Ashigami's voice echoed weakly in the vast, hollow chamber of the grand hall.
Upon the throne, Menma's gaze pierced through the white three-eyed fox mask, settling on the frail priest below, who seemed as fleeting as a candle in the wind, and on the tainted letter clutched in his trembling hands.
He said nothing, merely raising his hand slightly. A golden Chakra Chain shot out, snatching the letter Ashigami held aloft and bringing it into his grasp.
Menma unfolded the letter and found that there was an additional Sealing Technique on it.
However, for a member of the Uzumaki clan like him, it posed little difficulty. Moments later, the seal was undone, and the contents of the letter lay bare before him.
Within the hall, silence reigned as Menma read the missive, broken only by Ashigami's labored, fearful breaths.
Each passing second of silence weighed upon Sokishi like a crushing boulder, threatening to suffocate him.
He didn't know how long had it been… A mere instant, or perhaps an eternity.
"Tell me in detail."
At last, a cold voice, devoid of emotion, descended from the lofty throne, striking Ashigami's frayed nerves with chilling clarity.
Though Miroku had resorted to a written plea for aid, the urgency had limited her words. Menma sought to understand the full scope of the crisis in the Land of Demons through the firsthand account of the man who had escaped to seek help.
At the same time, he was recalling the plot in his memory.
He recalled that during Shion's childhood, her mother had died sealing away a demonic entity. Calculating the time, it would have been around this very period.
Moreover, Shion possessed the most formidable power among all the priestesses in history. In his memories, when Shion finally unleashed the seals upon her body, intricate patterns erupted across her skin… patterns that bore a striking resemblance to Senjutsu.
'Could it be that the priestesses wielded natural energy as well?'
As Ashigami recounted the cataclysmic events in the Land of Demons to this ruler of the Land of Stars, Menma's consciousness rippled outward like an invisible wave, spreading instantaneously through the Chakra network constructed by the Engraved Tsukuyomi.
In various places of the Land of Stars, several figures stiffened simultaneously.
Deep within the underground prison, Hikari set aside her copy of Icha Icha Paradise, her cool gaze sweeping over the imprisoned Hiruko and Nono.
In the administrative building, Kanon paused amidst towering stacks of supply scrolls, cross-checking inventories.
Kimimaro stood motionless in the training grounds, bone spikes half-formed in his palms, while Haku carefully tended to a crystallized flower of ice nearby.
All four froze mid-action as the same voice, the same coordinates, and an unshakable summons echoed in their minds.
Before long, four figures stood assembled within the grand hall.
Hikaru, Kanon, Haku, and Kimimaro stood solemnly at attention.
The priest Ashigami, who was sitting on a chair in the corner, was now eating to replenish his energy, because he had insisted on accompanying them back to the Land of Stars to protect the priestess clan.
"A great upheaval has occurred in the Land of Demons." Menma's voice, muffled by the mask, was icy and devoid of inflection, "The Priestess, Miroku, and her daughter, Shion, have been imprisoned within the shrine by Daimyo, Hama Shun and the nobility. Someone has taken advantage of the chaos to break the demon's seal. The Land of Demons is in turmoil."
Guang's dark eyes flickered slightly as she glanced at Menma, her gaze silently questioning.
"Hikari." Menma's voice was calm but firm as he met her gaze, "You will lead Kimimaro and Haku. We depart immediately for the shrine in the Land of Demons… to rescue them."
He then glanced at Kimimaro and Haku with a scrutinizing look, "Consider this training. Your opponents will be at least Jonin-level. Don't die."
"Yes, Shura-sama!" Kimimaro straightened further, while Haku's breath hitched slightly.
"Kanon." Menma turned to Kanon and said, "Mobilize the Hoshinin Army, and dispatch a force about thirty elite Ninja to the Land of Demons. Prepare a contingent of officials, medical personnel, as well as food, medicine, and other supplies. We will oversee the transition of power in the Land of Demons. I want it stabilized."
"Understood, Shura-sama." Kanon's eyes sharpened with determination as she gave a firm nod.
In an instant, Menma appeared beside Hikari, resting a hand on her shoulder. Understanding his intent, Hikari placed her pale hands on Kimimaro and Haku's shoulders in turn.
"Get ready to go." Kimimaro said, glancing at Ashigami as a reminder.
Though still somewhat confused, Ashigami quickly moved to their side. When Haku's hand settled on his shoulder, the priest's face flushed slightly at the proximity to the delicate-looking 'girl'.
[Flying Thunder God Technique]
In the next moment, space rippled near a mountain outside the Demon City, and five figures materialized inside a cave.
As they stepped out, a frigid wind carrying a sinister aura assaulted them… thick with the stench of blood and an indescribable rot, as if dredged from the depths of the earth.
Ashigami staggered to the cliff's edge, looking down at the city below. His face paled as he saw the once-familiar capital now engulfed in flames, black smoke billowing into the sky.
"T-This is the Demon City?!" He gasped.
"Move!" Before Ashigami could process the devastation, Menma's cold command cut through the air.
A flash of scarlet appeared in Hikari's eyes, and the Three-Tomoe Sharingan opened instantly. The powerful Ocular Power swept forward and locked onto the chaotic Chakra Source in the direction of the shrine.
Her speed surged as she shot forward like a shadow in the night, racing toward the thickest scent of blood.
Kimimaro activated his Byakugan, and together with Haku, they leaped after her, keeping pace.
The secret to freely activating and deactivating Dojutsu Kekkei Genkai had long been unraveled by Menma. Even those with lower Chakra Reserves could now wield such Dojutsu without the usual strain.
And it seems that except for Kakashi, who notoriously struggled with Chakra exhaustion, no other Ninja who had transplanted Dojutsu seemed to suffer debilitating weakness from it.
Menma glanced at Ashigami, then grabbed him like luggage before blurring forward, his speed surpassing the others as he melded with the darkness.
Kimimaro and Haku gritted their teeth against the biting wind, their hearts pounding wildly. This was their first true taste of battle alongside Menma… facing an enemy shrouded in such overwhelming malice. Their blood burned with adrenaline.
…
The shrine of the Land of Demons.
The once solemn and sacred place has turned into a purgatory slaughterhouse.
The outer grounds of the shrine were a grotesque tableau… corpses of the Land of Demons' soldiers, clad in ornate armor, lay strewn across the stone pavement in twisted heaps.
Their deaths were horrifying. Some looked as though all moisture had been sucked from their bodies… shriveled husks with skin stretched tight over bone, faces frozen in silent screams, eyes sunken, mouths agape.
Thick blood pooled between the stone tiles, forming viscous puddles that reeked of iron and decay. The air was thick with the nauseating stench of blood, ruptured organs, and something fouler… a sulfuric, burning odor, as if hell itself had breathed upon the land.
Among these desiccated corpses, another type of body was mixed in.
They wore exquisite silk robes, some obese and others emaciated—clearly the once-arrogant nobles of the Land of Stars, including the Daimyo, Hama Shun himself.
His bloated body lay sprawled in a pool of blood like a torn sack, his luxurious deep-purple clothes soaked in filth, the golden-thread embroidered family crest twisted and distorted.
Hama Shun's eyes were wide with terror, his face frozen in an expression of disbelief. A bizarrely shaped kunai, as if forged from blackened bone, was deeply embedded in his forehead, the flesh around the wound showing ominous purple-black necrotic marks.
The perpetrator responsible for all this loomed at the center of the shrine's main plaza.
It was a horror beyond description.
A massive, writhing, expanding mass of dark-purple chakra, like a living, viscous, and filthy swamp.
Eight enormous, ferocious serpent heads, formed from Chakra so dense it had taken physical shape, their vertical pupils burning with molten gold fury and hatred.
The heavy vermilion-lacquered doors of the shrine's main hall were tightly shut, and a thin barrier of soft white light stubbornly enveloped the building.
Under the relentless assault of the dark Chakra currents, the barrier fluctuated violently, its glow flickering unsteadily, emitting a strained sizzling sound.
Through the faint luminescence of the spiritual shield, the pale face of the shrine maiden Miroku could barely be seen through the door's gap, her arms wrapped protectively around the young Shion behind her.
Miroku's hands formed a hand seal, her entire body's priestess power boiling as she poured it into the barrier. A stark streak of crimson already trickled from the corner of her lips.
Behind her, Shion trembled violently with fear, her violet eyes brimming with tears, her tiny hands clutching tightly to the spherical brooch her mother had given her.
Beneath that massive, twisted mass of dark-purple chakra stood another group… figures clad in bloodstained white robes.
The self-proclaimed Evil Medical-Nin, Yomi, and his followers.
"Miroku, how much longer can you hold on? I can feel it—the barrier's power is weakening."
The leader, Yomi, had a gaunt face with sunken eyes, his skeletal fingers continuously forming hand seals as he chanted under his breath, guiding the dark energy to batter the shield.
The air was filled with the howling of evil Chakra, the hissing of serpents, the wails of the dying, and the sickening sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart.
And at the peak of this despair and crisis-
Several figures burst into this hellscape like meteors tearing through the night!
Hikari landed first, her dark-blue high-collared clan clothes flapping wildly in the chaotic chakra storm.
The instant her feet touched the ground, her pitch-black eyes were already replaced by a deeper, colder scarlet-
[Mangekyo Sharingan]
The pattern formed by three interconnected tomoes spun slowly in her scarlet pupils, instantly locking onto Yomi and his group of Evil Medical-Nin radiating thick bloodlust around him.
She didn't even make any extra movements, just stood there quietly, with invisible killing intent spreading like ice water.
Kimimaro and Haku followed closely behind.
Kimimaro landed without a sound, his pale face as expressionless as ever, but deep within his Byakugan, a cold killing intent burned for the first time.
He slightly raised his right hand, and beneath the skin of his palm, white bone spikes silently pierced through flesh, their sharp edges glinting.
As for Haku, he seemed nervous. But seeing Kimimaro's stance, he took a deep breath and steeled himself. A visible chill began radiating from his body as he gripped a senbon in his right hand.
And then… Menma's figure cut straight into the heart of the battlefield!
His white three-eyed fox mask gleamed in the firelight, his dark-red high-collared cloak billowing, the Nine-Masked Beasts' emblem on his back fluttering behind him.
With every step he took, the surging dark-purple Chakra that tried to corrode his ankles exploded and scattered… as if meeting its natural enemy!
"Impossible!"
Yomi and the others stared in shock and madness.
Menma walked straight up to the violently fluctuating spiritual barrier and stopped.
His position is directly between Miroku and her daughter, and the eight roaring serpent heads!
"You—! Just who the hell are you?!"
The eight dark serpent heads hissed, sensing an unprecedented pressure.