Chapter 3: First-Tier Gene Lock
"Who's there?!"
Uchiha Ren drew a kunai, his eyes darting around warily.
And then he saw it.
His blood ran cold.
Two figures stood on a thick tree branch!
If any other member of the Uchiha Clan had seen one of their faces, they probably would have offered a friendly greeting, "Ah, Lord Uchiha Ji, thank you for your hard work!"
But this was Uchiha Ren, who knew the plot.
If it were just Ji, it might have been manageable.
But the other one... wore a mask, revealing only a single eye.
The man who acted like a fool in public but secretly plotted to create a world where he could be with Rin—the maniac Uchiha Obito.
These two felt not a shred of emotion, let alone sympathy, for the people of the Uchiha Clan.
Obito was here to collect Sharingan for his Eye of the Moon Plan.
Ji was here for the sake of the so-called peace of Konoha.
In short, the Uchiha Clan was born with an original sin. To be an Uchiha was to deserve death!
"He saw us. Kill him," Ji said, raising the sword in his hand.
"Just some trash without even a forehead protector. Kill him," Obito said with a shrug.
"Pfft!"
By the time Uchiha Ren realized Ji was going to kill him, his body was already flying backward.
He hadn't even had time to form the seals for a substitution jutsu.
He carved a tragic, beautiful arc through the air.
His vision blurred.
All he could hear was the howling of the wind and the rustling of distant leaves.
He felt a searing pain in his chest—the fatal blow from Ji's sword!
His body slammed heavily onto the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
His consciousness began to fade, but the shouts of Pirate Ren Arakawa and Stephen Fang echoed clearly in his ears.
"Naruto World Ren Arakawa! Hold on! We still need you!" Pirate Ren Arakawa's voice was filled with anxiety and unwillingness to accept this.
"Brother, you can't just give up! We still have so much to do!" Stephen Fang's voice was also filled with despair.
Hallucinations began to appear before Uchiha Ren's eyes.
He saw himself successfully awakening the Sharingan, fighting against Ji and Obito. He saw himself escaping prison with Pirate Ren Arakawa. He saw Stephen Fang fighting Thanos in the Marvel world.
But all of it blurred and faded as his life slipped away.
He wanted to respond, to tell them he wouldn't give up, but the blood in his mouth prevented him from making a sound.
His body began to grow cold, his life force draining away rapidly.
He could feel his heartbeat growing fainter, each beat a struggle against death.
"No... it can't end like this..." Uchiha Ren screamed in his heart. His fingers twitched slightly, but he no longer had the strength to grasp anything.
The figures of Obito and Ji had already disappeared into the forest. They didn't look back, nor did they notice Uchiha Ren's faint life force. They couldn't even be bothered to dispose of the body.
Their target was the entire Uchiha Clan. Uchiha Ren was merely a minor footnote in their plan.
Uchiha Ren's consciousness blurred. He felt as if his soul was about to leave his body. He struggled to hold on to the last shred of clarity, but darkness rushed in like a tidal wave, completely engulfing him.
Before his last wisp of consciousness vanished, he heard the weeping and furious roars of Pirate Ren Arakawa and Stephen Fang. From another world, they seemed to sense his death.
Their hearts ached, their anger burned.
Uchiha Ren's last words were silent: "I'm sorry, my brothers. I did my best..."
Then, everything fell into silence.
---
[Do you want to know the meaning of life? Do you want to... truly live?]
Whenever the corporate slave Ren Arakawa recalled these words, he hated himself for clicking "Yes."
If he hadn't clicked it, perhaps he wouldn't have ended up in such a dead-end situation!
"Not many newcomers this time. Looks like the instance difficulty for The Grudge isn't high. Let's just chop them up first, save ourselves the trouble."
"Ah!"
Screams echoed all around, but the corporate slave Ren Arakawa was already numb.
His eyes had been gouged out, his four limbs severed.
Like the other "Reincarnation Space survivors" stuffed into several wine jars around him, he had been turned into a human swine.
Every time they cleared a horror movie, he and the other human swine would be returned to the Main God Space by a flash of white light.
Then, they would trade the survival rewards they obtained to the three members of the "farming team" named Da Qiang, Er Niu, and Meng Rui.
Because the points from multiple human swine were funneled to just the three of them, their individual strength was overwhelming.
Coupled with the fact that they controlled the number of members in their Reincarnation Squad to manage the difficulty, their team's survival rate was incredibly high. They practically steamrolled through the horror movies.
Fortunately,
As one of the human swine, Ren Arakawa was "lucky" enough to have not yet been abandoned for the sake of controlling the difficulty.
But being alive was no different from being dead.
Without hands, feet, or even eyes, his life was only temporary.
In this perilous world of reincarnation, one had to strive to improve themselves every minute of every second.
He, on the other hand, had "stably" passed through three horror movies, but the instance difficulty was increasing exponentially.
If his calculations were correct, his life would be over soon.
'Whatever. I might as well consider myself dead from the moment I clicked yes.'
"Rumble—"
The violent shaking sent the corporate slave Ren Arakawa bumping around inside the wine jar!
He felt the world spin.
"Crack!"
The jar was broken!
The sound of car horns nearby made Ren Arakawa realize an extremely serious problem!
He had actually fallen out of the truck that was transporting the human swine!
"Brother Qiang! One of the meat pigs fell out!"
"Forget the pig! Dammit! Kayako is catching up! Step on the gas! That thing is too ruthless! Let's run first!"
A bone-chilling cold swept over the corporate slave Ren Arakawa's entire body.
He instantly felt as if he had been thrown naked from a height of ten thousand meters into the seventy-below-zero depths of the Arctic!
Cold!
So cold he could die!
He shivered, wanting to hug himself for warmth.
But what arms did he have?
His pair of hands had long been chopped off under the small knife of that vicious woman called Meng Rui.
An overwhelming chill shot from the top of his head straight to his heart.
"Gah... gah... gah..."
A strange sound echoed in his ears.
Having long since watched the horror movie *The Grudge*, Ren Arakawa realized what was happening.
The boss of this instance, Kayako, was standing right in front of him!
"Gah, gah, gah!"
The sound coming from Kayako's throat made the hairs on the corporate slave Ren Arakawa's body stand on end!
This was a tremor that came from the genetic level!
"Gah... gah... gah..."
As the sound grew closer and closer, an extremely strong desire to live suddenly erupted from the bottom of the corporate slave Ren Arakawa's heart.
'I won't accept this!'
'Those three dogs!'
'I must see them die!'
'I will return everything they've done to me, tenfold!'
'I can't die!'
'I can't die!'
'Just let me live a few more days!'
'I'm begging you!'
'You bastard god!'
"Voom!"
In that instant!
The corporate slave Ren Arakawa suddenly discovered he could "see" things!
No!
This wasn't seeing with his eyes!
This was a spiritual power originating from the depths of his soul!
At the same time, countless memories flooded into his mind.
'Terror Infinity?!'
'Main God Space?!'
In a flash, his memories synchronized. The corporate slave Ren Arakawa instantly understood what had happened to him!
Gene Lock.
First Tier.
Unlock!!!
At the very same moment, in the forest outside the Hidden Leaf Village.
A leaf drifted down with the wind, landing beside the hand of Uchiha Ren, who lay in a pool of blood.
His little finger...
twitched slightly.
(end of chapter)