The moment he returned to reality, Uchiha Kirin and his six Limbo Clones felt a jolt run through both body and soul. A sense of perfect completeness surged within them.
Along with it, a massive torrent of time-space crystals was dragged from the void and rapidly injected into his body.
For a moment, he felt like he might explode.
Thankfully, the six Limbo Clones and his true body shared the burden evenly, activating the Breathing Art of the Sage Path] in unison to absorb the energy. The rapid increase in life force was secondary.
The most critical gain was that this power far surpassed the time-space crystals he had previously forged through his own sealing mastery. It allowed him to take another step forward in the dimension of time!
However, that one step opened the floodgates.
From the void, the tide of time-space crystals surged like an unending deluge, far exceeding what his current version of the [Breathing Art] or physical form could withstand.
In an instant, Uchiha Kirin was on the brink of permanent temporal freeze.
Fortunately, he activated Heaven-Reversing Devour, conjuring black vortices from each of his bodies. They redirected the excess crystals into the newborn world he had created.
A massive influx of high-grade foreign energy caused the previously stabilized, cooling newborn world to erupt into turbulence once more.
Uchiha Kirin realized—he would have to enter seclusion once again to fully digest this power.
This meant recalling all Limbo Clones.
In other words, right after he had just emerged, he was headed straight back into the solar furnace.
"What a drag."
A Limbo Clone sighed and instantly appeared before the anxious Great Toad Sage.
He had been delayed by several months and failed to return as promised.
Back then, he had instructed the toad to calculate the precise moment for him to return—within ten minutes of crossing through time.
Such a massive deviation…
It made the toad, who had already been killed and resurrected once by Kirin, question whether his senses were wrong. The psychological trauma ran deep.
Frozen in place before the Dragon Vein, the toad repeated calculations over and over, trying to pinpoint the exact moment Uchiha Kirin and Ōtsutsuki Urashiki had traveled to the past—doubting more and more whether his prophetic abilities were even real.
Maybe… he never had any prophetic power.
Maybe he was just a dreamer who got lucky and mistook coincidence for destiny.
Had he… lied to himself for over a thousand years?
...
Luckily, Uchiha Kirin had returned unscathed—and despite the delay, he'd reaped a tremendous reward.
So, there was no punishment.
He simply handed the old toad over to the Mountain God, telling him to upgrade the toad's ancient weapons and equipment. The chakra-metal broadswords forged centuries ago were already lagging behind the times.
How could they stand against the impending arrival of the Ōtsutsuki from the stars?
With that done, the Limbo Clone disappeared with a single thought, returning to the main body and merging with its soul once more.
Naturally, he brought all of Urashiki's tools back as well.
Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to study them. He simply tossed Urashiki's gear into his inner world.
Then, he placed Karasuki and the two charging devices around his body, manipulating the magnetic field to swiftly construct a massive super-barrier—one that used time-space energy as its core, with cloaking and defensive functions.
After that, he dove completely into the journey of reconstructing himself with this brand-new power.
His consciousness sank into the newborn world, where it was repeatedly shattered and reshaped alongside the world's evolution.
He continuously refined his Breathing Art, rebuilding himself with every fracture, purging the low-tier energy produced by his soul and converting it entirely into time-space crystal power.
...
In the outer world, the six Limbo Clones took control of his physical body, serving as its soul.
One Limbo Clone pulled out the Scythe of Death—an artifact forged from Uchiha Kirin's own bone marrow and infused with power.
After undergoing multiple refinements, it gained the ability to bizarrely cut through space and destroy souls—while also strengthening itself.
Still, it was ultimately a part of Kirin's body.
He melted the scythe back into his body, allowing it to absorb his ever-improving Breathing Art, fusing the time-space crystal power into both bone and artifact—causing them to ascend in unison.
The other Limbo Clones had their own duties.
One gathered time-space crystals in bulk, rotating a Five Elements Vortex in his palm. Though still a bit strained, he eventually refined the chaotic energy into chains of clear, crystalline brilliance.
Another Clone released countless Adamantine Chains from the main body, fusing the previously-forged chains with his own adamantine seal—pushing the vortex power in his bloodline to the limit.
At the same time, two more Clones controlled these countless chains.
One wielded them to evolve various sealing techniques and barrier arts, integrating them further with his breathing method—engraving sealing runes into his very being.
The other used the remaining adamantine chains to reinforce the time-space barrier constructed with Magnet Release and Karasuki, adding new capabilities that could accelerate his personal time flow.
...
As for the final Limbo Clone—
He directly awakened the bloodline power in the main body, activating a massive Susanoo.
He then injected time-space power into it, reconstructing himself completely.
He had a feeling: once this seclusion ended, his strength would not just rise in numbers—but evolve in essence.
He was nearing a point where chakra could be fully discarded—clearing the path toward a power that truly belonged to his body and soul alone!
...
Meanwhile, several months passed.
Momoshiki had fully adapted to the Tenseigan he'd absorbed.
But when he once again tried to observe the shinobi world—
He was shocked to discover that the once unimpressive, low-tier planet now harbored phenomena even his Tenseigan couldn't see through!
This alone merely piqued his curiosity.
As the new generation prodigy of the Ōtsutsuki Clan, Momoshiki possessed overwhelming power and was highly regarded by the clan's elders.
But he had only left his homeworld a handful of times. His time in the shinobi world had been relatively smooth. Even when forced to retreat by the combined efforts of Sasuke, Naruto, and Neji—
He didn't lose reputation for the Ōtsutsuki. On the contrary, he managed to fully refine Isshiki's power during the battle, gaining significant benefits.
As for those three strongest shinobi—
Naruto had been branded with a Karma mark by Kinshiki, and was on the verge of being taken over.
Sasuke's weapon was shattered. Without the Sword of Totsuka, he couldn't even block Momoshiki's strikes.
As for Neji, while undeniably formidable and a rare opponent with partial Ōtsutsuki blood—
Momoshiki could tell that his power weakened the further he was from the shinobi world.
He had also fully analyzed their techniques.
All in all, this should have been a reassuring situation—until Momoshiki noticed something disturbing:
He could no longer sense Kinshiki's presence.
He immediately activated his Tenseigan, trying to use its power to peer into the shinobi world.
But at some unknown point, a faint mist had enveloped the entire realm—
His vision became obscured. Even with his Rinnegan's time-based powers layered on top, when he tried to locate Kinshiki—
All he saw was a strange, snake-eyed man with an eerie androgynous aura, performing some sort of surgery or experiment on Naruto.
After that…
Both Urashiki and Naruto vanished completely—like they had been erased by the gods.
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