"Damn it!"
Momoshiki's face twisted with fury as he read the intel sent from his clan. The usually aloof and detached beauty, always indifferent to worldly matters, was now visibly seething with rage.
In his view, Urashiki's death was entirely his own doing!
As a pure-blooded member of the Ōtsutsuki clan, even if he were overpowered, he could have fled the shinobi world and escaped into space. Even if killed, he could have left behind a Kāma to ensure his survival.
How could he have possibly been killed outright?
Judging by his own perspective and the intelligence from the clan, Momoshiki pieced together a likely scenario behind Urashiki's death:
That fool probably got greedy and wanted to imitate his own feat of hunting gods. He must've recklessly activated the Karasuki to travel into the past, hoping to claim the glory and rewards of slaying a god all for himself—only to end up getting reverse-killed instead.
It wasn't impossible.
Urashiki had always been frivolous, never truly dedicating himself to cultivating strength. He relied heavily on external tools, constantly snatching up anything valuable for his own personal stash. He even had a habit of scheming for petty gains.
He had no dignity befitting a noble of the starry heavens' top clan.
Now he was suddenly dead, and even lost the divine tool Karasuki. If it ended up in the hands of some wild god in the shinobi world, it would undoubtedly lead to disaster!
"To think the clan actually sent down Ōtsutsuki Ryūshiki himself... Seems like they're dead set on conquering the shinobi world. But this also means..."
Urashiki's death didn't really concern Momoshiki. The loss of the divine tool wasn't directly his responsibility, and given his status, he wouldn't be punished for it.
In fact, if he could retrieve Karasuki before Ryūshiki arrived, he might even receive a commendation from the clan!
The only downside... was that it would leave him little time or opportunity to hunt the native deities of the shinobi world.
Ōtsutsuki Ryūshiki's status in the clan just below the patriarch himself. Under his command were multiple interstellar fleets.
These fleets were composed primarily of vassals born from planets colonized by the Ōtsutsuki, their bodies infused with the power of the God Tree. Above them were elite fighters—exceptional vassals mixed with newer members from the branch family.
And at the top, a command layer formed by outstanding branch family elites and elite main house members who had completed their training.
In fact, Kinshiki was once a member of one such fleet. After returning to the clan, his status had risen to the highest rank within the branch family.
These fleets combined the war and technological knowledge of countless planets and even entire star systems.
There are records of them annihilating advanced civilizations and slaying alien gods without ever deploying their own deities.
Thus, they were feared across the stars, earning the title "Asura."
But it also meant—once Ryūshiki's fleet arrived, there would be no more stand-offs, no negotiations.
Everything would be ruthlessly crushed by this war machine.
"Then again... this might be a rare opportunity to catch Ryūshiki-sama's eye. If I can kill one native god of the shinobi world before the fleet arrives, that would be enough to cement my future path!"
The news from the Ōtsutsuki clan left Momoshiki both anxious and exhilarated.
Time to plan carefully was short—but the opportunity to shape his own future was greater than ever.
"Let's go, Toneri. We're entering the shinobi world now!"
At his command, the modified Ōtsutsuki puppet, Toneri, transformed—its metallic, shifting frame unfolding into a full-body battle armor that wrapped around Momoshiki.
The two merged into one, plunging straight through the atmosphere.
...
At that very moment, the shinobi world was already in disarray, overwhelmed by a series of devastating puppet attacks.
Once bracing for war with the feudal lords and nobility, the shinobi world had gradually resolved the enmities between the common people of various nations. Chakra and the Breathing Art of the Sage Path had been widely taught.
Now awakened and empowered, the people—faced with an alien invasion—demonstrated an unprecedented unity.
The once-chaotic shinobi world had begun rising from the bottom up, forming an unbreakable storm of shared fate and tightly interwoven destinies.
Even though a few upper-level shinobi still sought to divide and exploit the common folk for their own gain, those awakened by Neji's guidance had long since shattered the shackles of body and thought.
The nobles who once controlled the minds of the people had been thrown into the pit of history. Even the violent elites among the shinobi ranks could no longer stop them.
Only a handful of higher-ups who quickly recognized the changing tides managed to raise the banner of unity again.
The rest were inevitably crushed under the wheels of progress.
With this momentum, the shinobi world had become more unified and orderly than ever before. Plentiful resources and open access to knowledge ushered in a golden age of rapid development and an explosion of talent.
But then came the powerful puppets suddenly deployed by Momoshiki—nearly halting everything in its tracks.
Multiple training bases were struck without warning.
Equipped with indiscriminate energy weapons, the puppets caused heavy casualties among promising students and elite instructors.
There was often no time to fight back. These puppets bore mysterious divine markings called Scar Mark on their bodies. After a single hit, they would flee before any Kage-level support could arrive.
Though the shinobi world had deployed a team of cyborgs—wounded ninja enhanced with Chakra Armor technology—they were a step too slow.
Even Kage-level shinobi were killed in ambushes by these elusive puppets.
Chōjūrō, from the former Land of Water's Kirigakure, was attacked in his sleep and lost his beloved blade.
With most of his strength gone, he struggled to fight back using only Water Release and unfamiliar backup weapons.
Just as reinforcements were about to arrive, he was struck by a puppet's energy weapon—and disintegrated into mist, not even leaving behind a body.
Gaara, the Kazekage, rushed to the scene during one puppet attack.
To protect the new generation of students, he used massive amounts of sand to shield those in the training field.
But in doing so, he limited the amount of sand he could control directly—and two puppets ambushed him with a coordinated Scar Mark that pierced through his automatic sand defense.
His chest was impaled, and though Sasuke arrived in time to stop further damage, the puppets' bodies—crafted from branches of the God Tree—were incredibly tough.
Even Sasuke couldn't destroy them before they activated their Scar Mark and vanished.
He was only able to get Gaara to Tsunade's hospital for emergency treatment.
As of now, Gaara still hovered at the edge of death.
Even the elder Ōnoki of Iwagakure, ever wary even in his old age, had not been spared.
He kept the Ultralight-Weight Rock Technique active even while sleeping, encasing himself in Earth Release defenses.
The first puppet to attack him failed and was half-destroyed by Ōnoki's technique.
He then floated midair with the Light-Weight Rock Technique and launched a Dust Release attack below.
But age had taken its toll—his technique had too long of a cast time, and the puppet dodged.
In return, a blast from the puppet's energy weapon hit him—leaving behind only torn clothes and a pile of fused body parts.
However, this sacrifice was not in vain.
Learning from the past two ambushes, the Land of Earth and the Land of Lightning dispatched reinforcements just in time.
They swiftly erected a barrier that disrupted spatial teleportation.
At the cost of some casualties, they launched a barrage of attacks using advanced ninja tech and finally managed to destroy one of the puppets...
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