Naruto's figure was sent flying by the vicious slash, tumbling down from the towering height of over 400 meters atop the Buddha statue.
His eyes were still filled with confusion and deep sorrow, unwilling to accept what had just happened.
"Naruto!"
"Snap out of it!"
"That's no longer your father!"
Inside the sealed space, Kurama, who now fully understood Naruto's "true identity," had adopted a completely "tamed" yet still proud demeanor.
The Nine-Tails was doing its utmost to awaken Naruto from his grief, for after all, this boy was the son of the Sage of Six Paths!
The fierce wind howled past Naruto's ears as he fell...
Blood trailed through the air, forming spiraling crimson ribbons as it scattered.
A deep gash had been carved into Naruto's chest—a wound so severe that it pierced straight through his heart and even reached his spine.
Yet Naruto felt no pain in his heart. Instead, he felt an emptiness, a void where once so many people, things, and memories of his village had filled him.
But now, the village was gone... his comrades were dead...
And even his most beloved father had turned into his enemy...
Could it be...
Would he have to kill his own father with his own hands?
"Naruto!"
"Naruto! Quickly!"
"Pull yourself together!"
"What about your ninja way? What about your never-give-up ninja way?!"
"Didn't you vow to surpass all the Hokage before you?!"
"The village can be rebuilt, but if even you fail now, then the hope of Konohagakure, and perhaps the entire shinobi world, will be completely extinguished!"
"Naruto..."
Within the sealed space, Kurama continued relentlessly urging Naruto on.
But to Naruto, the deep growls of the Nine-Tails sounded distant and hollow...
However.
As Naruto's body plummeted, the terrifying wound that would have been fatal to an ordinary person began to heal rapidly!
The writhing flesh, bathed in golden light, quickly closed the gaping chasm in his chest. In mere moments, the gruesome injury was completely mended. Were it not for the bloodstains lingering on the surface, it would all seem like an illusion.
Back when Six Paths Madara had half of his body obliterated, he was able to regenerate using the power of the Six Paths and Hashirama's Yang Release. Naruto, having inherited Yin-Yang Release directly from his father, possessed a recovery ability that rivaled, if not surpassed, that of Six Paths Madara.
As confusion still lingered in Naruto's eyes—
Suddenly.
A powerful shadow of death loomed over him, triggering his survival instincts. The daze in his eyes began to fade rapidly.
But.
As his enemy, Sōmi was not about to let such a perfect opportunity slip by!
"Sage Art: Azure Dragon's Roar!"
Roar!!!
A deafening dragon's roar resounded through the skies.
A colossal dragon head, as large as a house, shot up from below with terrifying momentum.
Its entire body shimmered with an elegant and noble cyan-gold hue. Majestic, curved dragon horns, intricately detailed scales, and rugged yet textured skin all combined to form a vividly lifelike Azure Dragon.
However, its blood-red eyes, filled with a ravenous hunger, shattered the dragon's otherwise divine aura.
Roar!
The dragon's massive maw, lined with razor-sharp teeth, lunged toward the falling Naruto, intending to bite him in half.
Crunch!
The dragon's chilling fangs clamped down mercilessly, their immense biting force even causing faint ripples to distort the surrounding space.
Whoosh~
Yet at this critical moment, golden Chakra erupted wildly from Naruto's body. His hands transformed into two massive golden arms, one above and one below, forcing the dragon's jaws apart.
"Argh!"
"That's right!"
"I can't die here!"
"I have to take down the two of you first!"
"And then... I'll save my dad!"
Having brushed so closely against death once again, Naruto seemed to unlock another level of his strength.
However, this time, his opponent was no longer Uchiha Madara.
Even with just a single Rinnegan and the face of Hashirama embedded in his chest, Madara was still an entire tier below Six Paths-level power.
The fact that Madara had managed to hold his own against Naruto, who had just inherited the power of the Six Paths, was already a testament to his overwhelming combat prowess and ability to "punch above his weight."
But this time, Naruto's opponent was Sōmi!
After scouring nearly the entire shinobi world for top-tier sealing techniques, Sōmi spent years refining his craft. Inspired by the "Dragon Vein Time-Space," he developed his own unique Forbidden Sealing Techniques, ultimately becoming an "unconventional" Ten-Tails Jinchūriki.
Rather than using the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path to house the power of the nine Tailed Beasts, Sōmi employed techniques like the Nine Consuming Dragons Seal, Eight Trigrams Sealing Style, and Sage Removal Suction in tandem.
He extracted, stripped, and filtered the power of the Demonic Statue and the other eight Tailed Beasts, condensing it all into Shukaku, the One-Tail. Through intricate sealing arrays placed upon Shukaku, Sōmi stabilized this immense power within himself.
At present, Shukaku had been put into a "slumbering" state through Sōmi's unique methods.
However, as a Perfect Jinchūriki, Sōmi could still freely manipulate the Ten-Tails' power through Shukaku and the complex network of sealing arrays.
The reason for putting Shukaku to sleep was, of course, to guard against the Sage of Six Paths, the creator of the Tailed Beasts.
Without additional safeguards on Shukaku, any contingencies left by the Sage could trigger a Tailed Beast rampage, leading to an embarrassing scenario like Obito's loss of control.
As Naruto continued to struggle against the Azure Dragon's jaws, he failed to notice that the dragon's body and tail had stealthily coiled around him, encircling him completely.
"Huh?!"
Naruto suddenly realized that the sky above him had grown dark.
In an instant—
Countless crystalline lights began to flicker and emerge around him like stars.
But Naruto had no time to admire this breathtakingly beautiful scene.
What he felt most acutely was an overwhelming sense of oppression...
It was as if he were standing alone in the dead of night, and suddenly the sky collapsed downward while the earth rolled upward, the two forces converging to crush him in their relentless embrace.
From an external perspective, one could see the massive Azure Dragon's body coiling tightly, forming a perfectly rounded cyan sphere.
Gradually, the dragon's body transformed into a solid, jade-like texture of cyan-gold brilliance. Its surface was studded with countless densely packed purple lights, resembling an endless expanse of stars in the night sky.
On the ground below, Sōmi sat cross-legged in midair, his eyes closed and his hands forming seals.
If any practitioners of Senjutsu were nearby, they would notice that Natural Energy from a radius of several dozen miles was being rapidly drawn toward Sōmi as the center.
The boundless Natural Energy condensed into a massive blue vortex above Sōmi's head.
Meanwhile, at Sōmi's feet, a golden whirlpool began to spread outward. Upon closer inspection, this was not ordinary sand, but highly refined gold dust. Its purity was so extreme that it gleamed like liquid gold, rippling and expanding like a shimmering golden lake...
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