A Strange Tech Tree

In the pitch-black corridor, a tide of Black Beetle swarmed forward, emitting a rhythmic crunching sound as they devoured every corpse submerged within their ranks.

These corpses would be converted into energy and stored within their bodies to prepare for the battles ahead.

Naturally, while upgrading the Black Beetle, Simu had specifically invested skill points into their reproduction.

In other words, these Black Beetle were now a genuine species capable of continuation and propagation.

If Simu were to relinquish his control over them, they would immediately swarm and devour everything in their surroundings, then instinctively begin to breed frantically.

Under such circumstances, the population of the Black Beetle would expand continuously until they infringed upon the interests of other, more powerful species, eventually triggering a life-or-death war to determine the fate of the race.

In truth, this was not just the destiny of insects.

It was also the destiny of men.

Simu adjusted his glasses and continued walking toward the depths of the corridor.

At the end of the corridor stood a massive steel wall, which seemed to require a specific technique to open successfully.

Simu, of course, did not know this technique, and he had not obtained any specific information from Orochimaru's Snake Clone either.

Therefore, Simu had no choice but to resort to more violent methods.

It's the perfect time to test the power of those little ones.

Simu slowly raised his palm, and several black insects crawled out from the mouthparts in his palm, attaching themselves to the steel gate before him to form the character "Great."

These insects were different from the Black Beetle.

The Black Beetle were pitch-black and incredibly hard, with a durability comparable to iron sand.

The Explosive Bug, however, had soft bodies and prominent, bloated bellies, and they were larger in size than the Black Beetle.

After all, their bodies contained the entire formula of a Kibaku Fuda; as long as Simu willed it, the Chakra generated by the Explosive Bug itself would immediately trigger the formula buried within them, resulting in an explosion.

Simu put on a show by raising his fingers into a hand seal, saying indifferently, "Bug Release: Great Character Explosion Technique."

The next second, the Explosive Bug attached to the gate swelled up instantly, and with a thunderous boom, a terrifying flash of fire illuminated the entire corridor, causing even the ground to tremble violently.

Even the thick steel gate could not withstand an explosion of this magnitude.

The gate rapidly turned red and melted under the high heat, then shattered and was blown away by the subsequent shockwave.

Crossing through the high-temperature heat wave and thick smoke produced by the explosion, a massive arena appeared before Simu.

The floor of the arena was covered in bloodstains and scratches left by various weapons.

Surrounding the arena were countless stacked prison cells, though many of them were empty.

Behind the arena lay what should be the laboratory where Orochimaru conducted his various experiments.

As soon as Simu stepped into the arena, dozens of figures appeared almost simultaneously.

There seemed to be no fear in their eyes, and without a second thought, they launched an attack on Simu, the intruder.

But the battle was short-lived; the moment they appeared, the surrounding Black Beetle gathered together, forming a long, slender black scythe of the God of Death under Simu's control.

"Bug Release: Evil Bug Dancing Blade Technique."

The scythe flashed by, instantly reaping the souls of the dozen enemies before him and slicing their bodies in two.

As the corpses fell one by one, Simu's true target finally emerged.

That was Orochimaru's laboratory.

Simu was very much looking forward to seeing what kind of research results Orochimaru would reveal to him.

At this moment, Hidan, having finished his own battle, finally arrived and immediately began to complain: "Huh? You jerk Simu, you killed everyone, what am I supposed to kill?"

Simu glanced at Hidan and said, "Who told you to be so slow? They were just a bunch of small fry, after all."

Possessing an Immortal Body, powerful taijutsu, and a Kagune, dealing with those guys was as easy as drinking water for Hidan.

Hidan lifted his chin and said to Simu with disdain, "What do you know? Killing is an art form!"

"If you just let the enemy be finished off with a single slash like that, Lord Jashin will never be satisfied!"

Speaking of this, Hidan revealed a fanatical smile: "Only by torturing them to death and releasing all the pain and fear within the sacrifice will Lord Jashin feel the greatest pleasure."

"Boring."

Simu gave his evaluation point-blank.

"No matter how hard you try to please Lord Jashin, little Hidan, it will never forgive you."

"Huh?"

Hidan tilted his head, confused: "I don't think I've ever done anything to offend Lord Jashin, have I? Why wouldn't Lord Jashin forgive me?"

"Wait, if I haven't done anything wrong, why would I need Lord Jashin's forgiveness?"

To this, Simu only offered a mysterious smile: "You'll find out when Lord Jashin reappears in the Shinobi World."

This explanation naturally sparked Hidan's dissatisfaction.

"What is that supposed to mean? I hate people like you who keep secrets!"

Hidan wanted to press the issue, but he realized that the Black Beetle belonging to that guy Simu were already crawling on his neck.

If he continued to pester him, the outcome was easy to imagine.

"Hmph, what an unpleasant guy!"

Hidan said with great dissatisfaction, though unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it.

Although being decapitated by Simu wouldn't kill him and even brought a strange sense of comfort.

But!

Hidan would absolutely never show it; he even had to deliberately act as if he hated being decapitated.

Otherwise, that guy Simu would definitely stop cutting his head off just to punish him.

Hehe, I, Lord Hidan, am such a clever little devil!

Following Simu into the laboratory, a rare look of astonishment appeared on Hidan's face.

"Huh, this Orochimaru seems more like a follower of Lord Jashin than we are, right?"

Hidan wasn't joking, because inside the laboratory, there were hundreds of large test tubes placed densely together.

Each test tube was filled with some kind of green liquid, which Simu guessed might be a nutrient solution.

Floating within the nutrient solution were test subjects, one after another.

From infants to the elderly, there were test subjects from every stage of human life!

Furthermore, every single test subject showed some degree of deformity.

It was impossible to tell exactly what kind of experiment this Orochimaru was conducting.

Even their Jashin Cult only killed people to sacrifice them to Jashin, whereas Orochimaru captured them to perform all sorts of inhumane human experiments.

If anyone deserved to be called a living Yama, it had to be him!

Of course, Simu wasn't particularly repulsed by all of this.

On the contrary, the level of technology displayed by this laboratory of Orochimaru's truly surprised him.

Not only were there various precision instruments, but there were also large computers specifically used to monitor the test subjects and analyze various data.

This truly subverted Simu's imagination regarding the level of technological development in this world.

After all, the ninjas outside were still using the most primitive cold weapons to fight, yet here, they were actually using computers.

This technology tree was skewed to an absurd degree.