The Jashin Cult's hideout was underground, about fifty kilometers away from the town.
When Linto and the others arrived, it was already deserted. They had also buried explosive tag traps, burying them underground.
However, this level of trap was easily escaped by Star Platinum's fists, Kakashi's Earth Release Ninjutsu, or Tsunade's Super Strength and Slug. It just took a little time.
"They really ran fast."
Tsunade looked at Linto.
Linto nodded.
The memory disc of the Left Guardian contained the White-Haired Leader's appearance. After the three escaped from being buried, Linto summoned Hermit Purple, pointing to the direction the leader had fled.
A night of tracking.
The next morning, the group of three arrived at a village.
The village was of medium size, with about two hundred households at a glance, with a full count of one or two thousand people living there.
The villagers all got up early. The sun had just risen, and you could see the villagers starting their day's work, surrounded by their cats and dogs, waiting for their owners to feed them.
Linto reached out again.
Hermit Purple floated in the palm of his hand, circling around, and then stopped blankly.
Linto said, "The White-Haired Leader is in this village, but he used some method to affect my lock-on."
"How are we going to find him?"
Even if Linto's White Snake could check memories, Kakashi's Sharingan could use illusions.
But with a thousand villagers, how long would it take them to check one by one?
Tsunade touched her wound.
Since last night, the rate of life loss at the wound had accelerated. Considering the "Holy Son, Holy Grail, Hidan" mentioned in the Left Guardian's memory...
This was a bad sign.
Intuition told Tsunade that a terrifying monster was about to be born into the world.
"We have to find the cult leader quickly."
Linto stepped forward and slowly flew into the sky, saying, "Cover your ears."
"Huh?"
Kakashi and Tsunade were stunned, and saw Star Platinum appearing behind Linto, opening his arms, taking a deep breath—
"SMACK!!!"
Star Platinum's palms slammed together at a speed exceeding the retina, emitting a roar in the air comparable to a volcanic eruption.
The dogs howled in fright, the cats meowed and scurried away, and all the busy villagers shuddered in fright and looked up at Linto.
...
The Left and Right Guardians could disguise themselves as children, and naturally the White-Haired Leader could also change his appearance.
He hid among the villagers with a very ordinary face. Hearing the explosion in the sky, he looked at Linto floating in the air.
"He's here!"
"This is Linto! He really came fast!"
The White-Haired Leader was not afraid at all, and his eyes became brighter.
He was not a coward.
Otherwise, he would not have actively chosen to come to the Land of Hot Water.
At such a close distance, the White-Haired Leader could clearly feel the life force from Linto, even more abundant than Tsunade's.
This was a trial given to him by the Evil God!
"Come on! Linto! Let me see what you're capable of!"
Just then, he saw Linto standing in the air, cutting his palm and sprinkling a drop of blood.
The White-Haired Leader understood Linto's plan.
As long as they were Jashin Cult followers, they would be able to sense the life force contained in this drop of blood, and would yearn to obtain it, using it as a medium to curse Linto.
"Whoever looks at this drop of blood is a Jashin Cult follower. As long as I do the opposite, I won't reveal my identity."
"Linto, you're being clever, do you think I'll fall for it?"
The White-Haired Leader's gaze did not shift in the slightest, still staring blankly at Linto. In the next moment, he felt something was wrong—
No!
This had nothing to do with believing in the Jashin Cult.
A person standing in the air, whether throwing out blood or throwing out a stone, people's gazes would instinctively shift.
The suspicious ones were not those who looked at the drop of blood.
It was the people who deliberately did not look at the drop of blood!
The White-Haired Leader instantly understood the key and moved his gaze again.
It was just a small flaw. There were nearly a thousand people present. He did not believe that Linto could see the direction of everyone's gaze in an instant.
But at this moment—
"Star Platinum - The World!"
One second... two seconds... three seconds...
Linto's gaze swept across below.
Four seconds had passed...
He made eye contact with an ordinary-looking "villager."
Time began to flow again.
The White-Haired Leader shifted his gaze, staring at the drop of blood.
However, the blood disappeared.
Linto in mid-air also disappeared.
Where was he?!
A hand lightly touched the White-Haired Leader's shoulder. Linto's head slowly stretched out from the other side, looking at the White-Haired Leader, and whispered in his ear:
"Found you."
"Lin - Qing -"
The White-Haired Leader abruptly released the evil technique, restoring his original appearance. He drew a short knife from his leg and stabbed it into his abdomen.
At the same time, the farmers next to him tore off their disguises, and drew knives and steel needles, shouting:
"Protect the leader!"
They pounced on Linto.
Linto glanced at the knife piercing the White-Haired Leader's abdomen, shook his head and said, "No need to bother, you will die today."
He turned to look at the charging cult members.
"You will all die."
"Not a single person in this village will be able to leave."
Linto felt something was wrong as soon as he arrived in the village.
First of all, Hermit Purple was affected.
And when he flew into the air, he found that there were no elderly people or children in the village, only young adults. Looking closely at the layout of the village's buildings...
It was simply like a formation.
The explanation Linto could think of was:
This was a secret village composed of evil cult members that even the Left and Right Guardians did not know about. It was also the White-Haired Leader's trump card to dare to fight Linto and the others!
Linto snapped the White-Haired Leader's neck.
White Snake extracted his disc.
Linto casually dropped the corpse: "Trump card... the people are dead, who will play the cards?"
"Wait."
White Snake said, "Something's not right."
It raised the disc in its hand.
The projection on the disc was an ordinary-looking man.
On the other side, a woman's face and body quickly changed, and in the blink of an eye, she transformed from a short woman into a slender White-Haired Leader.
"You think you can kill me?"
Before the words were spoken, Star Platinum appeared and punched his head to pieces.
Another man transformed into the leader.
Linto understood.
As long as he was still in the formation and surrounded by cult members, he would not die.
He was one, and one was all!
The cult members stabbed knives into their chests and abdomens, blood flowing freely, wetting the ground. The evil god formation arranged by the village as a unit was activated, and a dark barrier appeared, enveloping the entire village.
"Space lockdown?"
Tsunade scanned the surroundings. Strange and terrifying faces shrouded the area, and everything they touched withered, decayed, and died in an instant.
They were trapped in the village!
Whoosh—
Kakashi heard a rushing sound in the sky.
Was it raining?
He stared at the sky.
Black raindrops fell, getting closer and closer. Finally, he saw clearly that they were not raindrops at all.
"They're steel needles! Countless steel needles!"
Not only the sky, but sharp knives and teeth grew out of the flat soil underfoot. They patrolled the ground like piranhas, tearing and biting at all the flesh they could see.
Once Linto, Tsunade, and Kakashi were injured, even if a drop of blood flowed out.
They would suffer the curses of the entire village, nearly a thousand people at once!
"I didn't want to open God's Country so early, at least not until after absorbing Tsunade's life force to show you the complete form of God's Country."
"However, this is the pain of life—uncertainty, accidents, and twists and turns."
The White-Haired Leader opened his arms, straightened his chest, and tried his best to let more steel needles pierce through him and sharp knives stab into him.
His eyes were filled with boundless zeal and joy:
"Come on! Linto, let's die together!"
"The Holy Son who will build a new world will be born in our deaths!"
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