"Don't be surprised."
"Something must have happened to that child..."
One either evolved in darkness or sank into it. Looking across the entire ninja world, who could have imagined that he, a man who should have been buried together with the old era, was not only still alive, but had even awakened the Rinnegan before death?
Madara slowly lifted his head. His eyes were pitch-black, only empty sockets remaining. Strangely, even though he had already secretly transplanted the Rinnegan into Nagato, faint ocular power still seemed to seep from those blind eyes, enough to make one's heart tremble.
Black Zetsu was silent for a long while, then said in agreement, "The new generation of the Uchiha does indeed have quite a few outstanding individuals. Lord Madara may not know this yet, but aside from Uchiha Ren, Uchiha Shisui and his younger brother named Itachi both possess impressive swordsmanship as well. At the very least..."
"Judging from the memories White Zetsu sent back, it couldn't withstand them."
Uchiha Madara gave a low hum. Whether because he was tired, or because he had fallen into memory, he moved his fingers wearily and signaled for Black Zetsu to leave. He only reminded him, "Don't concern yourself with too much. Proceed according to the original plan."
Black Zetsu respectfully answered yes. With one step, it slowly sank into the ground, leaving behind only an old man on the verge of death and an emotionless Demonic Statue, silently tasting loneliness together with the desolation.
At the end, as the dark river flowed quietly into an underground stream, a hoarse, eerie laugh slowly echoed out.
"Heh heh... Uchiha Ren. What a fine name..."
"Either destroyed in the ashes, or reborn from them. And you... my descendant, which one will you be?"
Gurgle...
The dark river merged into the underground river, flowing onward to some unknown destination.
In the Uchiha compound, at Fugaku's house, water poured from a garden basin, a thin stream falling and scattering countless droplets.
On this pleasant afternoon, faint snoring could be heard.
After tossing and turning several times and finally emptying his mind completely, Roy entered a dream through deep sleep. With one sleep, he left the Naruto world and set foot on the soft, fine sand beside the Sea of Cognition.
The boy shed Uchiha Ren's appearance and returned to his original form. His black hair instantly turned silver, the tips and middle flowing with glass-gold light. Reflected by the sea, it shone brilliantly.
Roy calculated the time. There were about thirty minutes left until midnight. So he simply sat cross-legged, raised a hand, and transformed Impure World Reincarnation into a scroll through imagination, manifesting it before him.
Then he began studying it carefully.
It had to be said: as the creator of Impure World Reincarnation, Senju Tobirama was unquestionably a genius when it came to imagination. He had actually thought of summoning the dead as cannon fodder to fight for him, then implanting explosive tags into the dead's brains to fully exploit their function and power as human bombs.
After simply reading through the development concept of Impure World Reincarnation and Tobirama's annotations, Roy couldn't help thinking...
If Tobirama had not been born in the ninja world, but in the Hunter world, he would probably have become an extremely powerful Nen user. At least in terms of imagination, his wildly creative thinking was stronger than Senju Hashirama, who merely had overwhelming initial stats.
First, extract the dead person's DNA. Then, using the DNA as a medium and following a fixed chakra pathway, perform a summoning technique to call the dead person's soul back from the Yellow Springs and place it into a prepared vessel...
Finally, implant a kunai engraved with talismans into the back of the target's brain, erasing the dead person's consciousness and achieving complete control...
Roy tried to move the aura inside his body according to the chakra pathway Tobirama had designed, reaching out toward the underworld.
Crash...
Faintly, he seemed to hear the sound of the River of the Dead flowing again.
The far shore was the Yellow Springs.
This wasn't really Impure World Reincarnation at all.
This was completely...
forcibly summoning a dead soul out of the River of the Dead.
Compared to "reincarnation," after giving it a simple try, Roy took a deep breath and preferred to call it—
Otherworld Summoning.
A faint, deathly Nen-light flickered on and off at the boy's fingertip.
After briefly understanding the principles behind Impure World Reincarnation, Roy dismissed the Nen-light and rose to his feet. He turned his head toward the path leading back to reality.
The dazzling dream corridor had split into many branches. Among them, the branch belonging to Great-Grandfather Maha buried hundreds of millions of wronged souls.
The boy quietly watched it. He wondered where, on the Dark Continent, their original burial ground had been when they died in national martyrdom.
Crash—
The azure Sea of Cognition rolled up waves that slapped against the sand.
At midnight, while Roy was looking at the dream corridor,
on the Dark Continent, in the Nation of Hot Springs, in Valentia—the city known as the "City of Purification"—and in Howling Moon Wolf King territory, at a kobold settlement, in a remote little mountain village in Bonebreaker City's River Valley Town, midnight arrived at the same time.
Vanessa had just sent away the last group of guests, while old Koller had just finished coaxing his child to sleep. One held his younger sister, the other held his wife. Following Roy's instructions, they silently recited in their hearts:
"Praise the Sun."
A hazy, invisible mist spread out. As the two slowly closed their eyes and fell into dreams, it enveloped their consciousness and carried it through the dreamscape into the collective unconscious sea.
Buzz...
At the entrance of the dazzling dream corridor, two whirlpools appeared again. Slowly rotating, they reflected the faces of a serpent person and a kobold.
Roy withdrew his gaze at the right time. With a thought, he used the Soul Corridor to summon Taiyi.
"Taiyi, time to work."
In Meteor City's District 4, inside the pale-white church, the young priest held a scripture in his hands and knelt beneath the bright moonlight. Lowering his eyes, he devoutly replied, "Yes, my Lord."
Then he closed his eyes. Responding to Roy's call, his consciousness left his body and instantly entered the dream.
When he opened his eyes again, he appeared beside Roy in a long robe, standing silently half a step behind him.
At that moment, the two whirlpools on the dream corridor grew larger and larger. At some point, Roy sensed two consciousnesses drifting close.
He raised a hand and lightly swept it.
"Gate of the Dream in the Broad Sense, open."
Creak.
Ripples spread through the void.
Two faint doors opened, connecting with the whirlpools and directly guiding the two hazy consciousness bodies inside into Roy's unconscious domain.
And so,
when Vanessa and old Koller suddenly felt their bodies lighten and their feet touch the ground...
they opened their eyes again and had already arrived in that vast, familiar place where direction could not be distinguished.
Looking up,
after that first meeting, they once again saw Roy and Taiyi standing silently in the mist, their bodies wrapped in hazy vapor.
Old Koller and Vanessa could not hide their excitement. They immediately took a deep breath, placed their right hands over their chests, bowed their heads, and devoutly chanted,
"Praise my Lord!"
[Notice: Your follower Vanessa Siren has had her wish fulfilled and has finally received your summons again. Power of Faith +7...]
[Notice: Your follower old Koller Spencer has had his wish fulfilled and has finally received your summons again. Power of Faith +7...]
"Woof, woof..."
"Hiss... hiss..."
A yellow dog barked softly. A venomous snake flicked its tongue.
After not seeing the two for some time, Roy gave a noncommittal hum and raised his hand lightly.
Wind Breathing emerged.
Two gentle spirals of wind spun outward and lifted Vanessa and old Koller upright.
The two raised their heads and quietly looked through the hazy mist.
Inside the white fog...
Taiyi's expression was calm. He gave the two a faint nod. Without anger, he still carried authority. When his deep gaze fell upon them, compared with before, the pressure and majesty around him had become much more restrained, no longer as sharp and exposed as last time.
Yet somehow, old Koller and Vanessa instinctively felt he had become far more dangerous.
Old Koller and Vanessa quietly exchanged a glance, then silently lowered their heads again.
Lord Divine Envoy seems... to have grown stronger again...
Dogs had noses. Snakes sensed heat.
Just as old Koller and Vanessa thought, Taiyi possessed eighty percent of Roy's strength. After Roy underwent several transformations, Taiyi's own power had also surpassed C-rank and reached B-rank. Naturally, his presence was far stronger than before.
"Hm... this isn't a place to talk, my Lord."
Taiyi placed his right hand over his chest and bowed devoutly to Roy.
"Please move."
Vanessa and old Koller echoed, "Praise the Sun. My Lord, please move."
Roy cooperated with Taiyi just like last time. His gaze shifted, and he seemed to become an ancient lord who had weathered the world's frost and seen all its splendor and filth, sighing over the passage of time and the fact that the divine realm of old had turned into a vast expanse of white mist.
He slowly raised his right hand and said softly,
"Return."
Rumble!
The vast white dream-space began shaking violently. As Roy's words fell, its grandeur reappeared.
Whoosh.
Wind rose. Clouds gathered. A great sun rose bright into the sky. Immediately after, world trees so tall their tops could not be seen burst from the ground one after another, serving as pillars to hold up the cathedral dome.
When old Koller and Vanessa looked up, its majesty, its height, and the aura of ancient time it radiated still left them dizzy and captivated, even though they had already prepared themselves.
They couldn't help feeling that perhaps it had always been like this since ancient times. It had only briefly fallen into silence, and now that it reappeared in the world, it would surely shock the world.
"Woof!"
Old Koller's dog head tilted all the way back, and he froze in a dazed stupor.
Beside him, Vanessa did her best to maintain her devout expression and keep it from collapsing. She looked up at the divine hall built from hundreds of interwoven world trees. Compared to the Tide Cathedral once built by the great Siren, this towering temple with a great sun hanging above it was unquestionably superior by an unknown number of levels.
"The divine temple is divine power. The grander it is, the more powerful it is..."
However, Vanessa keenly discovered that the temple before her seemed even taller and more majestic than when she saw it last time.
What did that mean?
Vanessa remembered how an old customer, a toad person, often boasted to her that the Swamp God worshiped by their toad people was immensely great. The temple personally built by that god even stretched across most of the swamp, nearly ten thousand miles, and was still constantly expanding.
Vanessa cautiously looked toward the top of the divine temple.
Beneath the red sun that spilled sunlight everywhere, a throne drifted down. Roy's face could not be clearly seen. He stepped down, turning back into specks of light before sitting upon it again.
Vanessa quietly swallowed.
A terrifying possibility suddenly occurred to her.
The great Sun God, like the Swamp God worshiped by the toad people, was still...
growing stronger.
Buzz...
The dome closed overhead.
The king sat upon the throne, standing beneath the dome and above all others. Casually, he lowered one finger and said,
"Sit."
Wood Release emerged.
Two cloud platforms slowly extended from beneath old Koller and Vanessa's feet, lifting them upward into the sky.
Vanessa and old Koller were deeply humbled. They placed their right hands over their chests and bowed devoutly.
"Thank you, my Lord."
They flew toward Roy, stopping below Taiyi.
Their blood aura was clearly exposed to Roy's eyes as the two suns of the Eye of Truth flared.
This time, he did not need the Monster Codex.
The information belonging to Vanessa and old Koller automatically entered Roy's mind and unfolded.
[Name: Koller Spencer]
[Species: Kobold: D-rank intelligent magical beast.
(Note: Intelligent species: a general term for humanoid magical beasts, phantasmal beasts, rare beasts, and other monsters possessing intelligence no lower than humans.)]
[Rating: D → C-]
[Manifest Aura: D (5,415 / 10,000) → C- (37,000 / 100,000)]
[Latent Aura: C- (5,470 / 100,000) → C (84,000 / 100,000)]
[Breathing Style: Water Breathing (Lv2: 841 / 1,000)]
[Current Status: Prime adulthood, peak condition]
[Note: old hidden injuries and chronic illnesses have been completely removed]
[Evaluation: ordinary Chimera Ant squadron-leader level. In Total Concentration state, can fight scorpion ant Zazan or lion ant Leol.]
Roy quietly looked at old Koller. Seeing him strong and healthy, no longer old and frail, Roy thought to himself that the Water Breathing he had previously granted him had indeed worked as he expected. Even his combat power and potential had risen along with it, which was somewhat gratifying.
Roy nodded lightly with satisfaction, then looked at Vanessa.
[Name: Vanessa Siren]
[Species: Siren Naga: D-rank intelligent "rare beast."]
[Rating: C → D → C
(Note: returned to normal state)]
[Manifest Aura: D (1,415 / 10,000) → C (80,000 / 100,000)]
[Latent Aura: C (84,211 / 100,000) → C+ (60,000 / 100,000)]
[Current Status: negative status removed]
[Note: due to accumulating too much "pollution" inside her body and failing to expel it in time, her diseased body had suffered severe erosion by Nature and had nearly stepped over the edge of losing control. After receiving the host's bestowed qin melody, this has been completely cleared.]
For a moment, Roy thought back to the two of them.
One was old and weak, hoping to return to his prime so he could go back to the guild and earn milk-powder money for his soon-to-be-born child.
The other ran a hot spring, making a living by dispersing "filth" for customers. She had hoped to obtain something called "qin pills" to remove the dirt accumulated in her body, continue serving customers, and prevent her bathhouse from being downgraded.
Unseen, their fates had already quietly changed because of him.
As Roy's emotions shifted, a sense of achievement gradually rose within him. Even his Nen ability, the Gate of Cognition, faintly trembled.
After the Demon Slayer Gate, the Naruto Gate, and the gate suspected to be Bleach, another door opened a crack.