Chapter 186: Nine Hundred Thousand
The female Otsutsuki endured the tearing pain throughout her body, finally reaching the temporary camp established in the asteroid belt.
She displayed her family crest to the entrance guards before gaining entry.
Floating to the camp's central chamber, several family representatives already sat within, the elder surrounded by dark red chakra occupying the head position.
Seeing her premature return, one representative frowned. "Why return early? Is the reconnaissance mission complete?"
She forced herself to bow despite injuries, voice unsteady from pain. "Elder, honored lords... we... the others all perished."
The chamber instantly fell into deathly silence.
She took a deep breath, continuing her report. "We'd just locked onto the target location when attacked. A black-haired, black-eyed male, strength... completely exceeded estimates. He can move freely in vacuum, and with bare hands he..."
Here her voice trembled with lingering fear. "He can crush our chakra defenses with bare hands. The others had no chance to resist. I only escaped through secret techniques."
She began displaying her gruesome wounds. "However, I risked death to memorize his appearance and combat characteristics."
The elder leaned forward slightly, dark red chakra rippling. "You said... he broke through chakra defenses barehanded?"
"Yes, when the opponent attacked, I sensed no chakra fluctuations." She lowered her head. "And he should also possess spatial abilities. When I retreated, other companions had already... all lost contact."
Despite unbearable pain throughout her body, expectation remained irrepressible in her eyes.
This intelligence exchanged for companions' lives and her own grave injuries would surely win her the long-desired reward.
Just as the female Otsutsuki kept her head bowed reporting, all eyes in the chamber focused on her—
"Bang."
Her body suddenly exploded from inside out, flesh scattering.
"So this is your rat's nest."
A calm male voice cut into the heavy atmosphere without warning.
The entire chamber instantly fell silent.
Every Otsutsuki—including that elder who'd remained seated at the head, dark red chakra flowing around him—all violently shuddered, turning in shock toward the voice's source.
Not one had detected when this space gained an additional "existence."
A black-haired, black-eyed youth stood casually at the camp's shadow boundary, as though he'd always been there, only no one had the fortune to perceive him.
No energy leaked from around him, no oppressive aura, yet when his gaze swept lightly past, every present Otsutsuki felt their heart gripped by an invisible hand.
Even space itself froze the moment he manifested.
The entire camp plunged into deathly silence in an instant, only energy aftershocks hissing through the void.
That elder surrounded by dark red chakra reacted first.
"Intruder!"
He roared, not even needing hand seals. Vast chakra already transformed into dozens of blood-colored chains that tore through space like vipers, strangling toward Uchiha Yu from all directions!
Almost simultaneously, other Otsutsuki representatives struck viciously.
One glared furiously, golden Rinnegan bursting with reality-warping light.
Another clasped palms together as deep blue ice crystals instantly froze spacetime.
This cramped chamber area actually simultaneously gathered several forces capable of instantly annihilating stars.
All attacks pointed at the same target—that black-haired youth standing calmly.
Yet facing this world-destroying combined assault, Yu only lifted his eyelids calmly.
No energy explosion, no technique deployment.
He simply looked once, indifferently.
Crack—
Blood-colored chains shattered first, breaking like glass inch by inch.
Twisted golden light crashed against invisible barriers, rebounding. The caster screamed as blood streamed from both eyes.
Absolute-zero ice crystals quietly vaporized three feet from his body, as though never existing.
All attacks dissipated into nothing under his single glance.
"This is impossible..." One Otsutsuki murmured in lost voice.
Their combined killing strike had been so casually "looked" away?
Yu stepped forward.
Thump!
The nearest Otsutsuki representative didn't even have time to react before his entire being exploded into blood mist like something crushed by invisible tremendous force, unable to even scream.
"Space... space is completely sealed!" The Otsutsuki skilled in spatial techniques discovered with horror that all escape methods had failed.
Yu took a second step.
The Otsutsuki who'd just used ocular techniques saw his Rinnegan suddenly dim and shatter. He clutched both eyes, releasing a piercing wail as his vast chakra dispersed like a broken dam.
He hadn't used any known technique.
His very existence negated rules.
He walked through reality like "nothingness" itself. Wherever he passed, all laws returned to silence.
When his gaze fell upon that strongest elder.
The surging dark red chakra around the elder flickered uncertainly like a candle in wind.
For the first time, that face eternally calm as ancient waters displayed an emotion called "fear."
"This is...?!" The elder's voice carried uncontrollable trembling.
Yu didn't answer.
He continued forward.
In this completely sealed space, with each step he took, another high-ranking Otsutsuki was erased by invisible hands.
Accompanying this silent slaughter, his originally restrained aura began spreading like an unsealed abyss.
Deeper still, some more essential power was gradually awakening beneath the universe's rule barriers.
Yu sensed something.
Since slaying the first Otsutsuki on Earth, with each elimination of these self-proclaimed gods, as their chakra and life essence disintegrated into the cosmos, the invisible suppression this universe imposed on his power weakened by a fraction.
As though this world was acknowledging his actions, rewarding his extermination of these cosmic vermin.
At this moment, in this bloody slaughterhouse, that long-bound power was releasing with unprecedented intensity.
He clearly felt certain once-restricted abilities stirring at his fingertips.
Perhaps it was a shift in mentality, perhaps relief after achieving his aspirations, or perhaps awareness of life's end combined with extreme disgust toward these vermin—
Under internal and external conditions' joint catalysis, his magnetic field rotation had broken through to the astonishing realm of nine hundred thousand horsepower.
He stopped before that final elder.
What now surrounded him was no longer ordinary energy fluctuations but something more primal, more violent—a terrifying pressure.
The power of rules itself, substantial as it filled the entire space, nearly freezing survivors' very thoughts.
"Now, it's your turn."
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