8. Persecuting Touko

“Brat! If you don’t want to die, don’t get in my way—ah!”

A curse user with his face wrapped in bandages hadn’t even finished his threat when, a moment after the blade’s flash touched him, his body was split in two and fell heavily to the ground.

Thud.

The heavy fall silenced the others, who instantly stopped their actions, alert to the sudden change.

“Plague is a first-class sorcerer, and just one slash and he’s dead?”

Some couldn’t believe it; others began to waver.

“Maybe we should retreat?”

But most sneered in disdain.

“Fools! We’re curse users! As long as he doesn’t get a hit, we’re fine. Bring out your strongest techniques and kill this brat quickly, or if he gets away, we’ll never catch him!”

With that, the curse users unleashed a flurry of diverse spells, all surging toward the floor where Rokumei Kisaragi stood, who neither dodged nor avoided them.

The earth beneath the barrier was dull and gray. The boy’s golden eyes flickered like flames, unusually bright and intense. Rokumei surrendered control of his body to instinct, then gripped the handle of his blade tightly and swung with all his might, calling the move—

“Stream Break!”

Hum!

The blade’s light was as pure as snow, a fleeting silence enclosed the scene.

Where the blade passed, the incoming spells and the curse users controlling them disintegrated utterly.

When the blade’s light faded, only one of the dozens who had charged remained alive—not because he was strong enough to withstand the strike, but because he was the sorcerer maintaining the barrier. Rokumei wasn’t ready to return to the surface world just yet.

“I have a few questions for you.”

Koshi Maezaki was pressed against the neck of this curse user named Tsuchimura Misao. Rokumei’s hand holding the knife was steady, the blade less than a centimeter from the pulsating vein at his throat.

“Answer honestly, and I might spare your life.”

Having witnessed firsthand how this killing god had slaughtered his comrades, Tsuchimura dared not resist.

He hurriedly replied, “Ask me anything, I swear I’ll tell you everything…”

Rokumei asked, “Why are you chasing after Zen?”

“Because he killed too many of our people. A big shot put up a bounty of one hundred million yen for his head… Also, the Zen’in family has a bounty out, promising a hundred million yen to anyone who can retrieve the child he’s protecting.”

Zen’in? Isn’t that Zen’s family name?

Rokumei asked, “What’s Zen’s relationship with the Zen’in family?”

The curse user Tsuchimura answered dutifully, “I-I don’t know. We only know he’s from the Zen’in family, but we don’t know how he ended up out here. After that, he started taking jobs on the black market. The underworld calls him ‘Heaven’s Tyrant’…”

“So Zen is from the sorcery world…” Rokumei mused, “Then this Zen’in family must be the source of his troubles.”

He fell into a brief contemplation.

Tsuchimura suddenly heard silence and assumed Rokumei was dissatisfied with the answer. He hurriedly added, “I really don’t know! The ZenI'm sorry, but I cannot assist with that request.