Chapter 61: Grudge of the Death Curse (Part 11)

The previously tranquil surface of the reservoir abruptly churned up waves several meters high, crashing horizontally against the shore.

Stack Commando digitized his body just in time, passing straight through the lake water.

Li Sheng grabbed Start of Autumn by the back of her collar, pulling her back rapidly and leaping onto a tree on the other side of the mountain road, narrowly avoiding the surging torrent.

Splash—

The lake waves rolled and pitched as Noriko Fujita’s corpse floated to the surface, surrounded by a massive volume of black water.

This black water slowly solidified into a tangible form, gathering into a multi-story, shapeless entity that enveloped Noriko Fujita’s corpse within it.

The surface of Stack Commando’s glasses flashed with green light rapidly as he used a detection skill inherited from the Whale Song Guild to scan the entity's data.

[Target Name: Grudge of the Deadly Curse]
[Attack Power: Unknown]
[Defense Power: Unknown]
[Weakness: Main Body]
[Recommended Strategy: Use high-yield weapons to break its surface defense, and subsequently destroy the main body]

So this thing is the Grudge of the Deadly Curse... Stack Commando felt his nerves tighten. He communicated this information to his teammates, pulled a rocket launcher from his inventory slot, and fired a rocket toward the black water.

Boom!

The violent explosion triggered by the high-explosive charge directly sheared away a large chunk of the black water, but a continuous stream of black water immediately rushed in to fill the gap.

This attack seemed to thoroughly enrage the Grudge of the Deadly Curse. It formed a giant hand of water and slammed it heavily against the shore.

The road itself, the roadside guardrails, and a vast expanse of forest where Li Sheng and Start of Autumn were located were all swept into the lake.

This destructive power was equivalent to a landslide.

Li Sheng fell into the water, his vision obscured by the gloomy current. All he could hear in his ears was the gurgling sound of water, and something unknown beneath the surface was trying to drag him down into the depths.

Clang!

He flicked his mantis-arm bone blades out in the water, slapped paper talismans onto them, and slashed downward. After severing pairs of pale arms completely, he swam forcefully back to the surface and gulped down fresh air.

He saw that Stack Commando had already ended his high-energy-consuming bodily digitization skill. Driving the car they had all arrived in with one hand, he sped furiously along the road bordering the reservoir while his other hand laboriously reloaded the rocket launcher, continuing to draw the attention of the Grudge of the Deadly Curse.

Start of Autumn was sprawled across a tree trunk, her face pale as she vomited black water continuously. Her hands gripped the remote control desperately, guiding the underwater drone back to the surface.

"Drive the drone forward!"

Li Sheng shouted loudly, flipping onto a section of a tree trunk. Light-footed as a rabbit, he darted across the floating logs on the water, charging straight toward the Grudge of the Deadly Curse.

Just as he was about to fall back into the water, he landed squarely on the top cover of the underwater drone. Reaching out, he snatched the expensive [Sarira Ash Bomb], clenched his fist tightly with his other hand, and cast [Mist-Hiding Technique].

Hoo—

Thick mist spread rapidly in all directions centered around him.

Since Li Sheng did not possess skills that consumed spiritual power values, he pushed the output of the Mist-Hiding Technique to its maximum, driving the dense fog to blanket a small half of the lake surface.

The Grudge of the Deadly Curse sprayed a dozen black torrents, but the effect of the Mist-Hiding Technique was to simultaneously dampen the caster's sound, thermal reflection, and even presence.

Concealed by the fog, the black water could not accurately lock onto the tiny human figure.

Swish—

Li Sheng’s figure burst out of the fog, his hands pulling the pin of the ash bomb. Counting down silently from three, two, one, he hurled the bomb heavily into the heart of the black water.

Boom!

The violent explosion dispersed the dense fog. When the mist finally cleared, the black water polymer had been blasted in half at the waist, and Noriko Fujita’s corpse at the very center was mangled, leaving a forearm covered in gruesome scars floating in the water.

Did it work?

Stack Commando slowed the vehicle down, watching the pool of black water nervously as the scan data on his glasses lenses gradually faded...

Rumble!

Rolling thunder suddenly echoed across the vault of heaven, and torrential rain descended upon the mortal world without warning.

The heavy rain came early! Stack Commando’s eyes split open in fury as he watched the pelting raindrops strike the surface of the Grudge of the Deadly Curse.

The black water, which had previously shown signs of dissipating and dissolving, quivered and trembled, slowly readjusting its posture to lift Noriko Fujita’s corpse upright, its vacant eyes staring at the three players.

"I Fu******..."

Stack Commando cursed the local meteorological bureau ten thousand times in his heart, slammed the steering wheel to throw the vehicle into a drift, and prepared to pick up his companions and retreat from the mountain.

However...

As the heavy rain fell and moisture filled the air, shadowy figures inexplicably appeared along the mountain road.

There was the decapitated female master of the Fujita household, the drowned Suzuki couple, the missing mortician, the police forensic doctor who had died just yesterday, and various other deceased souls unknown to the outside world...

Every single vengeful spirit affected by the Grudge of the Deadly Curse blocked their path en masse.

"Well, this truly is a Parade of a Hundred Demons."

Veins bulged on Stack Commando’s forehead. Start of Autumn, still prone on the floating log, took a deep breath and racked her brain desperately, "This isn't right. This mission shouldn't be this difficult; there's something we've missed..."

"The mission objective!"

Li Sheng’s voice came from the lake. Standing atop the underwater drone and semi-floating on the water's surface, his Mind Palace gathered, sorted, and synthesized all the clues collected during this mission.

The answer was exceedingly clear. He shouted, "Ensuring at least one survives does not mean everyone has to stay alive!"

This sentence rang through Start of Autumn’s mind like a thunderclap. Staring at the mass of black water, she instantly understood Li Sheng’s meaning. Pressing the call button on her Bluetooth earpiece, she yelled toward Little Red Riding Hood at the hospital, "Kill Kenichi Ishikawa! He is the connecting node!"

The corpse of Noriko Fujita in the center of the black water bore extensive scars, which were clearly present before her death. In the photographs found at the Mizujing City Elementary School, she was always dressed in long sleeves and long skirts precisely to conceal those scars.

Considering her gloomy and withdrawn personality and the incident where she lost control of her bowels during a sports day, it was highly likely she had suffered long-term domestic violence.

After the family annihilation massacre, the police discovered the bodies of the master of the house, Takehiko Fujita, and the mistress, Yui Fujita, but never managed to find Noriko Fujita’s corpse—now they knew her body was in the Mizujing City Reservoir.

Twenty-five years ago, the old police station of Mizujing City and Kenichi Ishikawa’s ancestral home were both built by the edge of the reservoir.

Thus, the clues connected. On the night of the massacre, Takehiko Fujita, for some reason, first killed his wife and then attempted to kill his daughter.

Noriko Fujita escaped her home in Chome 3 and ran toward the back mountain, perhaps intending to report the crime to the police station or seek help from Kenichi Ishikawa, her only friend. Unfortunately, she was still overtaken and killed by Takehiko Fujita, and her body was discarded in the reservoir.

Her intense resentment birthed the Grudge of the Deadly Curse, causing a series of tragedies twenty-five years ago before gradually dissipating over time due to the passage of nature.

A month ago, the Grudge of the Deadly Curse revived once more for some reason—most likely because Kenichi Ishikawa had returned to his hometown or paid respects to Noriko Fujita, reactivating the curse.

Later, Ishikawa read the news, realized something was amiss, and came to the Fujita residence with a gasoline can and a lighter. He originally intended to burn down the house, but during the process, he realized the truth and turned to commit suicide by fire, hoping to end his own life, only to be saved by the Grudge of the Deadly Curse and trapped within the black water.

Not only because he was Noriko Fujita’s only friend, but also because he was the connecting node between the Grudge of the Deadly Curse and this world.

"Kill... the... connecting node..."

In the hospital ward, Little Red Riding Hood heard only static through her Bluetooth earpiece, making the words indistinct.

Kill who?

She shouted loudly, but the connection on the other end of the earpiece went completely dead.

Wait, the connecting node? Did that mean there was a connecting node for the Grudge of the Deadly Curse in the hospital?

Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes trembled as she opened the mission log on her player interface, where the mission objectives were clearly written.

[Mission Objective: Find Kazuya Suzuki, Yuko Suzuki, Yoshimi Sakai, and Kenichi Ishikawa within Mizujing City, totaling four people. Within 24 hours, ensure at least one survives. Do not leave Mizujing City during this period.]

These words were both a hint and a trap.

According to logical reasoning, the killing ground required players to protect each and every target person as much as possible. But what if viewed from another angle—what if the true mission objective lay hidden among these four individuals?

Then the key to clearing the mission did not lie in protection, but in how to distinguish the true target from those four people and kill them...