The massive consumption of ocular power caused Sho Uchiha's eyes to become hazy, as if they had lost their focus.
His movements became sluggish, no longer as agile and precise as before.
Sho Uchiha felt his strength gradually fading, and he knew he had reached his limit.
Yet he still refused to give up.
He bit his lip, trying to force himself awake through pain, but exhaustion surged over him like a tide, making resistance impossible.
Coupled with the prolonged battle, the Chakra stored within Kurama no Kami gradually became depleted.
Ninjutsu was inherently weaker than magic.
Every clash required more Chakra to contend with magical power.
After losing the support of their Chakra granary, the ninja side naturally began to decline rapidly in strength, and the ninja forces retreated accordingly.
In contrast, Nightmare Xiao, as a succubus, could continuously draw essence from the dream world to restore her spirit and stamina.
Moreover, as the Undying Army perished in large numbers, countless Nightmares took over human bodies through magic and completed their incarnations.
These Nightmares rampaged across the battlefield, wantonly plundering the ninjas' essence and magic power.
Even if a ninja managed to kill one of these Nightmares, it merely helped Nightmare Xiao recover her own spiritual power.
Therefore, Nightmare Xiao's magic power, essence, and spirit always remained in peak condition.
This was the disparity created by the collision between the foundations of two worlds against the foundation of a single world.
Although the power granted by the Moon Tears was not particularly overwhelming, it was still far stronger than the enhancement provided by a technological world.
The Naruto World belonged to a purely mystical world, whereas the Sword Art Online World was a purely technological one.
Their directions of development were fundamentally different, making them difficult to integrate.
However, the Moon Tears and the mystical arts of the fantasy world surprisingly blended perfectly with the Magic World.
As a result, Sho, representing the foundation of a single world, was forced to fight Nightmare Xiao, who represented the combined foundations of two worlds.
The moment Sho Uchiha revealed a trace of fatigue, Nightmare Xiao immediately seized the opportunity and used Hypnosis Magic to drag him into the dream world.
Within the dream world, no one could contend with the Lord of Dreams.
Nightmare Xiao successfully delivered the final blow to Sho Uchiha.
Thus, this war, which had lasted for a thousand days, finally came to an end.
In the end, all glory belonged to the Lord of Nightmares.
Nightmare Xiao held aloft four Great Luo Dao Fruits, taking over everything from Sho Uchiha and ruling the four worlds.
...
...
Afterward, Nightmare Xiao, having taken control of Kurama no Kami and the dream world, further expanded both the dream world and Chakra Credit System across the two worlds, beginning to spread lending services throughout them.
After several more years of development, Nightmare Xiao integrated the abilities of the two worlds, and her strength underwent a qualitative transformation.
She broke the boundary between dreams and reality, allowing herself to freely travel between the two worlds.
Then, Nightmare Xiao once again opened the Great Firmament Arena, only to discover that the Xiao from the Lord of the Rings World had already died, just like the Gloam-Eyed Queen.
There was no helping it.
The Lord of the Rings World was a world whose fate had already been predetermined by Eru Ilúvatar, meaning that all great power within that world ultimately had to fade into the mundane.
Even if Xiao, carrying a Great Luo fragment, reincarnated there, he could never become the protagonist.
The Lord of the Rings World's Xiao also possessed a rather useless golden finger.
It could only convert the potential Xiao accumulated through continuous cultivation into attribute points, which could then be allocated after enough had been saved.
Several decades of effort merely allowed him to become a somewhat stronger mortal ranger.
Even more absurdly, he had been born during one of the most peaceful eras in the history of Middle-earth, hundreds of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings.
Eru Ilúvatar didn't even give him an opportunity to participate in the story.
In the end, despite doing everything he could, Xiao only became a minor Gondorian noble before eventually dying of melancholy.
Nightmare Xiao cautiously sent a clone into the Lord of the Rings World.
After all, that world possessed a clearly defined Creator God.
Charging in recklessly would likely have resulted in a very tragic death.
Yet to Nightmare Xiao's surprise, Eru Ilúvatar did not take action against her.
Instead, he allowed Xiao to easily inherit the Lord of the Rings World's Great Luo fragment and continue living freely within Middle-earth.
...
...
Afterward, Nightmare Xiao, carrying five Great Luo fragments, engaged Xiao in a Da Luo Duel.
Through Nightmare Xiao's perspective, Xiao finally witnessed just how overwhelmingly one-sided his own attacks truly were.
The first wave of artillery fire left them completely incapable of retaliating.
That opening barrage alone annihilated ninety-nine percent of their forces.
The subsequent high-energy beams and heavy weapons continued to bombard and utterly exterminate everything.
Whether it was the Undying Army or the reincarnated ninjas, all of them were instantly erased by a single shot under the Law of Destined Death.
Although Nightmare Xiao attempted to turn the tide through the power of dreams and Izanagi,
before Xiao's ultimate weapon—the Star Crusher—
her dream world was obliterated by a single shot, leaving her without the slightest ability to resist.
...
...
"How wonderful!"
"How brutal!"
Within the Great Firmament Arena, Xiao and Wu Meiniang looked at the two alternate versions of Xiao from different worlds and sighed in admiration.
Although those two Other Selves did not control many worlds and were not as powerful as Xiao,
that could only be attributed to bad luck.
Otherwise, given the potential of either Kurama no Kami or the dream world, their future development would not have been inferior to Dimensional Demon God Xiao's.
It was simply unfortunate that they had been unlucky.
Despite possessing enormous potential, both had died prematurely.
However, among all Xiao's Other Selves, only the Gloam-Eyed Queen could compare with those two in terms of talent and ability.
The remaining Xiaos were either unfortunate or simply lacked sufficient ability.
It could only be said that the environments in which Nightmare Xiao and Sho Uchiha lived were extremely dangerous.
Their worlds were filled with endless wars and crises.
Therefore, they had desperately sought to become stronger, continuously pushing themselves to their limits in pursuit of greater power.
By comparison, The first Xiao he had encountered was the one who had obtained the strongest golden finger among all the Xiaos.
Judging from the situation in the Lands Between, he was equivalent to the weakest Godrick obtaining the Elden Ring's core Great Rune.
The fragment possessed by that Xiao might also have been the core fragment among all the Great Luo fragments.
After all, it was the prototype of a miniature dimensional world.
However, because his golden finger was simply too powerful, he chose to slack off instead, allowing Xiao to seize the opportunity.
As for Xiao himself, he belonged to the category that had only obtained peripheral fragments.
Aside from receiving a divine status and awakening Energy Absorption, he had not received any true golden finger at all.
Yet it had to be admitted that Xiao's luck was the greatest among all the Xiaos.
Although Xiao had certainly put in effort throughout his journey,
it hadn't actually been that much.
Xiao was not the sort of genius capable of pioneering entirely new paths from nothing.
His talent lay in improving and innovating upon things that already existed.
As a result, many powers that were merely average in the hands of others
could unleash two hundred percent of their potential in Xiao's hands.
Therefore, Xiao's growth in strength owed much to his Other Selves.
His Other Selves worked tirelessly to sow the seeds and cultivate the fields,
while Xiao was responsible for harvesting the fruit and enjoying the finished results.
Just like now, Nightmare Xiao and Sho Uchiha had brought Xiao precisely the power over the spiritual world that he lacked the most.
Therefore, Xiao sincerely appreciated all the effort they had put in.
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