Chapter 435: The Sage of Six Paths' Reason for Abandoning His Body
"The Progenitor of the Ōtsutsuki Clan… I didn't expect it to be real. And yet..."
Li Yao checked his chakra and soul—nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But just thinking about those starry cosmic eyes, he knew his soul and chakra had already been marked.
Just like how his chakra fluctuations could be inherited by his "good son."
Chakra in the shinobi world originally came from the Ōtsutsuki clan.
So it was only natural that Li Yao would be branded with a chakra mark from the Ōtsutsuki Progenitor.
He simply couldn't sense it.
Still, after being stared at by those cosmic eyes, anyone—no matter how foolish—would know something was very wrong.
"The Progenitor of the Ōtsutsuki Clan…"
Li Yao reflected deeply on memories from his past life.
Everything he knew about the Ōtsutsuki Progenitor came from videos online. Whether the Progenitor truly existed, he had no way to confirm.
He hadn't watched Boruto, only caught bits of the plot from commentary videos—something about the Ōtsutsuki Progenitor being mentioned, perhaps even having become a god or something.
It was all a blur now. That was all he could recall.
Still, it was enough. At least now Li Yao could be certain: the Ōtsutsuki Progenitor existed—and was terrifying. And apparently, had already set their sights on him.
"I wonder if being in another world changes anything… no, I can't escape this."
Li Yao suddenly realized—even if he fled to this world, it wouldn't help. Odds were, this world had its own version of the Ōtsutsuki Progenitor.
And it was hard to say whether the Progenitor in both worlds was the same entity.
If not, great. If so… that would be even more troublesome.
Either way, with power on that level, Li Yao wasn't going to delude himself with false hope.
"Damn it! This is all because I got stronger."
Li Yao sighed inwardly. Thinking back, the reason he'd been marked by those cosmic eyes—targeted by the Ōtsutsuki Progenitor—was because he had reached the level of a Six Paths being.
"Well... it's probably also because my body and soul had been strengthened by Six Paths chakra."
Li Yao reasoned.
When he first copied and gathered his own Six Paths chakra, he hadn't drawn the attention of those eyes.
It was only after the chakra had strengthened both his body and soul to a full Six Paths level that he was noticed.
"Why wasn't I noticed earlier?"
Li Yao pondered and developed a theory.
Before, he had been like an ant—too insignificant for the Progenitor to care about.
But once he grew from an ant into a mouse, he inevitably drew attention.
"So... is that gaze a good thing or a bad thing?"
"It's definitely bad—very, very bad. The kind of bad that'll probably get me killed."
In that instant, Li Yao thought about the Sage of Six Paths—about all the mysterious, confusing choices the Sage had made. Being noticed by the Ōtsutsuki Progenitor was absolutely not a good thing.
"How do I get rid of the Progenitor's gaze?"
Now that the problem had appeared, and he couldn't get rid of the being behind it, the only solution was to eliminate the problem itself.
But what were the consequences of being noticed by the Ōtsutsuki Progenitor?
"The only person who might know… is the Sage of Six Paths!"
After all, Li Yao had become a Six Paths-level shinobi—and that's when the Progenitor noticed him. Surely the Sage had been noticed too.
But the Sage of Six Paths was still alive, even now.
That meant he had succeeded in escaping the Progenitor's gaze.
"How did he do it?"
Li Yao was curious, though he doubted the Sage would ever tell him.
Still… Li Yao had seen the Naruto anime. He knew bits and pieces about the Sage's story—not everything, but maybe enough to infer something.
He combed through all he could recall about the Sage.
First off, a thousand years ago, the Sage of Six Paths must have achieved immortality.
Now that Li Yao's body and soul had been enhanced by Six Paths chakra, he too had achieved physical and spiritual immortality.
As long as no one killed him, he could easily live a thousand years.
The same went for the Sage—he could've easily lived to this day in his original body.
But in the end, the Sage chose death.
Why did he do that?
Or rather… why did he abandon his physical body and live on only as a soul in the Pure Land?
"Chakra!"
The thought hit Li Yao instantly.
Chakra in the shinobi world came from the Ōtsutsuki clan. And chakra from the Ōtsutsuki clan must have originated from the Progenitor.
That meant both the Sage and Li Yao carried chakra imprints from the Progenitor.
Li Yao had tested this before. While he couldn't control the chakra imprint he left in his "good son," he could still sense it.
So the Progenitor could surely sense the chakra imprint in Li Yao's body as well.
But given how widespread the Ōtsutsuki's chakra imprint must be, only those who reached the Six Paths level triggered actual attention.
That "gaze"… might not even come directly from the Progenitor, but instead serve as an alert to powerful members of the Ōtsutsuki clan that someone in a far-off realm had reached a harvestable level of chakra.
Li Yao's expression darkened as he recalled how the Ōtsutsuki clan planted God Trees throughout the universe.
The trees absorbed natural energy from a planet, nurturing chakra fruit—also known as Ten Tails chakra.
And Ten Tails chakra was Six Paths-level chakra.
In other words, once the chakra fruit reached Ten Tails-level, it triggered the Progenitor's gaze, prompting Ōtsutsuki members to descend and harvest it.
"So… the greatest threat I now face is from a powerful Ōtsutsuki coming to harvest this 'chakra fruit.'"
"And the Sage of Six Paths… perhaps he discarded his body and chakra to avoid being hunted by the Ōtsutsuki clan?"
Li Yao frowned. That was his theory. It seemed to make sense—but there were inconsistencies.
In the original series, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki and her companion came to the shinobi world and planted the God Tree. But midway, Kaguya betrayed her companion and ate the chakra fruit herself, then lived in fear of her clan's retaliation, building a White Zetsu army in preparation.
And the Sage of Six Paths… right.
Li Yao recalled—when the Sage sealed Kaguya, neither of them may have actually reached Six Paths level. The chakra fruit likely hadn't reached full maturity yet.
The Sage and his brother managed to seal Kaguya using Six Paths-level Chibaku Tensei empowered by Mount Myōboku's Sage Mode.
Sage Mode chakra—even at Six Paths level—didn't trigger the Progenitor's gaze.
Later, the Sage sealed the Ten Tails inside himself, becoming its jinchūriki. Only then did his chakra reach true Six Paths strength, triggering the Progenitor's attention.
That's when the Sage began seeking a way to erase the Ōtsutsuki chakra imprint from his body.
In the end, he succeeded. He erased the imprint, making himself invisible to the Ōtsutsuki clan's perception.
Li Yao speculated boldly: it was precisely because the Sage removed the Progenitor's chakra mark that the clan could no longer sense his presence—thus losing the coordinates to this planet.
In other words, the shinobi world stopped transmitting the "chakra fruit ripe for harvest" signal to the Ōtsutsuki.
That's why no one from the Ōtsutsuki clan had descended upon the shinobi world for a thousand years.
Not until the Fourth Great Ninja War, when Kaguya revived—albeit briefly—before being sealed again.
Yet Naruto and Sasuke, both wielders of Six Paths Yin-Yang Release, survived.
(END CHAPTER)
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