The scenery outside the window flickered like a blur. Like a disembodied spirit, Orochimaru glided through the dense forest.
It was a clear afternoon. The cloudless sky and bright sun created an illusion of ordinariness that was shattered by the sight of what lay ahead.
An eerie anomaly.
Dead silence, icy cold, unnatural twilight. Despite the fine day, approaching this place felt neither warmth nor light. The sun's rays, falling directly on the edge of the zone, seemed a deceptive mirage—they offered no warmth, no life.
Even standing at the very edge, one could see the occasional snowflake swirling slowly in the dead space, as if behind a veil of frosted glass.
All life within this sphere—from animals and insects to the last blade of grass—was dried out. All energy had been drained dry. Living beings stood frozen, like statues. Rotting? No, that wasn't a threat. Even bacteria couldn't survive in such a hopeless environment—the same fate awaited them.
Orochimaru, his face grim, stood frozen at the edge of the dead silence. What he saw confirmed his worst fears: Nagato and the others weren't exaggerating. This world truly was on the brink of destruction. The distorted, blurry image he observed had a scientific explanation. Light within this region was being absorbed by something unknown, not reflecting off surfaces. Essentially, it was the threshold to a completely black body. The fact that he could still vaguely discern outlines at the boundary meant only one thing: the absorption was not yet complete, and a tiny fraction of the light was still breaking through.
If this zone was capable of expanding indefinitely, then the future of the planet was sealed. The fate of a completely dead world awaited her, where no living thing could survive. Even the most resilient organisms, adapted to the permafrost and the harshest conditions, would be doomed here. The problem wasn't the cold, but the invisible force that clung to life itself and sucked it dry.
"Fortunately, this isn't a perfect black body yet, otherwise insurmountable difficulties would have arisen," Orochimaru thought with relief. "If such a vast area were to achieve complete absorption, I fear even the resurrected Sage of the Six Paths wouldn't be able to penetrate it to even glimpse Uchiha Yue."
He shook his head. Orochimaru didn't know for sure whether the legendary Sage existed, but he had seen Nagato's Rinnegan, meaning the legends had some basis in fact. And yet, even Nagato, with his divine eyes, the self-proclaimed god of a new world, proved powerless against Uchiha Yue. He chose to hide, to lie low, waiting for the enemy to exhaust himself—the strategy of a turtle waiting out a storm.
The Mangekyo Sharingan... Orochimaru stopped short. He wanted to say that the power of those eyes was terrifying, but then he remembered Uchiha Madara, who had also been unable to do anything against Yue. The thought remained unspoken.
Judging by the reports, there was no anomalous zone around Yue initially. It arose later and grew. It wasn't so much a domain as a hunting ground—all the energy within it was absorbed by it alone. And at first, the sphere wasn't so dark. When Yue crushed Nagato and the others in an instant, they could still discern its vague silhouette.
Now all he could do was stare helplessly into the darkness.
"I need to evaluate the absorption rate," Orochimaru decided.
Of course, he wasn't going to go there himself. Jiraiya's fate served as an object lesson. Having created a shadow clone, he sent it out to scout.
The clone stepped beyond the boundary and vanished a few seconds later. Vanished, not dissipated by the impact. Its chakra had simply been absorbed. A clone's normal disappearance is the destruction of its technique, the release of energy. Here, however, it was as if it had been sucked through a straw: its structure wasn't damaged, it was simply drained until its chakra was no longer sufficient to maintain its form.
Furthermore, due to the complete absorption, Orochimaru didn't even regain a fragment of his memories. He had to create another clone. This time, the clone merely touched the edge of the anomaly and, feeling its existence fading, jumped back sharply. That moment was enough.
Receiving the memories, Orochimaru felt a chill run down his spine. According to them, as soon as the clone entered the zone, the chakra in its body began to leak at a breakneck speed, like water through a sieve. It was impossible to stop this process.
Then Orochimaru carefully touched the invisible barrier with his fingertips.
The sensations confirmed the worst. The chakra was leaking more slowly from the real body, but only slightly. No matter what techniques he used, he couldn't stop the leak.
"It seems the leader and the others were telling the truth... The shinobi world is in deep trouble," he hissed. "That damned Shimura Danzo! The old coot could have provoked anyone, but he went after the Uchiha! And what happened? He died himself, nearly destroyed Konoha, and now he's dragging the entire world down with him!"
Orochimaru watched the slowly spreading darkness, his heart sinking. He'd been quietly pursuing his research, had long since abandoned the village, become a renegade, and yet Danzo had managed to leave him such a 'gift' even from the afterlife.
"Luckily, the organization has an escape route. Otherwise, all they could do would be wait in despair for the end or hope that Uchiha Yue wouldn't have the strength to envelop the entire planet."
The very idea that a single pair of eyes could destroy the world seemed absurd. But no one was going to take the risk. As long as this zone continued to grow, ignoring the threat was tantamount to suicide.
It was like working with an unknown poison. You could convince yourself as much as you wanted that its concentration was negligible and wouldn't cause any harm. But when your life was at stake, would you risk it, hoping for the best? Of course not. You'd take every possible precaution.
When it came to survival, you didn't play that game.