"Cough… cough… cough…"
"I told you… not to stay there… showing off your affection…"
"Cough, damn it… Too far. I can't see clearly…"
More than a kilometer outside the blast radius of the Tailed Beast Ball, Rei Kaguya, drenched in blood, coughed as he clutched his left hand, which had just lost all its bones. Relying on the Dead Bone Pulse to slowly regenerate them, he slipped underground and began moving farther away.
But he had not tunneled far before the agony spreading from every cell in his body forced him back to the surface.
"Hah… hah… shit. The backlash came this fast?"
No longer caring about hiding the traces he left behind, Rei dragged his body, which felt as if it had been ignited from the inside, and staggered into a tree hollow. Then he took out every Biscuit he had on him and forced them down one by one with great difficulty.
If he opened his personal panel now, he would see that his vitality, which had dropped below 40% in the Tailed Beast Ball's explosion and fallen even further to around 20% after creating the gray bones, was rapidly recovering under the effects of the Biscuits.
But every so often, his vitality would suddenly plunge by a large margin, causing him to vomit mouthfuls of blood and bringing bone-deep agony strong enough to rob him of all mobility.
From the outside, Rei's current condition looked almost identical to those Kaguya clansmen who had been tortured by their bloodline disease until only one breath remained.
This was the greatest flaw of the Dead Bone Pulse Kekkei Genkai.
Similar to the Hyuga, Uchiha, Senju, and Uzumaki clans, the Kaguya clan was an ancient bloodline that could be traced directly back to the Sage of Six Paths, and even to the progenitor of chakra, Kaguya Otsutsuki.
Among those ancient shinobi clans, the power inherited by the Kaguya clan could probably be called the most dangerous one.
Because it most likely came from the Kekkei Mora unique to Kaguya Otsutsuki—
All-Killing Ash Bones.
Although after the long passage of time, it had already deteriorated beyond recognition.
The reason Rei was so certain of this was because when he was nine years old, he had truly created bones tinged with gray. Those gray bones possessed several times the destructive power of ordinary bones.
At that time, Rei had been ecstatic.
He thought he had found another path to quickly grow stronger.
Then, that very night, Rei began coughing up blood nonstop. In only three days, he had grown so ill that his breath was as thin as a thread. He lay in bed, unable to move even a finger.
The doctors within the Kaguya clan examined him and said this was the bloodline disease that had plagued the Kaguya clan for over a thousand years, with no known precedent of recovery. They even sighed and told Rei's parents that they could begin preparing his funeral.
If Kazumi Kaguya had not stubbornly believed that this genius younger brother, who had pressed down on her head from the moment he was born, could not possibly die so casually, and if she had not put aside her genin work to sit beside Rei's bed every day, holding his hand and talking to him, giving Rei a target that could occasionally trigger Grasp of the Undying—
He probably would have died back then.
It was precisely because he had miraculously endured the corrosion of the bloodline disease and become lively again that Rei's reputation within the clan leaped from genius to monster.
From then on, he became a target the elders paid close attention to and invested in heavily.
After that, Rei carefully tried several more times to create gray bones, and from those attempts, he summarized some rough rules.
First, when using the Dead Bone Pulse to create bones, simultaneously consuming large amounts of chakra and vitality could create this kind of bone with even greater destructive power.
At the same time, once such gray bones were created, the body would automatically attempt to create more of them. During that stage, the caster's vitality and chakra would be consumed at extreme speed. If the caster was not strong enough, they would most likely be drained directly into a dried corpse.
And even if they endured that backlash period of rapidly consumed vitality and chakra, then expelled all the gray bones from their body, the special toxins left behind by the gray bones would continue corroding the caster's body until they were completely exhausted and dead.
This was the true face of the Kaguya clan's bloodline disease.
For a cheat-like existence like Rei, whose vitality had already approached that of a Tailed Beast, the chronic corrosion of the bloodline disease was not something he needed to care too much about. He only needed to carefully prepare for the early backlash.
But for those Kaguya clansmen who had merely touched the threshold of gray bones, and had not even truly created them, it was already a terminal illness capable of rapidly withering their lives within half a year.
Perhaps this was the curse placed upon those who tried to step into the realm of the Otsutsuki with mortal bodies.
After eating more than a dozen special and ordinary Biscuits, then resting in place for half an hour, Rei's vitality finally stabilized above 50%.
He swayed to his feet and began looking back through his system notifications.
[Skill obtained—Four Symbols Seal LV4.]
[Four Symbols Seal LV4: A powerful sealing formula that uses the cycle of the Four Symbols to seal evil forces. This seal leaves a formula on the human body or another target, allowing a powerful enemy to be sealed completely inside the target for an extended period of time.]
[Optional Mission 2 has been completed. Draw Keystone Rune?]
[Optional Mission 3 has been completed. Draw Keystone Rune?]
"Oh? First Strike directly dropped an LV4 skill? Not bad at all. Heh. Looks like that Gray Sulfur Piercing Spear injured Kushina pretty badly. Even if you are from the Uzumaki clan and the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, you'll still have to lie in bed for months before you can fully recover, right?
"In that case, Optional Mission 4 should complete smoothly in a few days too…
"But will this make Minato bring Tsunade back early? Then again, Minato and Naruto are not the same type of character. He might not be able to cure Tsunade's hemophobia. If that problem is not solved, then even if Tsunade returns to Konoha, it won't mean much…"
Seeing that First Strike had very rarely dropped an LV4 skill, Rei felt surprised. At the same time, he also gained a rough estimate of Kushina Uzumaki's injuries.
After briefly considering the possible follow-up effects of that matter, he shifted all his attention to the three Keystone Rune draw chances he had obtained.
"Hiss. Getting three draw chances at once really is exciting…
"But only with this kind of gain do I have a chance to become stronger than those cheats backed by the Sage of Six Paths, right?"
"Come on, then. Let me see what kind of harvest I can get this time."
In his mind, Rei pressed the button for [Confirm Draw ×3].
[Please choose three of the following Keystone Runes as your reward.]
[Arcane Comet: Keystone Rune. Obtain or strengthen Fire Release chakra.
After hitting an enemy with any attack, the enemy's coordinates at the moment of impact will be locked, summoning a comet to strike the target area. The comet's size and damage depend on your Fire Release level, Earth Release level, and ninjutsu strength.]
[Glacial Augment: Keystone Rune. Obtain or strengthen Wind and Water Release chakra, and unlock the Kekkei Genkai: Ice Release.
All your ninjutsu will carry an ice-slow effect. Enemies affected by ice-slow will have all speed reduced by 10%, and damage dealt reduced by 15%.]
[Fleet Footwork: Keystone Rune. As you move, you accumulate Energized stacks. When Energized is fully charged, your next attack will restore 4% of your maximum vitality and increase all your speed by 30% for 5 seconds.]
[Stormraider's Surge: Keystone Rune. Obtain or strengthen Wind Release chakra.
All your speed increases by 15%. When you deal damage exceeding 30% of an enemy's maximum vitality to that enemy, you gain Surge, granting an additional 30% increase to all speed for 5 seconds.
Gaining multiple Surge effects in succession will refresh the duration.]
[Electrocute: Keystone Rune. Obtain or strengthen Lightning Release chakra.
After hitting an enemy by any means, you may launch an unavoidable Lightning Release ninjutsu within 3 seconds that ignores distance. Damage depends on your Lightning Release level and ninjutsu strength.]
[Aftershock: Keystone Rune. Obtain or strengthen Earth Release chakra.
You may temporarily activate Earth Release armor, increasing all your resistances by 100% for 3 seconds. After the duration ends, the Earth Release armor will automatically explode, damaging nearby enemies. Damage depends on your Earth Release level and resistance strength.]
[Windspeaker's Blessing: Keystone Rune. Obtain or strengthen Yang Release chakra.
Your medical ninjutsu/self-recovery effects are increased by 15%. When you provide healing to another target, the target temporarily gains a shield equal to 5% of your vitality for 10 seconds. Before the shield breaks, the target gains resistance equal to 5% of your maximum resistance.]