Dirty hands

Yami noticed that the tent didn't have any guards at the entrance which came as a surprise to him. If this tent was important enough to be kept in the middle area then why isn't it protected?

Yami entered the tent and the thick smell of blood and the sight of corpses and blood assaulted his senses. He who had killed so many people had never seen such a sight.

He heard a few slashing noises coming from a corner so he looked in that direction and saw a man with a cloth covering his nose and mouth holding a big meat chopper in his hand.

"What the hell is going on here?" Yami asked as he looked at the entire scene. The man also heard this and looked at him. "Ron, it's you...Where the fuck have you been." The man placed his chopper to the side and removed the cloth on his face.

"Sho? What the hell are you even doing? Captain told me to come and help you to take the bodies. I thought he was talking about burying the ones that died in the conflict or mass burning them." Yami said.

Sho clicked his tongue and said "I thought the same thing when I took this task. Turns out this was the worst of all. And where have you been? Captain was going to declare you as a traitor but things happened so fast that he didn't bother going through the entire paperwork."

Yami rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment and said "I was a little too drunk man. I was woken up by a stone shinobi in hurry and I was given menial jobs to do. That's why it took me so much time to come here and find you."

Such lousy behavior was not something new for Ron so Sho didn't think much about it. He started putting on the cloth to cover his face and said "Alright...come and help me now. We have a lot of work to do at the chopping block."

"What chopping block? What is happening here? It's so creepy here." Yami said acting a little scared.

Sho sighed as he heard this and said "We have to take a corpse and slash where his main nerves are. After that hang them up on those hooks below that big vessel." Sho said as he walked with Yami near a corner of the tent. There were three corpses on a stand with a big hooks through their chest. Their blood was dripping down from their body into big vessels.

"Why are we draining this blood and whose corpses are those?" Yami asked to which Sho pointed in the corner and said "Look there...they are shinobis from every side. Us, the stone shinobis, the bloodline shinobis, everyone who has died today are to be drained of blood and then chopped into pieces." the corner was filled with shinobi headbands and other utilities.

With a look of disgust on his face, Sho continued "I know we are treating humans like wild animals and even cutting them like that but there is nothing we can do about it. A cultist came and gave the orders. Even the captain could object to a single word that man said. So as long as I don't have to take a bite from that meat, I am doing this."

'Is this where the sacrifice will be held? This doesn't look much like a sacrifice and more like a feast.' Yami thought when he suddenly frowned after hearing his own thought. He quickly shook his head and said "No..that can't be.. I am just overthinking things." he murmured.

"What happened now? I told you to start doing it and you will get used to it in an hour." Sho said as he took down a corpse from the hook and threw it on the chopping block.

'I have a very bad feeling about this. I have never felt like this before. I must do something and that too fast or else things might take a turn for the worse.' Yami thought.

"Sho, are these the only corpses we have, or are more coming?" Yami asked.

"There are 30-40 more behind the tent. You can go and see for yourself." Sho said as he pointed toward a small exit that had traces of blood around it which meant that Sho dragged the bodies from inside here. Yami went closer to the hole and opened the flap to see 3 rows of bodies laid in front of it. Each row had more than 10 corpses and they all had their shinobi attire on.

Yami closed the flap and stood beside Sho was cleaning his chopper and said "So Sho, what about the families of these people? Do they know what happened to them?"

Sho chuckled and said "Who cares." and kept the chopper aside to take off the clothes from the body. Yami also smiled upon hearing that and said "Right, who cares." he instantly picked up the chopper and slashed it at Sho's head. With a clean swipe, Sho's head was cleanly cut from his body, and fell to the ground while his body was still standing with a fountain of blood coming out from his neck.

Yami pushed the body in front of him so that the blood doesn't spill on him. He crouched and looked at the fallen head. He saw that Sho's eyes were widened and had an expression of horror which means he didn't die the moment he was decapitated.

'Wow, I didn't know a person can have a conscious mind for a few seconds after being beheaded.' Yami thought. Such small things had always fascinated him in his previous life, but he couldn't just kill someone to get his answers this world was different.

Yami looked at the horrified expression and said "He must have died in suspense thinking why his friend killed him like that without any warning or reason. I don't know why but I find it a little funny."

Yami then looked at his tattoo and understood that his coldness towards life might be because of the use of the devouring law. He activated the tattoo and one by one devoured all the bodies inside and outside the tent including Sho's.

He then looked at the big vessels which had chopped up humans and the other one which had human blood in it.

'I don't want to devour something so gross. I don't even want to go near it but I doubt it will be enough for the ritual.' Yami thought.

He then put some paper bombs in different parts throughout the tent and came outside. He came out from the flap which had the bodies. He knew that the other side had other tents with guards outside each of them. He was looking around to put more of them on the nearby tents but then he heard footsteps coming toward the tent and not just one but multiple.

"Priest Ji, what is the problem? You left the meeting in a hurry...can you tell us what has happened?" A hooded figure walking beside Ji, asked as Ji looked at the black tent a few meters away from him and walked fast.

"The smell of blood decreased suddenly. I want to know what happened. It was such a simple job and I was clear enough when I told that idiot captain not to use storage scrolls or anything like that to store the bodies." Ji said as he continued to walk.

"Then the ones that the captain told to do the task must have completed it. Although it hasn't been long he must have drained and cut multiple bodies. And the tent has been covered with many different seals so it must have stopped the smell of blood from leaking out.

Ji shook his head and said "No...that's not possible. the smell won't just go away like that. Just as they were talking, they reached the backside of the tent where there wasn't even a single body.

"Huh? did he and his men manage to drain and cut all those bodies within 2 hours?" the hooded figure asked but Ji didn't stop there and opened the flap to go inside the tent. The hooded figure wanted to stop Ji but Ji had already gone in so he also went inside through the flap.

As he went inside, he saw that there was no one in the entire tent. "Where did these idiots go? If they had finished their work then they should have notified us." the hooded figure said but Ji stopped him and pointed toward the direction of the vessels and said "Look at them...they aren't even half full which means they didn't finish even half the work and where have they taken all the bodies. I am sure they must have put them in a scroll. Let's go find that captain." Ji said and left the tent through the main entrance from the tent.

As they came out, they saw the captain sitting with a few other squad captains laughing about something.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" Ji asked in an angry voice. Nor was the work completed but the bodies were also missing.

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