A roar saturated with fury erupted from Ren Uchiha's lips!
Immediately, under the fixed, intense gazes of everyone present, the center of the great hall...
Suddenly, the wind rose!
It was a visible, incandescent wind. From within the gusts leapt sparks of flame, and within the flames, the myriad faces of sentient life were reflected. Then, the rising firestorm swirled upward toward the ceiling!
Blazing fire and lightning, with the brilliance of a midday sun, surged forth from the Futsu-no-Mitama thrust into the earth!
Using the sword as a spine, twenty-six bones—shaded between bright yellow and crimson—manifested, forming a draconic vertebrae! Then, from this spine, flame-like shoulder blades, humeri, ribs, mandibles, cheekbones, nasal bones, frontal bones, and parietal bones rapidly took shape and grew!
Ultimately, they formed a terrifying, savage, half-bodied skeletal giant—one that burned fiercely yet radiated waves of bone-chilling cold! The skeletal head, encased in incandescent flames, tilted slightly downward.
In its hollow sockets, two golden beams of light ignited, shining like the sun at zenith!
Under this gaze—a mixture of scorching heat and freezing shadow—everyone in the hall stopped dead in their tracks. They looked up in a daze, their flesh and blood suddenly feeling like clockwork toys that had been overwound and jammed.
"Wh... what is that?!"
They swallowed hard, staring idiotically upward at the thirty-meter-tall skeletal giant as it raised a single hand and spread its bony palm!
In the next instant, their vision was engulfed by a sudden, ghastly white radiance.
"—BOOM!!"
A thunderous roar, like a thousand drums beating at once, exploded in their ears! Then, their vision went black. They could see nothing, hear nothing, sense nothing, and touch nothing!
The last shred of their consciousness felt as if they had been struck by a lightning spear falling from the heavens to pierce the earth! The sensation of heat lasted only a flash before everything vanished into an illusory foam.
They were instantly evaporated.
Evaporated in the literal sense of the word.
Yet this was merely the first aftershock of the skeletal Susanoo summoning the true form of the divine artifact known as the "Sword of the Thunder God!"
Outside, in the city of Unming:
"—BOOM!"
The sound of continuous thunder, like countless wheels rolling across the sky, shattered the dreams of countless citizens! They were jolted awake by the rolling peals, climbing out of bed and rushing to windows and doors.
Thinking a storm was coming, they looked up—and were utterly shaken by the sight.
It was a beam of lightning that illuminated the entire city, a sight no one would ever forget. It linked the thick, heavy clouds of the high heavens to the massive palace built into the mountainside at the edge of the inner city!
Then, the earth shook!
The soil was upheaved, the mountain crumbled, and heaven and earth were momentarily fused! The ghastly white lightning did not fade; it stood like a spear connecting sky to ground. It was as if the God of Thunder looked down upon that mountain and the people in that palace with displeasure and decided to uproot them entirely. The sudden upheaval of earth threw up a curtain of sand and dust that looked like a tsunami!
It blotted out the sky and the moon!
"Is... is that a god?!"
Countless people stared blankly, the same thought rising in their hearts simultaneously!
Just then, figures rushed out into the streets, merging into a human tide. They gazed up at the lightning pillar with expressions that were half-dazed, half-broken.
In the middle of these crowds flowing through the streets of Unming, a small figure cloaked in black spread his arms wide. His eyes were pious and bloodshot, his arms held stiff and loyal, clutching the Ritual of the Evil God as if it were the gospel itself.
He looked as if he wanted to embrace the city and all the faithful before him. Then, in a voice both tender and primal, he shrieked:
"The time has come!"
"We have been diligent yet suffered greatly; our souls have endured trials yet our voices remained choked!"
"Yet the ultimate evil in this world still feasts upon honor and luxury!"
"Now, as you see with your own eyes, we shall witness the Light!"
"We shall witness Justice!"
"How greedy you are—sinners!"
"Your bodies, covered in deep and painful sins, shall finally receive divine punishment at this moment!"
"Die with your own loathesomeness!"
"The mortal world will experience a hell of ultimate evil; the world will hear cries of agony!"
"But those who believe in the Evil God shall find salvation within these fearless wails!"
"Believe in the Evil God—"
"Believe in the Evil God—"
"The innocent souls of the myriad worlds will overturn everything and wash the world clean in slaughter!"
The small figure threw back his hood, tore off his black robe, and leapt into the sea of people! Carried aloft by the crowd, his face was filled with a fanatical rage that seemed ready to burn him to ash.
He screamed until his throat tore:
"Kill! Kill them! Kill!"
"Samurai can be killed, ninjas can be killed, nobles can be killed, and the Daimyo can be killed most of all—"
"Kill them all!"
"Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!"
"Set the stage, dye the flowers with blood! Use the heads of the high-born to build a pyramid and begin the ritual!"
"And then—"
"Welcome the Evil God!"
"Let this nation undergo a Great Purge!!"
As this roar fell, and as identical voices and phrases spread through the city's corners—pushed by those with intent—the faces of the countless people standing in the streets changed.
They understood.
Then, they became somber, terrifying, and furious!
Pair after pair of tired, bloodshot eyes ignited across the city! The human tide finally began to flow through the alleys, figures darting through the sandstorm kicked up by the lightning pillar.
Finally, they converged into a sea of people!
The massive roof of the palace had been blasted with a giant hole by the lightning beam called down from the heavens. The great hall was no longer luxurious; it was swaying on the verge of collapse.
The floor was a mess of shattered stone, looking as if it had been plowed over a thousand times by heavy machinery. The windows and walls had been blown out by the pressure of the earth and wind. Only a few pillars remained standing to support the roof, though they were covered in cracks.
In the hall, only three breathing souls remained.
There was Ren Uchiha, holding the half-bodied skeletal Susanoo; Minato Namikaze, protected on the side by a skeletal hand; and Sugaya Ryuzoji, who had scrambled to Minato's side and was currently shivering in terror.
[You have successfully equipped the Divine Artifact to Susanoo: Spirit Sword · Futsu-no-Mitama.]
The skeleton surrounding Ren slowly dissolved into floating embers. The blue lightning vibrating in the skeletal palm faded away as well. If one ignored the wreckage around them, it looked as if nothing had happened. The noisy shouting had vanished, replaced by a deep silence.
Ren exhaled a refreshing breath and stretched his shoulders and neck, which were sore from summoning the Susanoo to catch the heavenly lightning.
Crack! Crack!
After cracking his joints back into place, he stepped forward toward Minato.
Seeing Ren approach again, Sugaya Ryuzoji jolted as if he'd seen a ghost. He huddled further behind the unconscious Minato Namikaze.
"Wh... what are you going to do?!"
Sugaya's body shook. He was just about to perform a Dogeza (prostration) and yell that he would give Ren anything if the "Great Hero" would just let him live, but Ren merely glanced at him with disgust and barked:
"Get lost!"
In the moment he wielded the artifact and called down the lightning, Ren had kicked this guy over to Minato's side and used the Susanoo's hand to shield them. He only did it because the man was still somewhat useful—he could logically inherit the country after the Lightning Daimyo was dead.
However, that "usefulness" was for Minato Namikaze, the man destined to become the Fourth Hokage. Ren had no use for him and couldn't be bothered with him, even if the Young Lord and the Daimyo had their own "history."
As for Minato...
Ren walked to Minato's side and looked down at him, sighing deeply. This man was currently his biggest headache.
How to open up a new world and govern it? That's Civilization VI gameplay. A brawler like me who only knows action games really can't handle that...
At the very least, it was predictable that after the six-day deadline passed and the Lightning Daimyo was killed, the Ninja World would face a massive upheaval. If Minato's vision came true and they actually took control of the Fire and Lightning territories, it would signal the rise of ninjas and the fall of the Daimyo system.
But "ninja rule" was just another word for a military junta. Having a ninja like Ren—who had zero governing skill and had put all his talent points into tatakae (fighting)—as Hokage... it was hard to say if that would be a good thing for the world.
Furthermore, a coup in one country would trigger a chain reaction across the entire continent. Other ninjas would either have to follow suit or swear absolute loyalty to their Daimyos to prove they weren't "traitors," likely by declaring war on the revolutionary nation. If handled poorly, a war of even higher intensity would consume the world, throwing the Ninja World into a "Dark Forest" era.
Ren knew he wasn't the one to solve those problems. But under his influence, the ship of the new era had already set sail. It wasn't something he could stop just by saying so. It was like Minato; if Ren hadn't met him in Unming City, he wouldn't have even known Minato was planning such a radical coup. Who knew how many others were acting in the shadows?
Ren was not a qualified helmsman. To lead the world to a better future, it needed the correct guidance of those who held love for the world—ninjas like Mei Terumi, Minato Namikaze, or Chojuro, who possessed governing talent.
Minato Namikaze was the one who could provide a safety net for this world!
Things had already gone this far. Ren could continue to seek death, to change things, and to fight his way across the world.
But Minato? He absolutely could not die! To the Ren who was starting to understand the bigger picture, Minato was as rare and precious as a giant panda!
Looking at Minato, who was knocked out and sleeping as peacefully as Peppa Pig, Ren sighed and spoke with a hint of apology:
"Sorry, Minato..."
"You have to become Hokage for me. You have to shoulder the whole world."
"As for me—"
Ren looked up. Through the giant hole in the roof, he saw figures leaping toward the palace from the city below. His gaze instantly turned cold.
"I shall be the one who wields the sword!"
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