“Tsk.”
He fell to one knee, holding the broken blade in his right hand while supporting himself on the floor with his left.
The wound on his palm, which had just scabbed over, split open once more, his blood seeping into the cracks between the floorboards.
His field of vision was reduced to his right eye, but his dynamic vision remained fully operational.
He could clearly read the trajectory of every muscle contraction in that Cursed Spirit, predicting the angle of its next blow with absolute precision.
Yet even with foresight, his body was far too battered.
He couldn’t dodge.
The Cursed Spirit lunged again, sweeping across this time.
A whip-like appendage forged from pitch and bone spurs slashed toward his waist.
Yasui barely raised his broken knife to block, but the moment the blade clashed with the limb, the stainless steel fruit knife snapped with a crisp crack, and the tail end of the whip slammed hard against his right ribs.
*Snap.*
Two more broken.
Yasui was sent flying, crashing through the coffee table as the glass tabletop shattered beneath him into countless jagged shards.
A triangular piece of glass drove deep into his right shoulder, while another gouged open his thigh—not fatal, but fresh blood gushed out steadily.
[Points +10]
Lying flat on his back amid the broken glass, the ceiling spun before his eyes.
The Cursed Spirit towered over him, “looking” down as his blood-soaked figure reflected in its dozen-plus eyeballs.
A diner admiring a dessert about to be devoured.
Yasui felt that he truly was quite sweet.
“Plunging a blade straight into the heart…
how many points does that get?”
Yasui’s voice was faint, accompanied by a wet, bloody gurgle.
His right hand still clutched the half-broken knife, pressing the jagged tip right against his chest—positioned precisely two centimeters above his heart, bypassing the aorta while guaranteeing a lethal level of excruciating pain.
There was no need to speak out loud, of course—he could simply communicate with the system in his mind.
Yet he felt that saying something out loud at a moment like this provided a much better cinematic feel.
He asked while coughing up blood, his face as pale as sheet paper, yet those breathtakingly beautiful purple eyes held a faint, amused smile, as if he were merely asking what was for dinner tonight.
[If you’re ruthless enough, near-death plus extreme agony yields 100~200 Points.]
“What about stabbing clean through my arm?”
[30~50 Points.]
“A knife in the gut?”
[50~60 Points.]
“What if I stab it twice?”
[60~75 Points.
Repeated trauma to the same area triggers an adaptive protection mechanism in your pain nerves, causing the points to decay.]
“So the second stab comes at half price?”
Yasui was genuinely amused.
His laughter pulled at his broken ribs, turning into a violent fit of coughing as more blood seeped through his fingers.
Leaning back lazily against the wooden wall nearby, he cast a nonchalant glance at the utter disaster surrounding him.
The shattered mahogany table, shredded filling from the Italian leather sofa, and his own blood splattered across the floorboards.
“A forty-million-yen estate, millions in furniture…
you really don’t know how to appreciate fine things, little Cursed Spirit~”
The Cursed Spirit struck once more.
This time, it didn’t pounce.
Instead, it whipped out three pitch-black tentacles, completely sealing off all of Yasui’s escape routes from three different angles.
The left tentacle coiled toward his neck, the right thrust toward his abdomen, and the central one lashed straight for his head.
Yasui didn’t dodge.
“This coiling style is way too erotic~”
He even actively leaned straight into it.
The tentacle on the left wrapped tightly around his throat, its massive strength lifting his entire body off the ground as his cervical spine groaned under the unbearable strain.
The central tentacle slammed heavily into his right leg, giving Yasui the distinct sensation of being hit head-on by a speeding semi-truck—
*Bang!*
His right leg, from the knee down, vanished.
It wasn’t a fracture, nor was it a clean break; it was forcibly crushed, shredded, and torn apart by sheer, brutal force.
A crimson mist of blood, shattered bone, and torn nerve bundles detonated in the air.
The severed end was jagged and raw, white bone fragments piercing through muscle as dark red arterial blood gushed outward.
An excruciating, heart-piercing agony.
No, “heart-piercing” didn’t even begin to cover it—it was a pain that made one want to howl uncontrollably, driving a person straight into despair.
His hundredfold pain sensitivity magnified the “amputation” signal to a cosmic scale; Yasui felt his very soul being ripped to shreds within this agony.
His pupils dilated abruptly before violently contracting, his eyes rolling back as gasping, inhuman whimpers leaked from his throat.
It hurt so damn much.
The system worked frantically behind the scenes, its icy mechanical force locking onto his consciousness with a vice grip, refusing to let him fall into the abyss of shock.
[Never Die from Pain]—Passively triggered.
[Points +57]
Now was the time.
On the absolute brink of losing consciousness, Yasui used his final thread of clarity to drive that half-broken blade straight into a spot two centimeters to the left of his heart—without a single moment of hesitation, hitting the target with absolute precision.
My little fruit knife, you really burned yourself out today.
*Pfft.*
The blade pierced skin, cut through muscle, sliced through intercostal tissue, and grazed the edge of his heart before sinking into his chest cavity.
In that instant, time seemed to freeze.
Not a metaphor—Yasui truly experienced a physical sense of “stoppage.” His heartbeat skipped a beat the second the tip grazed it, before surging wildly out of control at a chaotic rate of two hundred beats per minute.
Blood gushed from the wound on his heart, filling his chest cavity and compressing his lungs, turning every single breath into an intake of his own blood.
Agony.
An agony that surpassed even the severed leg.
It was the pain of his life source being torn apart, the sensation of his soul and flesh being roasted over a fire simultaneously.
His hundredfold pain perception magnified this final blow into a pure, concentrated, liquid state of sheer despair.
[Points +121]
[Current Points: 254]
“Buy Reverse Cursed Technique.”
Yasui’s voice choked on blood, every single word dragging out a red bubble.
“Ha…
that really fucking…
hurts…”
“Twenty points into Speed, sixteen into Strength, eighteen into Cursed Energy.”
[Purchase confirmed.
Consuming Points: 253.]
[Remaining Points: 1]
[Cursed Energy Total: 9 + 30 (Reverse Cursed Technique bonus) + 9 → 48]
[Strength: 15 + 8 → 23 (You can go ahead and perform a live act of punching through a security door now)]
[Physical Resistance: 3 (Standard for a normal human: 5)]
[Speed: 2 + 5 + 10 → 17 (A little yellow flash)]
[Overall Evaluation: Grade 2 Sorcerer ~ Grade 1 Sorcerer]
[Reverse Cursed Technique: Learned]
Yasui glanced at his total Cursed Energy, looking at the text inside the parentheses with a quiet sigh of admiration.
Impressive—a free 150 points worth of value.
Yasui began executing the Reverse Cursed Technique.
A scalding, unprecedented surge of raw energy exploded from deep within his abdomen.
It wasn’t pain, but rather something far more primal, far more violent—pure vitality.
Channeling through his Cursed Energy, it coursed down his blood vessels, flooding into his severed right leg, his caved-in chest, his pierced heart, and every single broken, shattered corner of his entire body.
His right leg began to grow back.
It wasn’t a slow healing process, but a visible, blood-soaked regeneration occurring right before his eyes.
White bone fragments extended at a speed noticeable to the naked eye, blood vessels reattached automatically, nerves reconnected, and finally, a fresh layer of pale, brand-new skin covered it all.
The wound on his heart closed within 0.3 seconds, his broken ribs snapped back into alignment automatically, his punctured lungs re-expanded, and the gashes across his face were smoothed over as if erased by an invisible hand.
Yasui fell from midair, landing gracefully on one knee.
His newly grown right leg stepped onto the broken glass, sending a subtle, sharp sting through his foot.
He stood up, rolling his neck until his cervical vertebrae let out a series of light pops.
He looked down at his hands—pale, clean, entirely pristine, with even the old wound on his palm completely gone.
Lifting his head, he looked at the Grade 2 Cursed Spirit and let out an excessively gorgeous smile.
“Hehe…”
The Cursed Spirit seemed stunned.
Its dozen-plus eyes contracted simultaneously as uneasy ripples wavered across its pitch-like body.
It couldn’t comprehend how a prey it had torn to shreds just a moment ago was now standing there completely intact—and with a Cursed Energy fluctuation emanating from him that was entirely, terrifyingly different.
Yasui’s smile grew brilliant.
That smile hung on his excessively beautiful face, the vibrant speck of red between his brows looking hauntingly sinister, while his deep purple pupils reflected the twisted form of the Cursed Spirit.
He raised his right hand, splaying his fingers wide before swiftly clenching them into a tight fist.
“Thanks for the meal.”
His voice was faint, sounding like a polite thank-you, yet carrying the weight of a final sentence.
“Now then—”
He moved.
With a Speed of 16, he was fast enough.
Strength: 23.
Within the realm of a Grade 2 Sorcerer, this was already considered formidable.
His fist materialized directly above the Cursed Spirit’s head.
Four times the explosive muscular strength of an average human, backed by 48 points of Cursed Energy, transformed into pure, unadulterated destructive force.
“My turn to treat you, isn’t it?”
“Boom—!!!”
That single punch slammed directly into the Cursed Spirit’s disgusting body.
The pitch-like mass collapsed inward in an instant before detonating with an ear-splitting roar.
The Grade 2 Cursed Spirit let out a horrific shriek.
[Points +5]
Yasui’s eyes curved into a lovely smile.
“How does it feel?
I’m going to take my sweet time beating you to death.”
It wasn’t smooth sailing on his end either—with a Physical Resistance of 3, his hand felt like it had snapped.
He glanced down at it.
Ah, right, it really was broken.
His body was truly pathetic.
But it didn’t matter in the slightest; he had Reverse Cursed Technique now.
Draining a tiny sliver of Cursed Energy, his hand instantly restored itself.
Hahaha…
Why was he feeling a bit thrilled about this?
Alright, he was actually extremely thrilled—he was super happy~
Punch after punch, hit after hit.
After the Cursed Spirit failed multiple attempts to flee, one final heavy blow finally put an end to its existence.
The Cursed Spirit was completely dismantled by that final strike.
Black sludge, shattered eyeballs, and broken bone spurs exploded in all directions under the violent pressure of his fist, evaporating into black ash.
In the end, nothing was left behind.
Magnificent.
[Cursed Spirit experienced pain, Points +5]
[Current Points: 17 (Points gained from Yasui’s pain during continuous attacks + Points gained from Cursed Spirit’s pain)]
Standing in the center of the ruins, Yasui tilted his head back, allowing the dust carried by the draft to settle onto his long hair, shoulders, and eyelashes.
He opened his mouth and took a deep, satisfying breath.
The air was thick with the scent of blood, charred wood, and the foul stench of decay unique to a destroyed Cursed Spirit.
“So stinky,” he remarked.
“But man, that was fun.”
Then he broke into laughter again, doubling over until tears welled up in his eyes.
“Only five points?”
Yasui straightened up, using his thumb to wipe away the tear of laughter at the corner of his eye.
“Is this Cursed Spirit really that worthless?”
[Host, the core logic for earning points is ‘pain endured by yourself,’ not ‘pain endured by the enemy.’ Making enemies experience pain is merely a minor supplementary reward.]
[Points earned from completing missions belong to a different category of fixed system points.]
“Got it,” Yasui nodded, kicking aside a piece of broken wood near his foot.
“Self-harm is still the fastest way to make bank.”
He surveyed his surroundings.
The living room was completely beyond recognition.
The sofa was gone, the coffee table destroyed, the decorative screen reduced to firewood, three massive holes gaped in the wall, and several beams of sunlight filtered down through the damaged ceiling onto the wreckage.
Yasui walked over to the bottle of Sprite that hadn’t been knocked over, bending down to pick it up.
The bottle was still cold, the carbonation fizzing softly.
He unscrewed the cap and tilted his head back to take a long swig.
Icy, stinging sweetness.
“Forty million…
what a wreck.
Wonder if insurance even covers this…” He smacked his lips as he looked at the ruins around him.
“Ah, whatever, too lazy to deal with the hassle.
I’ll just hire someone to renovate it whenever I have time.”
Dangling the Sprite bottle, he stepped across the shattered glass and black ash, strolling lazily toward the staircase.
His waist-length black hair swayed gently behind him, the tips flecked with a few specks of black dust.
“First, time for a shower~”