Chapter 18: New Toy

Inside the expansion, the figure felt pure ecstasy as it believed that it had won by default, however, the joy was cut short after the figure quickly noticed that despite seeing Shin was caught in the expansion he was nowhere to be found.

This fact perplexed the figure as once it accepted the fact it started stomping onto the mats of the dojo-themed domain. 

Unfortunately, the moment of outrage was soon cut short when it failed to take notice of Shin walking casually toward the being from behind while hiding his presence.

'This dumbass thought it could win if it gets me into it's domain, I'm gonna have some fun.'

As the being continued to remain unobservant, it dug its face into the dojo's mat, Shin was winding back a power swing as if he was using a bat.

With a strong grip and tightened muscles Shin swung his staff from right to left which once came into contact with the spirit's head made a meaty splat sound.

Surprised, the spirit was pummeled to the left side sliding across the floor. In excruciating pain, the spirit tried to regain footing but the strike to its head had caused a long-lasting concussion.

Shin smiles as it watches the curse trying endlessly to regain balance while covering its right-sided face that was severely damaged with bits and pieces falling off.

Seeing the spirit shake due to the pain Shin couldn't help himself as he started mocking the special-grade wobbling his body and mocking it.

This provokes the special grade further as it used to heal itself back into a stable state with the reverse curse technique.

Both parties are now in a stand-off.

The spirit, feeling overwhelmed, opens up its mouth and regurgitates a vial.

Upon closer inspection, the vial looks to contain a familiar liquid as the one Shin retrieve from the rogue sorcerers.

'Shit, he's going to drink it isn't he.'

As Shin predicted the spirit drank the vial and underwent a violent metamorphosis.

Its body shifted and turned as its muscles retracted and expanded, sounds of bone breaking and adjusting could be heard and seen as the body emanated a completely different nature.

Once the process was finished, the spirit stood up straight and elegantly as if it had reached a level that was equal to a divine being.

'What a change, you looked more refined than I thought.'

Both parties once again returned to a stand-still before the spirit examined his staff and back at Shin repeatedly before finally throwing the stuff away.

Seeing this, Shin felt anger envelope inside him as he blurted out to the spirit, "You no longer need a weapon to fight me, is that it?! Fucker, looking down on me now that you've changed huh."

Shin rushes forward striking repeatedly but despite causing physical damage it does very little to deter the curse.

The curse does nothing to defend itself nor does it look like it needs to as each smack, punch, kick, and jab does very little to damage the curse.

'It feels like I'm cutting away the number of life bars rather than my damage not being sufficient. So how does one deal with an enemy with a large life pool? Simple, I just have to hit harder. Imagine this curse as the heavy punching bag from the gym.'

With a simple plan in mind, Shin started putting all his focus on offense instead of 75% offense and 15% defense.

Shin starts a frenzy of attacks, ignoring his body's plea and begging him to rest and breathe, with each attack he would put in more power than the previous and continue this process.

After some time, Shin experienced approaching his limit buri instead of slowing down he aggressively brute-forced through it, ignoring the muscles within himself screaming in pain.

'More, more, more, more, more, ignore the pain for now, focus on killing this thing, rest when it's over!'

unbeknownst to Shin his consecutive attacks and focus have put him in the state of 'the zone', Shin does not realize that he is now undergoing a metamorphosis of some type himself.

After some time passed the curse started to feel its life was in danger as it backed away from Shin while trying to heal but to Shin's surprise the curse was unable to collect enough energy to do so.

'It can't heal itself? Why?'

Suddenly, the domain expansion, Endearing Dojo, was released and both parties were back in the radioactive wasteland.

Happy about the curse situation, Shin was about to finish off the curse however he too was reaching his limit as well.

'Dam, my body is at its limit. I was already fatigued before the domain but now after exiting I'm both fatigued and dehydrated.'

Shin's legs feel the accumulation of stress from ripped muscle fibers has given up support, plummeting Shin.

Breathing heavily, Shin feels both his tongue and lungs drying up. Desperate, Shin looks around for a probable solution and remembers the curse's staff that's quite a distance away.

'If it can heal by hurting nearby curses then could it heal me?'

Shin crawls toward the staff and picks it up, once he wields it he can tell, or rather feel, that the staff is different.

'I think it's more living than just an object'

Looking around I noticed a pool of blood caused by the fight we had earlier and dipped the staff in it.

Strangely enough, the staff took in the blood without issue as Shin watched the staff changing in color from black to dark reddish flowing upward starting from the tip he used to dip it in.

'It's working, I can feel my fatigue and damaged fibers healing.'

Once Shin was fully healed he turned his attention back to the special grade and luckily it was still trying to use the reverse curse technique, unfortunately, it had exhausted itself physically and its energy after using domain expansion.

Not letting this opportunity go, Shin quickly dashed toward the special grade and resumed his endless frenzy, this time, the curse was now actively trying to defend itself from countless assaults.

It cries out in pain as the energy it used to sustain its perfect defense was now crippled by exhaustion resulting in its seamlessly massive health pool dwindling to now its last bar.

Feeling its end coming, the special grade gave up trying to fight and resist as it felt any actions towards Shin would be pointless. It struggles to comprehend why its guaranteed hit effect was unable to target Shin, had it not bet everything in its domain then there might have been a chance for it to win, and had it not trusted 'them' it would have lived another day.

As Shin launched another heavy swing to the special-grade skull, the curse let out an audible speech that despite being low, Shin's ears were able to discern what it said.

'They lied to me...'

The spirit, now decapitated, fell onto the floor with a thud as Shin was perplexed by what it meant when it said "They lied to me".

Looking around Shin was now left with nothing else to do but walk around simply in hopes that he would find another massive batch of Curses to massacre.

As he looks around him for the last time he is just about to head in a random direction but notices his staff acting weird when he taps the tip of it onto the deceased Soecial grade.

The staff was eating the corpse as the tips grew a moth with small teeth that were gnawing and crunching.

After some time the staff stopped whatever it was doing and started repairing, or rather, regrowing itself back into healthy condition.

Swinging the staff around Shin was unable to notice any changes aside from the color regressing back to its original blackness.

Spotting a nearby concrete flat surface to sit on, Shin took the time to relax for a bit and check his status.

Lvl: 11

HP: 103 / 170

CE: N/A

Title: N/A

Stats:

Str (9) + 10

Dex (8) + 10

End (11) + 10

Spd (10) + 10

Vis (5) + 10

Aud (10) + 10

Olf (5) + 10

Luk (0) + 5

Points: 10

Looking at his stats, Shin did not want to spend too much time thinking and instead just chose to focus on Luk.

Lvl: 11

HP: 103 / 170

CE: N/A

Title: N/A

Stats:

Str (9) + 10

Dex (8) + 10

End (11) + 10

Spd (10) + 10

Vis (5) + 10

Aud (10) + 10

Olf (5) + 10

Luk (10) + 5

Points: 0

'This might just be the dumbest move but if I keep stacking it, surely, it would pay off.'

Laying back, Shin took a moment of peace to relax and let the breeze brush against him.

The day was starting to turn dark but jumped back up when he remembered something important.

Checking his radiation detector he started to panic as the reading showed 850 mSv.

'Oh fuck, it's getting close to the danger level. Gojo where are you?!'

Gojo: "Right behind you"

Shin failing to notice Gojo's presence jumped forward in surprise.

Gojo looking around nodded his head in approval before giving Shin a thumbs up and a wide smile.

Gojo: "Good Job, now let's get you home."

Hearing the word home, SHin quickly stood next to Gojo and started sharing everything he encountered and accomplished today.

Gojo stayed silent and listened.

Shin could see that nothing was grabbing Gojo's attention but he had a very strong internal feeling that the special grade consuming a familiar colored vial was the only thing that Gojo had his interest in.

Once back, Shin wasted no time and headed straight to the bathhouse after parting with Gojo.

Now cleaned, he made his way to the cafeteria where he met up with everyone else again. 

Yuji and his squad managed to retrieve another finger after each member killed a special grade.

Shin bragged and showed off the new staff weapon that he got after fighting a special grade.

Once the night gets late everyone separates back to their room.

Unexpectedly, everyone was awakened and ordered to meet up at the usual meeting spot, in front of the school.

As Shin got everything ready and met up with everyone the principal started informing everyone as to why they were all called abruptly.

Principle: "We have just gotten word that a massive curtain was veiled over Shibuya and that everyone here must go assist in the recovery, eliminations, and takeover of Shibuya."

Shin has no idea as to what is going to happen when he gets there since he has not read this far into the chapter, so he worries.

Before departure, every group was given a task and location however Shin was not part of any group therefore he was given the order to eliminate curses within the veil and that since he would be alone then he should prioritize excorcising curses and leave the evacuation and guardian of citizens to other sorcerers.

On October 31, 2018, at 8: 45 PM, Shin entered the veil and noticed curses roaming around creating chaos.

Jumping onto the tallest building, Shin let out a loud scream which caught the attention of every curse within a massive radius.

"Come and get me!"

Instantly, curses of every size and rank dash toward Shin.

Jumping down on the ground, Shin effortlessly swipes and blunges every curse that enters within his attack range.

When he gets tired or feels fatigued building up Shin just stabs his staff into a large curse spirit and regains energy allowing him to fight at his peak performance for a longer period of time.

After some time, Shin notices other sorcerers escorting citizens to a nearby safe spot within the domain while others are recovering the bodies of the dead.

The surrounding areas had been clear of most curses but Shin noticed something strange, lots of movement was coming his way in a very large pack but what was weird was that they seemed like they appeared out of nowhere.

Shin noticing the source of those movements noticed something else about these new faces.

'They have something similar to one another, something very human.'