"Begin." The cult leader spoke flatly.
They walked into another secret chamber. Two unlucky bastards with terrified faces were tied to crosses like Susu, their wrists already cut open. Blood poured into bowls set to the side and filled them quickly.
Facing this scene, everyone in the room was indifferent. Akagi Shinji, who had already gotten used to this over these days, was the same.
Then Hidan walked straight to one of the unlucky bastards. Under everyone's gaze, he unceremoniously raised a bowl of blood and tilted his head back to drink first as a toast.
Gulp, gulp.
Crack.
The bowl shattered on the floor into pieces, and the remaining blood he had not finished drinking flowed out.
Next, Hidan let out a feral grin, stepped on it with one foot, and began to draw a special pattern.
Very soon, a circular pattern encasing a triangle was completed using the blood on the floor.
After doing all this, Hidan, now standing inside the pattern, was incomparably excited. He could feel his chakra rapidly converting into a special power at this moment, then surging up and wrapping all the blood he had just swallowed.
"Yeah, that is it, that is it, hahahaha!"
Unable to hold back, Hidan laughed wildly, one hand covering his forehead, his body bending down uncontrollably.
When he straightened up again, his entire appearance had undergone a huge change.
Hidan's skin first turned pitch black, then lines of white markings rapidly appeared on it, distributed evenly and with a distinctive pattern across every part of his body. It looked terrifying as hell.
Then, amid his laughter, Hidan once again took a short spear from his bosom, and with curious excitement, lightly drew it across his own chest.
At once, a long blood mark appeared.
Was he just indulging in simple self-harm?
No.
Hidan's eyes grew more and more excited and manic.
Because the unlucky bastard whose blood he had just drunk suddenly manifested an identical wound on his chest.
Pft.
Hidan kept his eyes locked on the other guy and drove the short spear in his hand into his own right leg.
"Mmph, mmph."
The unlucky bastard, with his mouth gagged, shot a spray of blood from his right leg like an arrow, but could only let out muffled sounds.
"It hurts a lot, but it is really... it is really too damn good!"
"Hahaha, let us die together!"
Laughing like a maniac, Hidan kept swinging the sharp short spear in his hand, punching hole after bloody hole into his own body. Blood splattered everywhere, and Hidan's expression, in pain yet ecstatic, was about to ascend to heaven.
Thump.
With the Cursed Technique suddenly ending on its own, Hidan fell backward spread-eagled on the ground, his face full of satisfaction, probably not even needing a post coital cigarette.
No one knew when it happened, but that unlucky guy's eyes were wide open. He had actually been scared to death on the spot.
Seeing this, the Jashin cult members observing and recording from not far away all revealed extremely excited expressions.
They had succeeded again.
Even the great cult leader could not help but show a gratified smile. Hidan was indeed the most precious gift the great Jashin had given him. Only one month had passed, and he had already cultivated this Cursed Technique to such a degree.
Although the duration was still short, it was already enough to be thrilling.
By comparison, the other one was more like Hidan's castrated version in all aspects.
The cult leader's eyes flickered slightly. He looked at Akagi Shinji and said, "Your turn, Shinji."
Akagi Shinji immediately stepped forward a few steps. The excited, appreciative gazes around him instantly turned into scrutiny and doubt, falling on him.
Only because compared to Hidan, who could perform [Death Controlling Possessed Blood] to this degree after one month, his current progress was zero.
In fact, even Akagi Shinji himself had not expected that he was actually unable to cultivate [Cursed Technique, Death Controlling Possessed Blood].
Although he overcame his own "mental cleanliness," he used the ridiculous reason of "drinking human blood at least does not have that many parasites" to convince himself, and forced himself to drink once.
But it seemed his very existence was an accident.
A person who should not have come back to life inexplicably survived, then, by sheer dumb luck, obtained a castrated version of [Immortality].
So being unable to complete the cultivation of [Cursed Technique, Death Controlling Possessed Blood] also seemed reasonable.
And as for drinking blood, he himself was not particularly willing.
Nothing else, it just felt filthy.
Who knew whether the other party had any blood-borne infectious disease, like AIDS?
If he got hit, and then even wanted to die, but could not die.
So fucking unlucky.
So, aside from not knowing how to deal with these Jashin cult guys, Akagi Shinji himself was not particularly disappointed.
After all, he is a man with a cheat.
And the rewards he got this time were enough to let him get through the difficulty smoothly.
Akagi Shinji, after stepping forward, did not imitate Hidan by drinking that bowl of blood that might contain god knew what infectious disease. Instead, he suddenly pulled out a sharp kunai and slashed hard across his left wrist.
Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.
In the silent secret chamber, Akagi Shinji held his left hand out flat with the wound facing down, letting the blood, joined into a line, fall to the ground.
Seeing this, the Jashin cult's Leader Takifirst frowned slightly, a trace of displeasure flashing in his eyes, then opened his mouth to ask, "What are you doi— hmm!?"
Akagi Shinji did not try to explain anything. He closed his eyes and felt the power inside him.
Chakra suddenly accelerated, flowing through specific meridians, then, under the push of his intense emotion, rapidly converted into another power. That was Cursed Energy used to perform Cursed Techniques.
Next, Akagi Shinji snapped his eyes open and formed a single-handed Ram seal.
Blood Manipulation.
Under everyone's astonished gaze, the large amount of blood that had flowed from Akagi Shinji's body suddenly seemed to come alive. It turned into strands of blood that flowed rapidly around him in irregular paths.
The secret chamber with flickering lamplight, the corpses nailed to crosses, the eerie religious pattern, and that blood which suddenly seemed alive and began to swim.
The scene had a strangely eldritch kind of beauty.
The question Leader Taki had not fully spoken no longer seemed to need an answer, but in order to thoroughly bluff these people, Akagi Shinji still opened his mouth and said, "This is the new Cursed Technique specially bestowed upon me by the great Jashin, Blood Manipulation."
A new Cursed Technique?
Blood Manipulation?
Leader Taki recovered from his surprise, gave the other party a deep look, then returned to his original kindly appearance and praised, "Very good, since the great Jashin has bestowed a new Cursed Technique upon you, then focus on this. Praise the great Jashin."
***
T/N: Check out Author Note to access chapters ahead of everyone.