At the end of the underground black market, a young figure suddenly appeared. Shangguan Mo had a smile on his face, looking to be in a very good mood.
"I was right. Looking at this deserted place, business must be bad. That old man was just putting on a show, it was hilarious! Business is probably even worse than I thought!"
He had managed to buy a piece of classified information about the Cult of Jashin with the thousand ryo he had gotten from the dead cultist. He couldn't help but feel a little proud. Moreover, the content of the information was more shocking than he had imagined. Those guys were planning to summon their evil god!
Thinking this, his face turned grim again. In his memory of the original story, the evil god had never appeared. The information might have been fake, but thinking that the main plot hadn't even started yet, his heart tightened.
"And whether the evil god will truly descend or not, they have already started preparing the sacrifices..." A cold glint appeared in his eyes.
Thinking about the information that recorded the disappearance of villagers from all over the Land of Hot Water, and his own experience of finding a village with smoke still rising from its chimneys but not a single soul in sight, a chill ran down his spine. Those missing villagers were probably captured to be used as blood sacrifices to their evil god!
"Damn it!" The anger in his heart finally boiled over, and he cursed out loud.
Li and the other students behind him were startled and looked at him in alarm. "Wh-what's wrong? Captain!" Murakami Rin asked timidly.
After a moment of silence, Shangguan Mo said with a dark face, "Let's go and meet up with Rino-sensei and the others first. I'll tell you later."
The group then returned the way they came, through the tunnel the Earth Dragon Beast had made. As they climbed, he tried his best to recall any information about the evil god from the original story.
"There's almost no information about the evil god in the original story. The so-called evil god never appeared in a tangible form. There was only Hidan, who mastered the curse technique of Death Controlling Possessed Blood and immortality, and killed countless Yugakure ninja before defecting. His strange ability couldn't have appeared out of nowhere. It must have been granted by the evil god they talk about..."
"The doctrine of the Cult of Jashin is slaughter. They believe in their evil god, and Hidan's immortality must be the product of their many sacrifices. So the evil god they speak of must be incredibly powerful, perhaps even capable of being reborn from a single drop of blood, achieving true immortality!"
Shangguan Mo's eyes suddenly flickered with a thoughtful light. "I'll make a bold guess! The Cult of Jashin, which has always been lying low, would never suddenly carry out such terrifying acts as village massacres. Attacking a large number of ordinary people, once exposed, would definitely lead to ostracism and even armed resistance from the ninja of various countries..."
"They took the villagers away to use their blood as sacrifices to their evil god. Maybe it's not to summon the evil god's descent. How could such a legendary mythological figure be so easily summoned? After all, the evil god never appeared in the original story! So, those Jashinists must be trying to obtain the curse technique of Death Controlling Possessed Blood, or even the legendary ability of immortality, through this large-scale sacrifice!"
His eyes suddenly lit up. He felt as if he had just figured out the truth of the matter.
Outside Spring Grass City, in a deserted area.
After hearing Shangguan Mo's report and looking at the information he had bought, Inoshita Rino was burning with rage. Every word he spoke seemed to be filled with fire.
"From the information you bought in the black market and what we've seen on our way here, it seems the Cult of Jashin is indeed planning something big. Whether they really want to summon their evil god or obtain the immortality you mentioned, they are going to brutally kill those captured villagers as sacrifices! Their followers might still be in the Land of Hot Water, carrying out their captures. Those are the people of my country. I will absolutely not allow such a tragedy to happen!"
Every student could feel his intense killing intent and anger. Their own faces were also filled with shock and rage. Their own families were in one of those villages and could be in mortal danger at any moment.
Inoshita Rino took a deep breath, barely managing to suppress his anger. He scanned the young but furious faces around him. "Students, to verify the authenticity of this information, we need to visit all the villages around Spring Grass City and see how many villagers have fallen into the hands of those Jashinists. You..."
Before he could finish, his students interrupted him excitedly.
"Don't say anymore, sensei! We're with you!"
"Yeah! We'll go with you!"
They ran for a whole day. It wasn't until the evening of the second day that Shangguan Mo and his group were back on the road to Yugakure. In a forest, a dozen or so people were running at full speed. The figure at the back suddenly accelerated and came up beside the leader.
"Shangguan Mo, what is it?" Inoshita Rino asked, turning to look at him with confusion.
"Rino-sensei, I suspect that people from the Cult of Jashin will ambush us on our way back. Just as you said before, the low-ranking members of the cult always move in groups. But that night, in that village, we only found one Jashinist Genin, and all the villagers were gone..." Shangguan Mo's face was grim.
"So..." Inoshita Rino's expression also changed.
"So... I think the ordinary followers must have left with the villagers first. And the time they left should be less than half an hour, or even just ten minutes, before we entered the village. Otherwise, the smoke from their chimneys wouldn't still be rising..." Shangguan Mo said with certainty, but his next words were a little hesitant. "I have reason to suspect that the Jashinists already know it was us who killed their Genin! And with their methods, they will definitely retaliate..."
Inoshita Rino's expression flickered, then he nodded. "You have a point. I was negligent on that. So what do you suggest?"
"I think we shouldn't take the direct route, but take a detour instead!" Shangguan Mo said without hesitation, clearly having thought it through. Fearing that his instructor would be unwilling to take a detour and delay the delivery of the intelligence, he quickly explained, "If there's no ambush, then fine. But if there is, with our current strength, we will definitely not be their match! Then the intelligence we worked so hard to get might be lost!"
He said the last sentence with absolute conviction.
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