Finally, under your intense gaze, Isshiki's entire body burst into radiant light, which then instantly contracted.
A divine shard slowly descended into the center of Ōtsutsuki Isshiki's chest.
"Although it's not quite perfect yet, this power..."
"Are you done talking yet?!"
You snapped him out of his narcissistic monologue with a brutal uppercut.
Time to fight.
Isshiki slowly opened his eyes, still slightly self-satisfied. With a flicker of Daikokuten, he released a barrage of chakra black rods, raining down on you like a storm.
You hurled a Truth-Seeking Orb, which split into countless chakra rods of its own, clashing midair with Isshiki's. The two of you were evenly matched.
But Isshiki seized the moment while you were focused on intercepting his attack. He activated Sukunahikona, shrinking himself and suddenly appearing at your side—trying to stab your eye with the illusion of secrecy.
"Almighty Push!"
Since acquiring Heavenly Ear, and after numerous evolutions, your body now glowed with golden light. You took the hit directly with your Indestructible Body.
Then, using gravitational force, you pulled Isshiki in, locking him against your body—only to release a violent repulsive force and launch him away.
In an instant, you reappeared behind him. Your Truth-Seeking Orb morphed into a ping pong paddle, and you slammed it viciously into his back.
Then you teleported in front of him, caught his body in midair, and slammed him back in the other direction.
Miniature-sized Isshiki, far from evading you, became your toy—bounced back and forth like a ping pong ball.
Forced to act, he once again used Sukunahikona to return to normal size. Relying on the indestructible body he inherited from the White Ape, he rushed into close combat with you.
Truth be told, ever since becoming a god, Isshiki's physical strength now even surpassed the White Ape Sage in his ten-layer Battle Saint Scripture state. He was on par with you in your base form.
Indeed, becoming a true god marked a turning point in power.
You couldn't help but anticipate how, once you broke your final shackles, your own strength might skyrocket to the point of challenging the Sage of Six Paths.
As you became distracted mid-battle, Isshiki seized the chance. He spun a Truth-Seeking Orb into a long spear and thrust it at you.
Craving a real fight after so long, you dismissed the Truth-Seeking Orb weapon in your hand and faced the spear with nothing but your bare hands.
Using only a single-layer Indestructible Body, you intercepted Isshiki's full-force strike—barehanded, sword-style.
As expected, your overconfidence had consequences.
The tip of the spear pierced through your golden body. A few silver-white scales cracked and shattered. In the end, the razor-sharp tip embedded into your tough muscle—but advanced no further!
Isshiki, seeing this, felt deeply humiliated.
He decided to stop holding back—and unleashed all the power he possessed as a true god.
In a blink, he shrank and teleported behind you.
With Battle Saint Scripture fully activated, his power magnified a hundredfold. He struck you with a punch to the back—
You were sent flying, smashing through dozens of small planetoids. Blood trickled from the corner of your mouth.
Now this... this was more like it. A battle that didn't draw blood was nothing but a child's game.
Wiping the blood from your lips, you steadied your breath.
You didn't activate Battle Saint Scripture. Nor the Eight Gates, or any other latent power-enhancing shinobi arts.
Instead, you deliberately placed yourself at a disadvantage, using Isshiki as a whetstone to further refine your Breathing Art of the Sage Path.
As you adjusted your breathing rhythm, you took Isshiki's enhanced blows head-on. His strength, multiplied a hundredfold, had overwhelming force.
Every time you blocked an attack, several bones inside you broke.
Fortunately, you possessed the divine technique [Wither and Bloom]. Your body regenerated the moment it was broken.
Relying on this unrivaled regenerative power, you endured the pain and continued the close-quarters brawl with Isshiki.
Even when he teleported away with spatial abilities, you would instantly follow, coiling around him like a giant serpent.
Time and again, your body was shattered by the true god that was Ōtsutsuki Isshiki—only to be reformed.
And with each cycle of death and rebirth, your breathing technique grew more refined.
Gradually, your Breathing Art—now fused with senjutsu—reached a new level.
It began to merge with the Lightning Release Chakra Mode you'd long since mastered.
Then, what you once envisioned back when you were weaker—Fire Release Chakra Mode—also began fusing in.
Both modes integrated into your Breathing Art.
You began adapting to Isshiki's attacks. No longer were you being overwhelmingly suppressed.
At the same time, with both chakra modes now merged into your Breathing Art...
Senjutsu, Breathing Art, and Chakra—three fundamentally different powers—fused as one in that instant.
They resonated at the same frequency. And in that moment, an overwhelming power erupted from within your body.
Water Release Chakra Mode!
Your body flowed like water, elusive and ungraspable, yet containing the might to support the sea.
Earth Release Chakra Mode!
You stood like an unshakable mountain, unmoved amidst chaos and storms.
Wind Release Chakra Mode!
You became intangible, flickering between presence and absence—transcending between reality and illusion.
These three chakra natures, which you had already trained to the limit, now exploded simultaneously.
They birthed unique chakra modes of their own, all operating in harmony within your body.
Every cell, every tissue inside you surged and roiled, constantly shattering and reconstructing.
Isshiki's external power and your internal drive to break past your limits pushed you even further.
You fused all five basic chakra natures into one—completely unified within yourself.
Tenseigan Chakra Mode!
Suddenly, your body erupted in a blaze of brilliant blue chakra flames.
The power of the Tenseigan, too, was now fully integrated into your Breathing Art.
At this moment, the Breathing Art of the Sage Path—
Was no longer just a breathing technique.
It was your complete understanding of your own power. It was another form of yourself.
You took a deep breath in.
And slowly exhaled.
In the vacuum of space, you steadied yourself, lightly tapping your foot on a shattered meteor to stop your high-speed flight.
Your aura was no longer overwhelmingly forceful or domineering.
Instead, it became utterly ordinary...
The power surrounding your body dissipated into nothingness.
This marked the moment you had reached complete mastery over your own power—a realm that could truly be called "complete."
You extended your hand and halted Isshiki's next strike.
Then you told him—
It was time.
Time to activate the tenth layer of the Battle Saint Scripture.
Time to show his real strength.
Time to make his desperate, all-out move.
Ōtsutsuki Isshiki's face flushed red in fury. As a proud member of the Ōtsutsuki clan, when had he ever been so humiliated by the bloodline of some backwater planet?
At once, he fully activated the tenth layer of the Battle Saint Scripture—his strength skyrocketing a thousandfold.
Though your battle had long moved to the edge of an entire star system, the sheer aura of Isshiki's power blew the solar flares at the system's core backward.
Auroras danced across the skies of the shinobi world.
Every corner of the world could see them.
"YAAAAAH!!!"
With this one earth-shattering attack, Isshiki tore through space itself.
He smashed you into the heart of a massive gas giant.
The two of you, at the very core of the enormous star, continued your battle—
Enduring endless pressure and temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees…
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