After Yuto finished speaking, he paid no attention to Chiyome's expression behind him. He walked directly toward the miniature shrine ahead.
At the center of the shrine was a closed stone door, its surface covered in talismans inscribed with mysterious runes.
"This seal can only be opened with a specific incantation."
Noticing Yuto's movement, Chiyome came back to her senses and hastily warned him.
But.
The moment Chiyome's words fell, Yuto raised his fist and slammed it into the shrine.
A dull, thunderous boom erupted within the barrier. Surging power poured from Yuto's fist, unstoppable as a mountain flood.
The shrine's outermost energy barrier shattered like broken glass. The numerous mysterious talismans on the stone door, stimulated by the attack, erupted with brilliant purple light, transforming into lightning serpents that surged toward Yuto.
Under Chiyome's horrified gaze, the purple lightning struck Yuto's body without producing any explosion. It vanished as if into thin air.
Yuto's fist, after breaking through layer after layer of defense, finally struck the stone door.
Crack!
Crack!
From the center of Yuto's fist, dense cracks instantly spread across the entire stone door. In the blink of an eye, the door crumbled into powder, and a pitch-black void appeared behind it.
Whoosh!!
As something was destroyed, a powerful wave of air and malice erupted from within!
Under the shockwave's impact, Yuto stood calmly in place, his body unmoving. But Chiyome, standing behind him, was forced back several steps before stabilizing herself.
"It was destroyed by pure force? How is that possible?"
Chiyome raised her arms to shield herself, a look of disbelief on her face as she murmured.
Though she knew Yuto was powerful, it was only now that Chiyome truly began to comprehend the extent of that strength.
"How nostalgic!"
"Back in this world again? Hahaha!!"
A low, hoarse laugh echoed from the pitch-black cave.
The laughter stopped halfway, as if something had been noticed. The tone shifted to one of surprise:
"I sense the shrine maiden's power! Did you release me, this generation's shrine maiden? How interesting!"
The hoarse voice laughed again.
"Your laugh is truly unpleasant. So you're Makyo?"
Yuto extended a finger and poked his ear, his tone carrying a hint of impatience.
"The scent of chakra. How surprising – a ninja appearing here."
"I don't know what's happened, but I must thank you for freeing me!!"
Makyo's hoarse voice rose sharply in volume. A visible black aura seeped from the dark opening.
"Makyo, even without the seal, you're nothing but a soul now. Once you emerge, how long can you survive!"
"I have come here to destroy you."
Chiyome's face held a determined expression as she declared loudly.
"Destroy me?"
Makyo heard Chiyome's words and laughed as if hearing the greatest joke, his voice dripping with undisguised mockery:
"Can you do it? Do you know why your mother, instead of destroying me, only sealed me back then?"
Makyo's words made Chiyome, who had been about to act, pause.
"Allow me to tell you!"
"I cannot kill you, and you don't have the power to make me disappear, because we are one and the same!"
"Hehe, the so-called shrine maidens are merely humans who borrowed our demon's power!"
"In that distant era, when demons ran rampant, one demon developed a desire to protect humans. It made a pact with humanity, splitting its originally immense power in two."
"This method was passed down through generations, eventually evolving into the so-called shrine maidens. Light, darkness, good, evil – such words cannot describe or summarize us!"
The hoarse, mocking voice echoed through the barrier.
Chiyome's face showed a look of confusion at Makyo's words.
But at that moment, a flat voice sounded within the barrier.
"So that's the origin of the shrine maidens. To think it involved borrowing a demon's power. No wonder the lineage is so limited – only one shrine maiden per generation."
A gleam of understanding flashed in Yuto's eyes as an interested expression crossed his face.
Click!
"Enough chitchat. I don't have time to waste here."
Yuto snapped his fingers lightly, narrowing his eyes.
Makyo's lengthy explanation was not meant to enlighten them. It was stalling – searching for an opening in the two of them, then possessing their bodies.
Yuto couldn't be bothered to expose this little scheme.
As the last word left Yuto's mouth.
An indescribable aura of terror, power, and suffocation rose from Yuto's body.
Six Paths Sage Mode!
Yuto rose from the ground, hovering in midair. A white ceremonial robe draped over him, and six black Truth-Seeking Orbs floated behind him. A sacred, powerful aura instantly enveloped the entire barrier.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The bell around Chiyome's neck chimed incessantly. Her eyes were wide with disbelief as she looked at Yuto in his current state.
A deity?
Yes!
Chiyome felt that the current Yuto was like a true god.
"This power… impossible!"
Makyo let out a hoarse shriek. The higher-level power made him feel an indescribable suppression.
It was like a herbivore facing a carnivore – a suppression that came from a fundamentally higher essence.
Yuto's expression was indifferent as he reached toward the dark opening with one hand!
An invisible pulling force poured from Yuto's palm. Makyo, sealed within the dimensional gap, let out a scream of terror!
With nowhere to hide, Makyo was forcibly dragged from the cave by this immense power.
A soul radiating evil aura, purely black, was seized in Yuto's palm.
In this moment, Makyo felt a genuine, indescribable fear of death for the first time.
"You cannot kill me!"
"If I die, this shrine maiden will also die! Our powers are one!"
Makyo screamed and pleaded ceaselessly in Yuto's palm.
"Your powers may be one, but killing you would kill her – I don't believe that."
Yuto examined the basketball-sized black soul in his hand with an interested expression.
In Six Paths Sage Mode, Yuto could indeed sense a faint connection between Makyo and Chiyome.
From this, Makyo's initial words were apparently true.
But the claim that killing Makyo equaled killing Chiyome – Yuto wasn't so sure. He remembered that in the movie, Makyo was ultimately killed by both Naruto and Chiyome together.
Not only did Makyo die, but Chiyome survived perfectly well.
Moreover!
Yuto looked at the basketball-sized Makyo soul in his palm. What he intended to do next wasn't truly killing Makyo – though for Makyo, it was essentially the same thing.
Yuto held Makyo's soul in one hand while using Yin-Yang power with the other, reaching toward it.
As he did, Makyo seemed to sense something. His entire soul struggled frantically, screaming and pleading continuously!
But facing Yuto, who had mastered Yin-Yang power, the soul-only Makyo could offer no resistance whatsoever.
Yuto's other hand plunged directly into the basketball-sized soul. A piercing scream exploded through the entire barrier.
Yuto's hand, submerged in Makyo's soul, stirred continuously as if grasping something.
Makyo's screams diminished from a high-pitched wail to increasingly faint whimpers, eventually falling silent. The struggling soul grew calm.
After stirring within Makyo's soul for a moment, Yuto slowly pulled outward. A writhing black soul was extracted by his other hand from the original soul.
As the black soul was pulled out, the basketball-sized soul in Yuto's other hand collapsed and shrank at a visible rate!
In the blink of an eye, it had shrunk to the size of a ping-pong ball. The dark soul had transformed into a pure white.
"I didn't expect it to actually work. The power of Yin-Yang is even more terrifying than I imagined. It's a pity that this ability seems ineffective against other Six Paths-level beings."
Yuto looked at the dark soul in his left hand and the pure white soul in his right, a trace of wonder in his eyes.
Six Paths power truly deserved to be called "the principle of all things, dominion over all of creation."
These two souls, though both originally Makyo's, now had fundamentally different essences under Yuto's manipulation.
The dark soul contained Makyo's memories, consciousness, and other mixed elements.
As for the small pure white soul – it was the most essential soul power, purified of all impurities.
"As expected of a demon. The soul's resilience is far beyond that of a human."
Yuto clenched his left hand tightly around the dark soul.
Under the power of Six Paths, the soul collapsed entirely, dissolving into motes of light and vanishing completely.
The soul was inherently fragile. If Yuto used the same method on a ninja's soul, it would likely collapse instantly, with no room for manipulation.
[
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