Outside a burning bandit settlement, Toji closed his indifferent eyes, feeling his potion finally being completed.
With cries of pain and despair still ringing in his ears, he took a deep breath as he felt the power coursing through his body.
It was a good feeling, like an itch behind your ear that you finally managed to scratch.
Afro stood not far away, gazing into the distance, clearly uninterested in Toji's hobbies.
Toji didn't care, as the Bind effect that the Snake Clone had placed on him wore off, he let out a heavy sigh, turned to Afro, and said. -Let's go.
He needed to find a place to advance again.
Just as he had planned, he wouldn't complete the ritual in that sequence, so he would depend on the Bind of Jugo to advance, it was better to do that in the Tenebrous World.
It didn't take long for them to find a quiet village. Toji hadn't been there before, although the only inn there was just the house of a widow with a small child, where she rented out a single room.
The woman seemed very happy to accept them both, even suggesting that she could accept them both in more than one way, still together.
Toji finally understood why people gave him strange smiles when he asked for information about that place.
Unfortunately, Toji didn't like that sort of thing, so he passed. Afro, on the other hand, went straight to the woman's room, leaving Toji with the remaining room.
It was good, at least Toji had some privacy to move on. He left very quickly, even more so when he heard the woman's screams. Toji was speechless, shrugging. The Snake Clone emerged from its puppet form and swallowed Toji whole, then dragged him into the 'void'.
When Toji was 'spit out', he was already in the Tenebrous World, body and soul.
The next moment, Jugo appeared to help. He controlled the Tenebrous World to form chains from the ground. The chains emitted a sharp, mind-affecting cold. Toji didn't dodge, instead, he was completely wrapped in chains like a mummy, no part of him visible.
They didn't talk from beginning to end, Jugo knew what Toji needed, he directly drew out the characteristic of Desire Apostle, sending it into Toji.
He watched from the outside as the currents vibrated slightly, the internal heat was extreme, but not a single fragment of energy breached the seal.
Toji was internally clenching his teeth, he could hear countless voices at once, calling him to fall. The worst part was that each of these voices was sweet, like the voices of seductive women. He even heard the voices of the women from the Ninja world he had known and been attracted to.
It was an irritating cacophony, Toji felt like he had fire in his pants. Well, at that moment, he really did. He wanted to release it and drown in endless pleasure, each of those voices promised a life of endless promiscuity.
Toji resisted, Bind's help was evident, although he could hear the voices, he felt like a monk entering a brothel.
In the end, the voices grew softer and more distant, sounding saddened by his departure, and when he regained consciousness, the chains began to disappear.
He took a deep breath, still feeling his throat dry, and said. -Next time, you'd better use the amulet to catch this for yourself.
Jugo mocked him, did he think it was fun to go through this? Each time Toji advanced, he grew stronger, but the reaction was also stronger, a sequence of 5 could be received with some ease, but what if he were a saint? Or even an angel?
At that point, Jugo wouldn't dare face that head-on, if he did, he would have advanced on Abomination long ago.
Perhaps a Saint would only leave him with an annoying headache, but an Angel? Sorry, no.
When Toji finally recovered, he felt the power within him.
Desire Apostle, he had advanced.
Among his new abilities, the first thing he noticed was that his demonic lineage had advanced, he had received a new skill.
The skill's name is Burden of Sin.
This ability is quite simple: the more sin the target had, the higher the 'critical' score Toji could deliver.
A person without sin would suffer normal damage, a 'demon' could receive damage from 0.5x to 3x greater, the value of the sin was determined partly by Karma and partly by the target's guilt.
In any case, he thought it was a good skill, if it were in a heroic world, it would be a situational skill, but in the ninja world, how many of them don't have blood on their hands or guilt in their hearts?
It's hard to say, but in any case, although it wasn't an extremely powerful ability, it still greatly increased his strength.
In terms of new abilities, the first was Desire control.
Desire has practically become the weapon of the Desire Apostles.
This ability was truly ridiculous, as long as a target exhibited emotional fluctuations, such as fear, anger, and despair, or showed an increase in any kind of Desire, Toji could control the target from a distance.
From there, the Desire Apostle can either bury a Defiling Seed or catalyze the expressed emotion/desire. When a target's Desire is catalyzed or a Defiling Seed germinates, the target may be corrupted by the catalyzed desire, losing control over their emotions, becoming unable to fight or resist the influence that this emotion exerts on their actions and thoughts, or even suffering an explosion of desires.
The explosion of desires occurs when the amount of catalyzed Desire exceeds the maximum volume the target's body can withstand, the target will suffer serious injuries, a fatal wound, or damage that can even cause death if severe enough.
If the catalyzed desire does not exceed the limit, the target will become mentally unstable, suffering random mental breakdowns, gradual degeneration, and losing the ability to resist, falling into depravity, and may even distort the target's sense of time if they allow themselves to be carried away.
This reminded Toji of the Lothus Hotel/Casino from Percy Jackson, but he quickly dismissed it.
Although the control isn't direct, if used correctly, it's the type of ability that can't be easily countered and can be used from a distance, leaving no clear trace.
Sure, that's in this world, if it were in the world of LOTM, it would be a very different situation. It would be easily evident to other Beyonders that the target was affected, and many of them might even point to a Desire Apostle, especially the Official Beyonders.
Luckily, this is the ninja world.
Another ability is Mental Shock, a skill that sacrifices one of his two demon horns to forcefully attack the target's psyche. It's much more direct and difficult to deal with, basically inducing the target's strongest emotions in an almost inevitable way.
For example, if someone has anger issues, they will become furious immediately, unable to escape this state of extreme rage.
It takes time for the horn to grow back, so Toji can only use it twice before having to wait for the horns to grow again.
The last skill is quite interesting, Desire Incarnation.
Desire Apostles can transform their bodies into an illusory, thick, black liquid form, a collection of condensed emotions and desires, taking on a semi-visible shape. The liquid is like a collection of the most perverse and shameful desires of the human heart, sweeping and advancing towards the target with a corrupting influence. In this form of Incarnation of Desire, an Desire Apostle is quite effective at avoiding harm, concealing their tracks, and even affecting their enemies with emotions/desires.
It's quite similar to Wraith's ability, although the concealment in this form leaves something to be desired, simply by existing, it causes 'area damage'.
Overall, it's not a bad skill, with this, he would no longer need Jugo's help to exit and enter the Tenebrous World with his body.
The skills he received in total were only four, but that was enough, he didn't even know when they would be needed anyway, he preferred a head-on fight using his swords.
However, after thinking about it for a while, he had an interesting idea.