"Heh heh!" Kakuzu sneered.
"This is just an appetizer. Those are offerings, but the real protagonist can't die." The sneering Kakuzu actually had the leisure to explain.
He was a person who generally didn't speak much unless it was for money. This mission might bring him a lot of money, so much that he couldn't count it, otherwise, he wouldn't be in such a good mood.
The protagonist was Inoyue, which could be seen from Kakuzu's eyes.
"I didn't expect to fall for it again!" Inoyue was too weak to complain, his entire body supported by Ryoko. This was because Karura couldn't be careless when facing a monster like Kakuzu.
...
Although those ordinary people were offerings, what was truly needed was likely the fresh blood from their bodies.
The blood flowed down the tentacles like water, then permeated into the bluestone slabs. There was no accumulation; it was as if the stone slabs rapidly absorbed all the fresh blood.
Where did the fresh blood go?
This question could be answered by the stone statue on the third floor of the Altar of Heaven.
At this moment, the cold stone statue had changed slightly; there was a warm, reddish sensation within it, as if all the blood had gathered there.
This stone statue might come to life!
Everyone had this thought, Inoyue had it, Karura and Ryoko had it; and Kakuzu, perhaps, was doing this with that very thought in mind.
...
"Ah!" Inoyue groaned weakly, the normal Chakra in his body almost completely depleted, and now his body cells were being extracted without limit. That 'Ah' just now was the beginning of the automatic extraction.
Feeling unwell, Inoyue swayed weakly, and the blood flowing from his arm stained the jade pendant on his chest.
With a 'ding', the jade pendant suddenly glowed purple, and an extremely cold and massive Chakra was suddenly released from the jade pendant, then poured into Inoyue's body.
Ryoko, who was supporting Inoyue, was directly shaken away by this sudden Chakra, and Karura, who was nearby, also felt the anomaly and instantly moved away.
Kakuzu, however, frowned in confusion, then became somewhat excited, as if the sudden change in Inoyue made him feel a sense of déjà vu, yet it also seemed like it wasn't following his script.
The powerful Chakra orb lifted Inoyue off the ground, and visibly fierce Chakra drilled into Inoyue's body.
What would it feel like to have such cold and massive Chakra directly drill into one's body?
Just thinking about it made Karura and Ryoko tremble all over; it was like countless embroidery needles drilling into and pricking the body, the same principle.
The Chakra was too massive; the body should have exploded. The human body couldn't bear such a large amount of Chakra.
Even a Jinchuriki uses the human body as a medium to create a separate space to seal the Tailed Beast.
Directly absorbing such a massive amount of Chakra like this, being bloated to death would be light; dying without a complete corpse would be the normal outcome.
However, Inoyue didn't explode. His body was like a pipe, a very large pipe. The massive Chakra entered his body and then disappeared without a trace, not knowing where it went. In any case, not much Chakra remained in his body.
The Chakra's destination? Very simple, it all went to Inoyue's Shadow Clone. It was transmitted across time and space, just like Minato Namikaze's Flying Thunder God.
Because of this, Inoyue's Shadow Clone was not crushed by twelve tons of water, and it was precisely this sudden surge of cold Chakra that allowed the Water Formation Wall jutsu to manifest the power of a water tornado.
Such a massive amount of Chakra completely exhausted Inoyue's Shadow Clone.
..One can imagine that the appearance of that monstrous water tornado was quite difficult to achieve.
Bearing the invasion of the cold Chakra, the clone exhausted all its Chakra. At the moment the water tornado formed its power, the Shadow Clone finally couldn't hold on and, with a 'bang', disappeared.
The Shadow Clone disappeared, experience stacked, and the pain on his body also stacked.
The injury on his shoulder, the pain of his body being re-invaded by the cold Chakra, all returned to the main body. If his mental strength wasn't several times that of an ordinary person, Inoyue might have already fainted, but now he wanted to faint but couldn't.
"Even if I faint, being killed by Kakuzu would be fine." This was Inoyue's current thought, a somewhat spineless thought, but he truly had such a thought because he desperately wanted to be free from this pain.
This wasn't Inoyue being spineless, but truly unable to bear it.
...
The purple, cold Chakra completely drilled into Inoyue's body. After being consumed by the clone, less than one-tenth of the cold Chakra remained in his body, but even this small amount was large enough for the human body.
Without Chakra to float him, Inoyue fell to the ground.
Every cell in his body ached and screamed in protest. Inoyue was powerless, remaining in the posture he fell into, lying on the ground.
He cried! His face was clearly covered in tears.
It hurt too much; even the top ten tortures of the Qing Dynasty wouldn't be a thousandth of this pain.
Cry! Cry! A man crying is not a sin. At this moment, Inoyue cried without any regard for his image, whimpering like a child afraid of pain.
He was a child after all! Only eight years old.
...
...
Inoyue was not dead; he was still alive. This was a very surprising thing!
However, after the surprise, Karura, Ryoko, and Kakuzu all rushed towards Inoyue on the ground simultaneously.
Karura and Ryoko were for protection, while Kakuzu regarded Inoyue as the protagonist he spoke of.
Sand quickly blocked the way, but Kakuzu was too strong and it didn't cause him much interference.
Lifting the tearful Inoyue with one hand, Kakuzu threatened Karura and Ryoko: "If it weren't for the fact that you two are the next offerings, hmph hmph, you would already be dead."
With the hostage in hand, Karura and Ryoko were somewhat hesitant to act. However, even disregarding Inoyue's life, the two of them didn't have much chance of winning against a monster like Kakuzu.
Every cell in Inoyue's body still hurt. At this moment, he had no other option but to cry, unable to even move a finger. So he could only let Kakuzu manipulate him.
Kakuzu carried Inoyue to the now blood-red stone statue, pulled out a kunai with his left hand, and lightly swiped. Inoyue's wrist was cut open, and blood flowed out, dripping onto the blood-red stone statue below.
The stone statue quickly absorbed Inoyue's fresh blood, as if it couldn't wait, without a moment's delay.
After absorbing the dripping blood, the multifaceted face of the stone statue automatically softened, as if it had come alive.
"Hehehehe... Haha!" The mouth of the seemingly alive stone statue opened, and strange laughter continuously erupted. Then it began to rotate clockwise, drawing a circle on the ground.
The rotating stone statue scraped the large bluestone slab with a cracking sound, and small gravel flew everywhere.
In a few seconds, a circular groove appeared. The large bluestone slab was actually scraped out into a concave circle by the rotating stone statue.
The concave circle extended downwards, reaching a depth of more than ten meters, forming a large deep well. Logically, this depth was already below the third floor of the Altar of Heaven.
With a "boom", the sound of the rotating stone statue suddenly disappeared, as if it had drilled into a hollow space. It was like drilling a well and hitting an underground river; the stone statue directly fell down. A cold aura, similar to the purple Chakra from earlier, erupted from the well.
This was just an aura, not Chakra, but it was this aura that made people somewhat resistant, as if it were the aura of the world of death. This world was a place where the living should not go.