"Damn you, Kamizuki Shiki, you're asking for death!"
With his head casually stepped on by Shiki, Hidan let out a roar of humiliation.
However, to Shiki, this threat sounded more like the helpless screeching of a cornered animal.
He continued pressing Hidan's head under his foot while lightly scratching his own ear.
"You're Hidan, right? Your yelling is even less intimidating than the thirty-six-year-old cat owned by the eighty-five-year-old granny living downstairs from me. Who do you think you're scaring?"
Shiki's mockery only made Hidan even more furious.
Even with the immense pressure on his skull, he managed to grit out, "Kamizuki Shiki! I'll kill you!"
"Tsk tsk, such threats are truly… an insult to cats."
Shiki shook his head with a sigh, then abruptly extended two crimson, blade-like limbs from his back, deflecting the black spear that had been aimed at him from behind.
He turned slightly to see Hidan's headless body holding a dark spear, clearly trying to finish him off when he wasn't paying attention.
Unfortunately for Hidan…
Shiki's two slender limbs shot out like lightning.
Anyone familiar with insects might have recognized the motion—similar to a mantis striking its prey.
The two limbs lashed out in an instant, seizing the enemy with swift precision before delivering the killing blow.
Of course, unlike a mantis, Shiki's limbs were far sharper.
Like two streaks of dark red lightning slicing through the air, Hidan's arms were severed in the next moment, dropping uselessly to the ground.
With that, Hidan's body finally lost all balance and collapsed.
Shiki adjusted his glasses, bent down, and grabbed Hidan's hair to lift his head.
"I didn't expect a lowly servant of the Lord Jashin to resort to such a diversion tactic. Too bad your cat-like screeches were too weak to be convincing."
This condescending remark drove Hidan into a frenzy, and he began hurling curses at Shiki.
But just as Shiki had said, his insults were repetitive and uninspired—no different from the wails of an elderly cat in Shiki's ears.
Everyone in the hall watched the two monsters in silence, the entire room filled with Hidan's grating voice.
Shiki tossed Hidan's head up and down playfully, grinning.
"If you can't come up with anything new, I'll have to gag you."
"I—"
Hidan fell silent.
This bastard was way too infuriating!
Even the surrounding cultists were stunned.
After all, they were all too familiar with Hidan's foul mouth—yet here he was, actually rendered speechless.
"Enough!"
Finally, the cult leader had seen enough.
"Stop fooling around. Both of you, come with me."
With that, the leader turned and strode away with an air of authority.
"Oh."
Shiki casually tossed Hidan's head aside and moved to follow.
The leader smacked his own forehead in exasperation, barely suppressing his frustration as he added, "Bring Hidan with you!"
"Oh, right!"
Shiki scooped up Hidan's head and tucked it under his arm.
"Worthless Shiki! How dare you carry me like this!"
Hidan strained to open his mouth, trying to bite Shiki, but Shiki simply pressed his arm against Hidan's eyes, immobilizing him completely.
"Keep talking, and I'll take a dump in your mouth."
"…"
Hidan fell silent.
The entire hall fell silent.
The leader let out a heavy sigh, looking as though he'd aged twenty years in an instant.
Giving up on Shiki, he pointed at the other cultists and ordered, "You lot, reassemble Hidan's body and stitch him back together."
Under the leader's command, the cultists reluctantly gathered Hidan's severed limbs, suppressing their unease.
Though they were used to handling corpses, a moving, talking one was still unsettling—especially since Hidan claimed to be a blessed servant of Lord Jashin.
Meanwhile, Shiki carried Hidan's head like a basketball, following the leader out of the hall.
As he stared at the leader's back, Shiki wrestled with the urge to strike him down from behind.
But he resisted.
As a transmigrator, after leaving Jashin's mysterious realm, Shiki's soul had entered this world's initial judgment process—
Reincarnation.
Reincarnation was fine, but the problem was… he'd been reborn as a pool.
Yes, that blood pool beneath the statue.
In other words, Shiki's true body was now the blood pool itself!
Fortunately, the ability he'd received from his system was incredibly powerful.
But the name…
[Womb of the Creator]
There were too many things wrong with that, and Shiki didn't even know where to begin.
Thus, his current system interface looked like this:
[Jashin's Raising Sim]
[Host]: A blood pool
[Level]: 1 (Next level requires 2000 reputation points)
Note: The host's mental energy will increase with level-ups.
[Jashin Reputation]: 500
[Ability 1]:
[Womb of the Creator]: As a fragment of the Primordial Creator, you can devour any living being, analyze their genes and abilities, freely recombine them, and create new Jashin races. All created races are naturally under your control.
Note: Analyzing genes and abilities requires strong mental energy for computation.
Creating Jashin races requires vast amounts of life energy as fuel.
[Gene Library]:
Ordinary human genes
Leaf mantis genes
Giant centipede genes
Giant man-eating spider genes
…
[Genes Currently Being Analyzed]:
Jashin genes (Progress: 0.003%)
[Creatable Races]:
Centipede-type Tail Kakuja
Spider-type Armor Kakuja
Mantis-type Scale Kakuja
Human-type body
[Ability 2]:
[Jashin's Blessing]: Your body is blessed by Jashin. As long as Jashin exists, you will possess immortality.
[Introduction]: "I will create a world with Lord Jashin in it!"
In simple terms, [Womb of the Creator] allowed Shiki to absorb genes from other creatures, modify and fuse them, then produce new beings from his body—the blood pool.
It was… utterly ridiculous.
Shiki never expected that after reincarnating, not only would he become a blood pool, but he'd also become a male mother!
Combined with his status as a high-ranking Jashin cultist, his identity was now absurdly complicated.
Additionally, increasing his Jashin reputation would allow him to level up faster, enhancing his mental energy and speeding up gene analysis.
As the saying goes, the rich rely on technology, the poor rely on mutation!
The [Kakuja] abilities Shiki had used earlier were created by combining various insect genes from the blood pool.
This body of his had also cost a significant amount of life energy to produce.
Thankfully, being reborn as a blood pool gave him an abundance of life energy. If he'd been reborn as a normal human, he wouldn't have had the resources to create these things.
As for the [Jashin Genes], they likely came from Shiki and Hidan's bodies. After all, being in the blood pool meant stray skin cells and hair follicles were inevitably absorbed, triggering the gene analysis.
Unfortunately, with such minimal genetic material, Shiki estimated it'd take the system a hundred years to fully decode them.
However, Hidan's displayed immortality gave Shiki an idea.
He could continuously drain Hidan's blood into the pool for analysis. Since the guy couldn't die, he'd just be weakened.
At worst, Shiki could feed him some goji berries to replenish his blood before draining him again. No big deal.
Besides blood, he could also cut out a kidney or two for research…
As for Shiki himself, his immortality was tied to his true body—the blood pool. His clones didn't share this trait.
Not that Shiki cared. They were just expendable clones. If one died, he could always make another.
Hidan, currently tucked under Shiki's arm, suddenly shuddered and opened his eyes.
Just as he was about to speak, Shiki calmly said, "Dump."
Hidan immediately shut his mouth.
Even an immortal like Hidan had his weaknesses. Though he couldn't die, he was still human.
And humans had limits.
So Shiki decided—he would reject his humanity!
Well, technically, he had already rejected it.
Ironically, ever since becoming non-human, Shiki had been in a much better mood.
If I'm not human anymore, then human morality doesn't apply to me, right?
With this mix of melancholy and excitement, Shiki followed the cult leader into a room.
"Sit."
The leader gestured for Shiki to take a seat.
Then, noticing Hidan's head, he quickly added, "Uh, just put Hidan on the table."
"Got it."
Shiki carelessly placed Hidan's head on the table like an object.
The dismissive treatment nearly made Hidan explode again, but he held back.
"Ahem…"
The leader rubbed his temples, struggling to recall his prepared speech in the face of these two bizarre individuals.
Still, as the cult's leader, he maintained his composure.
His gaze shifted from Hidan to Shiki.
"Since both of you have received Lord Jashin's blessing, you are now the chosen successors of our cult."
"Chosen successors, huh?"
Shiki patted Hidan's head and nodded.
"Hey… are you treating me like a pet now?!"
Hidan finally snapped.
Shiki chuckled awkwardly.
"Sorry, force of habit. I used to pet the thirty-five-year-old cat owned by the eighty-five-year-old granny downstairs all the time."
"You damn—"
"Enough!"
The leader cut them off before another argument could erupt. He focused on Shiki.
"Especially you, Shiki. Though you weren't originally a member of our cult, since you've received Lord Jashin's blessing, you must now devote yourself to him."
"From now on, you will remain here. The cult will provide you with the resources you need to grow. We expect you to help spread Jashin's glory."
Shiki nodded solemnly.
"Understood, Leader. I will ensure Jashin's name spreads far and wide!"
"Good."
The leader nodded in satisfaction, then turned to Hidan's head on the table.
"Hidan, anything to add?"
Finally given a chance to speak, Hidan shouted:
"Damn it, Shiki! That cat owned by your eighty-five-year-old neighbor is clearly thirty-seven, not thirty-five—"
Before he could finish, the leader had already walked out, his back visibly slumping further.
He didn't say a word, but his weary posture spoke volumes.