Guest: "BRO! PLEASE WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER OR I'LL BE KEPT UP AT NIGHT BY THIS CLIFFHANGER!"

Sorry for keeping you awake for so long! All of the chapters up to 19 are already written and uploaded onto my Pa-treon, but will come out here at their usual time, which is once a week. This time is a special occasion though, since I kinda messed up and forgot to upload (next chapter is on Saturday).

Wondertainment: "WITH THIS SACRED TREASURE I SUMMON A CLIFFHANGER!"

I hope you have enough cursed energy to subjugate this shikigami! Truly a powerful one, with the cursed technique of 'angry readers' it can only be summoned once in a blue moon.

That's all for reviews this time, please enjoy the bonus chapter!

Darkness followed the waves of sound created by Fushigoro's voice, figures of toads and wolves appearing sporadically to either croak or howl to the sky as the void encompassed the group.

The monk's eyes widened in shock as his hands rose in front of him, the spirit that once laid within them left long forgotten on the ground beside him. His left foot shuffled forward, kicking up some of the recently applied dust with a loud scuff; at the same time Megumi spoke his next words, what could only be considered a metric ton of cockroaches launched out from under the curse user's sleeves.

"Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga."

From behind Adam and Megumi, a large white cocoon slowly rose from the ground. On dozens of points on its body, white strings appeared to hold the structure together, their opposite ends existing somewhere within the infinite darkness around them. "Adam, you should leave." Megumi said, leaving no room for argument just via his tone. "Against a special grade curse user like this, my distraction should buy you enough time to escape and call for our teacher."

"Kuroushi! Kill that brat before the ritual is complete!" The cockroaches seemed to mold and take form as they skittered across the ground. A vile looking white mask appeared on the front of the horde, the wave of insects slowly coalescing into a generally humanoid form. Two thick arms sprouted from the spirit's torso, one of them having a hand clenched tightly around some sort of cleaver shaped weapon.

Its weapon appeared blunt, the gray color of its edge spreading only mere centimeters towards the middle of the blade before its surface rapidly switched into a crimson red color, the usual sharp edge was replaced for 6 egg shaped mounds embedded deeply into the flesh-like weapon.

6 spindly wire antennae sprouted from its mask, 3 on each side as the spirit continued to form. Its wavy, constantly changing form eventually hardened into a deep black exoskeleton reminiscent of that of the creatures it had formed from, providing what could only be assumed as protection against outside forces. As more details began to appear on its mask, the creature behind Megumi started its own metamorphosis.

The sound of elastic stretching poured a metaphorical ice bucket down everyone's back, a sudden snapping sound only causing that primal fear to double. White cables that were once suspending the cocoon in the air snapped off one by one, the jerking movements coming from inside subjecting the fabric that binded the creature to immense strain as it writhed.

Kuroushi's right arm swung backwards, the spirit preparing to put its entire body into a strike against the ten shadows user opposing its master. The blade almost seemed to pulse in its hand as it slid forward, the arm trailing behind it swiping down in a fluid motion.

Adam forced his body to move as he poured all of his cursed energy into his arms. The amount of pain coursing through his body directly mirrored the flood of crimson liquid escaping his skin as he jumped through the air.

Kuroushi's weapon scraped across the ground in a shower of sparks, sounding almost like a braking train as it continued on its arcing motion towards Fushigoro. Meanwhile, the spirit's other arm snapped forward, its thin bony protrusions wrapping around Adam's shirt as he flew forward.

With a heaving toss, Kuroushi tossed the white haired boy across the warehouse like a sack of potatoes; said boy's coat and loose fitting necklace billowing in another direction as he soared through the air. A loud hiss escaped the spirit's throat as it thrust its blade forward, only for everything to come to a stop.

The sound of tearing fabric filled the air as Fushigoro's ritual was completed. "Nice try, special grade." He said mockingly, glowering at his opponent's from across the building and by extension ignoring the flesh-like sword heading straight towards his throat. With a final strip, the white fabric that had contained Megumi's final shikigami was completely torn off, revealing an angelic looking figure.

Its skin glowed a beautiful white, the spirit's mere presence divine enough that the depthless darkness caused by the ritual was blasted away with a single step. The cuff shaped bracelets around its ankles jingled quietly as a blur of motion descended from its upper body.

Kuroushi's life festering blade, a weapon that mixes and blurs the boundaries between life and death, was instantly bisected by a construct much more powerful. Mahoraga's divine wrist blade, the black weapon only kept in place by a scant collection of bandages, cleaved right through Kuroushi's cursed tool.

The tail-like appendage extending from the back of Mahoraga's head swung into the air in response to the sudden motion, only barely missing the 8 handled golden wheel floating above its head by an inch. In the place of eyes, Mahoraga's sockets were filled with marble colored wings that stretched barely past its temples.

Another moment passed, and Mahoraga moved. Its left hand wrapped around Kuroushi's body while its right backhanded Megumi across the warehouse, not far from where Adam had landed. Said boy barely managed to crawl in the way of his falling classmate, acting as an emergency landing pad for his unconscious partner.

Before Kuroushi could be crushed, its body split into millions of cockroaches that dissolved into black puddles, a sign they'd been reabsorbed by their master. "That brat…" The curse user's venomous whisper carried across the open air swiftly, garnering the attention of the rogue shikigami. "What a pain." He growled angrily.

The man waved his arm, summoning dozens of swirling black portals with the movement. "I'm going to have to spend some of my backups for this." One portal summoned a pink stingray, which he hopped onto along with Dagon, while the others spat out various bulky curses that were deemed useless enough to become meat shields.

Mahoraga sprinted towards its opponents, cleaving through every single one in a flash using its Sword of Extermination, the only weapon in history to be coated in positive cursed energy. With origins like its own, the weapon was truly the bane for any cursed spirit's existence, as a single hit could exorcize them in an instant. The cursed spirit didn't use it to its full advantage of course, merely swinging it around towards its target without any real thought process behind the attack.

By the time it broke through the curse user's wall of spirits, the man had already flown away on his stingray, spiraling through the air in a form of evasive maneuver as more curses were spat out of void colored portals. Mahoraga's head flicked towards the new targets and began its extermination anew.

"Fuck, fuck, everything hurts." Adam groaned, crawling across the ground with Fushigoro laying across his back. The boy was clearly unconscious, and the weird lump protruding from his neck only served as further sign something wasn't right. With his concentration split between escaping and the pain, Adam could only keep up the stitches holding the cuts on his arms together.

Everytime one of his appendages raised, a burst of searing pain racked his entire body. The sight of his own muscles below the glowing sutures didn't help his concentration either, causing even more blood to pour from his wounds as the rapidly dissipating stitches dissolved into the air. 'Goddamn it, please, anybody.' Adam's eyes drifted to his classmate's body laying horizontally over his back, his arms continuing their vain attempt to army crawl out of the warehouse. 'Why the fuck is this happening to us?'

-New skill formed! Cursed Stitching [1/100]-

An extension technique based off of Adam's first skill, 'Cursed Tendril'. By using hundreds of microscopic threads made from cursed energy, the user can temporarily stitch their wounds together!

Be careful though, they can still come undone through excessive movement.

'This thing…' Adam's annoyance quickly faded as another flash of pain shot through his body. 'These skills…' His right arm slapped onto the concrete weakly before shifting back, pushing Adam's entire body forward. 'My curse…' His left arm raised, following its predecessor with the same action. Adam's cursed energy seeped from his body in a steady stream of blue, each wisp of glowing light curling in on itself as they punctured his skin and dug straight back up. 'Cursed stitching, it's exactly what I need right now.' It was like worms had burrowed into his skin, each one writhing and twisting in unison to complete one job. 'My skills activate automatically whenever I call for them, which means I can spare some brain power.' With a dirt covered right hand and a glowing blue panel bending to his will, Adam stretched out one finger.

-Occupation changed: Student - Player-

'Don't get ahead of yourself, bastard. This is only so I can save Fushigoro.' His finger dropped, and the wealth of skill points he'd built up followed.

-STATUS-

Name: Adam -

Age: 15

Level: 25

Occupation: Player (+10 Charisma)

Health: 252/450

Cursed Energy: 349/400

Stamina: 418/450

-Stats-

Health: 35

Strength: 24

Cursed Energy: 40

Endurance: 35

Charisma: 16 (6)

Unspent points: 22

-Skills-

Cursed energy manipulation [12/100]

Cursed tendril [19/100]

Black flash [2/100]

Cursed Stitching [1/100]

-Inventory-

A strange euphoric sensation filled Adam's body as his wounds began to cover themselves up, leaving only superficial cuts behind. Without the pain clogging his throat, Adam was finally able to talk. "I feel…better?" The boy slowly rose to his feet, making sure that Fushigoro only rolled to the ground as he moved. His hands clenched into fists, but instead of the usual tightness in his knuckles he found that he could flex his muscles further than ever before. "Or stronger?"

He didn't dwell on his thoughts for too long as an extremely loud explosion echoed from behind him. Adam's arms scooped up under Fushigoro's unconscious body, the white haired boy's head not raising towards the fight as he immediately ran through the open warehouse door.

Gojo took another bite of his dango before his phone pinged. "A message?" He questioned out loud, ignoring the curious stares he was receiving from the people in the other seats at the stand. Moments after he said that, a soft clap was heard, and the white haired man's position had been replaced by a wad of cash; the blonde haired man he'd been sitting with sighed quietly, questioning how such a man could earn the position of teacher if he was doing things as stupid as teleporting away in front of random civilians.

A quick glance told Nanami that the other people in the store were desperate for answers, leading to another sigh escaping his throat. "He's a street magician of sorts, we're testing out a blanket that camouflages you." The outlandish lie seemed to settle everyone's curiosity for the moment, giving Nanami enough time to make his leave from the stall.

Gojo, who had already crossed half the city at this point, clapped his hands again to issue another teleportation. 'A special grade curse? Not just that, but a high grade curse user with stitch-marks across their head wearing monk attire? Why wasn't I called in?' The white haired man's face twisted into a tight frown as he approached the port. Despite him still being miles away, he could see the large barrier that had been erected across one of the many districts contained within the port's walls.

Even from the distance he was at, Gojo didn't hesitate to hold out a finger gun. Swirling red energy encompassed the tip of his finger as the forces of reality bent to his whim, "cursed technique reversal: Red!" The resulting shockwave coming from Gojo's cursed technique created violent gusts of wind as it traveled. Within moments, the attack that had once taken the form of a crimson red orb slammed into the curse user's veil, shattering it into millions of pieces in an instant.

Gojo's hands met in front of him a final time, and his feet landed on the ground in front of the warehouse the next moment. Barely a few feet away, Adam stood, holding Fushigoro in his arms, having escaped the veil barely a minute before. "Give me a full report of the situation." Gojo's tone left no room for argument as Adam's face stayed blank.

"We were instructed to come here in order to fight a 2nd grade curse, only for it to be far beyond 2nd grade. Our attacks barely did anything to it, but we managed to knock it away before a man with stitch marks on his forehead appeared along with another curse. I assume he is a curse manipulation user, and at least low special grade level in strength, just based on his cursed spirits and their level of strength. He said something about a surprise when Fushigoro told me to call you, so he casted a barrier that blocks radio waves. After Fushigoro recognized the situation, he summoned this huge white shikigami called Mahoraga, and had his neck broken after it slapped him.

I…was desperate, so I used some of my stat points to give me enough strength to puncture through the barrier. It was kind of weak, so I think he held back to save some energy." A loud crash echoed through the port as a pink object was sent rocketing into the air through the now broken roof of the warehouse. Immediately after, Mahoraga burst through the roof with a silent scream, reaching towards the curse user with its right arm.

The man dodged the attack, keeping a firm grasp on his flying spirit as he swerved back into the air and towards the clouds. Before he could reach his destination however, the man found himself being dragged back towards the port via Gojo's cursed technique.

"I can't have someone who was going to hurt my cute little students escape." Gojo said, holding his right arm out as a vacuum of swirling blue energy continued to suck the curse user towards him. Due to the summoned spirit, Gojo wasn't able to get a good look at the curse user's face before Mahorage leapt towards the both of them.

Gojo canceled his attack and leapt backwards, allowing Mahoraga to use the full force of its swipe to bat the curse user through the rusted warehouse like a ragdoll. "Adam! Get Megumi out of here and to the hospital, he won't die as long as I keep this thing attacking!" The man clapped his hands again as Mahoraga swatted his previous position, its angelic head being flung to the side from Gojo's sudden aerial roundhouse kick.

The shikigami stumbled backwards as Adam took his chance to run, his right arm propped up to make Fushigoro's body seem even slightly more okay than it actually was. As the boy escaped, Gojo's face returned to its usual casual smile. His six eyes alerted him to the curse user trying to escape along with the spirit Adam and Fushigoro had been tasked to defeat, so he jumped towards them with Mahoraga hot on his tail.

Gojo almost froze as he heard a familiar voice call out to the spirit, but chalked it up to his panic causing him to hear things. "Dagon, blind the white haired one!" A jet of water blasted through the rubble inbetween the strongest sorcerer and the curse user, only for it to harmlessly bounce off of Gojo's infinity.

The forces of gravity dragged Mahoraga to the ground, causing its instincts to lock on to the closest target within range. Like a bat out of hell, Mahoraga bulldozed through tons of rubble to get towards its target, forcing the curse user to leave his cover while summoning dozens of tar colored portals behind him. The few of them that faced Gojo temporarily blocked his sight of the curse user, and followed through further on their purpose as they spat out a pair of toad shaped cursed spirits with yellow skin and black spots.

Pink tongues shot out from their mouths, but failed to reach their target as Gojo's technique stopped them long before they could reach. Said man blasted forward, exorcizing both curses in an instant with a blue empowered punch to their throats. He was immediately met by a large panel of concrete flying towards him, courtesy of the curse user once again. "Aww, what's wrong? You shy or something?" The back of Gojo's hand slammed against the concrete, shattering it into hundreds of microscopic pieces.

With a flick of his wrists, Gojo summoned the force of his cursed technique once again, sucking in both Mahoraga and the fleeing curse user. The man's green and yellow body flew off of his figure as he was sucked in, causing Gojo to freeze momentarily at the familiar robe. "Suguru?" He called out, only to be interrupted by Mahoraga's blade slashing through the orb that had been sucking it in. A loud creak was heard as the wheel on top of Mahoraga's head twisted one notch to the right, signifying the activation of its technique.

Gojo's face crumpled into an annoyed frown as he raised his arm and blasted Mahoraga away with a silent red. The spirit was sent tumbling for several dozen meters, giving Gojo enough time to meet the curse user in front of him face to face. "Is that you?"

The form of Suguru Geto, a man long dead, twisted from its position on the ground. Gojo's 'blue' attack had tripped him up and stripped him of his favorite garb, something that had removed the cocky smile he'd held on his face up to that point. "Satoru." He greeted calmly, his face still pointed towards the floor in order to hide the stitch marks covering his forehead.

"H-How? I killed you with my own hands." Gojo stared at said appendages, ones he held in fists in front of his stomach. The rubble below Geto's boy shifted slightly, revealing his plans to stand up in front of his once friend. "Who are you?"

Geto stilled, one hand raising up to his chest as a mocking grin slid onto his face. "My, is that how you react to the survival of your friend?" His tone dripped with sarcasm, but the voice that tone was originating from was unmistakable. The man stood up, turning to face his friend with a cheerful smile. "It's been a while, hasn't it, Satoru?"

"Shut it." Satoru snarled, fury embedding itself deep within his soul. "You are not him. Your body, your voice, they all point towards you being Geto Suguru, but my soul, my soul tells me you aren't!" The black portals that appeared between them served as the perfect reflection of their paths. "Don't puppeteer his body, you fake!" 'Geto's' portals spat out dozens of urchin shaped spirits towards the strongest sorcerer, only for all of them to stop midair as they met his infinity.

"Yikes, that's really creepy." 'Geto' drawled, adding a fake gag onto the end of his sentence along with a mocking smile. "Your soul tells you? What utter nonsense." The man strolled backwards, around the wall of black portals he'd created. Gojo stood there with a scowl, his blindfold having dropped down from his face when Mahoraga attacked. "I'm Geto Suguru, in the flesh." 'Geto' chuckled, raising his right hand towards the stitches on his head. Adam had mislabelled them as scars before, but upon closer inspection it was clear the wounds had not yet scarred over.

With a light tug, the string that was holding the top of his forehead together unraveled, a sight that'd make anyone weaker than the strongest vomit. 'Geto's' other hand raised to his head, twisting the top of the appendage off like some sort of eldritch horror-esque children's toy. Before 'Geto's' theatrical reveal could be completed however, Mahoraga leapt onto the scene.

The shikigami slashed towards Gojo again, with the man merely letting it hit his invisible barrier with a frown; a loud thunk noise echoed across the rubble as Mahoraga's wheel twisted once again, a new notch facing towards Gojo's form.

Having had his main form of transportation destroyed earlier, 'Geto' made his quick escape within a pelican shaped spirit's mouth, followed closely behind by the red cursed womb he'd been protecting. Gojo attempted to chase after them, but the sound of tearing fabric caused him to look down; much to his surprise, Mahoraga's blade was beginning to push through infinity.

Gojo leapt backwards, clapping his hands in order to teleport even further away as he prepared his final attack; hoping in his mind that Adam had reached a hospital. He hadn't received a notification or message, so he could only assume nothing had gone especially wrong.

Not wanting to take any chances against the world's strongest shikigami, Gojo held up both of his hands as he began to speak. Mahoraga raced forward with its blade prepped, but would take far too long to reach the strongest sorcerer before his attack was prepared. "Nine ropes."

A slight vibration in Gojo's pocket led to the man holding onto his hope that things had gone well for his students. "Polarized light." A pair of orbs, one blue and one red, appeared behind Satoru. They slowly flew towards each other and began to swirl, their combined colors creating a dark purple as the attack was prepared. "Crow and declaration, between front and back."

Gojo's right hand raised in front of his body, left one attached to it at the bicep for support. His thumb wrapped over his middle finger, the rest of the thin appendages sticking straight out in a more relaxed state. "Hollow technique: Purple." His middle finger shot straight out in a flicking motion, bringing with it the full power of an imaginary mass created by the Gojo family's strongest sorcerer.

Mahoraga didn't react, for it could not adapt nearly fast enough to survive the attack being thrown towards it. Within an instant, Gojo's 'purple' created a wide trench through the rubble, carving its path through the stone like a pen over was almost as if the shikigami hadn't existed in the first place; not even a drop of blood or a speck of bone remained as Gojo's attack eviscerated Mahoraga's entire being, returning it to whatever realm it originated from.

Gojo's attack dissipated at his command, and the empty battlefield finally gave him some time to breath. Having your student's first break day interrupted by something as crazy as something puppeteering your dead best friend's body was not how he intended the 24 hours he was living in to go; alas, even he didn't have the power to change the past. The white haired man dragged his phone from his pocket after a few moments, eyeing the new notification with a small smile. "All's well that ends well, I guess." The man sighed, clapping his hands to begin the monotonous cycle of teleporting to the end of his range until he reached the hospital.

"Fushigoro is in a brace and is under strict supervision from nurse Ieri, you can finish the fight whenever."

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