"No—!"
As if sensing its impending fate, the Seven-Tails let out an unwilling roar at the final moment before being sealed.
However, this did nothing to change its situation.
In the next moment, the ethereal chains disappeared.
Along with them, the massive body of the Seven-Tails vanished as well, leaving behind only the lifeless corpse of Shimu.
That's right—Shimu was ultimately unable to escape the fate of a Jinchūriki dying after having their Tailed Beast extracted.
Seimei gazed at the corpse in silence for a moment before raising his hand to form seals, casting a Fire Release jutsu—Fire Release: Simple Cremation Technique!
Whoosh!
A surge of flames appeared, engulfing Shimu's body. In just a short while, only a pile of ashes remained.
With a wave of his hand, a gentle breeze swept across, dispersing the ashes into the air.
To be honest, Seimei had no personal grudge against Shimu. He didn't feel strongly about him one way or the other.
But sometimes, that's just how things go—one's will alone cannot change reality.
Perhaps in his past life, he would have felt guilty about killing someone who bore him no ill will. But here, he didn't.
Why? Because this world followed the law of the jungle. Everyone was merely a part of the cycle, and no one could escape it.
As long as one was prepared to kill, they should also be ready to be killed.
Of course, the values ingrained in him from his past life still made him hold human life in higher regard than most.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have had this fleeting moment of sentimentality.
"Ahh…"
With a soft sigh, Seimei withdrew his gaze and turned his attention back to the metal sphere at the center of the scroll.
The surface of the sphere was covered in intricate markings, which emitted a faint glow, making it appear like a precious treasure.
In reality, these markings were nothing more than sealing formulas. The glow was simply a result of the Seven-Tails struggling, its chakra being continuously extracted by the sealing array.
So, there was nothing particularly extraordinary about it.
Seimei stepped forward, picked up the metal sphere, and closed his eyes. With a single thought, he extended his spiritual energy into the sphere.
The next moment, a deafening screech, like the cry of a swarm of insects, echoed in his mind.
Seimei focused his vision and saw an enormous extradimensional space before him.
At the center of this space, the Seven-Tails—its form a hybrid of an insect and a moth—was violently struggling. The screech just now had come from it.
Unfortunately for it, no matter how much it thrashed, it couldn't loosen the chakra chains constricting it.
Indeed, the Seven-Tails was now in the same predicament that Shimu had been moments ago—bound by the Karmic Binding Curse Array.
But in fact, its situation was even worse.
When Shimu was restrained, it had only been by the Karmic Binding Curse Array. But now, the Seven-Tails was bound by a portion of the All-Encompassing Sealing Technique.
Eight chakra chains bound the Seven-Tails, their other ends connected to a sealing array embedded in the surrounding space.
Upon closer inspection, one could see that this sealing array bore striking similarities to the Eight Trigrams Seal.
The eight Karmic Binding Curse Arrays were linked to the eight nodes of the Eight Trigrams Seal, forming a cycle that made escape impossible.
This was why the Seven-Tails' restraints were even stronger.
Additionally, beyond the Eight Trigrams Seal, an outer barrier formed by the Guardian Seal was beginning to take shape.
However, due to the Seven-Tails' resistance, the sealing formation had yet to fully stabilize, meaning the Guardian Seal had not completely formed.
This revealed a weakness in Seimei's mastery of the All-Encompassing Sealing Technique—he was still somewhat lacking in proficiency.
Otherwise, if an S-rank sealing jutsu were executed flawlessly, the Seven-Tails wouldn't even have the chance to resist.
But for now, level 7 was sufficient.
With a thought, Seimei connected his spiritual energy to the surrounding sealing array, then gathered his chakra, taking direct control over the All-Encompassing Sealing Technique to suppress the Seven-Tails.
The moment he joined the struggle, the Seven-Tails' resistance weakened significantly. The sealing process accelerated, and before long, the seal was complete.
At that moment, the Guardian Seal activated, causing the metal sphere in Seimei's hand to appear completely ordinary. All the sealing markings and glowing patterns faded from sight.
Now, even if someone examined it up close, they wouldn't be able to detect anything unusual.
With this, Seimei could carry it with him at all times.
And that, without a doubt, would greatly facilitate his future training.
At this point, the Seven-Tails was entirely under his control.
Reflecting on the sealing process, Seimei felt that everything had gone smoothly—there was nothing particularly surprising about it.
As for unexpected complications? There were none.
Even that so-called Seven-Tails' Breakout had been nothing more than an illusion.
The very instant the Seven-Tails broke free from Shimu's body and began forming its physical form, Seimei had already activated his Mangekyō Sharingan, dragging the beast's consciousness into an illusion.
The subsequent battle?
It had all been the Seven-Tails' own delusion.
If not for the fact that all seven of its tails had fully materialized—granting it a significant power boost that caused a slight flaw in the illusion—it likely would have remained trapped for much longer.
However, even though it had awakened, it had already lost the advantage.
Seimei seized the opportunity and sealed it directly into the metal sphere.
In the end, the moment it failed to unleash its full power upon regaining consciousness, its fate had already been sealed.
Though, even if it had taken action immediately, escape wouldn't have been guaranteed.
At the very least, this outcome spared Seimei a lot of unnecessary trouble—wasn't that for the best?
Weighing the metal sphere in his hand, Seimei didn't waste any time.
He immediately formed hand seals and activated the Chakra Absorption Technique!
After all the effort he had gone through, if he failed to extract the Seven-Tails' chakra, that would truly be a joke.
Thankfully, no such misfortune occurred.
As soon as Seimei completed the seals and pressed his palm against the metal sphere, the Seven-Tails' chakra began flowing through the All-Encompassing Sealing Technique and into his body.
Carefully sensing the process, he noted that there was minimal energy loss.
Clearly, using high-purity chakra-conductive metal to craft the "container" had been the correct choice.
Currently, with both hands at full power, he could extract 1,000 chakra points per second from the Seven-Tails.
As for conversion efficiency…
That issue had already been resolved when he upgraded his Chakra Absorption Technique to level 7 (0/0), achieving perfection.
Now, 99% of the extracted chakra was converted into his own, with minimal loss.
The final concern was the mental impact of absorbing a Tailed Beast's chakra.
Previously, his solution had been to strengthen his spiritual energy.
So far, he had made good progress in that regard.
Compared to before, his Spirit attribute had increased by two points, and he expected a significant boost in the near future.
With that, the risk of mental instability due to Tailed Beast chakra was no longer a major concern.
Now, the only limiting factors were the amount of chakra the Seven-Tails could provide daily and his own ability to endure it.
And for that, a meticulous test was necessary.
Only by fully understanding his limits could he plan his future training effectively.
With that in mind, Seimei temporarily halted the chakra extraction, formed a Flying Thunder God seal, and teleported back to his training island.