The Grand Line, on a calm stretch of sea, a massive wooden ship sailed smoothly across the water.
Onboard the ship were Lin Xuan and Uchiha Madara, who had just left Sabaody Archipelago, along with three Celestial Dragons.
Anyone familiar with the Roswald family would have been stunned to see this scene. These three Celestial Dragons, who had always held themselves above the rest, were now serving tea and water, performing tasks they would never have deigned to do in the past.
The reason for their behavior was simple: Lin Xuan had placed them under genjutsu.
Aside from them, there were several other pirates on the ship, busy steering, adjusting the sails, and handling other tasks necessary for navigation.
As it turned out, after leaving Sabaody Archipelago, Lin Xuan and Madara had suddenly realized that no one on their ship knew how to sail, nor did they have any cooking tools or ingredients. Fortunately, Uchiha Madara had some basic knowledge of steering, allowing them to set sail.
Then, by sheer luck, they encountered a group of pirates at sea. Lin Xuan immediately took action, using genjutsu to commandeer their navigators, helmsmen, and other crew members, along with their ship's food supplies and cooking utensils. That was how the ship had become so lively.
At the moment, Lin Xuan and Madara sat cross-legged, facing each other. Since the ship was only a temporary creation of Madara's Wood Release, he hadn't bothered to furnish it with any elaborate furniture.
Lin Xuan studied Madara for a moment before suddenly saying, "The sacrifices used for your Edo Tensei body won't last much longer, will they?"
In truth, while Edo Tensei seemed to grant immortality, it wasn't without limitations. The quality of the sacrifices used for the reanimation directly affected the reanimated individual's power. Moreover, as time passed, the vitality of the sacrifices would gradually diminish, weakening the Edo Tensei's effects until it eventually failed.
In the Naruto world, White Zetsu were considered the best sacrifices for Edo Tensei precisely because of their abundant life force, which could sustain the reanimation for a long time.
Earlier, Lin Xuan had noticed that after Madara's battle with Kizaru, the hastily procured sacrifices were nearing their limit, which was why they had quickly left Sabaody Archipelago.
Of course, there was another reason—Lin Xuan himself was reaching his limit.
Unlike Madara's Edo Tensei body, Lin Xuan's physical body was still that of an ordinary person who had only just begun to transform. Though he had used various drugs to enhance his body and mind a hundredfold, that level of improvement was barely enough to sustain the Mangekyō Sharingan and the complete Susano'o for prolonged battles.
Madara glanced at Lin Xuan and said coolly, "Since you know, why don't you hurry up and tell me the so-called secret you mentioned?"
Lin Xuan chuckled, taking a plate of food prepared by the pirate chef—who was also under genjutsu—from Charloss's hands and began eating. Madara, being an Edo Tensei reanimation, naturally didn't need to eat.
Between bites, Lin Xuan said to Madara, "Madara, did you know that you've always been nothing more than a pawn in someone else's hands?"
Hearing this, Madara's expression darkened, his eyes flashing with fury as he growled, "So after all this, you just wanted to boast about your abilities?"
Clearly, he thought Lin Xuan was implying that he could control him.
Lin Xuan laughed. "Don't get worked up. I'm not treating you as a pawn—otherwise, why would I be telling you this? What I mean is that in your world, you've always been someone else's pawn."
"Ridiculous. That's impossible!" Madara dismissed the idea outright, sneering.
Lin Xuan took a big bite of a chicken leg, watching Madara as he chewed. "Do you really think your schemes fooled the entire world? That you, Uchiha Madara, were the mastermind behind everything?"
Madara remained silent, his gaze fixed on Lin Xuan.
Lin Xuan shook his head, suddenly looking at Madara with pity. "What a shame. You have no idea that the Infinite Tsukuyomi plan you spent so long preparing—the plan you believed would bring peace to your world—was nothing more than a trap. You were fed false information and manipulated. Did you really think the contents of your clan's stone tablet were genuine? They were altered!"
Madara's eyes flickered rapidly as he processed Lin Xuan's words, weighing their plausibility.
To him, Lin Xuan knew far too much—even the details about the stone tablet—as if he had witnessed everything Madara had done in his world firsthand. He couldn't fathom how Lin Xuan could have observed events from another world.
Because of this, Madara's conviction wavered. Could what Lin Xuan was saying be true? Had Uchiha Madara truly been used as a pawn?
Of course, he wasn't about to accept Lin Xuan's words without question. Instead of refuting them, he demanded, "Who? Who is the one you claim has been manipulating me?"
Lin Xuan calmly uttered two words:
"Black Zetsu."
"What?!" Madara's eyes widened in shock, his composure shattered.
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T/N:
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