A chill ran through Hashirama's heart, and he could only give a bitter smile.
In Qin's Nation, time remained unchanged. But in the Naruto World, three full years had already passed since the King's Road.
Three years… and yet his own progress could only be called stagnant.
"Madara, from here on, you and Hashirama will take charge of unifying the Naruto World. General Yang, assign them an army. I want the two of you to finish everything in the Naruto World in the shortest time possible." Qin Yi's voice was cold, stripped of the familiar warmth of his usual smile.
The invasion of the Immortal Cultivators had forced clarity upon him. Any hesitation, any delay, would only leave their world weak. And weakness in this vast universe meant being trampled like ants.
In the endless starry sea, even a civilization of the Starlight rank was merely a beginner, unqualified to compete.
For Qin Yi, time itself had become life.
"Understood," Madara replied with a curt nod, his expression as cold as stone.
Hashirama's foolish compassion had long earned his disdain. Now his resolve was firm: he would drown the Naruto World in war if necessary, until the banner of Qin's Nation flew over all.
"Furthermore, the reconstruction of the nation must accelerate," Qin Yi said again, turning his heavy gaze upon the gathered court. That apocalyptic palm strike had shattered continents, claimed countless lives, and weakened the empire's strength. Yet Qin Yi endured. He had no choice but to endure.
"Hold a funeral for the dead. Carrying their sorrow, we must continue forward. Let the people of the nation remember this day, remember the cruelty of the cosmos. If we are not strong, we die. Only by stumbling onward along the path of ascension among the civilizations of the stars can we secure our place. Only then can we earn the right to survive, to seize control of our own lives."
The words were spoken softly, but each carried the weight of mountains. Gone was the easy grace he once bore.
Without true strength, there was no safety, only illusion. The King's Road had never promised smooth passage.
"You have ten years of Qin's Nation time. In that span, you will unify the entire Naruto World!" Qin Yi's fingertip tapped against the table, sealing his command like a death sentence.
"I understand. Rest assured, Your Majesty," Hashirama said through gritted teeth.
The death of Gandalf still weighed heavily on him. Yet in that grief, his eyes had cleared. To step beyond the Naruto World was a stroke of fortune, but it also meant facing a harsher, more merciless reality.
"And after that… the Pirate World."
Qin Yi's eyes glimmered as he spoke slowly.
In that sea of pirates, the power of Qin's Nation already dominated half of the Grand Line's first half, an undeniable force equal to the Yonko. Worse still, they had become a bone lodged in the throat of both the World Government and the Marines.
Before his departure, the World Government and the Marines had already issued a final declaration of war.
Outraged by Qin's Nation's brazen defiance, the Marines had gathered the Shichibukai, assembled the world's strongest experts, and prepared to unleash their full fury against Qin's Nation.
The calm before the storm had ended. Soon, the empire would face a tempest of steel and blood.
And yet, Qin Yi felt no fear.
The two realms had connected. Even if the World Government unleashed the full power of the world against him, Qin Yi felt no fear. How much less, then, could a mere Marine make him falter?
"I will wait no longer. The game of boiling the frog slowly must be reserved for far greater worlds. The Pirate World must be unified quickly, brought into the march of our civilization! General Yang, ready our armies."
"Yes, Your Majesty!" General Yang answered at once. As a general of Qin's Nation, nothing stirred his blood more than the conquest of lands.
After making arrangements for disaster relief, Qin Yi dismissed the crowd.
He sat in silence for a long while before rising and stepping out.
Half an hour later, he walked across the scarred, broken land of Qin's Nation. His heart weighed heavily.
The fleeting image he had glimpsed earlier hadn't carried the full truth. But now, seeing it with his own eyes and feeling it with his own body, Qin Yi grasped the full terror of that single palm strike.
Rivers had been shattered, mountains flattened into plains. Jagged lines, like the creases of a palm, carved themselves across the earth. Countless buildings lay crushed into rubble. Everything, absolutely everything, had been ground to dust.
The sight shook Qin Yi to his core. And for the first time in a long while, a thin thread of fear wound its way into his heart.
He had thought his path was clear: to journey through one world after another, raising his civilization's level, growing ever stronger. But now… now he realized the universe itself harbored crises no less terrifying than those worlds.
"Black Tortoise!"
"King Shang Jiang!"
He muttered the two names, and his eyes turned cold.
In the air lingered not only the dreadful surge of Spiritual Qi left by Black Tortoise's palm, but also faint traces of the King's Strength.
Qin Yi could feel the immensity of those two powers echoing in the atmosphere.
"Their energy level far surpasses chakra, Devil Fruit abilities, or even Haki. So this… is the power of an Immortal Cultivator?"
In that moment, Qin Yi's understanding deepened. Worlds like those of anime, marvelous, shocking, powerful on the surface, were still, at their core, far beneath the tier of Immortal Hero (xianxia), high fantasy, or advanced sci-fi universes.
Those worlds were too small, their powers too fragmented. They had no true source, or if they did, it was far too insignificant to compare with the origin-level worlds of Immortal Heroes.
And even within the same classification of worlds, vast disparities still existed.
"What a power to yearn for…"
Qin Yi whispered, raising his palm, feeling the lingering waves of vast Spiritual Qi in the air.
As for the name King Shang Jiang, that was information he had drawn from another exchange of King's Strength.
Clearly, it had been left behind deliberately, by that so-called father of his.
"You spied upon me once, and already you cling to me like this?"
"I must admit… you've truly angered me, King Shang Jiang!"
His eyes sharpened, his gaze filled with the image of that King, stepping out of the void, a nation kneeling in worship at his back, wielding a tide of unstoppable might.
"I swear, one day, that palm strike will be returned in full!"
That day, Qin Yi crossed countless miles of his nation's wounded lands, immersing himself in the residue of those two powers, etching the experience deep into his heart.
At dusk, he saw Hashirama and Madara, leading their forces as they prepared to march into the Naruto World.
"There are no few experts in the era of the Hokage," he mused, his eyes glinting.
With a wave of his hand, he carved across the void before him.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A clock surfaced in the air, its surface rippling, distorted, radiating with waves.
"At this moment, I can push the time ratio of the Otherworlds… to the limit, tenfold!"
His fingers moved, the clock groaning as radiant light burst forth.
At that instant, Madara and the others, just stepping into the Naruto World, lifted their eyes skyward, their gaze flashing with sudden awareness.
"The flow of time… has changed!"
(End of Chapter)
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