The full moon hung in the sky like a silver plate.
Yako had waited for the next full moon night.
He slipped away from the pursuit force and secretly returned to the capital of the Land of Hot Water.
Inside Tenshu Castle, the underground chamber doors beneath the main hall were being opened.
Four servants stood on each side, straining against iron chains as they pulled the heavy stone doors apart.
The daimyō entered, holding his son by the hand.
"Father… it's so dark. I'm scared. What if a shinobi is hiding in the darkness?"
The daimyō tightened his grip on his son's hand.
Konoha's shinobi had told him that when the Cloud ninja retreated in rage, they had slaughtered indiscriminately. Nearly all of the daimyō's close family had been killed, leaving only this youngest son.
For now…
he would choose to believe that.
After all, those were Konoha shinobi saying it.
"There's nothing to fear, my son," the daimyō said. "This place is very safe. It's my secret sanctuary."
In the darkness, the daimyō's eyes gleamed red like those of a starving wolf.
How wonderful it would be…
to kill every last shinobi.
One large figure and one small one made their way down the corridor and entered the underground chamber.
It was a circular crypt.
At its center stood a triangular altar.
And atop that altar was a divine idol completely covered in blood.
Blood continuously welled up from the top of the idol and flowed down into the triangular blood pool at its base.
The Evil God's divine power had made the daimyō unafraid of any wound.
It had allowed him to survive multiple assassination attempts by shinobi.
The power he possessed was none other than the legendary immortal body.
And tonight…
through ritual sacrifice, he would grant that same immortal body to his son.
Without immortality, whether it was Konoha or Kumogakure, any random jonin could kill them.
The daimyō walked over to the cages and dragged Hidan out.
Hidan was terribly weak.
The daimyō lifted him by the ankle as casually as if he were carrying a chicken.
Hidan's face scraped across the floor, his eyes full of terror and helplessness.
He had been imprisoned here for over a month.
Starved, dehydrated, and abused—
he was barely recognizable as a person anymore.
He reached out a feeble hand, trying to claw at the floor.
But his fingers were too weak to grip anything.
Sacrifice…
Hidan had already watched several of his companions be sacrificed.
He had seen the ritual.
Seen the blood covering the floor.
The daimyō enjoyed watching him struggle and said to his son,
"This filthy peasant slave dying for your sake is his greatest honor.
"Don't be afraid, my son. Once tonight is over, you'll be just like me.
"No shinobi will ever be able to assassinate you again."
The daimyō's son looked eager.
His gaze bounced between the Evil God's idol and Hidan, who was hanging there like a helpless chick.
"Once you gain an immortal body, I'll prepare many sacrifices for you," the daimyō said. "That way, you can consolidate your power."
Then he added,
"My son, first drink some of the blood from the blood pool.
"That blood carries the Evil God's divine power. It is the key to becoming one of the Evil God's followers."
The daimyō's son knelt beside the triangular blood pool and, suppressing his nausea, drank a mouthful.
The taste of blood was overwhelmingly strong.
And rotten.
The moment the blood went down his throat, veins bulged all across the boy's skin.
Arteries and veins alike stood out vividly beneath the flesh, swelling as if they were about to burst.
"Don't be afraid, my son. It only feels unpleasant for a moment. I'll complete the sacrifice right away."
The daimyō lifted Hidan up and forced him to kneel before the Evil God.
He jammed a knee into Hidan's back and yanked his hair upward, exposing his throat toward the god.
"Please… don't… don't kill me…"
The daimyō clicked his tongue in annoyance.
Then he drew out his jeweled dagger and slammed the handle into Hidan's mouth.
More than ten of Hidan's teeth shattered loose.
Some fell into his throat, making him choke, convulse, and cough violently.
The daimyō's face lit up with excitement.
"Yes! Yes, that's it! Struggle more! The more you suffer, the more pleased the Evil God will be!"
His dagger sliced open Hidan's forehead, drawing blood.
Then he held the bloodied blade toward his son's mouth.
"Go on, my son. Taste the sweetness of fresh blood."
The boy cautiously stuck out his tongue and licked the blood from the blade.
"No! Lick it properly! Don't waste a single drop!"
The daimyō's son obediently licked every trace of Hidan's blood from the blade, even cleaning the back edge of it.
Then the daimyō cut open both Hidan's wrist and his son's wrist.
Blood began spraying from both.
"Father," the boy said in surprise, "why does it feel… good… even though I'm losing so much blood?"
The swelling in his veins had already begun to go down.
The daimyō's voice trembled with devotion.
"Remember this well.
"Only blood and pain can please the Evil God."
Using the blood of the two boys, he drew the ritual circle—
an outer circle with a triangle inside it.
Then, dagger in hand, the daimyō moved behind his son.
"My son… I'm starting now!"
He slashed the dagger violently across the boy's throat.
The daimyō's son struggled in panic—
but his father held him down with all his strength.
The daimyō turned his head toward Hidan.
And to his satisfaction, he saw Hidan's throat split open as well.
Blood sprayed from Hidan's carotid artery and splashed across the Evil God's idol.
The idol moved.
The blood began flowing even faster.
Clearly—
the Evil God loved the blood offered through sacrifice.
The daimyō's eyes were wild with ecstasy.
His son's immortal body…
was about to be completed!
And then—
someone burst out of the wall.
"Who's there?!"
The daimyō snapped his head to the side.
Raised in luxury his entire life, without any proper training, he couldn't make out who had appeared.
All he saw was a black blur.
Yako flashed directly in front of the idol and threw a punch at its head.
The blow blasted the blood away—
and for the first time, Yako saw the idol's true form.
There was no actual statue beneath the blood.
What lay beneath was a mass of multicolored red light.
The blood immediately accelerated again, covering the light once more.
Yako's fist had been stained with blood.
And in the next instant—
the flesh and bone of that hand suddenly softened and melted into bright red blood.
What kind of power was this?
Why could it directly melt flesh and bone into blood?
Then—
inside his mental world, an overwhelming force came crashing straight toward his soul.
Yako's blood turned ice-cold.
It no longer felt as though it belonged to him.
His consciousness vanished.
And then—
he found himself standing in an endless sea of blood.
Beneath his feet, thick blood boiled and churned.
At the center of that blood sea stood a divine idol, slowly moving toward him—
growing larger and larger as it approached.
It looked exactly like the idol worshipped by the daimyō, its entire body covered in crystalline flowing blood.
Beneath that flowing red sheen, one could vaguely make out a seated figure—
like a god carved from blood-red glass.
So this…
was the Evil God?
An ancient god born by accident from a blood pool.
Its history stretched back to before the very existence of chakra.
Later, it had been discovered and grievously wounded by the wandering Sage of Six Paths.
The Evil God loomed like something that could bridge heaven and earth, more than a hundred meters tall.
It slowly lowered its head and looked down at the uninvited guest in its blood sea.
Then it raised one hand and pointed at Yako.
Thick, waterfall-like blood hung from that arm.
With only that single gesture—
Yako's body began to melt.
His skin cracked apart.
The blood vessels beneath it burst open.
Blood began pouring from his body.
Only now, by experiencing it firsthand, did Yako understand.
The Evil God was a god-like being that used blood as a medium.
It could control the blood of others.
A sacrifice to the Evil God was, fundamentally, an offering of blood.
And attached to that blood…
was an extremely terrifying form of spiritual power.
Blood connected the Evil God to the sacrifice.
Something akin to faith power.
Or sacrificial power.
And that power of faith far surpassed the spiritual energy of ordinary shinobi.
Yako only grew more excited.
This was exactly the kind of special power one would need to oppose the Ōtsutsuki.
Just before his body fully collapsed into blood, Yako brought his hands together and formed a wrathful Buddhist mudra.
Threefold Wrathful King Dharma Form!
Around Yako appeared a translucent crimson dharma form.
It had three heads and six arms.
Each of its three Buddha-like faces was twisted into a wrathful, fearsome expression.
The Threefold Wrathful King Dharma Form stood just as tall as the Evil God.
Its presence was just as overwhelming.
And more importantly—
it was not composed of ordinary spiritual energy.
It was the manifestation of Yako's mastery over his past life, present life, and future life—
forged through more than fifty cycles of life and death.
Crimson Buddhist radiance shone outward, cutting off the Evil God's power.
The collapse of Yako's body rapidly slowed.
His wounds stopped bleeding.
His ruptured vessels began to heal.
The Wrathful King's fist slammed into the Evil God.
One punch exploded its head into blood.
Yako's heart leapt.
This could work.
The Threefold Wrathful King Dharma Form could truly injure the Evil God.
But then—
blood surged upward from the Evil God's neck and formed a new head.
A shrill, inhuman scream tore through the space.
And the entire world changed.
Yako immediately lowered his gaze.
Within the surging blood, human heads flashed in and out of sight.
Every single one of them had once been a sacrifice offered to the Evil God.
As long as the blood pool formed from those sacrifices remained—
the Evil God could never truly be killed.
The Threefold Wrathful King kept throwing punches.
Every strike blew apart a massive amount of blood.
And yet the Evil God kept advancing steadily toward it.
Gradually, after each burst of blood exploded apart, the splattered gore began sticking to the Wrathful King—
to its head,
its shoulders,
its chest,
its back.
After the final punch landed, the Evil God fully collapsed into blood—
and that blood completely wrapped around the Threefold Wisdom King.
A bad feeling rose in Yako's chest.
He turned.
The Threefold Wrathful King was being swallowed by the blood.
Infiltrated.
Then suddenly—
he felt warmth drip onto the top of his head.
He looked up.
Inside the dharma form, it had begun to rain blood.
The blood splashed onto his scalp.
And in an instant, the flesh of his scalp melted away.
His hair slid off together with the liquefying skin.
This was truly wicked…
This Evil God was no joke.
Slowly, Yako's body melted.
He became part of the blood pool.
[Host death detected. Arc of the Waning Moon system activating…]
Yako's vision changed.
And in the next instant—
he found himself two days earlier, on the road toward the capital of the Land of Hot Water.
Standing atop a hill, Yako slowly steadied his breathing.
That Evil God was seriously twisted.
Unless he rolled the right ability…
there was no way to defeat it.
[Arc of the Waning Moon activated!
The host may revive only once per month. After death, revival occurs on the previous full moon night.
Reward: One draw available.
1 — Secret Technique: Immortal Body
2 — Secret Technique: Death Controlling Possessed Blood
3 — Ritual: Blood Arbiter Ascends to Godhood
The first two secret techniques were powerful.
But to someone like Yako, who already possessed strength beyond Kage level, they weren't especially useful.
At his current level, he was already not far from having the equivalent of immortality.
As for Death Controlling Possessed Blood—
a ritual-based method that required self-harm to kill the enemy—
that wasn't particularly useful to him either.
But the third ability…
made Yako's heart jolt.
Ascend to godhood?
Blood Arbiter Ascends to Godhood?
Yako chose the third option.
And what he received…
was a ritual.
A ritual that would allow others to worship and sacrifice to him—
and through that, allow him to become an Evil God himself.
Blood Arbiter.
To govern blood.
To condense blood and ascend as a god.
With this ritual, Yako could walk the same path as the Evil God—
and become a second Evil God.
At once, the perfect candidate flashed through his mind.
Hidan.
In the original story, Hidan had survived the sacrificial rituals of the Jashin cult by sheer luck and became one of the Evil God's followers.
His aptitude for sacrificial worship was absurdly high.
With only a little guidance, he would become an exceptionally devout and useful believer.
And Yako had no intention of letting the daimyō sacrifice Hidan.
What Yako's version of the Evil God cult lacked most right now was simple:
Talent.
He was going to snatch Hidan away first—
and have Hidan worship and sacrifice to him instead.
Yako would become Hidan's Evil God.
After all…
what difference did it make who you worshipped?