The Daimyō's son cried and ran towards his father.
Seeing that the Daimyō was already dead, his body cold, he passed through the initial shock and picked up his father's dagger.
"I'll kill you! Avenge my father!"
The Daimyō's son, holding the dagger, stabbed fiercely at the unconscious Hidan.
The wooden thorn in Hidan's hand suddenly burst into brambles; over a dozen wooden thorns pierced various parts of the Daimyō's son's body.
Yōkō's figure emerged from the darkness.
"If you had played dead, you would be deep and scheming, and must not be spared."
"If you had recognized your father's ugly nature and sympathized with Hidan, you would be an unfilial son, and must not be spared."
"But wanting to kill Hidan? That is even more reason you cannot be spared."
The Daimyō's son, lifted by the thorns, his body full of sharp spikes, turned his head before dying and saw a ninja wearing a fox mask.
That... wasn't that the Konoha Anbu Vice Minister his father had mentioned?
Sure enough... nobles were pitiful insects who could be killed at any moment by a ninja.
Never mind that nobles crushed serfs like ants; the ninja crushed nobles like ants, too.
Yōkō came to Hidan and looked at the terrible, penetrating wound on his throat.
From the Adam's apple, through to the spine.
However, the recovery of Hidan's wound was extremely slow, almost imperceptible to the naked eye.
The Daimyō had displayed extremely strong recovery abilities.
Although Hidan wouldn't die, with this wound recovery speed, it would take at least several days to heal.
In the original story, Hidan could jump around alive and well immediately after piercing his own heart.
Was it because he, as the Evil God, had too little divine power?
Yōkō closed his eyes and returned to his divine realm.
At the feet of the Evil God statue, in the pale gray pool, there was only a single drop of blood.
That was the blood contributed by the sacrifice, the Daimyō.
He slightly communed with his Evil God statue and immediately understood the Evil God's characteristics.
[Host Status: Evil God Yōkō.]
[Ability One: Blood Mastery Faith.
Having achieved the status of Evil God, you can hear your followers' prayers and respond to them.]
[Ability Two: Immortal Body.
As long as the Blood Mastery Divine Realm exists, the soul never perishes.]
Yōkō had cultivated the Three Worlds Vidyārāja Form, which allowed him to determine his own state of death. This ability did not conflict with his "golden finger" (cheat ability).
[Ability Three: Near-Death Recovery.
The more blood drops contributed by sacrifices in the Evil God's Blood Pool, the faster physical injuries recover.
If the blood volume in the pool is greater than the blood loss from the wound, the wound will heal rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.]
Yōkō's current Evil God Blood Pool contained only one drop of blood, from the sacrificed Daimyō.
That meant his divine power could only heal a wound that lost one drop of blood.
For internal injuries that don't bleed, such as malnutrition, the recovery ability of the immortal body is ineffective.
Yōkō crouched down, a wooden thorn the size of a toothpick growing from his fingertip.
The thorn pricked Hidan's arm.
A drop of blood seeped from Hidan's arm.
After wiping away the blood drop, Yōkō saw the wound heal at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Yōkō understood. So that's how it was.
The speed of injury recovery is related to the number of sacrificed blood drops.
The human body has approximately 90,000 drops of blood. If Hidan sacrificed 90,000 people to him, did that mean even an injury that caused him to spray all his blood could heal rapidly at a visible speed?
90,000 sacrifices isn't that difficult for the shinobi world.
Just find any ninja village, any castle town, and you can find entire villages or cities of evil people.
There are too many evil people. Hidan alone isn't enough.
Wait... Hidan has suffered enough already. Should he really use Hidan for experiments?
Yōkō now also had an immortal body. It seemed he could achieve the same results by experimenting on himself.
Bending down, he used the Hydrification Healing Technique to stabilize Hidan's injuries.
He walked slowly to the base of the statue.
The two flickering candle flames illuminate the statue and also shone on Yōkō's mask.
Yōkō looked up at the Evil God statue.
The shinobi world allows only one Evil God, and that is me, Evil God Yōkō.
Yōkō formed hand seals.
"Earth Release: Earth Core!"
The ground of the underground palace shattered. The water in the blood pool quickly leaked into the fissures.
The fissures rapidly expanded, and a bottomless crack appeared within the underground palace.
It was as if an earthquake had struck Tenshu Castle. The rumbling sound frightened people; those on the ground fled their houses in panic.
After the blood pool drained dry, the blood on the statue dried up, sticking to it like stains, losing its translucent, blood-glaze appearance.
The statue slowly tilted and fell headfirst into the fissure in the ground.
After falling for who knows how long, a loud crash came from the bottom.
"Wood Release: Myōjin Gates!"
Wood Release gate frames grew from within the fissure, falling and sealing the Evil God statue at the bottom.
Still feeling it was unsafe, Yōkō formed seals again.
"Four Symbols Seal!"
A spiral sealing technique, the Four Symbols Seal, appeared on the final Myōjin Gate.
With Yōkō's current strength, it was almost impossible to break the seal at the bottom of the fissure.
Yōkō threw out Iron Vines, tossing the bodies of the Daimyō and his son into the fissure as well.
He formed hand seals, and the fissure closed.
He turned, picked up the unconscious Hidan, and disappeared.
Chaos reigned in Tenshu Castle.
The temporary Guardian Ninja rushed into the main hall in a panic, only to find the Daimyō was not there.
"Where is the Daimyō! Where is the Daimyō!"
"How useless we are, failing the trust of Lord Fox and Jōnin Kyoichi."
When Hidan woke up again, he found himself outside the capital city.
He hurriedly felt his throat.
His throat had been pierced by the wooden thorn, leaving a finger-thick hole, but now that hole was gone.
"Great Evil God, was it you who heard my prayer?"
Hidan quickly knelt on the ground and began to pray to the Evil God.
His eyes snapped open, then he tightly shut them again.
The Evil God had responded to him!
Hidan's soul appeared in a silent void.
He saw two colossal statues reaching to the heavens!
One was a crimson, three-headed, six-armed Vidyārāja; the other was an Evil God entirely covered in blood.
"The shinobi world is filled with death and filth, a quagmire soaked in original sin."
"Killing is not a sin; it is a sacred cleansing."
"Gushing blood is the cleansing spring; dying wails are the atonement before death."
"Killing is not destruction; it is the compassionate cycle of rebirth."
"Like wiping clean a slate full of errors, awaiting a new chapter."
"All who commit evil must confess before the gods."
"My follower, travel across the shinobi world, use pain to cleanse their sins, use blood to please the gods!"
Hidan's hands trembled as he murmured incessantly.
"All who commit evil must confess... use pain to cleanse sins, use blood to please the gods..."
"Great Evil God, exalted gods, I will serve you all my life, make sacrifices for you, please you!"
Hidan exited the divine realm. He looked at his own thin, weak hands.
His escape from the Daimyō's underground palace was the result of a series of miracles.
The Evil God had helped him. But that crimson Vidyārāja... he didn't know what god it was, but the moment he saw it, he inexplicably knew this god's name.
"All who commit evil... To please the Evil God, it seems we need to use evil people. But who has committed evil?"
Hidan immediately thought of the nobles and samurai who had captured him.
Sacrifice! Sacrifice all those man-eating nobles!
After leaving the capital, Yōkō used the Ephemeral Technique to return to the border of the Land of Hot Water.
He pretended to have just returned from investigating Dodai's whereabouts.
The next day, Nara Kyoichi arrived hurriedly at the bathhouse where Yōkō was.
"It's terrible, Lord Fox! A major earthquake occurred in the capital! The Daimyō has disappeared!"
Yōkō immediately asked, "Was it the Kumo-nin?"
***
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