"Cough, cough, cough—"
Amid the wreckage, the blood-red crystalline fragments still clinging to Shinji's body fell away in clattering pieces.
Although he had used Blood Manipulation at the final moment to defend himself, he had simply been too close.
He had practically taken a full-powered Super · Shinra Tensei point-blank to the face. He had already died once before even hitting the ground.
When he opened his eyes again, there wasn't a single part of his body that didn't hurt. Who knew how many bones were broken—his internal organs had probably shifted out of place as well.
The Executioner's Blade had once again shattered into several pieces.
But Shinji was certain—Pain was finished too!
Because while he had been blasted away, he had barely managed to force his eyes open and saw the Deva Path of Pain collapse face-first onto the ground.
If nothing unexpected happened, Hidan's curse technique had succeeded.
Pain had essentially fired a zero-defense Super · Shinra Tensei at himself at point-blank range!
Whether Hidan had died or not was still unclear, but the Deva Path was definitely done for now—at best, it could only be recycled for parts.
So really…
"What was the point?! I even told you to think it over, and you still insisted on using your ultimate move."
"Is this how you recruit people?"
"What kind of talent recruiter pulls out a gun and forces someone to sign a slave contract—and actually pulls the trigger if they refuse?!"
"Damn it!"
Shinji fumed, cursing for quite a while before finally raising his barely movable left hand and pulling out a grayish, tattered bandage. He wrapped it loosely around his arm.
[Mummy's Bandage] activated instantly. All over his body came the sound of bones shifting back into place—
Five seconds later, his eyes bulged and, with a crisp crack, he died again.
Even in death, blood kept pouring from his mouth. It was a truly miserable sight!
But not long after, he logged back in successfully, the hollow dead-fish look in his eyes regaining its vitality.
"Damn it, five seconds means five seconds. Not even one extra second of life!"
He cursed under his breath, yet carefully removed the bandage and stored it away like a priceless treasure.
For anyone else, this thing was utterly useless—at most, it would just let them die in a slightly more dignified way.
But for him, it was nothing short of a divine artifact!
Die once? That counts as a price? Heh!
Fully revived on the spot, Shinji immediately pushed aside half a fallen tree that had been pinning him down and began searching the area.
Before long, he found the Executioner's Broken Blade lodged in a tree—basically reduced to just a hilt.
He pulled it out and took a look. True to its name, it was thoroughly broken.
Shinji clicked his tongue but didn't throw it away. He was used to it breaking by now. Once he had time to slaughter a few bands of mountain bandits or rogue ninjas, the blade would grow back.
What?
Use his own blood?
Shinji immediately shook his head.
His blood was far too precious to waste like that.
(Executioner's Blade: So love really does change. Back when you were cutting people down, you called me your sweet darling. Now that you've got a new favorite, you toss the old love aside and won't even spare a drop of blood. Hmph, you scumbag!)
"Bastard, over here—give me a hand!"
After searching for quite some time, Shinji finally found Hidan about two hundred meters away, with only his head sticking out from the debris.
Half the forest had been uprooted and shoved here. The fact that Hidan hadn't been completely buried was already a stroke of luck.
For once, Shinji didn't argue over being called a bastard. He pulled out the Snake-Skin Sword and slashed rapidly through the piled-up trees.
The sharp blade quickly cut apart all the wood pressing down on Hidan.
Then Shinji grabbed Hidan's head and tried to pull him out like yanking up a carrot.
"Ahhh! That hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts… Can't you be gentler?"
"No. Any other questions?"
"…"
Under Shinji's rough treatment, Hidan was soon freed.
He looked absolutely miserable. His limbs hung limply at grotesque angles that normal people couldn't achieve without going insane just looking at them.
Who knew how many pieces his bones had shattered into!
Two broken ribs had even pierced through his skin, jutting out bloodily.
"How do you feel?"
Shinji asked what was clearly a pointless question.
Hidan glanced at him, estimated the current strength gap between them, and decided to temporarily swallow his pride.
"Not great. I think my waist is broken. I can't feel my hands or legs…"
"Also, check for me—did a bone stab into my lungs? I feel like I can't breathe…"
Seeing how pitiful he looked, Shinji comforted him, "Don't worry. It's not like you can die anyway."
Hidan: "…"
"You lie there for a bit. I'll go see how that guy's doing."
"I'm this messed up—there's no way he's any better! Damn it, what kind of jutsu was that? How is it so powerful?"
Hidan muttered to himself. Shinji pretended not to hear.
Picking up speed, Shinji figured that if the Deva Path was truly out of commission, then the real mastermind would be arriving soon.
And even if the real body didn't come, the other Paths of Pain definitely would.
Troublesome…
After just a few leaps, Shinji once again saw the Deva Path lying on the barren ground.
Just as he had seen before—completely lifeless.
Shinji walked over and flipped the body face-up.
"Wow, that's pretty rough~"
And it was. The black receivers embedded throughout the body were almost entirely destroyed.
Without the chakra transmission receivers, the so-called Deva Path was nothing more than a corpse.
That said, the Deva Path's destructive power was practically inhuman.
But unfortunately, he fundamentally didn't understand Hidan's ability. And since Hidan's Curse Technique: Death Possession By Blood had actually worked on a corpse (as long as blood existed as a medium), Pain had ended up one-shotting himself with his own ultimate move.
Otherwise, who knew how things might have turned out?
Encountering Pain this time had also served as a wake-up call for Shinji. His strength growth had recently hit a bottleneck.
If he wanted to break through, he either needed to construct his Domain as soon as possible, or unlock a new Cursed Technique.
But the 150 Bond Points he still lacked to build his Domain were incredibly difficult to farm. Ordinary daily "interactions (PUA)" had long since stopped having any effect.
Even that deeply moving performance last time had only barely earned him 50 points.
So relying on Bond Point rewards to construct his Domain anytime soon was probably unrealistic.
That left only putting more effort into acquiring a new Cursed Technique.
At the moment, he only had [Random Innate Cursed Technique Fragments] ×4. He still needed six more to synthesize a complete Innate Cursed Technique.
Assuming a guaranteed two fragments per ten-pull, he would need another 30,000 Cursed Soul Points to obtain a new technique.
That was… awkward.
If he hadn't converted the [Snake-Skin Sword] earlier, he would've been close.
But now he only had 14,400 Cursed Soul Points—about half of what he needed.
"Looks like I need to find a way to kill more Curses as soon as possible," Shinji muttered, frowning slightly.
If he had to hunt them down one by one, that would be way too troublesome…