With his assistance, the puppet empowered by Ōtsutsuki Toneri and controlled by Momoshiki once again began to fall apart.
Even though the puppet had gathered Toneri's power and launched several chakra orbs, they were all blasted apart by Sasuke using the prosthetic arm installed where his old one had been.
Now, bolstered by scientific ninja tools, Sasuke had recovered the strength he had back when he was enhanced by the power of the Six Paths. Even without activating Susanoo, he could still fight on par with a Six Paths-level opponent!
Under a relentless bombardment, the puppet imbued with Toneri's power could no longer withstand the onslaught and was blown apart with a deafening bang.
After all, it was just a puppet. No matter how sturdy, it could never fully exert the power of a true Six Paths-tier being.
However, a howling soul body shot straight at Sasuke.
It was a bold—and extremely dangerous—offensive maneuver.
A soul attack. If it hit, it could kill the target on the spot, making resurrection impossible.
But if it failed, the user's own soul would suffer severe backlash, possibly even annihilation.
To the Ōtsutsuki, whose bodies could regenerate infinitely, this method seemed far from ideal on the surface. But this was exactly the secret behind their overwhelming strength.
Constantly changing vessels—this cycle of reincarnation was what strengthened the Ōtsutsuki souls beyond imagination.
Soul attacks were never used lightly. But once unleashed, they were meant to be fatal.
This strike was meant to kill Sasuke—permanently.
In Toneri's eyes, with Naruto's fate still unknown, killing Sasuke would leave only Neji as a true threat in the shinobi world.
While he hadn't yet confirmed the true strength of the White Snake Sage, he had at least cleared out much of the surface-level resistance in the shinobi world.
Neji alone might be able to defend himself, but there was no way he could protect the entire shinobi world.
And when that time came, Momoshiki would be able to sweep through the realm without resistance.
Once he gathered a new group of followers from the shinobi world, he could use their power to challenge the gods of the realm. Achieving his goal would be effortless...
But unfortunately, things didn't go as planned.
His vision was too lofty—trapped by his own overconfidence.
The soul body lunging like a sword to ambush Sasuke suddenly froze in place.
Then, the spectral form of the White Snake Sage materialized out of nowhere, swallowing Toneri's soul body whole in one bite.
"RAAAAHHH!"
Momoshiki howled in rage and pain, retreating immediately.
But he only managed to retrieve less than half of Toneri's soul back into the body.
"You damn serpent from Ryūchi Cave! You deserve to die!"
Momoshiki's eyes burned with hatred. As the strongest of the new generation of a mighty star-spanning clan, he had been repelled again and again by a wild god from a backward, insignificant planet!
Sure, his life form was inferior to that of the White Snake Sage. Sure, his overall combat ability was no match for the serpent sage either.
But as an Ōtsutsuki, Momoshiki couldn't allow himself to fail. There had to be some mistake—some overlooked flaw.
At the same time, he felt a bitter sense of relief that he had the foresight to use Toneri as a substitute and descend only with his will instead of his true body.
Otherwise, it would've been his soul that got half-devoured in that clash.
"Looks like... if I want to hunt the gods of the shinobi world, I'll need more layers of preparation and more resources…"
Recovering from the shock of the ambush, Momoshiki regained his usual calm and lofty demeanor.
After all, he was an Ōtsutsuki.
He began evaluating the combat power of the new generation of shinobi, as well as the remaining gods and their followers.
"When I descend wearing this battle armor… it will be the day of your demise!"
Gazing at the biomechanical armor created by modifying Toneri's body with Ōtsutsuki technology, Momoshiki felt a surge of pride.
His earlier failure, he told himself, had been nothing more than recklessness.
He had used only a fragment of his soul's power.
Yes—that must be it.
He repeated it in his heart like a mantra.
These were just primitive natives of a dying planet, accompanied by a few relics from the ancient era. Nothing to worry about.
The challenges he was facing now were merely whetstones—tools to sharpen him.
Stay focused. Don't disgrace the Ōtsutsuki name!
He repeated these words to himself over and over, reinforcing his conviction.
...
What he didn't know was that, even as he was rebuilding his confidence and preparing to descend upon the shinobi world once more—
The shinobi of the Land of Lightning had already selected a test target for the chakra cannon.
"The original plan was to fire at the moon. But we got word that there might be a plan to build a secondary defensive line on the moon someday. If that happens, the shinobi world's base becomes the second line of defense."
Several support shinobi tasked with calibrating the weapon were discussing the change of plans.
They decided to move the cannon's target away from the moon and instead use some small asteroids or meteorites as substitutes.
"Hey, look over there—seems like a human silhouette."
Thanks to the rapid development of scientific ninja tools, even shinobi who had never trained in ocular jutsu could now use devices to lock onto targets thousands of kilometers away.
"That looks like… Ōtsutsuki Momoshiki."
"Something seems off, though."
"His body… looks like it's wrapped in some kind of material..."
The shinobi world's communication network was just as advanced.
A photo of Momoshiki was quickly captured and transmitted to the upper echelons of the shinobi world.
The order came back immediately:
Fire.
At that moment, Momoshiki was still caught up in his internal struggle. The repeated setbacks had shaken his confidence, even as the Ōtsutsuki clan's top prodigy.
But finally, he made up his mind.
He activated the biomechanical armor forged from Toneri's body, releasing a massive burst of power from his limbs as he launched himself toward the shinobi world.
BOOM!
At that same moment, across all lands where chakra cannons had been installed, a thunderous sound rang out.
It was the sound of the cannons spinning up—focusing energy.
Countless generators and even nearby shinobi had been temporarily conscripted to channel their power into the weapons.
In less than ten minutes, each chakra cannon was fully charged with dense, deep-purple mixed energy.
And there were nearly ten thousand of them.
Fire!
Dozens of blue-purple beams locked onto the path of Momoshiki's descent.
All converging on a single point.
Flying at high speed, Momoshiki had no time to turn back. Thousands of chakra-infused energy beams gathered on a single location.
The biomechanical armor wrapping his body began to overload.
Even though this suit—modified by Toneri—had a powerful chakra absorption system, the volume of chakra being fired at him had already surpassed its limits.
The armor began to crack, piece by piece.
Inside, Momoshiki was tormented by unbearable heat, screaming in pain.
He struggled to unleash Almighty Push, trying to carve out a pocket of space to breathe.
But the overwhelming energy blasts crushed his defense, compressing his repulsion field to less than a millimeter from his skin.
"AAAHHHHH!"
Momoshiki felt like he was about to melt.
"Time—STOP FOR ME!"