From numerous dark corners, shadowy beasts — creatures born to consume human flesh — suddenly sprang into action.
Opening their enormous, jaws wide, they lunged straight for Shinji's head.
Shinji faced the attack calmly, without the slightest ripple of emotion.
He swung his Executioner's Blade with great force. In the blink of an eye, he beheaded every single beast before they could even get close.
But what happened next surprised him.
These decapitated beasts didn't die. Instead, they merged back into the surrounding shadows, instantly reformed completely unharmed, and attacked him again.
Even though these shadows had taken physical form, cutting off their heads meant nothing to them.
They had no vital organs, no concept of a "weak point," and death itself didn't apply to them.
Shinji's eyes narrowed. He realized what was happening.
He decided to test his theory on the nearest beast.
"Disperse!"
At the sound of the command, the beast instantly dissolved into a mass of shadow and quickly retreated back into a dark corner.
Only then did Shinji notice that although these beasts looked solid and three-dimensional, thin lines of shadow connected their feet to the ground, stretching all the way toward some deeper darkness.
He hadn't noticed them before because the lines were incredibly fine — you had to look very closely to see them.
Suddenly, a bold guess formed in his mind.
He immediately hurled his Executioner's Blade in the direction where the shadow had retreated.
A sharp scream rang out as the blade nearly cut the person hidden there clean in half at the waist.
Hidden within the shadows behind a rock was a figure — neither human nor ghost.
Undoubtedly, this person had also been forcibly transformed into a monster, and had gained the power to summon and control these shadow beasts.
This explained why the beasts couldn't be killed earlier.
They were never real living beings to begin with — just a form of attack, exactly like materialized blades made of darkness.
All this happened in a split second. The remaining shadow beasts were still surging toward him with terrifying ferocity.
But now that Shinji understood their weakness, he wasn't going to waste time fighting them directly.
Using the speed boost granted by Leaping Crimson Scales — Release!, he swiftly dodged their lunges.
At the same time, he manipulated vast amounts of blood, shaping them into sharp spears, and launched them straight along the shadowy lines connecting each beast to their controller.
Accuracy wasn't perfect, but sheer volume made up for it!
Screams echoed from all directions as the blood spears pinned these half-transformed humans right where they hid in the dark corners.
Every shadow beast revealed the location of its master — too late for them to run away.
"Tobi! Throw out all the remaining fluorite crystals! Light up this whole place!"
Tobi, who had been wandering around aimlessly this whole time, yelling nonsense, dug out handfuls of bright green-glowing stones from somewhere and tossed them everywhere.
The dim surroundings instantly became bright and clear!
Under the light, these half-finished monsters could no longer hide. Shinji finished them all off with his blood spears.
They were lucky to be well-prepared. Fighting in total darkness would have been a nightmare.
For example, he would never have discovered the shadow beasts' weakness if everything had remained hidden in pitch blackness.
But with light, the situation had completely reversed.
Meanwhile, Hidan — now riddled with holes all over his body — was furiously chasing down these half-transformed humans.
He was clearly trying to regain the dignity he had lost earlier when ambushed.
But the attackers were already falling apart.
Most of them used to be ordinary people. Even though they had suddenly gained strange powers, their minds were still fragile and weak.
Before, they had fought purely on beastly instinct — or rather, the instinct of Cursed Spirits.
But now, terrified by the slaughter, their human fear and cowardice took over. They screamed, scattered, and ran in all directions.
Some even fell to their knees, begging for mercy.
It was obvious that whoever was behind all these experiments hadn't yet created a truly "perfect" modified being.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have such critical flaws.
However, their sheer numbers made up for everything.
There were thousands of humans here. Even if most transformations failed, the result was still a monster — perfect cannon fodder.
If whoever was behind this ever succeeded in perfecting their experiments, it would truly spell disaster for humanity.
Seeing yet another wave of monsters pouring out from the passage ahead...
Even Shinji's expression turned grim.
"How many people have been turned into monsters here?"
And that was only what they had seen. How many more had they missed? And how many had already died?
Damn every last one of these Cursed Spirits!
He walked over to a corpse, pulled his Executioner's Blade free, and charged straight into the horde.
He was burning with anger inside. If he didn't vent it this way, he would be in a terrible mood.
Kill! Kill! KILL!
Cursed Spirits fell one after another before him; none could withstand a single blow of his blade.
Time passed. Eventually, Sasuke chased down the last straggler and stabbed him repeatedly with a small kunai until he fell. Sasuke then collapsed exhausted onto the ground.
Near Shinji, the bodies were already piled up like a mountain!
In that moment, he truly looked like a god of war — or rather, a demon god — existing only to witness bloodshed and slaughter.
Even Tamamo Hotaru, watching from a distance, now looked at him with genuine fear and dread.
She couldn't help wondering — if he was enjoying the killing this much... would he suddenly turn around and kill her too?
You couldn't rule it out. After all, no one else had ever dared to stand Shinji up or break their promises to him and lived to tell the tale.
"Damn it... that bastard outdid me again."
Hidan, covered in blood and filth, grumbled in frustration.
He had pushed himself to keep up, yet he still couldn't kill as fast as that guy.
Deep down, he swore: Next time... I'll kill more than Shinji. I have to beat him just once!
Meanwhile, Tobi's thoughts were much simpler. He wasn't surprised at all.
But of course, he still had to cheer loudly.
After all, you could slack off and do nothing... but if you didn't even know how to hype someone up, that was just too much.
He was basically the atmosphere group — nothing to be ashamed of!
"Whoa! Shinji-senpai is truly invincible and overpowered!"
"As expected of the Demon God Akagi... even I think you're super scary~"
"Huh? Hidan-senpai, why are you staring at me? Don't you think I'm right?"
Dammit!
What a suck-up!
Hidan spat in disdain at Tobi, clearly jealous and annoyed, but didn't dare say it out loud.
He wasn't afraid of Shinji, that bastard... (gulp)... but there was no need to make trouble for himself.
But just wait until this was all over... he was definitely going to teach that annoying flatterer Tobi a good lesson!
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