Lacking even a finger to tap the floating, ethereal screen, the dying spirit barely maintained a cohesive mind as the edges of reality bled into absolute black.
Yes, a mental scream erupted, channeling every ounce of remaining desperation at the glowing blue text. Yes! Y! Whatever! Just don't let me die again!
A sharp, synthetic ping echoed through the void of a fractured consciousness.
[Affirmative. Processing target's residual Cursed Energy...]
That swallowed chunk of raw, purple energy suddenly ignited. The lingering taste of ash and rotten blood morphed into liquid fire, surging outward through the gelatinous, failing sludge. Agonizing pain from the shredded form vanished, rapidly replaced by an electric, violent itching sensation.
Morbid fascination took hold as the black miasma bleeding into the puddles reversed its flow, snapping back into a centralized core. The scattered, sludge-like anatomy began to knit itself together, compressing and hardening.
[Vitality restored to 100%.]
[Target fully consumed. Analyzing traits...]
[Trait Extracted: Lesser Rending Jaws (Active)]
[Trait Extracted: Cursed Olfaction (Passive)]
[Host has reached the threshold. Level up!]
[Current Status: Grade 4 (Upper Tier)]
A wet, raspy gasp echoed loudly in the alleyway. Pushing off the wet asphalt revealed a startling change: those spidery, broken-finger limbs had grown slightly thicker, resembling actual, albeit deformed, skeletal claws.
But the most drastic change resided on that grotesque "face."
A trembling, muddy claw rose to touch the new visage. Where there was once just a jagged, formless tear, a protruding, muscular snout now sat lined with rows of razor-sharp, jagged teeth. A quick snap produced a startlingly loud, heavy, metallic clack—carrying the exact same bite force as the dog-curse from moments ago.
The beast's mouth had literally been stolen.
"Holy shit." The muttered words came out as a grating, layered rasp, sounding like two stones grinding together, but they were undeniably coherent. Speech was finally possible.
Glancing toward the fading remains of the attacker, Akira watched the former threat dissolve into harmless purple smoke, its Cursed Energy completely drained.
The purple smoke dissipated into the damp Tokyo air, leaving absolutely no trace that the monstrous dog-curse had ever existed.
Akira stared at the empty space, his new, jagged jaws hanging slightly open. A chilling realization washed over him, instantly replacing the lingering adrenaline with cold, calculating clarity. He wasn't just a bottom-feeder anymore. If this system did exactly what he thought it did, he was a parasite. A leech in an ecosystem of monsters.
"Status," Akira rasped, testing his new vocal cords and the cliché LitRPG command in one go.
A soft chime rewarded him. The translucent blue screen flickered back into existence, projecting a clean, sterile interface against the backdrop of the grime-covered alley.
[ Status Menu ]
Host: Akira
Race: Cursed Spirit (Vengeful Apparition)
Grade: 4 (Upper Tier)
Vitality: 100/100
Cursed Energy: 45/45
Unique Skill: [The Devourer System]
Active Traits: [Lesser Rending Jaws]
Passive Traits: [Cursed Olfaction]
Evolution Progress: 12% to Grade 3
Akira let out a sound that was half-chuckle, half-wet cough. Twelve percent. Eating that dog-curse had given him a massive bump, but it wasn't enough.
Not even close. Grade 4 curses were the gnats of the Jujutsu world—annoying, invisible to normal humans, but effortlessly squashed. If he wanted to survive the inevitable encounters with Jujutsu Sorcerers, he needed to hit Grade 2, minimum. Preferably Grade 1, or even Special Grade.
Before the glowing blue window could fade, a sudden, violent wave of nausea slammed into Akira.
[Cursed Olfaction Active]
Gagging, a wet, metallic sound vibrated from his stolen jaws.
The normal garbage in the alley—rotting food, stale beer, piss—faded into the background. Instead, the air was layered with the pungent, sour-milk reek of human anxiety wafting down from the tightly packed apartment windows above. Below that, woven into the very asphalt, was the sharp, ozone-and-rotting-meat tang of Cursed Energy.
So this is what negative emotion smells like, he thought, skeletal claws twitching against the pavement. It smells like a sweaty locker room dipped in battery acid.
But beneath the city's general ambient misery lingered something else. Small, isolated pockets of that rotting-meat stench scurrying through the shadows.
Prey.
For the next four nights, sleep was impossible. The fear of being vaporized by a random Jujutsu Sorcerer fueled a hyper-paranoid adrenaline, while the gnawing hunger of the [Devourer System] kept him moving.
Becoming a shadow within shadows, Akira stalked the gutters and back alleys of Shinjuku. The new anatomy—thicker, skeletal limbs and a heavy, muscular jaw—granted surprising speed. The pathetic, squishy blob was gone.
His first real hunt happened near a claustrophobic train station exit.
The scent hit before the visuals: a cluster of Flyheads. The lowest of the low. They looked like grotesque, floating brains with bulbous eyes and dangling, vestigial limbs, buzzing around a broken vending machine to feed on the mild frustration of commuters.
Without hesitation, he launched off the roof of a nearby bike shed.
[Active Trait: Lesser Rending Jaws engaged.]
Jaws unhinging as Cursed Energy flared around jagged teeth, Akira snapped the largest Flyhead out of the air in a single, brutal motion. It tasted like static electricity and old pennies. Swallowing the creature whole, he immediately pivoted, crushing a second under a skeletal claw before tearing into its core. The remaining three scattered in panic, but they weren't fast enough.
[Target consumed. Evolution Progress: +1.5%]
[Target consumed. Evolution Progress: +1.2%]
[Target consumed. Evolution Progress: +1.1%]
"Pathetic," he rasped aloud, licking black, viscous fluid from his snout. "But it's honest work."
The nights bled together into a monotonous, disgusting buffet.
[Target consumed. Evolution Progress: +0.05%]
[Target consumed. Evolution Progress: +0.01%]
Akira spat a twitching, centipede-like appendage into a rusted storm drain, wiping his snout with the back of a skeletal claw.
The taste of ozone, stale pennies, and rotting garbage was permanently burned into whatever passed for his tastebuds.
He had spent the last two weeks doing nothing but grinding—crawling through sewers, lurking in abandoned parking garages, and ambushing every pathetic Grade 4 and unranked curse he could sink his teeth into.
"Status," he muttered, his voice a dry, grating rasp that echoed in the damp concrete pipe.
The familiar, sterile blue screen materialized in the gloom.
Status Menu
Host: Akira
Race: Cursed Spirit (Vengeful Apparition)
Grade: 4 (Upper Tier)
Vitality: 150/150
Cursed Energy: 120/120
Evolution Progress: 99.9% to Grade 3
He stared at the floating text, a low, dangerous growl vibrating in his chest. "Ninety-nine point nine. Are you actually kidding me?"
He had eaten a dozen Flyheads and a deformed, pulsing mass of eyes just tonight, and the bar hadn't moved a single decimal point. The diminishing returns had hit a brick wall. He was hard-stuck.
As if responding to his mounting irritation, the system chimed. A sharp, synthetic ping echoed in his mind, and a new crimson-bordered window layered itself over the status screen.
[ Notice: Evolution Bottleneck Reached. ]
[ Host has maximized the potential of Grade 4 Cursed Energy. Consuming lower or equal-tier Cursed Spirits will no longer yield Evolution Progress. ]
[ Condition for Evolution: To achieve a qualitative breakthrough, Host must consume the core of a Grade 3 Cursed Spirit or higher. ]
Akira blinked, the blue and red light reflecting in the murky sewer water below him.
"A Grade 3?" Akira snapped at the floating text, his grating voice echoing off the damp concrete. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
He paced in a tight circle, his skeletal claws splashing in the shallow sewer water. "I'm a Grade 4! I'm a glorified cockroach with a decent overbite. A Grade 3 will fold me into a pretzel and smoke me before I even land a scratch. How the hell do you expect me to hunt something that completely outclasses me?"
The system didn't offer combat advice. Instead, the crimson border of the warning window dissolved, shifting into a shimmering, iridescent gold. Another synthetic ping, heavier and more resonant this time, rang through his skull.
[ Hidden Milestone Event Triggered: The Predator's Gambit ]
[ System Note: The Devourer System severely punishes complacency but exponentially rewards those who punch above their weight class. ]
[ Objective: Consume the core of a Grade 3 Cursed Spirit. ]
[ Reward: Evolution to Grade 3, Full Core Restoration, and the unlocking of one (1) randomized Innate Technique. ]
Akira froze.
An Innate Technique.