Curse back: As a swordsman, what's wrong with a happy ending?

The others looked stern and looked along the corridor towards the bedroom.

"Don't be nervous, there is no direct threat." Su Ze closed his eyes and frowned, sensing the direction of the Qi ball in the distance in his mind. Wisps of Qi outlined the contours of the bedroom in his consciousness.

Glass looked down and searched for information, reminding: "The original resident here was a retired female teacher, Kaneda Reiko, 67 years old, with a daughter who has already started a family. She currently lives abroad with her husband... Her husband passed away seven years ago, and she has lived alone since then."

"Empty-nesters..." Xia Yujie concluded.

For a society with a serious aging population and extremely low fertility rate, this seems quite normal.

"...It seems so." Glass clicked the page-turning button repeatedly, took out the lollipop in her mouth and continued, "Currently, hundreds of people in Shinjuku have claimed that they have suffered from 'nightmares' recently. They are probably haunted by nightmares and have difficulty waking up..."

——Sleep paralysis, Dayan also has a similar saying.

As for the legends about the dream tapir, there are countless of them. After being spread from Da Yan to the East, the tapir was endowed with the attribute and ability of "absorbing nightmares".

It sounds good, but if it is demonized, the premise of consuming nightmares is to make people fall into nightmares first...

"It sounds like this is closely related to the nightmare tapir." Miss Summer Oil narrowed her eyes and thought, "Another question, besides nightmares, do these people have any other symptoms?"

They first came to the door of the master bedroom. This independent courtyard house was very large, but only one person lived in the three or four bedrooms. The house seemed deserted, and even the floor was covered with a thin layer of dust because it had not been cleaned for a few days.

“——There might be something left behind by that guy in there.”

Su Ze was not in a hurry to push the door open. He just carefully mobilized his perception and tentatively "touched" the foreign object in his sea of ​​​​consciousness - through the perception of Qi, the objects in the bedroom were projected into Su Ze's consciousness.

After flipping through her phone for a few seconds, Gao Youjie replied softly, "Most of the people who encountered this only experienced a certain degree of nightmare baptism; a small number of people seemed to be a little listless and tired; and the owner of this house, that is, Kaneda Reiko, her condition was the most serious. It is said that when her neighbors went out in the morning, they did not see Mrs. Kaneda, who always cleaned the yard on time, so they called the police... and then found that she had fallen into a coma, and she has not fully recovered until now."

"What a good neighbor." Miss Gojo peeked into the bedroom through the crack in the door and responded perfunctorily.

"So, Ze, do you think she has a close relationship with the tapir?" asked Xia Youjie.

"It's hard to say. Although we cannot rule out the possibility of interference from the elderly's weak body, but just because of nightmares, he has been in a coma for several days in a row..." Su Ze answered while exploring the bedroom distractedly.

"Besides, you should have felt it a long time ago. When we get here, there are obvious traces of cursed power." Su Ze continued.

"Well, the six eyes have detected the cursed force particles in the air." Gojo Satoru lay beside the keyhole, closed one eye and looked into the house.

"It's a miracle that you can see from here..." Su Ze held his forehead helplessly, "Get out of the way, I'm going to open the door." She pushed the door open and walked in.

The three people beside him didn't react for a while, and Xia Youjie didn't even have time to open his mouth to remind them. So the two of them subconsciously released the spell to prepare for the risk.

bang——

The door hit the wall with a slight sound.

Most of the body of the cursed spirit had already emerged in front of Xia Youjie, wrapped in the thick black curse power, and it was sinister and intimidating. A drop of sweat slid down her forehead, and she still maintained the gesture of launching the spell.

The scene inside the house unfolded before the four of them. Gray and white storage boxes were neatly stacked against the wall, and a bundle of plain rubber bands and hairpins were placed on the bedside table. The light from the window shone into the room, making the wooden floor dazzling.

In the very center was a large double bed with the sheets a little messy, and only a single pillow and quilt on the left.

On the bed, there stood a white cube, crystal clear, shiny and smooth like jade.

Su Ze, Xia Yujie and Xiaozi looked serious instantly. Bai Jie's Qi appeared beside Su Ze at the same time. She pulled Xiaozi's wrist slightly and slowly transferred the Qi to her. A strange colorful light was also flashing on her body - the flying sword was ready to be unsheathed at any time.

"Hey, hey, hey, Ms. Kaneda isn't going to give us a gift like this, is she?" Miss Gojo's cynical attitude subsided a bit, but she was still talking nonsense.

Su Ze stared at the white jade block in the middle of the bed, on which was engraved a relief of an animal with exquisite craftsmanship. The beasts with long noses, long fangs and whip-tails were lifelike.

——Of course it couldn't have been left by Kaneda Reiko. Even a blind person could tell that it was engraved with a dream tapir!

And how can Reiko Kaneda, an ordinary person without any cursed power, see the cursed spirit?

So the end of the deduction points to one point——

"This... I'm really being underestimated..." Xia Youjie said with a grim look on his face, his forehead covered with cold sweat.

All clues point to one point.

——This was left here intentionally by the Nightmare Tapir.

Deliberately covering a wide range of people, then accurately casting spells on a few people, luring the relevant sorcerers to come and investigate, and then leaving proof of their presence -

Su Ze glanced at the white jade block again. The most disturbing point, and the reason why Xia Youjie lost his composure, was also very simple - in addition to the nightmare tapir carved on the block, there were four human-shaped patterns.

"...This guy is much more difficult than we thought." Su Ze said softly, "This should not be an ordinary first-level curse spirit. It is very likely close to the special grade... or even has touched the threshold of the special grade."

She sighed slowly and calmed the flying sword in her body.

It looks like they're in some serious trouble - that guy wasn't removed last time.

At that time, Su Ze did not absorb the Qi ball. Although she was a little suspicious at that time, she used the factor of "self-destruction" to comfort herself and stopped thinking about it.

Su Ze said calmly: "The reason why this guy is making such a fuss is obvious. Intimidating us should be just a secondary factor."

She adjusted the brim of her hat. "Most importantly, it needs to collect magical energy from the negative emotions in the 'nightmare' to complete its recovery... In other words, our last extermination also had a considerable impact on it."

This analysis is reasonable. If the Nightmare Tapir did not need a huge amount of magic power to an urgent degree, he could have just stayed put for a while, and then sought revenge on a few people after fully recovering - instead of being so arrogant and domineering like he is now.

Although it seemed to have the upper hand for a while, it undoubtedly exposed its existence and purpose.

So psychologically the tapir may be able to win a game, but in the overall situation it is still one step behind.

——Even though he has awakened his spiritual intelligence, it seems that he is just acting according to the instincts of a cursed spirit.

——As for that cube, whether it is the induction of Qi or the observation of the six eyes, it is confirmed that it is not a dangerous existence like a time bomb.

"...Let's go home." Su Ze completely put away his flying sword and prepared to take back the white jade cube and leave.

She approached the big bed, leaned over gently, and was about to pick up the crystal clear "greeting gift".

However, just before her fingertips touched the jade cube, she suddenly had a random thought in her mind -

——What is the texture of this thing?

——What materials would the cursed spirits use as their raw materials?

——It is crystal clear, white and has this kind of appearance. Apart from jade, it can only be bone, right?

——The Nightmare Tapir can’t carve patterns on its own ribs, right? So this thing…

The hand in mid-air suddenly stopped, just millimeters away from the block.

click-

The cube seemed to make a small noise.

"Be careful!!!" Su Ze suddenly shouted, and the Qi almost instantly covered his whole body, and at the same time condensed into the shape of Tai Chi in front of him.

The three people standing at the door immediately used their magical powers. Glass was protected by the two of them.

Intense white light burst out from the eyes of the nightmare tapir on the block, and then the entire bone block shone with a blindingly bright white light, engulfing the entire bedroom—