Red Pulse - Chapter 64

Red Pulse - Chapter 64

Two days.

No sleep. Barely any food.

And Ren Sato had become something close to a blood-obsessed doctor locked in a cursed energy lab of his own making.

The lights in his room were dim, the floor a mess of crumpled notes, opened books, torn diagrams, ink stains, and the faint scent of cold tea long gone bitter. But Ren didn't care. Not even a little.

He hovered over his desk with shaking hands, eyes darting over the sketch he had made—again. This was the 11th version. And now, it was close.

"Blood vessels," he whispered, eyes flickering with restless energy. "It was right there the whole time."

What began as a frustrated mutter had spiraled into obsessive revelation. The last three days had been torment—failure after failure, hypothesis after hypothesis breaking apart mid-form. Red Cursed Circuit: Level 2 Spiral was dismantled completely. Useless. No stability. No sustainability.

So Ren did what only a madman or a genius would do—go all the way back to the foundation. Strip it to the bone.

"Red Cursed Circuit: Level 1," he muttered again, tapping the paper in front of him. "You're not enough. But you are the start."

The idea had come to him like a whisper wrapped in dry leaves and cursed air. Watching Maki train, throwing jabs under the sun, Ren's annoyed eyes caught on her movements—then her breath—then something else. Something deeper.

Blood.

She didn't have cursed energy. And yet her body moved like it was made for war. So what made it all work?

Blood flow. Muscle control. Internal harmony.

"Blood vessels…" Ren grinned as he stood up from his desk, walking in small, compulsive circles. "Everywhere in the body. Touches everything. Flows through everything. It's the key."

Now he was back in the game.

In front of him was a new possibility: to lay the foundation of the Red Cursed Circuit inside his vascular system—threading his cursed strings through the very lines that carried life.

"A conductor," he muttered. "A living conductor of cursed energy…"

But like all powerful ideas—it came with a price.

Ren had two problems. Only two.

And he was grateful for that.

"Hahahaha," he let out, laughing with a cracked voice. "Two… only two fucking problems?! That's a miracle!"

The first problem was the complexity of the vascular system. Even with diagrams and books, understanding it was one thing—feeling it was another. Threading cursed strings through the intricate web of arteries, veins, and capillaries?

Nearly impossible.

The tiniest mistake, and he'd rupture something critical. A micro-slip in cursed energy, and the entire network could collapse—rupture. Internal bleeding. Death. Game over.

"I'll solve that," he whispered. "Binding vow. One for stability. One for precision. If I dedicate the right circuits to just reading my own body… I can do this."

Binding vows were dangerous. But they were the bridge between "impossible" and "barely doable."

That problem was solvable.

But the second problem?

"Cursed energy," Ren said, staring at his own trembling hands. "I don't have enough. Nowhere near enough."

Even now, every test, every chant, and every half-finished sign left him winded. He couldn't afford to waste cursed energy like this.

And to run the full Red Circuit through every blood vessel in his body?

It would take a massive, uninterrupted flood of cursed energy. Something Ren simply did not have.

Unless…

He sat down and stared at the second page of his notes.

Five minutes.

"Rika."

It had to be her. The cursed spirit battery. The unending ocean behind his small candle.

"If I summon her for five minutes… and use her cursed energy to fuel the thread-laying process… I might be able to do it. I might actually be able to run the full Red Circuit through my vascular system in one attempt."

But what if it failed?

His body could explode from the inside out.

Ren reached for the mirror near his desk and looked at his face.

Tired. Wild-eyed. Half-crazed. But alive.

He spoke softly to his reflection.

"If this works… I'll be the first. A living cursed energy conductor."

He pulled out his notebook and jotted it all down:

Project: Red Cursed Circuit (Bloodstream Integration)

Target System: Vascular (Arteries + Veins + Capillaries)

Binding Vows:

Circuit Instability Prevention—For every micro-leak or loss in control, physical pain increases.

Circuit Channeling Precision—If thread deviates from the path, cursed energy flow halts completely.

Support System: Rika – 5-minute curse energy burst.

Risk: Internal rupture, energy overflow, potential death.

Reward: Gojo-tier energy control. Cursed bloodstream = permanent reinforcement + flexibility. Potential blood doping effect?

Ren stared at the final line.

"Potential: Gojo/Sukuna-level cursed energy control."

He dropped the pen and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

"…I could really do it," he muttered. "Me. No six eyes. No heavenly restriction. No domain. Just a theory, some books, and a fish/dog in my shadow."

He let his head roll to the side and caught a glimpse of the dark corner near his bed—Kai2's shadowy figure curled into sleep.

And Ren just laughed.

It wasn't pride.

It wasn't even joy.

It was disbelief.

"Ahhhahaha…" He clutched his stomach and rolled off his chair, hitting the floor with a soft thud.

"I'm not supposed to be this close," he whispered. "I'm not supposed to have a shot at their level… not now…"

But here he was.

A little blueprint.

A big idea.

He rolled onto his back, still smiling like a lunatic.

All he had to do… was survive it.