Shortly after.
The priest used blood to draw a blood-red circle with a diameter of three meters on the ground next to the blood pool. Inside the circle was an inverted triangle, which was exactly the curse formation of the Jashin Cult.
The priest walked quickly to the carriage with small steps, bowed, and said, "Lord Daimyo, the time is almost here. This is a blood moon that only occurs once every ten years. Last time, Hidan achieved his immortal body during a blood moon."
Leading the Daimyo to the center of the formation, he said, "Lord Daimyo, please sit cross-legged here. We will need to write Incantations on your body later."
"Why wasn't it like this the previous times?" Seeing the completely different format from before, the Daimyo asked curiously.
"This is information I dug up from the ruins of the Jashin Cult's headquarters. The reason it failed before was because this step was missing."
Hearing this, the Daimyo nodded, took off his clothes, and let the priest cover his body with Incantations.
"Dong... Dong..."
A copper bell in the cave was struck by a cultist, each chime striking the depths of everyone's hearts.
The time had come.
Everyone present instantly perked up, looking at the Daimyo in the center of the formation.
However, the Daimyo and his guards failed to notice that the Jashin cultists were slowly approaching them, their faces filled with murderous intent.
Just as the Daimyo followed the priest's instructions, pressing his palms together and chanting the Jashin Scripture.
"Heh— Heh—"
The Daimyo suddenly froze, his throat making meaningless sounds. With a look of disbelief, he slowly lowered his head to look at his chest.
A pitch-black spear had pierced through his heart from behind, emerging from his chest. Blood from his heart slowly dripped from the spear onto the ground.
At that moment, the Jashin cultists all erupted, drawing their blades and slashing at the surrounding attendants.
The attendants were stunned by the sudden turn of events. Caught off guard by the crisis, they suffered heavy casualties.
Even when they later reacted and drew their swords to resist, it was too late. Two fists are no match for four hands, and they were quickly slaughtered by the swarming cultists.
The priest looked at the still-struggling Daimyo and sneered, "The reason it failed the previous times was not just because the quantity of blood was insufficient, but also because the grade of the blood wasn't high enough."
"How could the blood of those commoners satisfy Lord Jashin? Surely your blood, as a Daimyo, will be delicious."
He then walked outside the formation, slammed his knees onto the ground, raised his arms high above his head, and shouted loudly, "Great Jashin! With the blood of thousands of living beings as a sacrifice and this filthy world as an offering, I implore you to open your eyes and descend upon this place!"
The priest knelt outside the formation, arms raised high, screaming the summoning prayer like a madman.
As he recited, the surrounding air suddenly grew heavy, and a cold aura appeared in the vicinity.
The circle and inverted triangle patterns on the ground first turned slightly red, and then began to glow with a faint light bit by bit.
The faint light grew stronger, drawing in the surrounding blood qi. The blood in the pool within the cavern began to churn, pulled by a mysterious force, converging toward the center of the formation.
The flow became faster and faster, the blood water surging and swirling into a vortex. The entire blood pool seemed to be sucked dry by an invisible force, and in an instant, it was completely drained, pouring entirely into the eye of the formation.
The blood-red color exploded violently, the light of the Incantations shot into the sky, and a mass of black mist surged out from the rift, constantly swirling in the air.
The priest and the other cultists were immediately overjoyed at the scene before them, bowing frantically.
They had succeeded; Lord Jashin would grant them the ability of immortality.
At this moment, Aoki Yoru, perched on a tree outside the cave, watched this scene in stunned silence. He hadn't expected to actually hit the jackpot and witness the appearance of Jashin.
He immediately formed hand seals, creating six Shadow Clones. They nodded to each other, and the six Shadow Clones began to sneak toward the cave entrance.
Aoki Yoru unsheathed yerun, concentrating his mental energy to wrap natural energy around it.
Inside the cave, the swirling black mist finally began to slow down. In the center of the black mist, a translucent phantom slowly floated up.
Its outline was slender and blurred, neither solid nor dispersed, like a spiritual entity shrouded in darkness, appearing and disappearing.
It was not fully formed; a blood-red mist drifted around the spiritual entity, emitting a death-like sense of oppression.
The priest looked at the appearing Jashin, raised his hands high, and shouted loudly, "Great Lord Jashin, I am your devout believer. I implore you to bestow your blessing upon us, granting us immortal bodies so that we may serve you forever in this world!"
The surrounding cultists also followed suit, shouting, "Lord Jashin, please bestow your blessing!"
At that moment, the Jashin in the center of the formation moved. The red blood mist beside it drifted toward the crowd, slowly entering their bodies, with the priest alone taking up a fifth of it.
"Thank you, Lord Jashin, for your blessing!"
Seeing that they had received the blessing, they all bowed forcefully, smashing pits into the ground, not even caring about the wounds on their heads.
At this moment, they felt an unprecedented sense of comfort. A surge of power continuously emerged from their bodies. The internal injuries and the wounds on their heads from bowing were healing; they couldn't feel any pain at all.
Everyone began to celebrate frantically.
"Hahaha! I have finally become immortal!"
The Jashin Cult priest laughed maniacally, took the spear in his hand, and thrust it fiercely into his own heart. The spear instantly pierced through his body, the tip emerging from his back as blood dripped from the point.
He threw his head back sharply, his mouth splitting to his ears in a nearly hideous, crazed smile. His eyes were bloodshot with excitement, and even his breath carried a scalding pleasure, as if his very soul was trembling for Jashin.
"Ah! Finally succeeded! That fellow Hidan—I was the one who brought him into the Jashin Cult, yet he dared to betray me after achieving immortality, destroying the Jashin Cult headquarters and ruining decades of my hard work. I will definitely kill him this time."
He then pulled the spear out of his body. Although it was painful, he felt incredibly excited—the more it hurt, the more excited he became.
"Aaaah!!!"
The cultists in the cave began to scream in agony. Their bodies gradually began to swell, and they lay on the ground wailing incessantly.
The priest suddenly looked at the Jashin in the formation and asked with a look of confusion, "Lord Jashin, what is happening to them... ugh..."
Before he could finish, the priest clutched his throat in pain, his entire body also slowly swelling as he rolled on the ground, wailing in agony.
Outside the cave, Aoki Yoru watched the turn of events inside with wide eyes. He hadn't expected that while the cultists were excited about gaining immortality one second, they would be lying on the ground wailing the next.
'They won't survive.'
In Aoki Yoru's perception, not only were their bodies swelling, but even the nerves, blood vessels, and internal organs inside them were expanding. Cracks appeared on the surface, and their blood was boiling.
"This is even more painful than death by a thousand cuts. At least that is one cut at a time for a thousand cuts, but this is from the inside out—a thousand cuts in an instant."
Aoki Yoru couldn't help but click his tongue. He also knew the reason: these people's bodies clearly couldn't withstand the erosion of the blood mist, and side effects had occurred.
Before long, the wailing in the cave gradually subsided, and the bodies that had swollen into spheres exploded into clouds of blood mist.
"Bang... Bang..." Explosive sounds rang out continuously in the area.
The Jashin Cult priest had also swollen into a round ball by now. His face still carried disbelief and deep resentment as he stared fixedly at the phantom of Jashin, as if asking "why."
"Bang..."
As the priest's body exploded into blood mist, there was no one left alive in the cave.
The Jashin on the formation, after drawing the blood mist in the area to its side, began to fade, its phantom body seeming about to disappear.
Suddenly, a change occurred as five attacks streaked toward Jashin.