Two days passed.
Working together, Uchiha Yoru and Ying completed the barrier surrounding Snow Village.
Just as Yoru had predicted, because they made use of the area's unique environment, the barrier possessed remarkably powerful effects and was more than sufficient to protect the village.
For an entire year, even a Kage-level shinobi approaching the area without precise intelligence would unconsciously deviate from a straight path and pass around Snow Village in a wide arc.
Unfortunately, the flaws in the barrier were also exactly as Yoru expected.
Its structural instability was quite obvious.
At most, it would take about a year before a Kage-level shinobi might begin to notice something wrong.
After three years, the barrier would collapse completely.
It might even cause a certain degree of damage when it did.
"No problem."
"One year is more than enough time for the Second Hokage to return to the mortal world."
"With that freakish genius helping out, a small village-level barrier like this definitely won't be an issue."
"Ying, the Second Hokage is currently in the Hall of Heroes."
"If you can, try to build a good relationship with him."
"That'll save me the trouble of explaining everything later."
Faced with Uchiha Yoru's comforting words, Ying could only smile bitterly.
While the two of them had been busy working, the Yuki clan children had independently completed the harvesting, drying, sorting, and storage of their crops.
Under Yoru's guidance, they had also learned how to gather fuel, how to light fires while consuming as little fuel as possible, and how to prepare desert-style food.
Yoru also taught them how to make rich meals using various fruits, cacti, and other plants without consuming additional water.
He even taught the Yuki clan how to collect human waste and ferment it into fertilizer, as well as techniques for finding salt in the desert.
With all these skills and methods—
The Yuki clan could now be considered a proper desert people.
Afterward, with Uchiha Yoru's assistance and after a contest that was not particularly intense, Ying's soul entered the Hall of Heroes.
During the process, Yoru confirmed his theory.
Ying's soul had remained in the Pure Land for less than four months before Yoru pulled him out with Edo Tensei.
The Pure Land's attraction toward him was indeed quite weak.
Even though it was obvious this time that some being had actively joined the struggle, the actual difficulty was still far lower than it had been with Senju Hashirama.
That was good.
It proved that the Pure Land was not yet a completely unshakable law of heaven and earth.
Its control over souls was nowhere near as absolute as the underworlds described in mythology.
Uchiha Yoru became even more confident in his chances of defeating the Sage of Six Paths.
Once everything was settled, Yoru quietly left.
When the sun began setting, the Yuki clan children finished preparing dinner and came to look for him.
Only then did they realize both adults were gone.
"It's okay."
"The god and Clan Head will both be watching over us."
"As long as we pray sincerely, the god can still hear our voices."
"Pray?"
"What does that mean?"
"I asked how we could contact the god, and He personally told me that was the method."
The child spoke uncertainly.
"But I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know whether it really works."
One of the older children jumped up excitedly.
"That's great!"
"Let's try it right now!"
But several of the other older children stopped him.
"Idiot, how can you casually disturb a god?"
"Exactly."
"At the very least, we should wait until a proper festival."
"We need a suitable reason before praying to Him."
"That would be more respectful."
"Then what's the next festival?"
Faced with that question, the children looked at one another.
"I don't know."
"Me neither."
"I only know about the Summer Solstice."
"But that's still several months away!"
"That's way too long."
"It's fine."
"Having more time is actually better."
"We can grow crops ourselves, harvest them ourselves, then turn them into delicious food."
"When we pray, we can offer it to Him."
"He'll definitely be happy."
"That makes sense!"
The matter was quickly settled.
The children immediately became full of motivation.
They secretly resolved to work hard starting tomorrow.
But during dinner, someone finally couldn't suppress their curiosity and asked,
"So what exactly do you say when praying?"
"Didn't we agree to wait until the festival?"
"Oh, come on."
"That's such a long time away."
"You might forget by then."
"If you tell us now, we can help you remember."
"That's right."
"If you remember it wrong, we can correct you."
"If nothing else, we can whisper it."
"That way the god won't hear us."
"Then…"
"All right."
"I'll say it."
"Mm-hmm."
"Go ahead."
"The god's name consists of three lines:
"The Lord of the Fire Spirits Who Governs All Flames, Protector of the Flame of Civilization.
"The Crimson Heart of Courage, the Heart of Passion, the Heart of Curiosity.
"The Golden Primate of Wisdom."
"Oh!"
"I remember it."
"Me too."
"I still haven't memorized it."
"Can someone say it again?"
"Idiot."
"I'll teach you."
Among children, the desire to show off was inevitable.
Their curiosity and thirst for knowledge were equally powerful.
Driven by these two innocent emotions, the sacred name the golden-furred baboon had created for himself was recited again and again.
Even after the children fell asleep, some continued muttering it in their dreams.
And this name was not affected by the volume of the voice.
No matter how softly it was spoken, as long as the heart was pure enough, the prayer would travel through an invisible connection and reach Zhurong's heart.
As the main source of spirituality supporting the Zhurong persona, the Heart Ape naturally became the primary listener.
Uchiha Yoru could hear a little of it as well.
But he found it unbearably annoying.
So he severed the connection by cutting off his communication with the Heart Ape.
He knew that by doing so, he would lose certain things.
The Heart Ape would gain certain things.
It might even create some additional risks.
But he did it anyway.
Disguising a persona as a god had produced extremely gratifying progress along the divine path.
The Zhurong persona, with the Heart Ape as its core, was gradually becoming independent and had already accumulated considerable power.
Yet Uchiha Yoru felt no temptation toward it.
His goal was not to become a god positioned at the core of the laws of heaven and earth.
His goal was to cultivate into an immortal—
Free and unfettered, with himself becoming his own heaven and earth.
At this very moment, he was accompanying Miwa Masayo as she howled at the moon.
With every—
"Awooo—"
Threads of moonlight essence entered the calico cat's body.
They altered the natural energy she absorbed and indirectly influenced her physical body.
Even with Uchiha Yoru's extraordinary perception, he could only faintly sense the general direction of the changes.
He could not determine exactly what was transforming.
But if intuition wasn't enough—
Data could solve the problem.
Uchiha Yoru pulled out Miwa Masayo's physical records from the past four months.
Comparing them from beginning to end, he quickly identified the direction of her evolution.
First—
Miwa Masayo's body was rapidly developing toward greater affinity with natural energy.
The rate of change was astonishing.
Now, when she absorbed natural energy, she only needed to circulate it through her body four or five times before completely digesting it into her own energy.
Afterward, she could control it perfectly.
By comparison, Uchiha Yoru needed at least thirty-six cycles before he could truly convert natural energy into something belonging to himself.
And it required a sufficiently long period of transformation.
This did not mean the calico cat had a higher conversion efficiency.
Rather—
Her affinity with natural energy was simply far greater.
There was no need for her to modify the natural energy as extensively.
If this conversion process was eventually reduced to a single cycle—
Miwa Masayo would inevitably undergo another qualitative transformation.
She would become almost equivalent to a natural spirit.
The natural energy inside her body would become extremely similar to the energy in nature itself.
She might even bypass natural energy entirely and directly control the forces of nature.
That would no longer be some mere supernatural ability.
It would be a direct connection to—and control over—the natural world itself.
Of course, that was still a distant possibility.
Before reaching that point, Miwa Masayo would definitely become an immortal first.
The second change delighted Uchiha Yoru even more.
The meridian system inside the calico cat's body was evolving toward a human structure.
The speed was not particularly fast.
But it was remarkably stable.
Yoru could almost estimate when the qualitative transformation would occur.
At that moment, Miwa Masayo finished howling at the moon.
Seeing Yoru studying the data, she asked,
"Can you calculate the exact time now, meow?"
Yoru nodded.
"Mm."
"At most, another year."
"Then I'll finally get to see Rika-chan standing on two feet."
The calico cat's face filled with question marks.
"What do you mean, standing on two feet?"
As she spoke—
She genuinely lifted both forepaws off the ground and stood upright.
She even twisted her body and walked two steps.
"Like this, meow?"
The adorable sight made Uchiha Yoru burst into laughter.
It took him quite a while before he could answer.
"No."
"I mean the moment when your transformation produces a human body."
"When you possess human meridians and a human form."
"The moment when you can properly be called Rika-chan."
"And of course…"
"It'll also be the moment when this adorable little calico cat officially becomes a yōkai immortal."
"So that's what you meant, meow."
"That's good."
"It's much faster than I expected, meow."
Miwa Masayo happily swayed her tail.
Light sparkled in her feline eyes.
She even started bouncing around to express her excitement.
Suddenly, she asked,
"Yoru, if I become a yōkai immortal, does that mean I'll be stronger than Katsuyu-sama?"
Yoru immediately shook his head.
"Impossible."
"Katsuyu-sama is extremely powerful."
"Even among the Three Great Sage Regions, she is the most unusual one."
"Katsuyu has lived the longest."
"She has accumulated the greatest amount of power."
"Not only does she support an entire Sage Region by herself—"
"Shikkotsu Forest might even be the strongest of the Three Great Sage Regions."
"For the two of us to surpass her in a short period of time is impossible."
Miwa Masayo stuck out her tongue in surprise.
"Katsuyu-sama is that strong, meow?"
"I thought she was the weakest one, so I used her as the comparison, meow."
"No, wait, meow."
"In my memory, Myōboku Mountain is the strongest Sage Region, meow."
Yoru scoffed.
"Myōboku Mountain?"
"Myōboku Mountain only looks especially powerful."
"In reality, that's mostly because they're the most active and have the largest number of contractors who actually go out and do things."
"Of course, that isn't the key point."
"The real key is the Great Toad Sage, Gamamaru."
"He possesses genuine prophetic abilities."
"And an extremely calculating mind."
"That forcibly raised Myōboku Mountain's status."
"But purely in terms of raw strength—"
"The lazy Katsuyu-sama is absolutely the strongest."
Miwa Masayo did not accept her human servant's words.
She argued,
"But the Cat Castle records clearly say Katsuyu's combat ability is weak, meow."
"And she barely has any combat methods."
"She either rolls around or spits acid, meow."
"Her healing abilities are flawless, though."
"They say her medical abilities alone are equivalent to an entire shinobi village."
In truth, Miwa Masayo wasn't wrong.
That was also the general understanding throughout the shinobi world.
No matter how powerful you claimed to be—
If you had no actual battle record to support it, people simply wouldn't believe you.
It was just like the Third Hokage's title of "Strongest Hokage in History."
Inside Konoha, people could still repeat it.
But outside the village, it was a joke.
Together with the Third Kazekage's title of "Strongest Kazekage," the two were known as the shinobi world's greatest jokes.
Katsuyu-sama likewise had no solid battle record proving her strength.
Her previous contractor had been Senju Hashirama.
Whether in combat or healing, Hashirama had no equal in the shinobi world.
There had simply been no need for Katsuyu to act personally.
And Shikkotsu Forest's current contractor, Tsunade, did not possess enough chakra to summon the true Katsuyu—
That mountain-range-sized giant slug—
Into the shinobi world.
Katsuyu did indeed appear to possess only two combat methods—
Rolling around.
And spitting acid.
But if something had the mass of a mountain range, those two techniques alone became terrifying beyond imagination.
Uchiha Yoru described just how enormous the real Katsuyu was.
Miwa Masayo immediately understood how frightening she truly was.
All she had to do was imagine what it would look like if an actual mountain range began rolling around.
The thought alone made her shiver.
That was a natural disaster.
To put it more seriously—
A fully manifested Katsuyu-sama would only need to turn over once.
Whether it was Konoha, another shinobi village, or even a national capital—
It would disappear in an instant.
The calico cat's eyes flickered.
"So Katsuyu-sama is really that incredible, meow."
"Then when will we be able to surpass her, meow?"
This time, Uchiha Yoru was the one who froze.
Then he burst into laughter.
"I don't know."
"But we definitely will."
"That's inevitable."
"No matter what…"
He pointed at his own nose.
"I can already defeat Gamamaru and the White Snake."
"Surpassing Katsuyu-sama is only a matter of time."
"I have absolute confidence."
Miwa Masayo clapped her paws together.
"I'm confident too, meow."
Uchiha Yoru smiled happily.
He truly looked forward to the moment when Miwa Masayo became a yōkai immortal.
What kind of "human form" would she transform into?
A catgirl?
A leopard woman?
A tiger girl?
He really couldn't wait.
…
Kirigakure.
The Kaguya clan.
Kaguya Yoshi was dead.
Countless bones had pierced through his body.
He had bled to death.
He had not been killed in an ambush.
It had happened during a formal challenge.
Bones erupted from beneath the ground.
First, they pierced through his bone shield.
Then they penetrated the bone armor beneath his skin.
Finally—
They killed him.
Shikotsumyaku: Dance of the Seedling Fern.
Among the surrounding Kaguya clansmen watching the battle, countless people murmured the name of that secret technique.
Only after Shikotsumyaku had reached its ultimate level could this technique possibly be used.
It could create an enormous quantity of bone beneath the earth, allowing it to grow upward wherever the user wished and attack every enemy within range.
The caster could even move freely through those bones.
Or rather—
He could "grow" himself out of any bone.
His movement speed was almost indistinguishable from teleportation.
Within the bone forest created by the Dance of the Seedling Fern—
As long as even one piece of bone remained undestroyed, the Kaguya shinobi could not be killed.
Anyone capable of mastering such a secret technique was naturally a Kage-level shinobi.
Perhaps even one of the strongest among that level.
The Kaguya clan had not produced such a powerful shinobi in many years.
Yet today—
It appeared in a seventeen-year-old boy.
"Kaguya Hamura."
"From today onward, my name is Kaguya Hamura."
"And I will become the clan head of the Kaguya clan."
The thin, blue-haired young man coldly looked over the surrounding clansmen.
Then he asked,
"Who agrees?"
"Who opposes?"
Some people cheered their approval.
Some remained silent and accepted it.
The strongest member of the Kaguya clan becoming clan head was tradition.
But others glared angrily.
They neither agreed nor openly opposed him.
After all—
The other side was far too powerful.
Only four of Kaguya Yoshi's closest subordinates stood up.
The leading shinobi opened his mouth.
"We don't—"
That was as far as he got.
The hearts of all four standing Kaguya shinobi were pierced by enormous bones.
The bones continued growing thicker and taller, lifting their corpses high into the air.
They were even placed alongside Kaguya Yoshi.
Five corpses hung in a row, arms and legs dangling.
Blood dripped continuously onto the tatami mats and gathered into a pool.
The meeting room became completely silent.
No one dared voice opposition anymore.
But no one dared openly express support either.
Even the shinobi who had been cheering moments earlier closed their mouths.
They lowered their gazes and silently stared at their toes as though flowers had suddenly bloomed there.
Opposing him?
Absolutely not.
Supporting him?
Better not.
This young man was far too ruthless.
Who slaughtered their own clansmen like this?
He clearly didn't even regard them as human.
In truth—
They had accidentally guessed correctly.
Ōtsutsuki Hamura, who was filled with love and compassion toward humanity, genuinely found it difficult to feel any affection for this particular branch of his descendants.
Because the Kaguya clan had serious problems.
Although they were Hamura's descendants, their bloodline manifested in an extremely strange way.
They did not possess the Byakugan.
Instead, they somehow skipped over Hamura and directly inherited a bone-related kekkei genkai from Ōtsutsuki Kaguya herself.
Shikotsumyaku.
And this kekkei genkai actually pointed directly toward the kekkei mōra—
All-Killing Ash Bones.
The instant Hamura descended into the chosen seed, he instinctively purified the body's bloodline.
Shikotsumyaku rapidly strengthened and evolved.
It quickly reached its absolute peak.
But the power Hamura brought with him was far too enormous.
Soon, it crossed beyond the limits of Shikotsumyaku and entered an entirely new stage.
And this nearly killed him.
The biological younger brother of the Sage of Six Paths—
Nearly died the instant he landed.
One step beyond Shikotsumyaku touched the domain of All-Killing Ash Bones.
That was one of the supreme abilities involving time itself.
Completely unprepared, Ōtsutsuki Hamura was nearly killed by his own body's kekkei genkai.
His body even began showing signs of turning to ash on the spot.
After tremendous effort, he finally stopped the kekkei genkai from advancing further.
He consumed the overwhelming majority of the power he had brought with him just to prevent himself from being affected by All-Killing Ash Bones and dying at any moment.
But Shikotsumyaku's influence did not end there.
Ōtsutsuki Hamura discovered something else.
The more thoroughly Shikotsumyaku awakened—
The greater its effect on the brain.
Because this power entrusted everything to the bones, large-scale use and creation of skeletal matter required chakra to generate bone material—
In other words—
Calcium.
The stronger Shikotsumyaku became, the better the body adapted to producing calcium through chakra.
As a result, larger quantities of calcium accumulated inside the body.
High concentrations of calcium damaged the brain and nervous system.
Although calcium created through chakra was not permanent—
The damage it caused was.
Calcium poisoning could lead to dizziness, nausea, neurological confusion, altered consciousness, irritability, explosive temper, and extreme aggression.
It perfectly matched the impression the Kaguya clan gave everyone.
In the mortal world—
Matter possessed the most fundamental and decisive influence.
The physical body's reverse influence upon the mind—
Could never be avoided.
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