However, the Sage of Six Paths did not fall within the "basic" category Hagoromo had defined. Or rather, no matter what classification one used, the Sage of Six Paths was always the most special one.
Hagoromo had spoken of switching rhythms in battle, but to be honest, with his current strength, there were already very few enemies worth doing that against.
That said, it was not exactly exaggerated either. Some protagonists had already saved the world by the age of sixteen, while he was already in his twenties and was still being beaten down by a double-weakened version of the world boss.
No matter how one looked at it, Hagoromo gave the Sage of Six Paths the utmost attention.
And yet, faced with this powerful strike that could practically skewer anyone to death, the Sage of Six Paths still did not move at all… It was not because the Sage was unafraid of being stabbed, nor because he was already dead. It was because he knew Hagoromo's attack would never land in the first place.
Looking across the entire shinobi world, who had the strongest single-target defense? That was not an easy question to answer clearly, but there was no doubt that the Sage of Six Paths' defense was extremely difficult to break through.
Aside from Shinra Tensei, he also had the Truth-Seeking Balls.
At that moment, a pitch-black curved surface blocked Hagoromo's path, stopping his strike without the slightest surprise. The lightning could not even spread across the special substance of the Truth-Seeking Ball.
Aside from the shakujō he usually used, there were nine Truth-Seeking Balls surrounding the Sage of Six Paths. The one that blocked Hagoromo's attack was only one of them, and the Truth-Seeking Balls themselves were tools capable of offense, defense, and support.
Furthermore, unlike the one-time-use Truth-Seeking Balls unconsciously generated by certain people after becoming the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, the Truth-Seeking Balls of the Sage of Six Paths—or rather, those of the Ōtsutsuki brothers—were fundamentally different.
For other Truth-Seeking Balls, once the "egg" shattered, the ball was done for and could not be used again. But the Sage of Six Paths' Truth-Seeking Balls could be reused over and over.
As for his Sage's shakujō… in truth, when he fought the Ten-Tails, he had already been using both a staff and a sword.
Hagoromo took advantage of the interval after Shinra Tensei was used to break into the Sage of Six Paths' immediate vicinity. The Sage's next move was to use one Truth-Seeking Ball for defense and the other eight for offense.
The piercing attacks created by the Truth-Seeking Balls' shapeshifting were incomparably swift. Hagoromo could not defend against them with his body alone.
But he did not panic. The instant the Truth-Seeking Balls transformed into black spikes, time seemed to slow to a crawl…
Hagoromo did not withdraw the knife-hand strike of his right hand. Meanwhile, his left arm had already bent at the elbow and pulled back to the limit, palm facing upward, his five fingers curling into a fist. Immediately afterward, the fist, packed with tremendous power, shot straight forward. And when it was less than ten centimeters away from the Truth-Seeking Ball barrier, its speed, force, and momentum doubled a second time.
"Clang!"
That terrifying blow, containing all of Hagoromo's strength, failed to shatter the Truth-Seeking Ball barrier. However, the bell-like resonance created by the impact spread far out in every direction.
And faced with this strike from Hagoromo, the Sage of Six Paths finally moved.
No, to be precise, he was knocked back.
Before Hagoromo's powerful strike, the Sage of Six Paths, along with the Truth-Seeking Balls around him, rapidly retreated backward.
The offensive spikes formed by the Truth-Seeking Balls stabbed into the water, and their threat to Hagoromo vanished.
Still… Hagoromo, be careful with your wrist when you hit that hard!
Since the strike had some effect, Hagoromo immediately pursued him head-on.
By the time he caught up to the Sage, his right hand was already gripping a blade. At the same time, his body slipped around the front and quickly flashed to the Sage of Six Paths' side.
Then the chakra blade in his hand stabbed downward!
His intention was to bypass the defensive barrier of the Truth-Seeking Ball. But such a simple breakthrough could never be effective. Without the Sage of Six Paths seeming to move at all, the barrier shifted on its own and once again blocked Hagoromo's attack.
However, Hagoromo had expected this. His offense did not stop. He turned his body, the tip of his chakra blade scraping across the spherical surface of the Truth-Seeking Ball, while the slash of the iron-sand sword in his left hand arrived from the other side.
Clang!
The sound of metal striking metal rang out.
Then the lightning markings on Hagoromo's body disappeared. In their place, even more powerful lightning lit up from his body and the area around him. First came a faint humming sound, and almost simultaneously, an ear-piercing cutting noise accompanied by bursting sparks drowned it out.
If he could not pierce it or cut it, Hagoromo still had an electric saw to use.
But this time, he was genuinely surprised.
The extreme destructive power created by the overclocked cutting of the iron-sand sword seemed to have failed. It still could not cause any damage to the Truth-Seeking Ball barrier.
What the hell was this thing?
This was a situation that was hard to explain physically. In theory, the iron-sand sword should be able to cut through anything, yet it could not break the defense of the Truth-Seeking Ball.
How strange.
Hagoromo had no time to figure out the principle behind it. His wrist continued pressing forward, and at the same time, the seal on his forehead began to spread.
After deactivating the third stage of Chidori Current, and while still using the second stage of Chidori Current, Hagoromo entered Sage Mode once again!
As senjutsu chakra overflowed, the facial markings representing Sage Mode appeared on Hagoromo's face.
Sage Mode within, lightning wrapped around him without. On the surface, Hagoromo's presence rose once more.
At the same time, senjutsu chakra mixed into the iron-sand sword.
And this time, under the combined effect of his "Electromaster" ability and Sage Mode, the Truth-Seeking Ball barrier—which was as tough and resilient as chewing gum—was finally cut apart inch by inch.
Hagoromo raised an eyebrow. That worked?
Senjutsu chakra countered Truth-Seeking Balls. Hagoromo had not known this piece of information before. He had only switched to Sage Mode to increase his output.
In other words, this situation was pure dumb luck.
However, with Hagoromo's intelligence, he reacted almost instantly. It was the natural energy mixed into senjutsu that was taking effect.
Then… did that mean things had just become much simpler?
The Truth-Seeking Ball barrier was split in two. Immediately afterward, the chakra blade in Hagoromo's right hand stabbed toward the Sage of Six Paths again.
What met Hagoromo's sword technique was the block of the Sage's shakujō.
After finally breaking through the last layer of defense, Hagoromo had barely launched that one strike before he knew he should retreat. No, he had no choice but to retreat.
Because he had a premonition that Shinra Tensei's cooldown had already ended.
Sure enough, in the very next second after Hagoromo retreated, the water surface beneath his feet was pressed downward inch by inch. That tremendous force pursued Hagoromo's frantic retreat step for step.
By the time Hagoromo finally stopped, the sea surface before his eyes had already been pressed into a hemispherical space with a radius of two hundred meters.
Of course, Shinra Tensei's repulsive force expanded in a sphere. It was just that the upper half was difficult to notice with the naked eye.
"The Rinnegan's abilities should not be limited to this. Why are you only using this power?"
Across that distance, outside Shinra Tensei's range, Hagoromo asked the Sage of Six Paths.
If one used Pain as a comparison, the Sage of Six Paths was currently only using the power of the Deva Path. The power of the Rinnegan could not possibly amount to only this, especially not the Rinnegan of the Sage of Six Paths.
"As you said, the current me is merely a consciousness formed from chakra. The abilities I possessed in life cannot be fully retained. Even the power of the Rinnegan can only be used in part," the Sage of Six Paths said.
It was not only the Rinnegan. His overall strength was the same. If the Sage of Six Paths at his peak as the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki had a strength of one, then the consciousness formed from his remnant chakra after death was definitely less than one-half. And the Sage of Six Paths currently fighting Hagoromo, whose chakra was still extremely scattered, was probably less than one-quarter.
If this were a real battle against an enemy, only an idiot would reveal such information without hesitation. But right now, Hagoromo's enemy was the Sage of Six Paths.
The Sage would not lie. This was not because he was overly arrogant. Even if revealing this information put him at a great disadvantage, he would still state the truth. There was no complicated reason behind it. It was simply because… he was the Sage of Six Paths.
Likewise, however, the Sage did not quite understand what Hagoromo was playing with now… Of course, he understood Sage Mode perfectly well. But this thing that combined lightning with senjutsu was absolutely not a system this old man had created, all right?
No matter how incredible the Sage of Six Paths was, it was impossible for him to step outside the framework of the world itself to look at the problem. Therefore, he did not understand what this thing on Hagoromo's body was. It resembled Lightning Release, yet it had no corresponding chakra reaction. Nor could he possibly know how much effort Hagoromo had spent, and how many times he had broken his hands, to be able to use this ability together with chakra.
No matter what, the Sage of Six Paths was finally no longer calmly floating there cross-legged.
The depression in the water surface caused by Shinra Tensei leveled out. The Truth-Seeking Balls that had stabbed into the water returned behind him, and the Sage of Six Paths' feet also landed on the water's surface.
Hagoromo held his breath and focused. He slid the chakra blade back into its sheath, then transferred the iron-sand sword in his left hand to his right… This did not mean he had relaxed. On the contrary, he had become even more cautious.
The Sage of Six Paths seemed about to get serious… and then he moved, flying straight toward Hagoromo.
The trail left by his rapid movement looked as if someone had shoved two jet engines behind him. But that was not all. Just as he was about to close in on Hagoromo, he suddenly accelerated a second time!
At that moment, Hagoromo's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. It was not because he did not understand what the Sage was using. It was precisely because he understood it too well that he was shocked!
As expected of the divine figure who founded Ninshū and spread the practice of chakra throughout the world, the Sage of Six Paths now displayed an ability beyond kekkei genkai.
Understanding, analysis, and reconstruction—that was the hallmark of true mastery.
Understanding, analysis, learning, and then use—that was the Sage of Six Paths.
A lightning marking appeared on the Sage of Six Paths' face. Although it was different from Hagoromo's, it was extremely similar.
This meant Hagoromo's technique had been stolen. The third stage of Chidori Current that he had been using—after watching it a few times, the Sage of Six Paths had reproduced it.
Could they at least be reasonable? How many messy formula scribbles had Hagoromo gone through to create this thing? This was way too damaging to his self-esteem.
However, there was a very common saying that suited the Sage of Six Paths perfectly:
One is All, All is One.
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