chsdbacks Chapter 448 Orochimaru's Unexpected Gain
Chapter 448 Orochimaru's Unexpected Gain
Deep inside the sinkhole, the light was dim, and the air was thick with the smells of burning, sulfur, and rising groundwater.
A massive, lifeless white snake carcass lay tilted at the bottom of the pit like a collapsed mountain of flesh.
The giant serpent was covered with terrible scars left by the high temperature and the impact of chakra energy. Large patches of scales were charred and peeled off, revealing the equally charred flesh underneath.
Suddenly, the giant snake's tightly closed mouth twitched slightly. Then, the muscles in its mouth were forcibly pried open from the inside, and a wet, sticky figure covered in saliva and blood staggered out.
It was Orochimaru.
He looked quite disheveled at the moment. His white coat was soaked with slime and torn in many places, and his exposed skin was covered with various stains.
His long, black hair clung wetly to his cheeks and neck, adding to his eerie appearance.
But he seemed completely unconcerned about his appearance at that moment, his golden vertical pupils gleaming with an unusual light in the dim light.
The first thing he did was to look down and carefully examine his new body.
"Hmm...it seems I'll have to change bodies again when I get back..." Orochimaru muttered to himself, his voice, though youthful, sounded particularly sinister, completely out of place with his young appearance.
Clearly, he was not satisfied with this "new container".
After checking his body, Orochimaru finally raised his head and looked up at the black "Sealing Cauldron" high in the sky.
His gaze seemed to pierce through the obstruction, revealing the two figures suspended above the sinkhole.
His golden vertical pupils revealed undisguised amazement, fervor, and a deep sense of apprehension.
"Shura... Is this the enemy you've fought against at all costs all this time?" Orochimaru's voice was soft, as if he were asking himself, or as if he were talking to a "collaborator" across a distant space, someone he both wanted to dissect and study, yet had to remain vigilant towards.
He recalled the scene from many years ago when his forbidden research was exposed, and after escaping from his teacher, he was ambushed by Shura twice in a row.
Upon their first meeting, the other party asked for Hashirama's cells, leading him to believe that the other party was simply another "kindred spirit" with an extreme thirst for power, immortality, and forbidden knowledge.
The second meeting took place in the cave of the Ibri clan, where Shura snatched the loyalty of the Ibri clan from his hands.
Unwilling to be tricked twice, he engaged in battle with his opponent, only to be surprised to find that his opponent had mastered the Flying Thunder God Technique.
He was able to pinpoint his own escape route twice, and he also knows the Flying Thunder God Technique. His familiarity with the Konoha Village Protection Barrier even surpasses that of himself!
A bold guess formed in Orochimaru's mind.
The "cooperation" over the next few years further solidified Orochimaru's suspicions.
However, at this moment, having witnessed the terrifying battle that had almost destroyed the land beneath his feet, and feeling the chakra fluctuations in the air that surpassed even those of the tailed beasts, Orochimaru finally realized just how powerful Shura's enemy truly was!
"No wonder...no wonder you're so persistent, even willing to start the Fourth Shinobi World War to unify the shinobi world..." Orochimaru stuck out his tongue and licked his slightly chapped lips, his eyes gleaming with an even more intense thirst for knowledge.
"Such power...it's already touched the realm of the Sage of Six Paths, hasn't it? It's truly...excitingly terrifying!"
Just as he was immersed in reflection and contemplation, the battle situation in the sky changed once again.
He saw the enormous "tea cauldron"-shaped object descending towards the Asura Shield.
However, due to the angle and the obstruction of the deep pit's terrain, he was unable to see the specific battle situation hidden by the sealed cauldron.
Immediately following was the golden sword of light that seemed to open up the world, which swung down fiercely from below from his perspective!
"That's...?!" Orochimaru's golden vertical pupils suddenly contracted!
Even with his extensive knowledge, he was awestruck by the pure, golden chakra lightsaber.
After breaking the seal on the cauldron, the Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosive Slash descended with incredible speed, cleaving open the sinkhole and the earth!
Even though Orochimaru had retreated quickly, his right arm was still lightly "grazed" by the golden chakra lightsaber.
There was no sound, no pain.
Orochimaru felt a lightness in his right arm, as if something had left his body.
He looked down and saw that his right forearm had been severed cleanly from the elbow down!
The cut was smooth, and the cross-sections of bones, muscles, and blood vessels were clearly visible. But strangely, no blood gushed out immediately. The cells at the cut were charred black, as if "welded" by the instantaneous high temperature. Then, a dark red blood with a fishy smell slowly seeped out, like toothpaste being squeezed.
"Oh?" Orochimaru's face showed no pain or panic, but rather as if he had seen some extremely interesting experimental phenomenon.
He raised his bare right arm, bringing it close to his eyes. His golden vertical pupils stared intently at the charred wound and the slowly seeping blood. His nose twitched slightly, and he even licked the blood with his tongue, as if analyzing the information contained within it.
"This method of destruction..."
He seemed to have forgotten that he had just lost an arm, and was completely immersed in analyzing the severed arm.
A few seconds later, as if remembering something, he quickly pressed several acupoints on his right shoulder and near his severed arm with his left hand, and the slowly seeping blood immediately stopped.
At the same time, the muscles at the site of his severed arm began to writhe unnaturally, and tiny, worm-like white granulation tissues emerged from beneath the charred cut surface, slowly growing and intertwining at a visible rate, attempting to repair the damage.
"A chakra nature I've never felt before... Is this what it feels like to be hit by Yin-Yang Release? How strange~" Orochimaru lowered his arm and looked up at the sky again.
The black sealing cauldron disappeared, and a figure could be vaguely seen in the golden light.
He could sense an even more unsettling aura rising from that person's body.
Orochimaru's face slowly broke into a smile that was a mixture of obsession and excitement, a smile that looked particularly eerie on his filthy young face.
"Shura...you really...you're making me like you more and more! Just how many secrets are you hiding?" he murmured, his voice trembling slightly.
At this moment, he temporarily forgot about the Konoha Crush plan and the life and death of the Third Hokage.
All that remained in his eyes was greed and a desire to explore that unknown power.
Just then, a whooshing sound accompanied by the dull thud of a heavy object hitting the ground came from a pile of rubble not far to his side.
Orochimaru turned his head alertly, his golden vertical pupils instantly locking onto his target.
Amidst a pile of fresh rubble and dust, a bizarre, bird-like corpse, dressed in tattered white feathers and riddled with gaping holes, lay in a contorted position.
Most strikingly, there was a bloody, deep hole in the center of the corpse's forehead, as if something important had been forcibly ripped away.
"This is... the enemy who used the red fishing rod earlier?" Orochimaru's pupils contracted slightly as he immediately recognized the corpse!
Although Urashiki had lost the golden Rinnegan in his forehead and the characteristics of his crane form were rapidly fading, returning him to a more human-like appearance, the unique chakra aura of the Otsutsuki clan and the terrifying wounds remaining on his corpse filled Orochimaru with ecstasy.
Without the slightest hesitation, Orochimaru immediately strode over.
He didn't even care about the injury to his right arm. His left hand quickly rummaged through the storage pouch at his waist and soon took out a specially made storage scroll.
Orochimaru formed a hand seal and released a large cylindrical container made of transparent reinforced glass from his storage scroll. The container was filled with a pale green culture medium that was constantly bubbling.
He squatted down beside Urashiki's body and carefully examined the body's condition with his left hand. He confirmed that the body's life force had completely dissipated, but due to the special nature of the Otsutsuki's constitution, the cell activity had not completely died out and still retained extremely high research value.
In particular, the lingering Yin-Yang Release power at the wound sites and the tissue activity at the edge of the hollow in Orochimaru's forehead, which attempted to repair itself but ultimately failed, all dazzled Orochimaru's eyes.
"Precious experimental materials... no, they're practically the 'key' to a higher level of life!" Orochimaru's face showed an unprecedented expression of excitement.
He unfolded the storage roll and laid it on the relatively flat ground next to him.
Then, he carefully used his left hand to place the battered corpse of Urashiki into a large petri dish.
The body was immersed in a pale green culture solution, slowly sinking until it was completely submerged, with only a few tiny bubbles escaping from the mouth, nose, and wounds.
Orochimaru quickly tightened the sealing cap of the petri dish, then carefully placed the petri dish containing the corpse of Otsutsuki into the center of the unfolded storage scroll, and formed hand seals again.
"seal up!"
After a puff of white smoke, the petri dish, along with the corpse of Urashiki inside, was completely sealed into the storage scroll.
Orochimaru quickly rolled up the scroll and put it back into his ninja tool pouch, his movements practiced and swift.
"Hehe...hehe..." After doing all this, he slowly stood up, unable to suppress the satisfaction and excitement on his face, his lips curving upwards in a wild smile.
Orochimaru looked up again, gazing at the sky.
"Shura, it seems your hunt has been quite fruitful... Hehehe..." A deep and pleasant laugh echoed softly in the depths of the sinkhole.
He knew he couldn't keep this spoils to himself, and he never thought of hiding it.
After all, there were only a few people under Shura who were capable of researching this thing, and he was confident that he could persuade Shura to let him take charge of the research on this corpse.
Meanwhile, above the Hokage Rock at the edge of the sinkhole, Shikaku, Hiashi, Kakashi, Might Guy, Asuma, and others...
Without exception, all the survivors stood frozen in place, staring blankly at everything before them.
Their perspective was far more direct, more shocking, and more desperate than Orochimaru's, who was deep in the pit.
They witnessed with their own eyes the golden sword of light that stretched across the sky, like the power of a mythical immortal. It first effortlessly sliced the enormous sealed cauldron that oppressed their very souls in two, and then, with undiminished momentum, it cut across the distant earth like a hot knife through butter.
Rumble, rumble, rumble—!!!
An even more muffled and terrifying roar than the previous collision between "Spiral Wheel" and "Dragon Palace" arrived late.
The already cracked ground beneath their feet trembled violently once more, and countless fragments of stone fell down.
In the distance, at the edge of the horizon, a massive, bottomless chasm stretching straight to the horizon suddenly appeared!
It intersects precisely with the edge of the previous sinkhole, further "cutting" away a large chunk from the already shocking sinkhole, creating an even more complex and fragmented terrain.
The rift that altered the terrain of Konoha spoke volumes about the terrifying power contained in that attack.
Dead silence.
A deathly silence that lasted for several minutes, almost stopping the heart.
Finally, it was broken by Hozuki Suigetsu, the Hidden Mist, with a murmur that was almost a groan.
"Are you... what a joke..."
Hozuki Suigetsu, his mouth full of sharp teeth, was deathly pale. His mouth opened and closed unconsciously several times before he finally uttered a dreamlike voice: "This...this is really...something a ninja...can do?"
He trembled, unable to find the words to describe the scene before him.
Even with his mastery of the Water Transformation Technique, he couldn't muster any thought of "being able to withstand" that golden chakra light sword.
Karui of Kumogakure was chattering, and Omoi's eyes rolled back as he became lost in his own tragic fantasy.
"What should we do... such a terrifying enemy... and they even have a grudge against Kumogakure. What if Shura attacks the village again and the Fourth Raikage is killed...? Must I, Lord Omoi, shoulder this burden?"
Samui was relatively calmer, but her emerald eyes were filled with unprecedented shock. She stared at the endless rift, her voice hoarse: "This power... I'm afraid... only the legendary Sage of Six Paths... can compare to it."
She recalled the scattered records about the Sage of Six Paths in the ancient books of the Hidden Clouds, but that was always just a myth.
But what's happening right now is a real, just-concluded "miracle"!
Jiraiya's throat felt dry. He slowly swallowed, but it did not relieve the burning sensation in his throat.
He has traveled the ninja world for decades and participated in two ninja wars. What kind of scenes hasn't he seen? What kind of powerful enemies hasn't he encountered?
Even Payne, who called himself a "god," did not reach the point of despair.
But the scene before him made him so clearly feel his own insignificance and a deep sense of powerlessness.
This is not a gap that can be bridged by effort, tactics, or sacrifice; it is a chasm of strength and power!
The young Sasuke beside him stared intently at the direction where the golden sword disappeared, and at the figure in the air that was once again enveloped in golden light. A memory that had been almost buried flashed through his mind like lightning.
More than a decade ago, Naruto and Toneri Otsutsuki had their final battle on the moon.
At that time, he, Kakashi, Sakura, and others were on the ground and observed the earth-shattering battle on the moon through special means.
He clearly remembered that the moon... was cleaved in two by a golden light sword, just like slicing a watermelon!
Later, Naruto told me that it was a technique called "Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion" used by Toneri Otsutsuki, a descendant of the Sage of Six Paths' younger brother on the moon, after he used the Tenseigan Chakra Mode!
"Tensegan... Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion..." Young Sasuke repeated the two words in a low voice, his gaze fixed on Menma in the air, especially his form enveloped in golden chakra.
And behind him were several slowly rotating, jet-black Seeking Jade stones.
"The Truth-Seeking Ball... How does he possess the Truth-Seeking Ball?" Young Sasuke's Rinnegan trembled slightly beneath his side-swept bangs.
After the Fourth Shinobi World War, even he and Naruto could no longer control the power of Truth-Seeking Balls!
But in this time and space, there appeared someone who could control the Seeking the Way Jade!
Boruto was equally shocked.
He secretly glanced at Hinata, the leader of the group, who was standing not far away with one hand on her hip, looking at the sky with a somewhat solemn expression, and then looked at Menma, who was surrounded by golden light in the sky.
What on earth is going on in this spacetime?!