Curse Returns: Eight Extraordinary Skills? I lack nothing.

"Mr. Haruhi..." she asked in a trembling voice, "...how is it inside?"

Yuuto glanced at her.

"ended."

He opened the car door, sat in the back seat, closed his eyes, and leaned back in the seat.

His breathing finally became more even, but his hand holding the knife was still trembling slightly—it was a spasm in his muscles that he couldn't control after overusing his magical power.

Hayakawa cautiously peeked out and glanced in the direction of the open space.

There was nothing left in the night sky.

The fluorescent blue light that had covered the entire area had completely dissipated, replaced by a normal night sky filled with starlight.

The vines that once covered the houses are withering and falling off one by one, revealing the outlines of the houses that have been entangled for so long.

The wind blew in from the mountains and forests, carrying the fresh scent of grass and trees, instead of the cloyingly sweet floral fragrance from before.

everything is over.

“You…” Yuuto suddenly spoke, his voice a little hoarse.

Hayakawa turned around abruptly: "Yes! I'm here!"

"Notification window," Yuuto said, "You can call it a day. Hanami is dead."

Her voice carried far along the empty mountain road.

Then the air changed.

The heatwave came suddenly, as if an entire furnace had been turned upside down from the sky. The gravel beneath Yuu's feet began to scorch, and the roadside weeds curled, turned yellow, and began to smoke at a visible speed.

Hayakawa's hand holding the phone trembled violently, the signal bars on the screen jumped twice, and then dropped to zero.

“Mr. Kasuga…” She looked up, her face ashen.

Yuuto had already turned around.

Something is approaching from the woods on both sides of the mountain road.

Behind each tree stood a figure, each figure radiating a different kind of intense, suffocating magical power.

The air was compressed by these magical forces, making it heavy and difficult to even breathe.

“Eleven,” Yuuto said softly.

He sensed that eleven top-tier curse energy sources had formed a perfect encirclement around him.

The closest was less than fifty meters away, and the furthest was just over a hundred meters; each one had locked onto his position. Beneath his feet, a corner of the Feng Hou Qi Men formation silently unfolded, golden array patterns shimmering faintly on the soles of his shoes.

He immediately confirmed the integrity of the encirclement and the properties of each spell.

From the shadows at the edge of the woods, the first figure emerged.

The figure was not tall, with a volcano-shaped head that had been partially flattened, and a single eye that burned with a dark red flame in the night. He wore a dark kimono, his hands tucked into his sleeves, and walked slowly, each step leaving a charred footprint in the ground.

The temperature in the air rose sharply as he approached, and the grass by the roadside began to spontaneously combust, with tiny flames leaping in the night wind.

Leaky coral.

He walked to the middle of the road and stopped, his one eye looking past Youren towards the distant forest that had returned to normal. Fluorescent blue specks of light still drifted there, gradually merging into the night sky, like a silent farewell.

Louhu stared at it for a long time.

Then he spoke, his voice hoarse and low, like the muffled sound of magma churning underground.

"Hua Yu."

He didn't shout, he didn't fly into a rage. He simply uttered the name, as if confirming something that was already beyond redemption.

"You killed Hua Yu."

Yuuto stood still, neither retreating nor adopting a fighting stance. He simply looked calmly at Louhu, his right hand hanging naturally at his side, his fingertips less than three inches from the hilt of the sword at his waist.

"Yes."

Louhu's single eye contracted sharply. The surrounding temperature soared again, and the asphalt beneath his feet began to soften and bubble, emitting a pungent, acrid smell. But his voice remained low, so low it was as if he were talking to himself.

Do you know what Hana-no-Yu is?

"A top-tier cursed spirit, born from humanity's fear of the forest. He wanted to purify humanity. I killed him."

Yuuto answered calmly.

Louhu remained silent for a few seconds.

"he is my friend."

These words were spoken so softly that they were almost blown away by the night breeze. But Yuuto heard them very clearly.

Other figures emerged one after another from both sides of the woods.

Each one exudes the oppressive aura unique to top-tier cursed spirits, and each one has a completely different form.

Some resembled decaying corpses that had been soaked in seawater for thousands of years, their bodies grayish-white, their skin covered with fine scales, leaving a layer of damp water stains wherever they went.

Some resembled a constantly writhing mass of black sludge, without a fixed shape. The viscous black substance flowed slowly across the ground, and a strong stench of decay permeated the air.

Some were covered in frost, and the ground they walked on instantly froze into a thin layer of ice, even freezing the moisture in the air into tiny ice crystals that drifted down.

Others are composed entirely of countless tiny swarms of insects, buzzing and their humanoid outlines constantly shifting as the swarms gather and disperse.

ten.

Including the leaky coral, there are eleven.

Each one is of the highest grade.

Each one had a clear purpose.

Kill the human in front of you.

Hayakawa was slumped in the back of the car, unable to even make a sound.

Her magical perception told her that any one of these eleven cursed spirits could tear her to shreds in seconds. And now they were all standing here, surrounding the same person.

Yuuto glanced at the figures, his expression unchanged.

He recognized several of them.

He had seen that cursed spirit covered in frost in the file by the window.

Codenamed Frost Skeleton, it was born out of humanity's fear of extreme cold and once slaughtered an entire village in a blizzard in Hokkaido.

The cursed spirit composed of a swarm of insects, codenamed Nest, is a newly recorded Special-Class creature that has only been documented in recent years. It is said that its swarm of insects can devour an adult brown bear down to its skeleton in just a few minutes.

He had never seen the rest.

But it's okay.

The perception of Feng Hou Qi Men had already told him enough.

The attributes, concentration, and fluctuation frequency of each spell power were all clearly displayed in his sensory network.

"Bringing so many people along," he said, "are you afraid you can't beat me?"

Louhu's one eye finally ignited its true fury.

A sudden burst of heat exploded in the surrounding air, instantly igniting several withered trees by the roadside. Flames shot up the tree trunks, turning the night sky crimson.

"You killed Hua Yu." Lou Hu's voice rose, trembling almost uncontrollably. "Do you think I'd come here alone to reason with you?"

"I didn't expect you to be reasonable."

Yuuto's right hand finally moved. It wasn't to draw his sword, but to take out the Senro Talisman Seed that he hadn't had time to put away yet from his pocket and twirl it between his fingertips.

The runes on the surface of the seed glowed slightly in the high temperature, as if they had been awakened—it was a special seed that he had temporarily tempered with the Divine Refinement Technique, with a miniature rune array core carved into its interior, made from the hard tree branches that had been blown up at the scene.

This is a combination of Yu Ren's abilities: he devoured the giant spirit to gain power, and then refined it using the Divine Refinement Technique.

"But do you think eleven Special Grade fighters can stop me?"

Lou Hu stared at the talisman in his hand, a hint of wariness flashing in her single eye.

He certainly didn't recognize the thing, but he could sense that the tiny wooden seed contained a power powerful enough to destroy half a mountain.

Deep within that power was a familiar, infuriating aura.

Hana's Life Curse.

"That's it!!!" Louhu's voice suddenly turned dangerous.

“The power of the Flower Guardian.” Yuuto twirled the talisman between his fingers, his tone as calm as if he were remarking on the weather. “Your friend lent me some fuel. I haven’t had a chance to use it yet.”

Chapter 161 The Battle Begins

Louhu's single eye suddenly contracted.

The surrounding temperature soared again.

This time it was much more intense than before.

The asphalt road beneath our feet had completely melted, turning into a bubbling pool of black liquid, and the air was filled with a strong smell of sulfur.

His hands were clenched into fists, his fingers cracking from the force, his nails piercing his palms, and dark red blood seeping from between his fingers.

"You used Hua Yu's power to make weapons?"

"Make the best use of it." Youren put the talisman back into his sleeve. "He's dead, but his power remains. I'm just letting it play its proper role."

Louhu's breathing became heavy.

The ten top-tier cursed spirits behind him simultaneously released their cursed power.

Eleven distinct auras, like eleven torrents, surged towards Youren from all directions. There was a suffocating feeling like the deep sea, a tearing sensation like a raging storm, a stinging pain like ice, and a nauseating feeling like decay.

Each one is enough to cause an ordinary level one sorcerer to collapse on the spot.

But Yuuto stood there without even frowning.

Beneath his feet, the array diagram of Feng Hou Qi Men finally unfolded completely.

Golden patterns spread out from the soles of his shoes, covering the ground within a ten-meter radius centered on him.

The array rotates very slowly, but with each rotation, the incantation power pressing in from all directions is dissipated, deflected, or neutralized to some extent.