Hearing Mingye's words, Ara didn't know what to say. He hadn't expected Mingye to be so... terrifying was the only word for it.
"Your moral standards are pretty high, aren't they?"
"My actions are out of necessity! But I don't want to stagnate here. I want strength equal to my brother's—or even greater!"
After speaking, Mingye stepped out of the shadows. A ninja rushing toward the Tailed Beasts charged past him. Mingye raised a hand, sending a whirlwind into the man's back, then swiftly closed in and pierced through his chest from behind. A venomous snake immediately shot from Mingye's sleeve and burrowed into the ninja's body.
"Mingye, you've taken the blood of so many people. Aren't you afraid of retribution?"
Ara watched the snake writhing inside the man's body, unable to bear the sight. It seemed that Mingye, rather than himself, had opened Pandora's box. Mingye merely shook his head, rose to his feet, and looked at the snake refining blood essence within the corpse.
"Are you asking me to make a choice? Every venomous snake was altered by mixing my own blood with the sage water from the Dragon Transformation Pool. Of course, to avoid drawing the Land of Lightning's attention, I made sure that when people were drained of blood to form blood essence, their bodies also became mummified corpses. I took plenty of humane measures. It's not that I hid it from you—you witnessed these things yourself!"
Ara instantly understood Mingye's methods, then smiled and praised him.
"The water of the Dragon Transformation Pool, the snakes' blood, and the Reverse Summoning Technique turning it into a corpse's blood... What a brilliant method!"
Mingye indifferently looked toward the battle in the distance. The remaining ninja had begun fearlessly converging on the three Tailed Beasts. He suddenly thought