Red Spire Valley was a cursed place, where the wind moaned like a dying beast and the trees bled black sap. No sect had ever taken root there, not even during the Golden Age. Why?
Because something lived in the valley.
Or rather, something died there—and refused to stay dead.
As Oozaru crossed the cracked stone bridge into the valley, the air grew thick with malignant aura. Not killing intent. Not malice.
Grief.
A grief so raw, it made the bones in his legs vibrate.
He didn't flinch.
His Zetsu was perfect. He moved like a shadow without essence, without trace, and yet the aura still wrapped around him, like a lover clinging to a memory.
In the heart of the valley, beneath a twisted shrine that had once served a long-forgotten god, sat a monk dressed in rotting crimson robes.
He was smiling.
Though his face had no skin.
"Ahhh... Oozaru." The monk's voice was like crushed glass. "So the traitor sword lives again. You've come to dance with the dead?"
Oozaru's eyes narrowed.
"Post-Mortem Nen."
The monk cackled. "You always did learn quickly."
Oozaru drew a line in the dirt with his toe. "Your aura reeks of madness. Who did you die for?"
The monk's grin widened.
"Myself."
And then he exploded forward.
THE DANCE OF ROTTING LIGHT—MONK VS SWORD GOD
It was not a battle.
It was a symphony.
The monk moved like a wave of rotted cloth and bone, his limbs boneless, his aura chaotic. His Hatsu—"Thousand Lies of the Smiling Corpse"—allowed him to manifest illusory bodies made of dead aura, each attacking with ghostly martial forms from forgotten styles.
Five illusions. Ten. Twenty.
They struck with palms that ignored armor, kicks that bypassed the senses.
Oozaru remained still.
Until he whispered: "Gyo."
The illusions flickered. Their cores became visible. Hollow Nen shells. Fragile.
He drew no sword. He needed none.
He formed it with his aura—Transmutation: Edge of Reversal.
A glowing arc of gold snapped into his hand, a blade formed from his essence. Unlike his past life, the sword was incomplete. It crackled and hissed with unstable power.
But it was enough.
Clang. Clang. SSSHHHHRRK!
He carved through the illusions like smoke.
Each swing cost him aura, and each illusion he shattered released a psychic scream—but he pressed forward, eyes locked on the grinning monk.
The monk bled black Nen mist, laughing as fingers snapped and limbs cracked backward.
"Do you see, Oozaru? Even death cannot chain the awakened!"
Oozaru surged forward. Ren bloomed around him.
"Silence."
He struck once.
The monk's head fell cleanly from his shoulders.
The valley grew silent for the first time in centuries.
But the head spoke one last time:"...The Abyssal Gate is opening. We're all just echoes of what's coming."
Then it crumbled.
THE GIRL WITH A BROKEN CORE
After the battle, Oozaru found her beneath the shrine.
A girl—no older than sixteen—chained by seals older than the collapse. Her aura was a withered flicker, like a candle drowning in water.
She looked up with hollow eyes. "Kill me."
Oozaru knelt. He scanned her with Gyo and frowned.
Her Nen core was cracked.
Not damaged. Not sealed. Broken.
"She was forced to awaken," he muttered. "Her aura was ripped open before she was ready."
It was a common horror in the old world. Dark sects had often torn aura paths open in young disciples to force early awakening, hoping to mold them into weapons.
Most died.
The survivors lived broken.
But there was something else.
Oozaru's fingers brushed her skin. A Restriction Sigil.
A condition placed directly on her soul: "If you feel happiness, you will die."
He had seen this before. On slaves. On prisoners of war. On living weapons.
She was a tool.
Not anymore.
"Hold still," Oozaru said, and placed two fingers on her brow. His aura slid into her body, carefully bypassing the broken coils. She screamed—but he kept going.
He used Manipulation—a branch he was weak at—but he knew how to dismantle sigils. He had done it hundreds of times on battlefields soaked with blood.
The seal cracked.
Shattered.
The girl collapsed into his arms, eyes fluttering.
"What's... your name?" she asked.
He stood, carrying her.
"Oozaru."
Her lips quivered.
"Lian."
From that moment, the world shifted.
Because Lian was no ordinary girl. Her broken core hid something ancient. Something terrible. A Specialist ability that could reshape destiny itself.
But she didn't know that yet.
And neither did Oozaru.