Ryunosuke Uryuu did not like bloody and violent films.
He possessed an extraordinary ability to distinguish between real and fake death; to him, fake death was simply fake, and he couldn't feel the emotion of 'death' from movies.
Whether it was the desolate plot or the realistic gore in films, these were all childish to him; he couldn't experience the feeling of 'death' that the movies tried to convey.
Even when actors, with their realistic performances and props, perfectly presented gruesome corpses and splashing pink blood on the big screen, Ryunosuke Uryuu could still keenly detect the falsehood.
Initially, it was just curiosity, an urgent desire to know what true death was like.
First, he used a knife to cut the carotid artery in the neck of his first victim, carefully observing the color of the fresh blood spurting from the wound.
Then, he used the knife to make a large incision in the victim's abdomen, touching the temperature of certain organs within the abdominal cavity with his hand, and then pulling them out to meticulously appreciate their form.
He listened to the victim's desperate wails before death, savoring all the pain the person felt before dying.
To Ryunosuke Uryuu, nothing was more real than this.
In Ryunosuke Uryuu's view, there are over five billion people in the world, and every day, life and death alternate in units of 'tens of thousands'.
With 200,000 to 300,000 people dying worldwide every day, what an astonishing number that is.
So, were the people he killed truly important to society as a whole?
Rather than prolonging a worthless life, it was better to let that person enter death early and experience the beauty of death.
The information, stimulation, and experience brought by that person's death were more meaningful than a lifetime of mediocrity.
Holding this belief, Ryunosuke Uryuu traveled from place to place while continuously committing murders.
In fact, this constant movement wasn't because he feared legal punishment; he simply felt that being imprisoned would prevent him from getting anything he wanted.
Compared to being locked in prison, a free, active, and happy healthy life was what he considered the more correct way of living.
The various expressions of the victims before their deaths could be said to be a microcosm of their lives, holding profound meaning.
Exploring death, understanding death, and experiencing the opposite of death.
The more he killed, the deeper his understanding of life became.
To him, killing was a habit, a game; he enjoyed the pleasure of killing, a pure yet not so pure killer.
Night was Ryunosuke Uryuu's hunting ground. With his charming appearance, he could always invite women lingering in the red light districts to become piles of blood and his more intimate friends.
But even games can become boring. After luring over thirty victims in different regions and trying various methods of execution and torture, Ryunosuke Uryuu found that he could no longer find novelty in his victims.
It was like entering a prolonged 'sage mode' afterward; no matter how cruel and abusive he was to his prey, having tried every method he could think of, he couldn't recapture the excitement and emotion he once felt.
To retrieve his former feelings, he chose to return to his starting point, his hometown. After his parents were asleep, he went alone to the backyard to visit his first sacrifice after abandoning familial affection—his older sister—attempting to reawaken the feeling of his first murder.
But the facts proved his trip was in vain. Facing his silent sister in the ground, Ryunosuke Uryuu felt not a single unusual emotion.
However, it wasn't a complete waste of a trip. While visiting his sister, he unexpectedly found a slightly moldy ancient book among the mountain of junk in the warehouse.
It was a handwritten book from the Bakumatsu period, over a hundred years old.
The tiny, jumbled words on the paper described how to offer human bodies as sacrifices to demons from another world to summon Shikigami—a bizarre book.
The content was as absurd as a meeting of eunuchs—utter nonsense.
The book contained various impractical ravings that made one feel like they were reading a disjointed, flop horror novel.
But Ryunosuke Uryuu didn't care about the veracity of the book's contents.
Because the book's content about human sacrifice reignited his passion.
Why had he never thought of such an interesting method before?
Ryunosuke Uryuu felt 'rekindled' and decided to use the information in the book to begin his nightly hunt once more.
Although he didn't know what was so magical about the land of Fuyuki, or why the 'Spiritual Vein Land' described in the book existed, he faithfully moved his base there, ready to faithfully reproduce the contents of the ancient book.
When Ryunosuke Uryuu dragged a girl who hadn't returned home for the night into an abandoned factory, using her as a sacrifice to the heavens, he used his toes, dipped in the blood gushing from her body, to draw a magic circle on the ground.
As the girl's blood gradually dried and coagulated with time, he looked at the magic circle, which was still incomplete.
Although it was only a half-finished product, at that moment he felt like a performance artist, painting his own masterpiece.
The girl and the magic circle, the intertwining of death and mystery.
This scene was even more interesting than he had imagined.
Just looking at his masterpiece made him feel as if his brain had instantly reached a climax.
A never-before-experienced killing sensation immediately captivated him; he was experiencing such a ritualistic death ceremony for the first time.
Like an addict relapsing after leaving a rehabilitation center, Ryunosuke Uryuu uncontrollably held one ceremony after another in this coastal town.
However, in the first three attempts so far, Ryunosuke Uryuu found that the blood of one girl was simply not enough to complete the entire magic circle; each time, the blood ran out just as he was about to finish.
It was like a game loading screen perpetually stuck at 99.9%, making Ryunosuke Uryuu itch with anticipation, eager to know what would happen once the magic circle in the book was fully drawn.
He decided that next time he would definitely capture two more victims to truly replicate the complete magic circle from the book in reality.
So Ryunosuke Uryuu set his sights on a family of four, planning to sneak in under the cover of night, kill all four sleeping family members, and then use their blood to draw the magic circle.
However, the plan to kill the sleeping family of four was too gruesome; the police would surely pursue the culprit with red eyes.
Ryunosuke Uryuu also knew he had been a bit excessive lately and decided to rein himself in a bit after this job.
He decided to leave Fuyuki City immediately after completing the full magic circle.
The cold night wind whistled.
The coastal town had a relatively large temperature difference between day and night. Even in a relatively warm place like Fuyuki, Ryunosuke Uryuu still felt a hint of coldness in the wind.
But Ryunosuke Uryuu didn't care about the chill in the wind. Hiding in a dark corner of the wall, he caressed the cat's eye ring on his finger, imagining himself as a leopard, gracefully stalking his prey.
He liked leopards. The first time he saw how leopards hunted on a nature show, he was deeply moved by their elegant demeanor.
He felt an immense affinity for the leopard's distinct hunting method.
It was practically another version of himself; he even suspected he was a leopard in a previous life.
To express his fondness for leopards, he adorned his clothes with leopard motifs everywhere.
Whether it was his shirt or pants, even his hat and shoes, he would buy clothing with leopard prints.
Even his socks and underwear, handkerchiefs and gloves were imprinted with leopard symbols.
And the necklace made from real leopard teeth, bought with money, he wore constantly, never letting it leave his side.
To commemorate this occasion of completing the magic circle, he wore his favorite clothes, believing it would make the ritual more ceremonial.
Leopards do not strike when their prey is alert; they only pounce when the prey lets down its guard.
Ryunosuke Uryuu was the same.
So he waited for them to fall asleep.
The prey for this sacrifice had been carefully selected by him, after multiple stakeouts, and was the most suitable target.
But to be safe, after the family turned off their lights, Ryunosuke Uryuu had waited silently in the darkness for over two hours.
Time passed slowly, and it was almost midnight.
Listening to the continued silence from inside the house and confirming there were no signs of the family turning on their lights again, Ryunosuke Uryuu put on his gloves, pulled a flat wire from his pocket, and skillfully poked it into the lock of the front door.
With a 'click,' the entrance door was easily opened by him.
To commit crimes in multiple locations, one needed more than a few street skills.
Easily opening the family's lock, he took out his prepared knife, softly humming music only he could hear, and prepared to enter the foyer and head towards their bedroom.
First, eliminate the threatening husband, then kill the adult wife—what a perfect plan.
The blood of the husband and wife would merge, perhaps even adding the blood of the two children, a happy family of four constructing a perfect magical diagram.
Ah, this scene, just thinking about it made him feel like he was going to have another cerebral orgasm... Ryunosuke Uryuu panted excitedly, extreme excitement leading to a massive release of adrenaline.
His heart rate accelerated, his blood pressure rose, and under the bright moonlight, he could even vaguely see the outlines of objects in the living room.
He felt so good that he noticed something amiss behind him.
It seemed as if a pair of eyes were staring at him from behind.
"Who!"
It was quiet outside the foyer. A gust of wind blew, and the opened front door let out a creaking sound.
Ryunosuke Uryuu looked back, his dagger expertly held against his chest, but he saw nothing.
Yet, an lingering shadow remained in his heart, giving him an urge to abandon this 'artistic' painting.
"Meow~~!"
A piercing cat's cry came from outside the house.
It was like a sharp blade cutting through the air, and like a desolate musical note entering Ryunosuke's ears.
He saw a pitch-black cat flash past the doorway, letting out a mournful cry.
"Damn cat!"
Ryunosuke Uryuu muttered under his breath, quietly listening for movement inside the room, checking if the house's occupants had been woken by the sound.
Finding no movement from the bedroom, he breathed a sigh of relief and turned to walk towards it.
Just as he turned, a voice eerily came from behind him.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Ryunosuke Uryuu instantly felt his arms snap to his sides, his legs stiffen, standing ramrod straight.
The dagger in his hand also dropped to the ground, making a crisp sound.
Then he felt his body become incredibly stiff, completely uncontrollable, and finally, with a "thud," he toppled to the ground.
The sound of Ryunosuke Uryuu crashing to the ground woke the sleeping occupants.
"Who's there?"
Chen Yu could hear a groggy voice from the bedroom, followed by the sound of someone getting out of bed and putting on shoes, seemingly intending to check the living room.
Chen Yu decisively grabbed Ryunosuke Uryuu's arm, used Apparition, and with a 'pop,' disappeared from the spot.
In an instant, Ryunosuke Uryuu felt his surroundings turn pitch black.
Ryunosuke Uryuu felt as if he had been squeezed into a very slender and narrow tube, with intense pressure coming from all directions, making it impossible to breathe. His chest felt as if it were tightly bound by several iron hoops.
He felt his eyeballs being pushed back into his head, his eardrums pressed deep into his skull, and his body stretched, compressed, and deformed.
He didn't know how long it had been, perhaps a long time, perhaps just an instant, but Ryunosuke Uryuu felt himself being squeezed out of that narrow tube.
Then he arrived at a place he didn't recognize.
The intense discomfort caused Ryunosuke Uryuu's stomach to churn, and the foreign matter welling up from his throat made him extremely uncomfortable.
Yet, because he couldn't open his mouth to spit out the foreign matter, he could only disgustingly swallow it back down.
Actually, Chen Yu had found Ryunosuke Uryuu half an hour ago, but couldn't confirm if he was truly Ryunosuke Uryuu.
Can you believe that in this new residential area alone, tonight there was a theft, a seduction, and now this person preparing for home invasion and murder?
There were three suspicious figures in this area alone. Was Japan's public safety really that bad?
After 'dealing with' the other two suspicious figures and confirming that neither of them was Ryunosuke Uryuu, he decisively returned.
Who knew that this flamboyantly dressed fellow was actually a killer? Seeing him pull out a weapon and prepare to commit murder, Chen Yu quickly jumped off his flying broom.
He had barely landed and taken two steps when he accidentally stepped on the tail of a black cat that blended perfectly with its surroundings.
With the black cat's piercing shriek, Ryunosuke Uryuu's attention was diverted, allowing him to be taken down with a single spell.
Of course, even if the black cat hadn't made Ryunosuke Uryuu drop his guard, it would have been easy for him to deal with such a 'small fry'.
Chen Yu felt no pity for such scum.
Allowing him to experience the 'pleasure' of Apparition for the first time, he began to think about how to send him on his way.
A Killing Curse?
Wouldn't that be too easy for him?
Sectumsempra?
Would dismemberment be too violent?
Lingchi... well, that's even more cruel.
Finally, Chen Yu decided to pull out his Sith Lightsaber from his backpack, press the switch, and thrust it into the abdomen of Ryunosuke Uryuu, who was in a petrified state.
Using a serial killer to test a blade certainly did not tarnish the name of the Sith Lightsaber.