Chapter 98: The Drug
Chapter 98: The Drug
Master Kume Nansho did not teach seriously; he only briefly passed on Cloud Dragon Willow to Fang Jing. For this disciple entrusted to him by Sakaki Tetsuhei, he still felt somewhat bothered deep down.
“I’ve only taught you this much. Practice on your own for the next week. Come back after one week, and I will check your progress.”
He smiled mischievously inside but said with a serious face, “After a week, I will decide whether to continue teaching you based on your learning.”
(Hehe, kid, from now on it’s none of my business… The ultimate techniques of the Dragon Division aren’t learned this easily. Disciples of the Huanzang Style officially start learning step by step, with fist techniques taught through the Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water Divisions. Only after mastering those do they move on to Dragon, Snake, Ghost, and Heaven… But you’re lucky, you get to challenge the hardest Dragon Division technique right away.)
“Okay, thank you, teacher.”
Fang Jing adjusted his glasses and glanced at his own panel. The words “Dragon Division: Cloud Dragon Willow” appeared, and on the previously blurry skill entries, the parts following the character “Huan” were now fully recognizable—the Hiden-ryū Eight Arts.
Eight different sub-entries floated up with subtitles: “Earth,” “Fire,” “Wind,” “Water,” “Dragon,” “Snake,” “Ghost,” and “Heaven.”
Both the “Water” and “Dragon” characters now displayed specific names.
Water Division · Torrent Skill.
Dragon Division · Cloud Dragon Willow.
“Still have to wait a week? Although I could push this combat skill to its limit right now, it’s fine, I can wait…”
Master Kume Nansho must intend to give me some time to properly digest the Dragon Division’s ultimate technique.
Besides, pushing the skill up using Growth Value right now would be too shocking.
After bidding farewell to Kume Nansho, Fang Jing left the place where the homeless lived together with Shokuba Haruka, and they agreed on the next meeting time with Kume.
“However, meeting Shokuba here really surprised me.”
“I only come here sometimes; don’t go spreading it around.”
She walked ahead of him, not turning her head, and only threatened him fiercely.
“By the way, about that Fujiwara matter, did you find anything after investigating?”
He asked this question.
Shokuba Haruka slowed her pace, let out a soft sigh, and turned her head.
“No, nothing. In fact, I found some clues too, but I still hit a dead end. Fujiwara completely disappeared, as if he vanished from the face of the earth.”
She leaned her soft back against the sign that read “Yutamochu 4-chome,” and her tone gave no hint of her feelings.
“It feels awful. I can sense some special force behind this incident pushing things along, but I just can’t find any clear clues. I’m so pathetic—I thought I had what it took to get justice for Teacher Sasamori, but I can’t do anything…”
“It’s not your responsibility; no need to carry such a heavy burden.”
“Who says it’s not…”
Shokuba Haruka pressed her lips tightly together, her gaze seeming to look into the distance.
“Anyway, a high school girl dressing up like that and going out to attack people late at night—you should really do less of that!”
“Wah! How do you know?”
“Because I happened to see it when I passed the alley that day. Your disguise skills are terrible; I think you should be more careful.”
Fang Jing waved at Shokuba Haruka, whose expression was clearly shaken, then crossed the street and walked straight away.
“Wait for me, you jerk Nishizuka!”
Ignoring the angry shouts from behind, he crossed the pedestrian crossing and checked his phone, finding that Karasawa Meisuke had sent him several messages.
How strange—why would that guy message me?
He was lost in his own thoughts and didn’t realize that his actions with Shokuba Haruka had been seen by someone.
Thud!
The bag in his hand fell to the ground.
“Senior, why…”
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“Senior Karasawa, please don’t contact me for no reason. My time is very valuable; I can’t waste it on trivial things like taming apes.”
“Hey! You little brat, do you have a problem with me?”
“Of course not.”
Fang Jing practiced knee-raises as usual, but unlike most people’s methods, he had a string of dumbbells hanging from his feet, increasing the pressure on his leg muscles with each lift.
“But it’s rare… Karasawa, you must have something to tell me, right?”
“What! This time you even dropped the ‘senior’ honorific… Forget it. You’re at home now, right?”
“Correct.”
“Do you have time to come out and talk?”
“It’s the middle of the night, so let’s skip that! How about tomorrow?”
“Fine… tomorrow works too. Anyway, I don’t have time right now either.”
Karasawa Meisuke hung up the phone, the muscles on his face twitching slightly.
He turned around and looked at the burning house behind him; the flames were growing stronger.
With a fire this big, it wouldn’t be long before the police showed up.
“I say, Amasue, did you have to make the situation this bad?”
“No choice. This place should be their base for producing that drug.”
Amasue Suetora returned the Exorcism Blade to its sheath and walked slowly toward him. In one hand, she held a small glass bottle containing some blue pills.
“These pills are essentially mixed with Corpse Hound body tissue; they’re made from Corpse Hound flesh.”
“That’s impossible? Those monsters’ infection ability isn’t that extreme; ordinary Corpse Hounds can’t create subordinates so easily.”
“Theoretically, that’s true, but from the clues we have now, they might have found a way to mass-produce lower-ranking individuals.”
Amasue Suetora’s expression was serious; this couldn’t be ignored. Corpse Hounds had a low infection rate, and not many people could adapt to Corpse Hound transformation.
The higher-ranking a Corpse Hound, the more it could use its “Hunting Fang” to inject venom into ordinary people, infecting them with the virus before death, allowing successful transformation after pseudodeath.
The more powerful the Corpse Hound, the easier it was to breed and infect strong offspring. In other words, lower-ranking Corpse Hounds had weaker infection abilities.
“Even upper-level individuals can’t mass-produce their own descendants; the maximum they can infect is about twenty people, and lower-level individuals have even poorer infection ability…”
Who knows how this strange drug was made, but its infection effect was unexpectedly strong.
If this situation continued, it could lead to major chaos.
“The city… must have another of their bases—a hidden factory processing the drug. We must find a way to locate them.”
Amasue Suetora stared at him and said word by word, “While the ‘Ba Bell’ is ineffective, the only one on our side who can track them down is your Spirit Medium Constitution.”