Chapter 143: Black Zetsu's Unease
"Hokage-sama, are you alright?"
"Zero casualties, that's great! Thank goodness Izayoi-sama intervened in time!"
"So strong! That punch just now, I felt it could shatter a mountain."
"As expected of the legendary Wood Release!"
"..."
As the battle ended, the small dark room resembling a demon god's mask slowly opened.
Konoha ninjas swarmed over, surrounding the bewildered Tsunade and others, checking the bodies of the unconscious Anbu and ninjas. They came to a conclusion that made everyone overjoyed.
Thanks to Izayoi's timely intervention, all the injured and bleeding comrades had been saved.
Otsutsuki Toneri's attack this time had only destroyed the Hokage Building.
"You said that besides the Hokage Building, there are three other places with the Four Crimson Rays Formation?"
Tsunade, who had just regained her senses, heard bad news from Shikaku Nara, and her expression immediately changed slightly.
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
Shikaku Nara nodded respectfully and said, "The three Four Crimson Rays Formations are at Izayoi-sama's house, the Uchiha clan's compound, and a waterfall area outside the village."
"Why did that guy suddenly attack us, and with such clear targets?" Tsunade frowned tightly. "Could it be that he wants to hunt us down and use our corpses to create puppet humans, strengthening his puppet human army's power?"
"This subordinate finds it somewhat strange."
Shikaku Nara calmly analyzed, "According to the observations of myself and members of the Hyuga clan, although the targets of these puppet humans are high-end combatants led by the Hokage-sama, the chakra of these puppet humans fluctuates between weak and strong. When fighting multiple opponents, the puppet humans' chakra volume will surge, or it will be on par with the strongest person among the targets."
"During one-on-one battles, the puppet humans' chakra is either at the same level as their opponent or slightly inferior."
"What's even stranger is that they are not attacking with the intention of killing their opponents. Instead, they aim to insert those black rods into the targets' bodies. After disrupting the chakra flow, they knock them unconscious."
"Afterward, they don't deliver a finishing blow, nor do they disappear with the unconscious person. Instead, they teleport away on their own."
"This is the case for both the Anbu, and Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki."
"This doesn't look like hunting high-end combatants to create puppet humans at all. It's more like... an experiment!"
Tsunade's eyebrows furrowed again. "Are you saying he's using us to test the strength of those puppet humans?"
"This subordinate believes that the probability of it being an experiment is higher than hunting," Shikaku Nara nodded slightly. "Although chakra doesn't represent strength, the condition for casting the Four Crimson Rays Formation is that it must gather four ninjas with Kage-level chakra. Four Four Crimson Rays Formations mean that the sixteen puppet humans casting the jutsu all possess Kage-level chakra volume. Moreover, the puppet humans fighting the Hokage-sama, Jiraiya-sama, and Izayoi-sama all possess Kage-level chakra, and the other puppet humans also have ace combatant or at least Special Jonin-level chakra..."
"All of this chakra is conducted into the chakra core through those black rods. It's as absurd as a Tailed Beast and completely different from the information about the puppet human army's attack on Kumogakure last year."
"If this subordinate's guess is correct, that Otsutsuki Toneri has obtained a Tailed Beast, or even become a Jinchuriki."
After listening to Shikaku Nara's analysis, Tsunade couldn't help but sigh, "It seems that the second round of the Sage Eyes' battle will arrive before long. In the face of such super-standard combat power, one of our Five Great Ninja Villages has actually been reduced to a testing ground. It's truly frustrating."
"If it really is an experiment, perhaps not only our Konoha has been attacked, but the other ninja villages are also unavoidable," Shikaku Nara also sighed. "Perhaps, just like his address to us, in the face of the Sage Eyes, the ninjas of our Five Great Ninja Villages are nothing more than monkeys."
"Hopefully, his purpose really is just to retrieve the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path," Tsunade said in a deep voice. "If he retrieves the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and returns to the moon to continue being their aloof 'gods,' I would rather that the guy called Otsutsuki Toneri win the second round."
Shikaku Nara remained silent. These matters were beyond his scope of understanding.
However, if it was really as Tsunade said, he also hoped that the moon visitor would win.
As long as that moon visitor solved the leader of Akatsuki and took the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path back to the moon, unwilling to breathe the same air as the monkeys of the ninja world, then the future of the ninja world would be decided by their Konoha's Wood Release ninjas.
Since everyone in Konoha was his own, and Izayoi didn't want to accidentally kill his future subordinates, he only waited for a little over half an hour, until the puppet humans defeated Sasuke Uchiha, before taking the initiative to end the battle.
The other ninja villages weren't so lucky.
The ninjas who were instantly killed were fortunate enough to have their lives spared.
And the ninjas who侥幸 dodged the Lightning Release Chakra Mode + Yin-Yang Release Black Rods were almost all either dead or crippled.
Unless they possessed a purple entry bloodline limit, Izayoi's Wood Clones didn't have the patience to play hide-and-seek with them. They would start with large-scale or powerful ultimate moves.
Ninjas with purple entries, however, received Izayoi's mercy and patient play.
After all, Sasori of the Red Sand and Deidara hadn't been killed by Izayoi back then because of their good personalities and the fact that they were both strong with double purple entries.
The cooldown time for purple entries was a full year, belonging to the leeks that could be harvested once a year. Killing the chicken to get the eggs was too wasteful.
Therefore, 95% of the ninjas who died in the Four Great Ninja Villages were ninjas without purple entries.
The corpses of the accidentally killed purple entry ninjas would also be taken away by the puppet humans to strengthen the puppet human army.
Over an hour later, the turmoil in the ninja world finally ended. The puppet humans came and left in the same way.
What remained were the Five Kage Buildings turned into ruins.
The Five Kage who hadn't been defeated or killed all had faces filled with anger and frustration, their eyes burning with killing intent.
It was a pity that no matter how angry they were, it was just impotent rage.
Wanting to tear Otsutsuki Toneri into ten thousand pieces was also just wishful thinking.
In the face of super-standard combat power, the Five Kage were no different from ordinary people.
The enemy they were facing now was equivalent to Madara Uchiha without Hashirama Senju's restraints.
In the following two days, Otsutsuki Toneri's notorious name once again quickly spread throughout the entire ninja world.
In response, the small ninja villages outside the hunting range couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief while also feeling a sense of schadenfreude.
Fortunately, they were weak and didn't deserve to be targeted by Otsutsuki Toneri.
They hoped that the strength of these large ninja villages would continue to be weakened by Otsutsuki Toneri.
In this way, even if they were still no match for the large ninja villages, their status in the eyes of the large ninja villages would be elevated.
And the wishes of these small ninja villages were quickly realized.
A week after the turmoil ended, when the major ninja villages all knew each other's situations and were analyzing Otsutsuki Toneri's intentions with their think tanks, and the Five Kage were hesitating whether to hold a Five Kage Summit,
Puppet humans once again airdropped into the Five Great Ninja Villages, and the barriers rose again.
The number of puppet humans airdropped this time was double the previous time, but the barriers were no longer all Four Crimson Rays Formations.
Only one Four Crimson Rays Formation trapped the Five Kage or Jinchuriki, while the other puppet humans used the Four Violet Flames Formation to trap those who possessed purple entries but hadn't dropped last time and weren't the targets last time.
In a week, these ninjas' injuries had all healed, and they had returned to full health, ready to continue farming entries.
Five Wood Clones were responsible for controlling the puppet human army, and two other Wood Clones were responsible for recording the information of ninjas who had dropped entries and those who hadn't.
This attack was still clearly targeted.
Izayoi swore not to give up until all the purple entries of the Five Great Ninja Villages were farmed out.
Every time this happened, Izayoi would sigh at his own thin skin.
With the disappearance of the Senju, the dilution of bloodlines, and the destruction of the Uchiha clan, the Uzumaki clan, and the Kirigakure's Hozuki and Kaguya clans... there were too few bloodline limit ninja clans left in the ninja world.
Among them, the Hyuga clan of Konoha was the only one with the largest number of members and could be called a wealthy clan.
But coincidentally, this bloodline limit ninja clan was Hinata's maternal family.
And Hinata was the only one who knew the secret of Izayoi's Tenseigan and that he was 'Otsutsuki Toneri'.
Although he knew Hinata wouldn't blame him, Izayoi couldn't bring himself to beat up his future father-in-law and them.
In this peaceful era, the decline of talent was too severe.
Konoha had been ruined by Hiruzen Sarutobi and Shimura Danzo, and Kirigakure had been turned into the weakest in overall strength by Obito Uchiha.
These two ninja villages were the ones with the most bloodline limit ninja clans.
If Izayoi had been born during the First, Second, or even Third Great Ninja War, he could have easily earned a massive amount of points.
The Otsutsuki bloodline could also be obtained by dropping and then upgraded to a red entry with points.
If he had developed stealthily until now, he might have already had entries above red level, and his strength might have already surpassed the Sage of Six Paths.
But fortunately, this era also had Naruto, Sasuke, Hinata, and Otsutsuki Toneri on the moon.
Izayoi's current main targets were Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha. Attacking the Five Great Ninja Villages was just a way to earn some extra money.
As long as he dropped a red entry, even if he had bad luck, he could get a minimum of 100,000 points.
If he was kissed by the goddess of luck, he might directly get 990,000 points and upgrade a red entry to an unknown new level at a 1:1 ratio.
Thus...
Every week thereafter, the puppet human army would airdrop into the Five Great Ninja Villages to farm entries.
Gradually, the Five Kage all realized that Otsutsuki Toneri seemed to be using them for training.
Most of the time, he would just knock out or seriously injure their subordinates. Casualties were just accidental kills due to excessive force.
The Five Kage felt extremely frustrated about this but were completely helpless.
Especially the hot-tempered Fourth Raikage. If Kumogakure had already built a chakra cannon, he definitely wouldn't be able to resist firing a shot at the moon right now.
...
The situation of the Five Great Ninja Villages naturally couldn't be hidden from Akatsuki, whose White Zetsu clones were spread all over the ninja world.
At this time, in the Kamui dimension, Nagato, Obito Uchiha, and Black and White Zetsu were holding a meeting.
The topic of the meeting was Jinchuriki and Tailed Beasts.
"Apart from the Three-Tails, which hasn't been revived yet, the Jinchuriki of the One to Nine-Tails are still alive. That outrageous chakra doesn't seem to be provided by the Tailed Beasts," Black and White Zetsu reported to Nagato, with White Zetsu adding in confusion, "Moreover, his training targets also include the One-Tail Jinchuriki of Sunagakure, the Four and Five-Tails Jinchuriki of Iwagakure, the Two and Eight-Tails Jinchuriki of Kumogakure, and the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki of Konoha. In the end, he didn't kill any of these Jinchuriki, nor did he extract the Tailed Beasts from their bodies."
"It seems that the situation you least wanted to see has appeared," Obito Uchiha said. "He has obtained the Gureilu Stone mine."
Nagato gently tapped the wooden table made of Wood Release with his fingers and analyzed softly, "The energy of the Gureilu Stone only consists of pure natural energy and life force. The mobile fortress's device only uses the energy inside to create armored humans and cannot convert it into Tailed Beast-level chakra."
"If it's training, the inside of those puppet humans shouldn't contain vast amounts of chakra, but rather transform into various strange beasts like that Hyde and his subordinates, or even... Sage Mode."
"This vast chakra either means Otsutsuki Toneri has received an astonishing boost, or... he has obtained a chakra source similar to the Tailed Beasts."
Black Zetsu fell silent, and a sense of unease that things were slipping out of his control arose again in his heart.
Only the caster and the victim of the Reaper Death Seal could see the legendary Reaper.
Otherwise, only those whose strength reached the level and dimension of the Reaper could perceive and see the Reaper's existence.
Coupled with the fact that the Nine-Tails' chakra was extremely astonishing, even half of it was stronger than the complete Eight-Tails, Black Zetsu didn't know about the Reaper splitting the Nine-Tails in two.
At the beginning, he had suspected, just like Shikaku Nara, that Otsutsuki Toneri had obtained the Tailed Beasts.
If that were the case, it wouldn't be worth panicking over, as long as the Tailed Beasts weren't dead.
However, after he and White Zetsu investigated, they found that not a single Jinchuriki was missing, which was extremely unsettling.
What exactly was that vast chakra?
And where did it come from?!
Was it Otsutsuki Toneri's own, or did it come from an external source?
Either way, it was bad news.
Nagato, whose mind had become sharper, couldn't figure it out this time either, so he instructed Black and White Zetsu, "Zetsu, speed things up a bit. My intuition tells me that once he completes this 'unknown purpose,' he should make a move on us."
"Yes!"
...
Just like that, two months passed.
It was another new week, and the Five Great Ninja Villages, already accustomed to the puppet human army's air raids, were fully prepared.
However, even late into the night, no puppet humans appeared out of thin air.
The same was true the next day.
And the day after that as well...
The Five Kage and the ninjas of the Five Great Ninja Villages all looked somewhat dazed, seemingly unable to believe that the nightmare had ended.
It wasn't until this week also passed without any puppet humans airdropping that their tense nerves finally relaxed.
Some ninjas with strong mental fortitude even couldn't help but shed tears.
It... it's finally over!
That demon who didn't kill them but only liked to torture them had finally let them go.
Little did they know that they had only temporarily lost their value.
Once the leeks grew back, the scythe of harvest could descend at any time.
...
"Almost there, almost there..."
In the hot spring pool, Izayoi looked at the personal panel in front of him and muttered.
On the personal panel's points column, a number as high as six digits was displayed.
[Points: 799999]
After more than two months of unrestrained hunting, Izayoi had gained... 500,000 points!
(End of this chapter)
....
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