Miwa Masayo treated Uchiha Yoru's plagiarized, overwhelmingly dramatic declaration as nothing more than her caretaker spouting nonsense again.
She only cared about how he had managed to fly.
The tabby cat suddenly jumped up and nearly fell from Uchiha Yoru's shoulder. She hurriedly grabbed his clothes, leaned close to his ear, and asked, "Yoru, hurry and tell me. How did you start flying?"
"Hehe. It's the effect of my 'level of existence.' Once I condensed the Golden Core, I transcended this world and was no longer bound by the gravitational laws of the shinobi world. Naturally, I began to fly."
"Look. I'm flying upright."
Miwa Masayo naturally didn't understand the difference between methods of flight.
She asked in confusion, "What's special about flying upright, meow?"
Uchiha Yoru smiled.
"Because immortals fly upright, while Superman flies lying down."
"You're saying things I can't understand again, meow."
"Haha. I used to think it was merely a difference in habit, but now I understand."
"Those who fly while lying down use their physical bodies as the vehicle of flight, so they need to minimize the surface area facing the wind. Lying horizontally creates the least resistance."
"But when someone flies upright like I do now, it is because their flight relies upon an internal world."
Uchiha Yoru altered the boundary of his internal world, dyeing its outer wall in a golden halo so that Miwa Masayo could see its form.
The tabby cat's eyes immediately lit up.
She was particularly fascinated by the Rule Seals floating nearby and couldn't resist reaching out a paw to scratch them.
Naturally, the faint Rule Seals were merely projected phantoms.
Her paw couldn't touch them.
Miwa Masayo even jumped away and ran outside the internal world, turning around to observe the golden sphere from the outside.
She circled it several times in wonder.
Only after satisfying her curiosity did the tabby cat return to Uchiha Yoru's shoulder and sigh.
"I feel like this is your Golden Core, meow. It's so beautiful!"
Uchiha Yoru replied, "It is, and it isn't."
"The internal world is the external projection of my Golden Core."
"Within its range, I can use the Rule Seals upon my Golden Core to slightly overpower the foundational laws of the shinobi world, granting me an unimaginably enormous advantage."
Miwa Masayo didn't understand, but she could tell it was impressive.
She praised him repeatedly.
"That's amazing, meow."
"I want one too, meow."
Uchiha Yoru encouraged her.
"Rika-chan, one day you will also possess a Golden Core and an internal world!"
"Really, meow?"
"Really. We are both walking the Immortal Dao."
"No matter how different our early paths may be, as long as we continue purifying natural energy and adapting ourselves to it, we will certainly be able to form Golden Cores!"
"I'll work hard, meow!"
His conversation with Miwa Masayo allowed Uchiha Yoru to experience reality.
Standing within the genuine material world and receiving feedback from familiar worldly laws also greatly reinforced his worldview.
However, developing the internal world and using it to interact with the shinobi world had also imperceptibly altered Uchiha Yoru's worldview.
Since he had gained enormous benefits and seized a tremendous advantage from this change, the alteration didn't cause destructive consequences.
Instead, Uchiha Yoru gladly accepted it.
It was like discovering a bug while playing a game.
If the bug destroyed all the equipment a player had painstakingly accumulated, the player's Dao Heart would certainly shatter, and they might never play again.
But if the bug allowed the player to defeat enemies far above their level and gain enormous experience and extraordinarily powerful drops...
What player would suffer a shattered Dao Heart?
They would only rejoice inwardly and devote themselves to exploiting it.
Uchiha Yoru was the same.
He happily accepted his new worldview and secretly delighted in it.
...
After resolving the problem with his worldview and resting for a while, Uchiha Yoru returned to Konoha with Miwa Masayo.
The only matter he still needed to handle was the problem within the Purple Mansion world.
It wouldn't create any enormous disturbances.
Since that was the case, he naturally returned to Konoha, where the living conditions were far better.
After all, he hadn't slept for an entire week.
During those seven days, he had been so busy that not a single drop of water or grain of rice had passed his lips.
He had survived entirely on natural energy and his body's previous reserves.
Uchiha Yoru had begun missing all the delicious food at home.
However, Miwa Masayo remained more interested in the Golden Core.
While her caretaker cooked, she continuously pestered him with all kinds of questions.
"Yoru, how large is the real Golden Core, meow?"
"I don't know. The Golden Core is inside my dantian, and there is nothing there to use as a reference, so I have no idea how large it actually is."
"Yoru, how did the Golden Core first appear, meow?"
"I don't know that either. When it appeared, I didn't perceive any process whatsoever. I don't even know what its first law is."
"What will you do if you don't know the first law, meow?"
"There's nothing else I can do. Once I've eaten my fill, I'll test the laws one by one."
"How many laws do I even understand right now? I should find it very quickly."
When someone was starving, what food could be prepared the fastest?
Naturally, one boiled water and made instant noodles.
Even firefighters approved.
Uchiha Yoru boiled an enormous barrel of water and prepared a barrel filled to the brim with instant noodles.
He hadn't merely bought every packet of instant noodles from every shop near his house.
He had also thrown in forty-two eggs and seven jin of vegetables.
While the water boiled, he found time to slice nearly twenty jin of meat, marinate it, and roast it over a fire.
He slurped down two mouthfuls of noodles, stripped ten skewers of meat, then buried his head in the noodles again.
Uchiha Yoru ate with tremendous enthusiasm and couldn't have been happier.
Miwa Masayo stared in stunned silence.
She completely forgot about the Golden Core and asked hesitantly, "Yoru, don't you seriously dislike instant noodles?"
Slurp, slurp—
Uchiha Yoru swallowed the noodles and meat in his mouth before answering with a smile.
"There's nothing I can do. I'm hungry."
"When a person becomes hungry enough, anything tastes delicious."
Before long, Uchiha Yoru had eaten and drunk his fill.
Only then did he relax completely.
Without cleaning up the mess, he lay down upon the bamboo couch in the courtyard and immediately fell into a deep sleep.
For the first time, Miwa Masayo heard Uchiha Yoru snoring.
Unlike the earth-shaking snores of ordinary people, his snoring was soft, fragmented, and continuous.
She couldn't even tell whether the sound came from inhaling or exhaling.
Although Uchiha Yoru's snoring was quiet, it caused vibrations within the tabby cat's organs.
Her entire body tingled pleasantly, and even the fur at the tip of her tail involuntarily stood on end.
But the sensation wasn't uncomfortable in the slightest.
Quite the opposite.
Miwa Masayo found it extremely pleasant.
She licked her nose, walked over, and curled up upon Uchiha Yoru's chest.
She buried her head and paws beneath her belly, wrapped herself in her tail, and fell asleep with him.
Late at night on the day after the Winter Solstice, the clear sky brought an extreme drop in temperature.
The dew during the latter half of the night was particularly heavy.
However, within Uchiha Yoru's small courtyard, an invisible world boundary divided the space.
It prevented dew from condensing and blocked the bone-piercing chill.
As Uchiha Yoru's sleep gradually deepened, his body slowly became warmer.
It even heated the entire courtyard until it felt comfortably warm.
Miwa Masayo, who loved warm environments, slept exceptionally well.
In truth, only Uchiha Yoru's body had fallen asleep.
His spirit remained busy.
Over the previous seven days, the five heart-forms had accumulated far too much spiritual energy and suppressed an indescribably vast amount of emotion.
In particular, after obtaining faith but before that faith was assigned to the Heart Ape, they, Little Cthulhu, and the goldfish had all gained considerable benefits.
Each of their powers had increased greatly.
By now, suppressing them had become extremely difficult for Uchiha Yoru.
Fortunately, after eating and drinking his fill, Uchiha Yoru's strength had increased even more.
Moreover, the Golden Core was no mere decoration.
The Golden Core sun now hung high in the sky.
To suppress the heart-forms, he needed only to let its sunlight shine upon them.
He no longer needed to vibrate the dantian and create cleansing bell chimes as he had before.
Through Uchiha Yoru's efforts, the Spleen Pig, Lung Tanuki, Kidney Kun, and Liver Toad were successively stripped of their excess spiritual power and restored to their original states.
The hole-covered octopus, Little Cthulhu, was the most cowardly.
It had already obediently hidden inside a crevice in the Northern Sea, remaining perfectly still.
The goldfish River God was the most cunning.
It expended a considerable amount of divine power to open a great river across the land and hid itself within it.
Although Uchiha Yoru didn't know what this stitched-together River God was planning, as long as it didn't take the initiative to cause trouble, he couldn't spare the attention to deal with it.
Because the Heart Ape was watching him like a tiger eyeing its prey.
The faith had been assigned to the Heart Ape.
The persona of his alternate identity had been layered upon it.
Uchiha Yoru had personally guided it.
Tens of thousands of residents of the River Capital had worshiped it with fanatic devotion.
With all these conditions gathered together, the Heart Ape had finally undergone a qualitative transformation.
The Heart Ape didn't reveal the form of a silverback gorilla.
Instead, it possessed the slender, upright body of a spiritual monkey, standing tall like a pine tree.
With the blazing sun behind him, Uchiha Yoru slowly approached the Heart Ape and exclaimed in surprise.
"Did you draw from my memories and find the Great Sage's original appearance?"
The Heart Ape bared its teeth in a grin.
"Yes. The Great Sage's appearance suits my tastes best."
Uchiha Yoru was inwardly horrified, but his face revealed nothing.
He calmly asked, "Since you like the Great Sage's appearance, why don't you use the image of the Handsome Monkey King from when he wreaked havoc in Heaven?"
"Golden chain mail upon your body, cloud-walking boots of lotus silk upon your feet, and a phoenix-winged purple-gold crown upon your head."
"How handsome would that be?"
The Heart Ape shook its head.
"With my current strength, I am inferior even to one of the monkey demons beneath him."
"Naturally, I am unworthy of using such a handsome appearance."
"If I can replace you, complete the Great Dao of the Golden Core in your place, and achieve the Great Perfection of the shinobi world, perhaps I will change into the Handsome Monkey King's form."
Uchiha Yoru smiled.
It was a cold smile.
He said icily, "You are merely a heart-form, not even a proper heart demon, yet you possess remarkable confidence."
The Heart Ape also stopped smiling.
However, it replied with considerable helplessness.
"I didn't want this either."
"But you forced such an enormous amount of faith into me. What else could I do?"
Uchiha Yoru froze.
He cast a suspicious gaze toward the other four heart-forms while asking, "When did you awaken an independent consciousness?"
The Heart Ape sneered.
It extended one claw and pointed toward the river flowing across the land.
"Ever since you brought that so-called evil god inside, I have possessed an independent consciousness."
"You thought it was a god from the ancient era."
"But when it awakened me, it revealed its true nature."
"It isn't a proper god at all."
"It is a collection of negative emotions from the collective consciousness of ancient humans."
"I don't know exactly what it should be called."
"If I had to classify it, perhaps it would count as an otherworldly heavenly demon?"
"After the demons, monsters, and evil gods of the shinobi world's ancient era were mercilessly crushed by the Ōtsutsuki Clan, the despairing gods were infiltrated by an otherworldly heavenly demon."
"It forcibly glued together the remains of several gods and combined them with natural energy and negative spiritual energy."
"In the end, it formed some kind of rule-based natural spirit."
Faced with the eloquent Heart Ape, Uchiha Yoru could no longer maintain his composure.
He raised a hand and rubbed his temple to ease the headache.
After sighing deeply, he asked, "You are actually kind enough to reveal its true nature to me?"
The Heart Ape replied indifferently, "The conflict between you and me is an internal contradiction."
"The conflict between it and us is one between enemies."
"I'm not stupid. I can distinguish between internal and external threats."
"Even if I lose to you, I won't be completely destroyed."
"At worst, I will continue existing as your subordinate."
"If one day you complete your Great Dao, gain absolute control over us, and require assistance, I believe you will grant me an independent will again."
The Heart Ape stared solemnly at Uchiha Yoru.
"If I defeat you, I will do the same instead of completely eliminating you, main body."
Uchiha Yoru's fighting spirit began boiling.
He discarded his calm and gentle expression, revealing his most battle-crazed and savage side.
He stared at the Heart Ape and laughed wildly.
"Hahahaha! Since that's the case, then let us fight!"
Looking at the crazed and combative Uchiha Yoru, the Heart Ape also exposed a mouthful of sharp fangs and grinned ferociously.
"Hehehe. As expected of the main body."
"Could someone capable of producing a Heart Ape like me possibly be a good person?"
The terrifying upright ape and the savage, fanged monkey crashed together in a frenzied battle.
Within the Purple Mansion world, spiritual power and mental state formed the foundation of warfare.
The Heart Ape possessed sharp claws and fangs.
Uchiha Yoru could casually draw out steel blades and spears.
Ultimately, those weapons were merely condensations of their respective spiritual powers.
The key to victory lay in whether their perceptions of self remained stable, whether they could maintain their states after suffering injury, and whether they could preserve the state necessary to attack.
Just as the Heart Ape had complained, because the faith forced upon it had caused it to expose itself prematurely, it was completely incapable of defeating Uchiha Yoru.
Although it struggled desperately, it was still beaten down by the main body.
Uchiha Yoru skillfully stripped away the Heart Ape's additional spiritual power and suppressed it back into its original golden snub-nosed monkey form.
After receiving the fragments stripped from the five heart-forms, the Purple Mansion world obtained an enormous tonic.
The foundation of his spirit clearly became much denser and more substantial.
Immediately afterward, his attention shifted toward the great river and the River God hidden within it.
After forming the Golden Core, Uchiha Yoru's control over the Purple Mansion world had increased enormously.
With a single thought, the earth overturned and the great river was severed.
The blazing Golden Core sun hung high overhead and cast down scorching rays upon the channel, which had been divided into disconnected lakes.
One by one, those lakes were baked dry and transformed into land.
In the end, every drop of river water was evaporated.
The River God could no longer hide through water and was dragged out alive.
This time, Uchiha Yoru gave it no opportunity to speak.
He directly crushed it with supreme spiritual power.
Its fragments scattered into the white clouds overhead and were immediately suppressed by an enormous sealing array that formed in an instant.
Only after completing all this did Uchiha Yoru release a sigh of relief.
"As expected of an otherworldly heavenly demon."
"Even after being ground into fragments, its source doesn't collapse."
"Or perhaps I should say that the source of an otherworldly heavenly demon is inherently fragmented and chaotic."
"No amount of crushing can truly destroy it."
"No wonder it could glue together the remains of more than a dozen gods."
"Its chaos reached such an extreme that it instead gave birth to a new form of order and produced an apparently stable consciousness."
"Ah. These white clouds suppressing the heavenly demon seem to have gained some strange ability."
Uchiha Yoru was surprised to discover that after being completely crushed, the heavenly demon lost its consciousness and no longer attempted to conceal itself.
Its instinct to spread chaotic corruption was completely unleashed.
In only this brief period, the sealing array had already become infected by chaos.
Several disordered errors appeared within it, causing the sealing array to lose its perfection.
Uchiha Yoru was deeply shocked.
He immediately understood that an otherworldly heavenly demon couldn't simply be left alone.
Otherwise, it would unknowingly create even greater hidden dangers.
His five heart-forms had been imperceptibly infected by it, resulting in the birth of independent consciousnesses.
After thinking for a long time, Uchiha Yoru finally came up with an excellent method.
The greatest target of chaos was order.
But order itself was also chaos's greatest enemy.
Uchiha Yoru smiled.
"Therefore, I must put it to use."
"Only by using an order under my control to suppress the heavenly demon's chaos can I truly wear it away."
"Then how should I use this thing?"
Uchiha Yoru looked at the white clouds drifting across the sky and the ruins of palaces built upon them, falling into deep thought.
...
The volcanic eruption in the Land of Rivers caused a considerable uproar, but the war between Konoha and Sunagakure soon stole all attention from it.
Sunagakure gathered three Kage-level ninja and more than ten thousand Sunagakure ninja to attack nearly seventeen thousand Konoha ninja.
Chiyo, Ebizō, and Pakura relied upon their superior individual strength to seize the initiative on the battlefield.
They repeatedly defeated Konoha, eventually forcing its forces to retreat from the Land of Rivers in great strides.
With no other choice, Konoha's second-ranked deputy leader and second appointed commander of the Jōnin Corps, Orochimaru, traveled south alone and assumed responsibility for the counterattack.
The Third Hokage seized the opportunity to reclaim all authority.
As a result, the Uchiha clan, which had fully supported Orochimaru, fell into an extremely awkward position.
Uchiha Yoru had no interest in paying attention to any of it.
He devoted himself entirely to transforming the Purple Mansion world.
He exhausted every possible method, attempting to combine the heart demon's abilities with the world and form a stable, continuously operating function.
At the same time, he also needed to study the Heart Ape mask and determine the true core law of his Golden Core.
How could he spare any attention for Konoha's "minor affairs"?
The New Year of Konoha Year 45 arrived.
The entirety of January quietly passed amid the erupting war between Kumogakure and Konoha.
Then came the still-frigid month of February.
When the warmth of spring and blooming flowers arrived in March, Uchiha Yoru's concentration finally produced enormous results.
After immersing himself within the Purple Mansion world, he appeared directly upon a golden dragon throne.
He slowly opened his eyes and looked downward.
Before him stood twenty-eight seats.
The empty seats were arranged on both sides of the imperial path directly ahead.
There were fourteen on each side, divided into groups of seven, with every seat facing its counterpart across the imperial path.
By using the otherworldly heavenly demon and the Golden Core's fundamental law to realize the most crucial function, the Divine Court he had envisioned for so long was finally completed.
Uchiha Yoru declared majestically:
"This Venerable One is the Heavenly Emperor, an ancient god who has slumbered since an unknowable mythological age."
"I shall rebuild the Divine Court of the Age of Myth!"
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