Die!
In the instant he closed in, Neji activated the Breathing Art once again, directly converting the chakra black rod that had pierced into his body into absorbable energy.
His injuries healed instantly.
With a hand shaped like a blade, he severed the fishing line.
Before Urashiki could react, Neji lashed out with a precise kick that swept across both his eyes. A blade-like wave of chakra slashed open Urashiki's skull.
Time reset once more.
However, this time Urashiki had already lost his left eye—Neji's attack was too fast. So fast that by the time Urashiki activated his rewind, one of his Rinnegan eyes had already been destroyed!
You have to understand—this rewind technique also has a limit. It hasn't yet reached the level of Rule Devouring.
Even so, any "rule," given enough energy, can still be broken.
Losing one of his eyes sent Urashiki into complete mental collapse. The shining star of the mighty Ōtsutsuki clan, now crippled by an indigenous inhabitant of a backwater planet whose bloodline had long been diluted.
Driven mad, Urashiki swallowed his remaining eye along with the golden chakra stored in his fishing basket.
His strength skyrocketed.
His body transformed—bird talons and wings sprouted from him. His Rinnegan regenerated, now turning gold. This was a trophy he'd acquired from a planet teeming with summoning beasts—he had hunted an extraordinarily powerful celestial crane and parsed its energy. Though he hadn't fully neutralized the side effects of the power…
Now, to deal with the native before him, he had no choice but to use it.
Urashiki firmly believed that as long as he defeated Neji—whether he captured him alive or not—he could extract powerful secret techniques from him.
Enough to compensate for the losses he'd suffered!
However, upon entering the celestial crane state, Urashiki—already enraged—lost even more of his rationality due to the lingering influence of the crane's power.
His taijutsu was already formidable—surpassing even Kinshiki, who relied purely on brute strength.
Every punch and kick carried the destructive force to shatter mountains and rupture rivers!
His energy attacks were also terrifying. Nearly every purple energy beam forced Neji to counter with twice as many chakra fist prints just to neutralize them.
In this state, Urashiki could also draw upon the powers embedded in the bloodline of the summoning beast.
Two purple energy dragons were summoned, each spewing deadly homing orbs, while Urashiki himself relentlessly assaulted Neji in close combat.
Yet this explosive rise in power at the cost of intelligence only made things easier for Neji!
After all, Neji was in resonance with the very environment itself. Backed by the shinobi world, his energy was endless.
Even his body could regenerate in an instant.
Neji held a blade in one hand, fists flying with the other. Sword light and chakra prints overlapped, the tempo growing faster and faster as he pushed Urashiki's attacks back head-on.
What's more, the wild energy Urashiki kept pouring out was being absorbed by Neji's Breathing Art—feeding back into the land and strengthening Neji further!
In close quarters, Urashiki and his energy dragons were repeatedly forced back by Neji's relentless offense, ignoring even his own injuries.
In the blink of an eye, one of the energy dragons was swallowed up by tens of thousands of slashes and chakra fist prints, collapsing entirely.
The other dragon fared no better—its body riddled with holes from repeated blows, on the verge of disintegration.
Urashiki himself suffered even worse. Under Neji's furious close combat, his entire lower half was blasted away.
Ōtsutsuki chakra was undeniably terrifying. In the celestial crane state, it multiplied exponentially—but even so, it was still limited.
It couldn't possibly surpass the entire shinobi world that stood behind Neji.
Urashiki had lost—and lost miserably. His lower body turned into a mist of blood, destroyed again and again after trying to regenerate with Truth-Seeking Orbs.
His right arm was cleaved off by a flash of sword light. His chest was punched straight through, leaving a gaping hole from front to back.
His only remaining left arm tightly guarded his head as he flew through the air using gravitational manipulation.
He was completely spent!
But perhaps because he'd vented too much energy, the influence of the celestial crane form began to fade.
And just as Neji was about to deliver the finishing blow, Urashiki suddenly hurled out a black box.
He poured all his remaining chakra into it. Instantly, a massive cloud of white mist erupted from the box.
This mist seemed to exist in another dimension entirely. No matter how many sword slashes or chakra fists Neji unleashed, no matter how much energy he poured out, nothing could affect it.
Nor could he dodge.
The white fog enveloped Neji, instantly freezing him.
He crashed to the ground, transformed into a permanent statue.
His time—completely frozen by the mist inside the black box!
But Urashiki couldn't spare the strength to capture Neji.
Activating the black box had consumed too much of his power—and the damage was permanent.
After all, this was the power of time. In the past, he could use chakra he'd stored in his fishing basket as payment.
But now, he'd exhausted everything. Completely drained.
He clutched the black box, his fishing rod and basket floating beside him, and fled at top speed…
...
Outside—
Naruto and Sasuke finally found an opening.
Together, they activated their armored Susanoo. Two powers representing the pinnacle of the shinobi world merged into one, finally overwhelming Kinshiki on a power level.
Reinforcements from the Allied Shinobi Forces and medical teams kept arriving.
With the aid of some scientific ninja tools—such as chakra cannons capable of unleashing massive energy blasts that exceeded Kinshiki's absorption limit—and simple firearm attacks, Kinshiki, already worn down by the prolonged battle, was pushed into a difficult position.
Naruto and Sasuke, using Amenominaka to swap positions with medical ninjas, had fully recovered their injuries and chakra.
Although in Isshiki's eyes, the armored Susanoo was just a wasteful energy form…
He had to admit—in this state, the two of them were already stronger than Ōtsutsuki Kinshiki. From here on, it was a matter of technique and experience.
Naruto and Sasuke were already the top talents of the shinobi world. Once they were evenly matched in strength, it didn't take long for them to decipher Kinshiki's attack pattern.
It was simple: raw power that rivaled the Thousand-Armed Buddha, and taijutsu mastery on par with Uchiha Madara's level.
Understanding that, the duo quickly adapted their strategy.
Having lost the advantage, Kinshiki kept trying to delay them to buy time for Momoshiki.
But in his current condition—his power depleted—even if he could stall Naruto and Sasuke briefly, he couldn't stop the other Kage-level shinobi who had recovered with medical support.
Soon, the Five Kage—previously heavily injured—returned to fighting shape.
Along with Tsunade, Orochimaru, Kakashi, the Fourth Raikage, Killer Bee, and other retired Kage-level figures…
All of them broke through Kinshiki's blockade—
Racing toward the heart of Kara's base—the battlefield where Momoshiki and Isshiki were clashing!
...
Along the way, they encountered the young shinobi who had been rescued.
They also saw Neji—frozen in time by the black box Urashiki had unleashed before fleeing.
By now, most of Neji's body had thawed.
Though he still looked like an ice statue, his chest rose and fell ever so slightly.
This was because—even frozen, even with his Breathing Art suspended—Neji had remained in resonance with the world for so long…
After unlocking the three seals, he had, in a sense, become one with the shinobi world itself.
To seal Neji was to seal the entire world.
And a mere black box with a sliver of time-based power could never truly do that…
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