In the evening, the sun was already setting over the Land of Lightning, near Kumogakure. The orange glow of the setting sun spread across the sky, casting long shadows over the land.
Shanks stood silently, with Antares on his right and Guy on his left. None of them spoke. Their attention remained fixed on the distant sky.
This was the location where the Otsutsuki were going to descend.
They had been waiting for the arrival of the Otsutsuki Clan for more than a decade. For more than ten years, they had known that this day would eventually come, and they had spent all that time preparing for it.
And finally, now, the Otsutsuki Clan was arriving.
Since the Otsutsuki were going to arrive here, Kumogakure had been completely emptied. Except for Kumogakure's army, which still remained inside and around the village, there was not a single civilian left in the entire village.
This had only been possible with Antares's help.
Antares had created multiple gate portals throughout Kumogakure, allowing the civilians to leave the village and move far away from the battlefield easily and extremely quickly. Without his gates, emptying an entire village in just three days would have been nearly impossible.
Without those spatial gates, thousands would have perished in the crossfire, Shanks thought, his gaze steady on the horizon. An entire village emptied in three days... a miracle born of necessity.
And if the civilians had remained behind, then once the battle began, the consequences would have been disastrous.
After all, the village itself might ultimately be destroyed.
It was a simple fact.
The upcoming battle against the Otsutsuki was going to be anything but simple or peaceful.
Shanks stood there, waiting patiently for the arrival of the Otsutsuki Clan. His expression remained calm, but his attention never left the sky before him. Beside him, Antares and Guy were equally silent.
A few more moments passed.
Then, suddenly, a thin black line appeared in the distant sky.
The moment it appeared, Shanks, Antares, and Guy all noticed it at the same time.
Their expressions immediately became solemn.
"Here they come."
As soon as Shanks said those words, the thin black line hanging in the orange evening sky began to split open.
The line widened.
Space itself seemed to tear apart as the black line completely opened, revealing a massive, pitch-dark spatial rift. Against the orange sky, the rift looked particularly unnatural, like a giant wound had suddenly been carved into the heavens.
Then, from inside the spatial rift, something enormous slowly emerged.
A giant spaceship.
The spaceship passed through the rift and entered the world. Its massive body immediately covered a large portion of the sky, blocking the fading sunlight beneath it.
Its shape resembled a four-legged octopus.
Although its legs were not exactly like those of an octopus, they were long, pointed, and metallic in appearance. Each of the four enormous legs extended from the main body of the spaceship like gigantic spears.
The spaceship slowly descended.
Its enormous shadow spread across the sea and the nearby land as it moved downward. Soon, the spaceship landed in the sea, just slightly outside the Land of Lightning.
Boom!
One of the giant metallic legs stabbed down only three or four kilometers away from where Shanks, Antares, and Guy were standing.
The sheer size of the spaceship was difficult to ignore.
Compared to it, Shanks's group looked no different from ants standing before an elephant.
Yet none of the three moved from their positions.
They simply waited.
They waited for the spaceship to move.
They waited for the people inside to finally come out.
Fortunately, their wait was not long.
Only around five minutes passed before a sudden movement came from the top of the spaceship.
The top section slowly opened.
Shanks's eyes narrowed slightly.
The first person to float out of the spaceship was an elderly man.
The moment Shanks saw him, there was no doubt about his identity.
He was clearly an Otsutsuki.
He possessed the same distinctive features as the other members of the Otsutsuki Clan—horns extending from his head and long white hair. His face looked quite aged, with the clear appearance of an elderly man.
However, strangely, neither his skin nor his body appeared aged at all.
His posture was straight, and there was no weakness in his movements.
In his right hand, he held a long staff.
At the head of the staff was the symbol of the Otsutsuki Clan.
The elderly Otsutsuki slowly floated above the spaceship.
Then, the moment he fully appeared—
An enormous amount of chakra erupted from his body.
The atmosphere instantly changed.
The vast chakra pressure spread across the surroundings like an invisible wave, pressing against the land and sea. Even from several kilometers away, the sheer presence coming from the elderly Otsutsuki was impossible to ignore.
Guy's expression immediately became serious.
Antares also stared at the elderly Otsutsuki.
Both of them could easily tell one thing.
"This man is far more powerful than Kaguya," Guy realized. "His presence makes her chakra feel unrefined... almost small."
Shanks gave a slight nod after hearing their assessment, his eyes remaining fixed on the elderly Otsutsuki floating above the spaceship.
The immense chakra pressure did not disappear.
Instead, the presence surrounding the spaceship continued to grow.
One after another, more figures began flying out from the opened top of the spaceship.
More Otsutsuki.
They floated into the air before taking their positions behind the elderly man. As more and more of them appeared, the amount of chakra gathered in one place became increasingly overwhelming.
Soon, a large group of Otsutsuki stood floating behind the elder.
Among them, Shanks noticed two familiar faces.
Momoshiki.
And Kinshiki.
Both of them were present among the arriving Otsutsuki.
Shanks's gaze briefly shifted toward the two before returning to the elderly man standing at the front.
It seemed that Momoshiki and Kinshiki possessed a very high standing within the Otsutsuki Clan.
After all, unlike the other Otsutsuki gathered behind the elder, the two of them stood directly beside him.
Floating high above the gigantic spaceship, the elderly Otsutsuki remained at the center, with Momoshiki and Kinshiki at his sides and the rest of the Otsutsuki Clan behind him.
The Otsutsuki had finally arrived.
Just the presence of so many Otsutsuki Clan members and the enormous amount of chakra radiating from their bodies was enough to shake the entire world.
It was not only Shanks, Antares, and Guy who had solemn expressions on their faces.
Far away from the Land of Lightning, in every corner of the world, whether it was a great village or even the smallest settlement, people suddenly felt it.
Civilian and ninja alike.
Everyone felt the pressure.
Everyone felt the fear that naturally rose within their hearts from the unbelievably huge amount of chakra radiating from the gathered Otsutsuki Clan members.
Some civilians stopped whatever they were doing and looked toward the sky with pale faces, not even understanding what they were feeling. Children began crying without knowing the reason, while animals grew restless. Even experienced ninjas instinctively became tense as an invisible pressure seemed to spread across the entire world.
The source was extremely far away from most of them.
Yet they could still feel it.
That alone showed just how terrifying the gathered Otsutsuki Clan was.
Just at this moment, the elderly man, who clearly seemed to be the leader of the Otsutsuki group, suddenly disappeared from his location.
In the next instant, he appeared directly in front of Shanks.
There was no movement between the two locations.
He simply vanished and reappeared.
Clearly, he had used some kind of space-time teleportation to instantly appear in front of Shanks and his group.
However, neither Shanks, Antares, nor Guy was intimidated in the slightest.
The three remained standing in their positions.
The elderly Otsutsuki looked directly at Shanks before calmly saying, "My name is Masashiki Otsutsuki, the elder of the Otsutsuki Clan."
His voice was calm, but there was a natural authority behind every word he spoke.
"You are the leader, I presume, of this world. You are the king. Am I correct?"
Shanks looked directly at Masashiki.
There was no hesitation in his expression as he confidently replied, "Yes."
Masashiki gave a small nod after hearing Shanks's answer.
"Well, your planet has been deemed a threat by the Otsutsuki Clan, and I have been ordered to destroy this planet."
His words were spoken casually.
As if destroying an entire world was nothing more than a simple task he had been assigned.
"But I will give you a chance," Masashiki continued. "A chance to surrender."
Shanks remained silent, waiting for him to finish.
"If you choose to surrender, then you will become proud slaves of our Otsutsuki Clan."
Masashiki paused for a moment.
"But if you choose not to surrender, then..."
He did not finish his sentence.
He didn't need to.
The meaning behind his words was already completely understandable.
Surrender or die.
If they surrendered, they would become slaves of the Otsutsuki Clan.
And if they refused, destruction would be the only result.
The destruction of this entire world.
However, Shanks was not intimidated by the threat in the slightest.
Instead, he looked directly at Masashiki and said, "Well, if you really think that we will succumb to slavery and happily become slaves of the Otsutsuki Clan, then you are very wrong."
His voice remained firm.
"Do you think that we are present here just to submit to you?"
Shanks's expression hardened.
"No."
"We are here to fight to the death."
The air around him seemed to become heavier.
"Either we live, or we die with honor. We won't do anything that goes against our honor."
The moment Shanks finished speaking—
BOOM!
His Conqueror's Haki erupted in full force.
There was no restraint.
There was no attempt to suppress his power.
Shanks released the full pressure of his Conqueror's Haki, and the invisible force exploded outward from his body like a massive wave, spreading across the surroundings.
Masashiki's expression slightly hardened.
"Hmph."
With a cold snort, Masashiki also released his chakra in full.
BOOM!
The two overwhelming auras collided.
Shanks's Conqueror's Haki crashed directly against Masashiki's enormous chakra pressure.
The sky had already turned gloomy due to the arrival of the Otsutsuki Clan and the terrifying presence radiating from them. The orange evening sky had disappeared beneath thick clouds that now covered the heavens.
It almost seemed as if the world itself was anticipating the battle that was about to begin.
As if the world itself was hoping for its own survival.
Hoping that Shanks and the ninjas of this world would become the winners.
Because if they lost—
The destruction of this world was imminent.
As Shanks's Conqueror's Haki and Masashiki's chakra collided, the clouds above them were violently torn apart.
The massive cloud layer split directly above the two.
The sea below became restless, and powerful waves spread outward from the location of their confrontation. The ground beneath Shanks's feet trembled slightly as the pressure from the two continued to crash against each other.
The collision of their auras alone was more than enough to send chills running down the spines of countless ninjas throughout the world.
Every ninja capable of sensing the collision felt it.
Two unbelievably powerful presences were confronting each other.
And among all the ninjas in the world, the ones who felt this collision most clearly were the ninjas of Kumogakure.