Orochimaru's body was struck and sent flying by an irresistible force.
The speed was so great that it tore through the air, leaving behind a trail of sharp sonic booms.
Like a projectile of flesh and blood fired with full power.
[Boom—!!!]
Orochimaru's mangled body crashed into the ground like a falling meteor. The impact blasted open a massive crater more than 10 meters wide, while smoke and blood mist surged skyward.
At the center of the pit, his nearly unrecognizable body lay silently in a pool of blood and shattered rock.
Only the faint, unnatural twitching proved that a sliver of life still lingered within that pile of ruined flesh.
Blood streamed from his shattered body like a small creek, quickly dyeing the ground beneath him red.
"Ugh… hah…"
From his collapsed chest came weak, rasping breaths, like a broken bellows.
A blood-soaked hand, its fingers fractured and twisted, trembled faintly within the pool of blood—one twitch after another.
Each spasm drove broken bones deeper into his organs, intensifying the agony.
Yet in that single remaining golden vertical pupil burned a fanatical flame of survival.
With the last of his willpower, he forced that ruined hand to move, attempting a simple yet excruciatingly difficult hand seal…
Once… failure…
Twice…
A third time…
Under the extremity of pain and sheer burning will, those deformed fingers finally managed to complete the seal.
[Splurt!]
With a sickening tearing sound, a pale new arm, slick with mucus and blood, burst out from the torn remains of his face.
Then came a shoulder, a neck, equally colorless and ghastly.
A new Orochimaru slowly crawled out from the discarded shell of his old body—like a venomous snake shedding its skin.
"Hah… hah… hhh…"
After crawling out only a third of his body, Orochimaru was already gasping like a dying beast, each breath thick with the scent of blood and the pain of torn organs.
The excessive chakra consumption and the immense strain of consecutively using such a forbidden technique made him feel utterly hollowed out.
A wave of unprecedented weakness engulfed him like a rising tide.
As he struggled to lift his upper body with his new arm, trying to pull his waist free from the old shell—
[Whoosh!]
[Whoosh!]
Two cold flashes suddenly fell from the sky without warning.
[Splurt!]
The first black kunai pierced his hand with brutal precision, pinning his palm firmly to the ground along with the stone beneath it.
"Hiss—!"
The stabbing pain forced a sharp intake of breath from Orochimaru!
Just as he gritted his teeth, trying to yank out the kunai, another streak of cold light flashed—an incoming ninja blade drove down hard, impaling his other hand to the ground.
"Urgh—ah!"
Orochimaru let out an uncontrollable groan of pain, his golden pupils trembling violently from agony and despair.
And he recognized that blade—it was his Kusanagi Sword!
It must have slipped from his grasp when he was struck away earlier, only to be caught by Uchiha Keizumi.
Now, his own Kusanagi Sword was being used to nail his hand to the ground…
Was this the twisted amusement of that madman of justice?
[Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!]
The heavy footsteps coming from afar struck against Orochimaru's heart.
The towering wooden giant's colossal form blotted out what little light remained within the dark depths of Ryūchi Cave, stopping at the edge of the crater. Its shadow, like a shroud of death, enveloped Orochimaru completely at the bottom.
Gritting his teeth, Orochimaru slowly raised his bloodstained, mucus-covered head bit by bit.
His gaze moved upward along the wooden giant's legs, as thick as mountain ridges—
Until it fixed upon the figure standing atop its head, staring down at him with the cold gaze of a judge from hell.
Their eyes met at last, suspended in the air.
Only then did Orochimaru realize just how scarlet and demonic the Uchiha clan's Mangekyō Sharingan truly was…
And the moment he looked into those eyes, he suddenly felt the entire world drain of color. In his blurred vision, those spinning scarlet patterns became piercingly vivid.
It was as if nothing existed before him anymore—except those two points of blood-red light.
Orochimaru felt his very soul being dragged into that crimson abyss!
"Damn it…"
Deep within his golden snake pupils, the pattern of the Mangekyō suddenly expanded infinitely. An indescribable, irresistible force—like billions of red-hot steel needles—stabbed mercilessly into every corner of his soul, mind, will, and consciousness!
"Ugh—Aaaahhhhhh!!!"
Orochimaru's thoughts shattered completely, his mind plunged into chaos as if thrown into a roaring furnace. The faces of countless "subjects" he had personally sent to the lab table—those who had died in agony and despair—flashed madly through his mind like a revolving lantern.
The twisted limbs, hollow gazes, and piercing screams of the countless test subjects—every ounce of pain, terror, despair, and resentment that those "sacrifices" had endured and that he had long dismissed as meaningless—were now magnified infinitely by those eyes.
Then, like a tsunami, all of it came crashing back upon him—amplified thousands upon thousands of times—smashing through the heart of the man who had once believed himself cold and unfeeling.
This was no genjutsu.
It was the judgment of absolute justice!
"Hiss—Aaaahhhhhh!!!"
A scream unlike any human sound—piercing, soul-tearing—burst from deep within Orochimaru's throat.
It was filled with agony and despair beyond measure.
His newly reborn body convulsed violently as if struck by high-voltage lightning; tears, snot, and drool poured uncontrollably from his face; a stench spread out as his lower body completely lost control.
The once-proud "Sannin of Konoha" who toyed with life itself—Orochimaru—was now like a skinned worm writhing on a blazing iron plate.
Within the crater, his heart-wrenching, inhuman shrieks echoed through the sulfurous, blood-stained air of Ryūchi Cave.
His new body twisted and rolled madly in the filth and blood.
Each spasm wrenched at the arms pinned to the ground, bringing fresh waves of unbearable pain.
Uchiha Keizumi stood atop the wooden giant's head, overlooking Orochimaru below like a cold, pitiless judge of hell.
His frigid voice pierced through the screams, each word striking Orochimaru's soul like an ice pick.
"For one such as you—the root of all evil in the shinobi world—to be granted a swift death… would be a desecration of the word 'justice,' a sin of indulgence toward the monstrous crimes you have committed."
"The pain you now feel… will cling to you like maggots to bone, following you for eternity. Whether you crawl on in wretched survival or your soul returns to the Pure Land; whether you wear a thousand bodies or twist your spirit into a thousand forms…"
"You will share the same fate as Shimura Danzō—every minute, every second, until the very end of time—forever sinking and wailing within an abyss of unending agony! This is the final judgment of absolute justice upon you."
The moment his words fell, Uchiha Keizumi's other Mangekyō Sharingan suddenly activated!
A blinding line of blood, like a tear of weeping scarlet, slid from the corner of his eye.
His ocular power surged to its peak. The complex, icy pattern within his pupil spun wildly, as though opening a gate straight into purgatory.
[Boom!]
Without the slightest warning, an eerie, condensed flame was born from the void itself, erupting directly upon Orochimaru's chest.
This fire carried no heat—yet the agony it inflicted upon both body and soul was billions of times more terrifying than being burned by magma.
It did not merely sear flesh; it branded his very soul as if by countless red-hot irons, pressing directly into its core.
Orochimaru's screams suddenly rose to an inhuman pitch.
His body arched violently, as though impaled to the ground by invisible nails.
The flame seemed alive, greedily devouring his life force and spirit, intent on annihilating his existence from its very root.
"—Stop!!!"
Just as the heavenly flame burned ever fiercer, about to consume the last shred of Orochimaru's consciousness, a furious, resounding cry burst forth.
Three graceful figures, each exuding an overwhelming and chilling aura, appeared ghostlike atop the massive boulders at the edge of the battlefield.
They were the Three Snake Princesses of Ryūchi Cave—Tagorihime, Ichikishimahime, and Tagitsuhime!
When their gazes fell upon the scene before them—
Even these three who had lived countless years and grown accustomed to slaughter could not help but have their pupils contract sharply, drawing a collective breath of shock.
Before their eyes—this was no longer the Ryūchi Cave they knew.
It was a purgatory of endless torment!
Everywhere they looked, the ground was split open, cracks running deep as rivers of magma flowed within, pulsing like the veins of the earth itself. The air was so thick with destructive heat that it burned and warped the very space around it.
Charred craters, collapsed cliffs, rocks corroded into riddled holes—
Together they formed a landscape of desolation, a lifeless field of death and scorched earth.
Farther away, Manda's colossal body lay miserably submerged in magma. The once-arrogant serpent's head, along with much of its neck and upper body, had completely vaporized into nothingness.
And at the center of this purgatorial scene stood a wooden giant, towering and composed of countless twisted tree trunks.
Beneath its feet, within the crater, Orochimaru was pinned to the ground by kunai and the Kusanagi Sword.
From his chest burned that eerie flame that made the soul tremble—his entire body writhing and convulsing like a worm tossed onto a scorching iron plate.
He was still screaming—a sound so inhuman that even they felt their hearts shudder.
There was not a trace left of the composure once belonging to one of the Sannin of Konohagakure.
And the one who had caused all this—Uchiha Keizumi—stood atop the wooden giant's head. As though only just hearing their furious shout, he turned his head coldly, without the slightest hint of emotion.