"Da-damn it..."
Just as Gu Mo was pondering, the battlefield below changed again. Yuji, who was previously nimble like a monkey, was now finally caught off guard and pursued mid-air by a giant arm.
A whistling wind sound echoed in his ears, a shadow barely visible to the eye flashed by, then a tightness at the waist, as a giant hand coiled around him like a giant snake, lifting his entire body into the air with immense power.
Yuji panicked internally, instinctively struggling chaotically, trying desperately to pry open the giant hand constraining him, punching and kicking, but to no avail...
And at that moment, the giant hand suddenly exerted its strength!!
"Ugh— Ha!!"
Yuji’s expression froze instantly, emitting a pained sound, not a scream or yell, but the sound of air being forcibly expelled from his chest and abdomen without warning, so violently that he almost lost consciousness and awareness.
Like a python strangling its prey, but different from slowly choking its victim, this was an explosive action that nearly snapped this boy in two, as simple and swift as crushing an empty can.
"Yuji!!" Megumi Fushiguro exclaimed, but immediately realized that his situation was hardly better.
The giant resentful spirit extended another grotesquely elongated, bloated arm, scooping up Megumi Fushiguro from the ground, dragging him slowly towards its blood-red cavernous mouth.
The farce was over; it was the final victor. By swallowing the special grade curse from this little bug, it could gain extremely powerful Curse Power and further advance on the path of the resentful spirit.
......
"Is it really ending like this?"
Gu Mo, watching from above, raised his eyebrows, but quickly dismissed the thought. It didn’t seem that simple; more twists were surely to come.
Though he knew that just standing here watching wasn’t quite right, it didn’t seem honorable, but thinking seriously, he didn’t really have anything to do either. Surely he couldn’t just call the police for help?
"Hmm?"
At that moment, as his thoughts wandered, a hint of red caught his eye. He glanced upward, precisely focusing in the dark night on an unknown ID moving rapidly within the shadows—
Following the "???" was a bright health bar.
—Could this be the same unknown ID he saw before?
Gu Mo’s mind raced, his expression turning slightly solemn. As they say, when the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. Could this unfolding be scripted the same way? In the dark night, could there be an even more powerful unknown monster lying in wait for the right moment?
At the same time, as he watched, the unknown ID and health bar tag rapidly approaching suddenly came to an abrupt stop.
Huh? What’s happening?
Gu Mo was a bit surprised, but the next moment, almost as if responding to his judgment, the situation on the battlefield below indeed changed once again.
Gu Mo perked up, quickly focusing his attention, dispelling all the strange notions in his mind, and continued to watch seriously. He saw the situation, seemingly without suspense and one-sided, was revitalized by the boy named Yuji!
......
The timeline rewinds a bit.
"You! What are you doing! Are you crazy!"
As Megumi Fushiguro was grabbed by the giant resentful spirit and brought towards its mouth, he knew what fate might await him. However, he didn’t expect that as his body passed by Yuji, who seemed barely alive and on the brink of collapse, Yuji suddenly lifted his head and opened his mouth, biting the curse he held.
"Let—go..."
Straining to lift his head, he tightly bit onto the withered finger firmly grasped by Megumi Fushiguro above, Yuji mumbled.
He tried hard not to think of anything disgusting, after all, this was a dried, mummified finger, and itself seemed to be part of some monster.
Well, come to think of it, if it were a human finger, it might be even more disgusting, right?
"...Didn’t you say those monsters want to eat this thing... to gain powerful Curse Power?"
Yuji said indistinctly yet with difficulty, while shaking his mouth and head, trying to pull the finger he bit from the other’s grip.
"If I eat it... I might also get that Curse Power!"
He had asked Megumi Fushiguro about this on the way here, knowing this point. The recent futile struggle against the insurmountable strength reinforced the truth in Megumi’s words—the ordinary cannot fight the extraordinary. Curses must be fought with curses.
This was the only slim hope for survival. If he could eat the finger before the monster, could he obtain powerful Curse Power too? Would he have a chance against the monster, saving both himself and Megumi?
"You’re crazy! Humans and resentful spirits are not the same..."
Megumi Fushiguro shouted angrily, knowing that resentful spirits could gain powerful Curse Power by devouring curses because at their core, they were collections of curses.