Chapter 123 : This Time, I Pulled You Back
Within the veil, Mahito and Geto Suguru found the floating fragments but weren't in a hurry to collect them with the woven bag.
The blue-haired, three-braided cursed spirit turned his face and smiled at Geto Suguru: "Ah, it's almost time for our plan to be implemented."
Geto Suguru kept his hands tucked away, maintaining his usual posture, and naturally responded: "How do you plan to arrange things?"
The little fox on Geto Suguru's shoulder yawned lightly, its tail swaying with a leisurely, otherworldly appearance.
"I originally thought about first tricking him into looking for his companions, then making our move once we settled somewhere. But thinking about it, that guy might be able to sense whether there are Special-Grade Cursed Spirits around." Mahito said, "So to avoid complications, we might as well make our move when we meet up after withdrawing the veil."
"When we rendezvous with him who's patrolling outside, he'll already have trust in us and will probably instinctively relax his guard." Mahito raised an eyebrow and made a simple gesture, "At that moment, we'll..."
He left his words with lingering implication, those who understood would naturally understand.
"Understood." Geto Suguru nodded slightly in reply, then asked, "Should we attack together, or in sequence?"
Mahito placed one hand on his chin, thought for a while, then said: "I'll go first, after all, your summoning cursed spirits would be somewhat conspicuous. So after I attack first, you follow up."
"Alright." Geto Suguru showed his fox-like squinting smile, slowly saying, "I'll follow up."
Hearing Geto Suguru's reply, Mahito nodded with satisfaction.
Mahito simply laid out the process: "I'll first try to directly break through the spatial barrier to touch him. If he's still on guard, you can take advantage of his reaction time to use cursed spirits from behind to break through the barrier directly, giving me a second chance to touch him."
Geto Suguru nodded on the surface, but his heart was thinking about other things.
He thought: Mahito's technique touches souls, so he probably couldn't directly attack this guy's soul.
But Lai had found a way to break through Satoru's Limitless back then, so he should also be able to find a way to attack Mahito. Although he hadn't seen Lai's magical book... it was probably still on him, just in a different form.
Or Lai had other methods, in any case, he just needed to trust him.
Geto Suguru thought this way, knowing that Lai and Mahito would definitely clash head-on first, and then he would unexpectedly follow up, creating an opportunity for Lai.
Mahito and Geto Suguru each had their own thoughts about the plan, while Jiang Lai outside the veil had already thought of another approach.
Inside the veil, Mahito used his own injury as an excuse, this time letting Geto Suguru step forward to collect the fragments, then hand the woven bag to him.
Geto Suguru's expression remained unchanged as he smiled: "I rarely carry out fragment collection missions and am not skilled at it. Just to be safe, it would be more appropriate for you to do it, after all, as you said, the woven bag with fragments must be in your hands. This is the Supervisory Committee's requirement."
"Don't worry, I'll protect you with other cursed spirits." His deep purple eyes lifted, meaningfully saying, "Besides, I think you should create some surface wounds, so that later you can make the other party relax their vigilance more, facilitating the execution of our plan."
Geto Suguru's rhetoric was also very complete. As soon as he finished speaking, he summoned defensive cursed spirits to surround Mahito.
The blue-haired, three-braided cursed spirit's heterochromatic eyes gleamed. He stared at the still-smiling Geto Suguru for several seconds, clicked his tongue, and finally weighed the woven bag before stepping forward:
"Fine, you're right too. Having some wounds would indeed make the other party lower their guard."
"Getting slightly injured shouldn't be a problem."
Mahito's demeanor was relaxed, though his movements were much more cautious to prevent the fragments from bursting with explosive energy waves like last time at Satozakura Middle School.
Even so, he was still inevitably repelled by the energy wave!
Fortunately, the cursed spirits surrounding from Geto Suguru helped block several times, reducing the rebound wave's effect.
Seeing that Geto Suguru was truly assisting him, Mahito pushed down the suspicion that had just surfaced. He wiped away nonexistent sweat from his forehead, his gaze falling outside the veil as he curled his lips:
"Well then, let's have a pleasant cooperation ahead."
Mahito and Geto Suguru emerged from the veil, immediately seeing Jiang Lai's figure standing in the distance.
Geto Suguru, who was behind, looked up and made eye contact with the turning Jiang Lai for half a second. Neither said much, but both could see some hints from the other's expression.
They would coordinate in battle soon.
Mahito could have used soul manipulation to eliminate the external disheveled injury marks, but he didn't operate this way. Instead, he approached with some traces from the earlier energy rebound wave to greet him.
"We've completed our mission!" Mahito smiled brightly, waving his hand as a signal.
"Good." The black-haired young man nodded, his gaze falling on Mahito, pausing for a moment, "Are you injured?"
"A bit, I was careless earlier." Mahito stuck out his tongue, "This energy is somewhat peculiar, lingering around me, preventing my Reverse Cursed Technique from immediately healing properly."
He fabricated a lie, using the wounds on his body to create a false impression.
"Is that so." The black-haired young man's expression showed inconspicuous concern, "Do you need rest?"
"I wanted to depart immediately and take you to find our companions." Mahito showed enthusiasm, then proactively said, "Otherwise, could you try using your technique to isolate this lingering force around me?"
"Is this possible?" The black-haired young man frowned slightly, showing some doubt, but still stepped forward, actively extending his hand, "I don't sense anything for now, let me try."
Mahito waited for Jiang Lai's hand to approach. As it got closer, he suddenly reached out to grab Jiang Lai's wrist!
This move didn't touch Jiang Lai because Jiang Lai's extended hand was completely covered with spatial techniques!
The black-haired young man's brown eyes lifted!
Mahito's heterochromatic pupils curved slightly as he explained his sudden behavior: "Oh dear, I thought about it, what if you touched that force and got into danger too? I wanted to grab your hand to stop you from touching me."
The black-haired young man's expression remained unchanged, still calmly staring at him.
Mahito showed a helpless yet sincere smile, but his body attacked again, manipulating his soul to transform his hand into a drill, aiming at Jiang Lai and suddenly striking out with more intense cursed energy!
The black-haired young man blocked at an incredible speed, then sharply raised his arm to deflect. His expression seemed like he hadn't reacted yet, just instinctively blocking.
Facing Mahito's sudden attack, he retreated several steps to avoid it. While retreating, he didn't notice another cursed spirit approaching from behind.
The Cursed Spirit Manipulator controlled that gray shadow-like cursed spirit, suddenly engulfing and wrapping around Jiang Lai!
Mahito's lips curled high as he rushed forward, planning to take advantage of Geto Suguru's cursed spirit trapping Jiang Lai to land several more strikes.
Just as the blue-haired three-braided one approached the position where the gray shadow-like cursed spirit engulfed him, before he could strike, that gray shadow cursed spirit suddenly extended extra tentacles to briefly restrain him!
Mahito was shocked for an instant, his blue-gray heterochromatic pupils reflecting Jiang Lai appearing unharmed from the cursed spirit's trap in front of him.
Jiang Lai flicked his fingertips, flinging a glittering light green fragment into Mahito's mouth from a distance!
The suddenly flung fragment impacted Mahito for an instant. He instinctively wanted to change his soul to repair and expel it, but that light green small fragment dissolved immediately upon entering his mouth!
Mahito initially didn't notice what he had swallowed, until the next moment when he suddenly felt an unbearable massive force in his soul.
"?!" Mahito's expression changed dramatically.
How could there be an extra fragment?!
His mind went blank for an instant, then he cast this question aside, looking with fierce eyes toward the smiling Geto Suguru nearby.
At this moment, he had already detected Geto Suguru's opposing stance!
The cursed spirit that had just trapped the black-haired young man was actually just a layer of deception, not truly harming him, but actually a trap to attract himself!!
Abnormal power that cursed spirits couldn't bear surged within Mahito's body, impacting his soul wave after wave. Mahito's body twisted violently and strangely, as if something was about to break out.
The divine fragment's power stirred up a frenzy that shook the surrounding air!
Jiang Lai originally planned to use spatial techniques to remotely hook away the woven bag containing fragments from Mahito's waist, but this stirring force interfered with long-distance technique control.
So Jiang Lai moved forward a distance, his figure nimble as he planned to take away that woven bag to prevent the fragments inside from being scattered by shock waves or accidentally fusing.
Under the soul's impact, Mahito could hardly control his body shaping. His face constantly changed in real time, looking extremely terrifying. Only those heterochromatic pupils locked tightly onto Jiang Lai, burning with some sinister intent.
The fragment that had mistakenly entered the cursed spirit's body shook more violently, distorting the scene into a whirlpool. Jiang Lai wasn't afraid of that murderous intimidation and sped up as much as possible, his fingers preparing to hook the woven bag and leave!
However, Mahito seemed to burst with some final strength at the last moment, his body twisting and deforming as he grabbed the woven bag at super high speed!
The fragments in the woven bag fell out, but Mahito didn't care. He wore the woven bag like a glove and suddenly grabbed Jiang Lai's wrist!
The instant he was grabbed by the woven bag, Jiang Lai felt some strange constraint. Although it wasn't enough to trap him, it still made his movements pause for an instant!
Fortunately, he was still protecting himself with spatial techniques, avoiding contact with Mahito.
Jiang Lai quickly flicked away Mahito's hand, used spatial techniques to scoop up the large fragment on the ground and threw it to the liquid fox that caught it with its tail nearby!
Just this brief pause in movement prevented him from adjusting his body to withdraw from the cursed energy whirlpool scene.
At the critical moment, Jiang Lai felt someone behind him grab and pull him out of the center circle!
Then, the gray shadow-like cursed spirit suddenly expanded, wrapping around them and the liquid fox that pounced over with fragments at the last moment!
The next second, a thunderous shock wave erupted at the scene!
The tremor spread out, destroying all the surrounding trees. The scene fell into brief, absolute silence.
The gray shadow cursed spirit held on until the end of this force before being torn apart. Jiang Lai had put up a cursed energy protective barrier beforehand, blocking the final waves!
For a moment, only light breathing could be heard at the scene.
Jiang Lai exhaled and looked toward the person who had urgently pulled him out at the last moment.
The man-bunned young man was still tightly holding onto Jiang Lai. His chest rose and fell violently for a moment, and after his breathing calmed, he released his grip.
In that brief moment just now, Geto Suguru's expression had changed greatly. Waves rolled and sediment churned in his mind, countless memories from as long as a thousand years ago instantly surfaced.
Finally, he gently lowered his eyes, then raised them again, showing a very faint but very genuine smile on his face, his voice low and slow:
"...This time, I pulled you back."