so for the girl to lean against a great tree like her, she ought to be grateful.
As for worrying whether the girl might suddenly turn on her?
As if!
The girl was no more than a grade-one Jujutsu Sorcerer, and grade-one disciples like that were a dime a dozen under her command!
A grade-one Jujutsu Sorcerer? Around here, that was merely average!
"Call her over, the sooner the better." The old woman smiled, her voice cold and sinister, looking utterly delighted.
Clearly, she felt victory was already firmly in her grasp.
And so, the next day.
In some remote village, Mahiru stepped down from a bus, carrying on her back a wooden crate as tall as a person and big as a coffin.
Just moments ago, still on the bus, she had casually finished off a few more foolish assassins coveting the Star Plasma Vessel's "corpse."
"Oh, so it's this kind of place."
The girl looked around and remarked to herself: this place really was hard to find.
She had "killed" Riko Amanai.
But of course, this "killing" was fake. The girl had pretended to betray Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, yet it was all an act—all to get close to those who had put out the bounty on Riko Amanai.
After all, there were too many killers… far too many!
Just like cockroaches—not only numerous, but hidden in the sewers, impossible to ever fully stamp out.
Better to deal with the one who issued the bounty; that struck closer to the root.
Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto were now both lying in the hospital, feigning grave wounds, while Mahiru came alone to the meeting, bearing the "Star Plasma Vessel's corpse."
The girl did not know who the bounty-issuer she was about to meet would be.
Strolling slowly like a tourist, the great "coffin" on her back, she ambled leisurely to the appointed spot. The one who appeared before her was a young man dressed all in white, a katana slung at his hip.
"You're Miwa Ran?"
The young man's gaze was thoroughly contemptuous—arms folded, chin lifted, without a shred of respect for Mahiru.
Mahiru studied him for a moment.
Judging by Cursed Energy alone, he was at minimum a semi-grade-one Jujutsu Sorcerer.
But there was something off about the scent on him. Ah. Mahiru realized it in a flash—he carried the scent of the Culling Game.
"I'm talking to you. Are you Miwa Ran or not? If so, I'll take you to see our teacher." He was growing impatient.
Faced with his disrespect, a glint of genuine interest flashed in Mahiru's eyes instead.
"Yes, yes, I'm Miwa Ran, and I've come to claim the bounty." The girl was all smiles. "I'd be glad to go meet your teacher."
The more he underestimated her, the easier things would be for her.
Seeing how he looked down on her, the girl was delighted through and through.
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