"Ora ora ora ora!"
With Star Platinum's precision and speed beyond limits, not a single knife could land on Linto; all were blown away in mid-air.
The blades shot out, piercing the surrounding cult members, stabbing them to death.
But the evil god's power entwined on the knives was transferred over.
Specks of black marks appeared on Linto's skin.
He took a deep breath, merging ripple power with natural energy, causing pieces of withered skin and flesh to fall off, then regenerate at super speed.
"This won't work."
His opponent had the formation, the cult members, and the evil god. A battle of attrition would lead to Linto being worn down to death by the white-haired leader sooner or later.
He turned back and gave Tsunade a look, then patted his own shoulder.
Tsunade understood. In a pose like throwing a baseball, she threw something over.
Linto raised his hand and caught it, placing it on his shoulder.
"I have an idea."
His voice, relayed by Slug Sage, reached Tsunade and Kakashi.
Tsunade punched a cult member away. "Do you have a way to kill the leader?"
"No."
Linto said, "I've tried many methods. As long as he's within the formation's range and surrounded by cult members, he's immortal.
And at the current rate of the cult members' strengthening, if we wait until we've killed all the thousand people in the village, the leader who's still alive..."
"Will become an undying and indestructible evil god."
Star Platinum smashed the blades again, and kicked away the charging white-haired leader. Linto continued,
"The left guardian's memories contain their evil god ritual formations. Each formation corresponds to a caster.
The evil god formation covering the entire village is very big, but I've observed that it's their commonly used ritual formation."
Kakashi understood Linto's meaning.
"You're saying the white-haired leader is the operator of the formation? But..."
Doesn't that bring us back to square one?
If the white-haired leader isn't killed, the formation can't be broken.
If the formation isn't broken, the white-haired leader can't be killed.
An unsolvable problem.
"I need to cut off the connection between him and the evil god formation."
Linto decisively gave the answer, "But in the process, I need you to help me block the other cult members."
Tsunade looked surprised. "Cut off the connection... how is that even possible?"
Hermit Purple's vines appeared, wrapping around Linto's arm.
This stand, known as the "most useless," possesses the power of spirit photography, which in essence uses the causal links between things. It acts as a connecting and conducting link of cause and effect.
So, if he controlled Hermit Purple to completely wrap the white-haired leader, and then activated Hermit Purple's spirit photography ability to fill its interior with "causality"...
Could it then act like an insulating material, blocking the causal connection between the white-haired leader and the evil god formation?
In Linto's hand, Hermit Purple formed into a small ball, inside which was a piece of the cult member's flesh.
There are many similar pieces of flesh in the ritual formation.
They were cheering, rejoicing, and responding to the evil god's whispers.
Only this piece of meat, wrapped by Hermit Purple, remained indifferent.
The theory was valid, the simulation experiment was valid, next—
Linto looked at the white-haired leader.
It was time for practice!
He charged towards the white-haired leader again, and pointed at him.
"Hermit Purple!"
Purple vines lashed out, wrapping around the white-haired leader's body, covering him in circles.
The white-haired leader noticed the abnormality immediately.
His connection to the formation... was weakening!
The white-haired leader didn't hesitate at all:
"Save me!"
The cult members roared and rushed forward.
Linto pointed at the white-haired leader—
"Star Platinum · The World!"
Time stopped again.
Star Platinum took a deep breath, clenched its fists, and placed them on its waist.
"Ora ora ora ora!"
Two seconds passed in an instant.
Time began to flow again.
Countless wounds burst all over the white-haired leader's body.
But he wasn't dead yet.
Because Linto realized that Star Platinum's time stop, which occupied his mental space, and the activation of Setsuna, had affected Hermit Purple's sealing effect.
If Star Platinum had thrown the final punch and killed the white-haired leader, he could have revived in the cult members' bodies in the next second through the gap.
Hermit Purple isn't a stand specialized in sealing. Linto's approach was like performing surgery with a butter knife; even a moment of distraction would lead to failure.
"I can't activate time stop again."
But if he couldn't activate time stop, the cult members would rush up. Luckily—
"Kakashi!"
"Tsunade!"
Linto called out to his companions.
But there was no response for a long time.
He looked back and saw Tsunade and Kakashi kneeling on the ground, clutching their chests, unable to stop the cult members attacking Linto.
What happened?
Suddenly, Linto felt a little itchy in his nose, followed by his lungs, and then his chest and heart.
The ripple power inside his body activated.
"This is—"
Linto's pupils constricted.
Countless bits of cult member flesh, finer than cat hair, were floating in the air, inhaled into the lungs with their breathing.
The tiny bits of flesh flowed in the blood vessels and eventually reached the position of Linto's, Kakashi's, and Tsunade's hearts, forcibly blocking their blood vessels!
This was the reason why Kakashi and Tsunade were kneeling and unable to stand.
If it was an injury, Tsunade and Slug Sage could heal it quickly, but this…
Was angina and acute myocardial infarction caused by coronary heart disease!
This wasn't an injury, it was a "chronic disease". Even Tsunade would need to perform surgery to treat it.
Linto had to divert some of his ripple power into his body to forcibly crush the cult member flesh.
Star Platinum was punching out from behind again and again, but the cult members weren't afraid of death and were rushing up one after another.
Linto also diverted some of his power to deal with the attacks from inside his body.
Linto alone couldn't kill the white-haired leader in a short time at all.
If time dragged on, Kakashi and Tsunade would die, the cult members would also die, and the white-haired leader would become even stronger, until he completely broke free from Hermit Purple's confinement!
"Linto."
The white-haired leader pried open Hermit Purple's vines, and one of his eyes met Linto's.
"I can understand your hatred for me."
"You think we're just a bunch of murderers, but if you think carefully, what's so good about living in this world?"
"Endless work, insults from superiors, futile efforts, misplaced sincerity... as long as you live, there will be pain."
"I admit that there are fleeting beauties in life, but suffering is the main plot."
Linto heard the evil god's whispers again, and the evil god's terrifying shadow appeared in the dark sky.
He faintly saw beautiful scenes. As long as they died, their souls would fall into the evil god's embrace to sleep, enjoying eternal peace and beauty.
"Do you think that we were just called Jashin Cult?"
"Because you're standing in this rotten world seeing us as 'evil', just like when you stand on a tilted boat and see the sky as tilted."
"But when you stand at the right angle to look —"
Linto looked up at the sky.
The terrifying evil god radiated brilliant light, as if becoming the most beautiful and kind existence in the world. He opened his arms to Linto.
Linto raised his hands, seemingly to welcome the evil god's embrace.
The white-haired leader smiled.
But the next moment, his smile froze on his face.
Linto's raised hands raised two middle fingers.
"Upload souls to the evil god terminal after death to become digital life? Are you trying to fool people with such an old-fashioned way of talking?"
"You don't want to?"
Linto clenched his fist and punched the white-haired leader in the eye.
"Go to hell!"
Linto's punches became heavier and heavier.
But the white-haired leader was smiling:
"Linto, you're really amazing, but you can't kill me. Before I'm beaten to death by you, I'll break free from the vines."
"I can't kill you by myself."
Star Platinum turned around to face the white-haired leader, as if it couldn't see the cult members rushing up at all.
Linto clenched his fists.
"But I'm never facing you alone."
Boom—
Tsunade kicked dozens of cult members away. A few who slipped through wanted to rush up, but they heard lightning, and Kakashi used his Raikiri to cut off their necks.
"What!"
The white-haired leader couldn't understand:
"How can you still move—"
His gaze fell on their bloody chests.
That's right, using the cult members' flesh to block the blood vessels couldn't be repaired with Healing Ninjutsu. But since it was a blood vessel blockage…
Then just smash all the blocked blood vessels, and it can be treated!
The white-haired leader's thoughts were chaotic.
Suddenly, he felt two gazes, and his heart sank, as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.
"Lin—"
Before he could finish speaking, Linto's and Star Platinum's fists landed on him together.
"Ora ora ora ora!"
"Ora ora ora ora!"
"Ora ora ora ora!"
Heavy punches rained down, and blood flowed out from the gaps in Hermit Purple's vines.
Linto's and Star Platinum's fists bombarded the white-haired leader, from the ground all the way to the sky.
They beat him to the top of the barrier sealing the village.
Crack—
A crack appeared in the barrier.
A ray of light fell in from the crack. Where the light passed, a thin band of light appeared.
The light band fluctuated with the dust, and the faces of the innocent people who had tragically died at the hands of the Jashin Cult could be vaguely seen.
"When you go to hell, don't forget—"
Linto slowly retracted his right fist and clenched it.
Star Platinum did the same.
"The one who punishes you is me!"
Linto took a step forward, and he and his stand threw the final punch.
The white-haired leader stared blankly at this punch.
The world faded in his eyes, turning gray and white, and then not even gray and white, becoming simple lines, and then...
Nothing.
Boom!
The barrier shattered, and the white-haired leader was knocked away in an arc and fell to the ground.
Lifeless.
"Slaughtered Jashin Cult leader, gained 1444 soul fragments."
The evil god formation shattered piece by piece. The sunlight shone down. Losing the white-haired leader maintaining the formation, and losing the formation's protection, the cult members dropped dead one by one.
Linto returned to the ground.
Tsunade and Kakashi, disregarding the dirt, sat down on the ground.
"It's finally over."
Kakashi let out a tired sigh, and then they looked at each other, looked at their own embarrassed appearance, and showed smiles of relief.
But it was especially frightening when paired with the blood on their faces and bodies.
Linto walked over and pulled them up. Just then—
"Ahhhhh!!!"
An old farmer passing by in a donkey cart happened to see the three of them and the corpses all over the ground and screamed in horror, slapping his own little donkey's behind.
The man and the donkey ran away quickly.
Linto wanted to explain, but as soon as he raised his hand, the old farmer slapped the little donkey's behind even harder and so he gave up.
...
The old farmer ran for a long time and was finally out of sight of the three thugs.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Suddenly, the old farmer heard crying.
He followed the sound and saw a clean-faced young man, holding a letter and crying his heart out.
The old farmer stopped the donkey cart and walked over.
"Young man, what's your name? What are you crying about?" He said, handing over a pancake.
For farmers, sharing precious food is the best way to express kindness.
"My name is Hidan."
Hidan took the pancake and looked at the old farmer with tears in his eyes:
"Uncle, you're really a good person! A good person..."
He didn't touch the old man, but the old man's body was covered with black marks. The old man and the little donkey fell to the ground, their eyes gradually becoming blank. The last thing they heard before they died was Hidan saying:
"... good people will be rewarded."
---
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