If Yuto remembered correctly.
Mu's son had been swallowed by the Box of Heavenly Peace nearly ten years ago. Under normal circumstances, the body would have long since decomposed to nothing but bones.
Yet the Muko who emerged from the Box showed none of the decay one would expect from a corpse. The body still maintained some level of vitality – did the Box of Heavenly Peace also have the ability to preserve bodies?
Yuto couldn't help but think this was peculiar.
"You were the one who sent me into the Box yourself! So why are you letting me out now!"
The black-haired youth shook the blood from his arm and sneered at Mu, who lay in a pool of his own blood. His eyes held nothing but coldness.
The black-haired youth then burst into wild, manic laughter, his face twisted with cruelty.
You put good fruit in, and only rotten fruit comes out.
Yuto looked at the black-haired youth and shook his head gently, speaking in an indifferent tone.
The moment he finished speaking.
Another Chakra-forged Golden Lock shot from Yuto's palm, lashing toward the black-haired youth.
The Golden Lock struck the ground where the youth had just been standing, creating a heavy thud. But the black-haired youth had simply taken two steps to the right, easily evading Yuto's fierce strike.
As if he had predicted it in advance!
Interesting.
A smile appeared on Yuto's face.
That strike had been delivered without any holding back – its speed was such that even a Jounin would struggle to defend against it.
Moreover, Yuto had seen clearly: the instant the attack was launched, the black-haired youth had already dodged, as if by conditioned reflex.
Perceive in stillness, perceive in motion, perceive to the end…
Mind-reading might be an exaggeration, but sensing killing intent was likely real.
Yuto's eyes flashed with contemplation as he murmured to himself.
At that moment, the black-haired youth who had evaded the attack stared fixedly in Yuto's direction.
So it was you who attacked! Do you have any idea how loud that was?!
The black-haired youth's expression grew increasingly savage, and he let out a howl that bordered on a scream of pain.
The black-haired youth's body began swelling. His clothes burst apart, and a pair of enormous black wings erupted from his back, spreading wide.
His entire body lost its human form entirely, transforming into a black monster with an upper body resembling a bat and disproportionately long legs.
ROAR!
The moment Satoru appeared, he let out a piercing roar. His wings beat once, and his body shot into the air.
A demon after all – coming here was the right choice.
Yuto's smile widened.
Whoosh!
Golden Locks shot from Yuto's body one after another. In an instant, ten chakra chains lashed toward the airborne Satoru.
Each Golden Lock that struck the air produced a sharp, explosive sound, like thunderbolts detonating across the sky.
Facing the ten Golden Locks' attack, Satoru's massive body moved with extraordinary agility through the air, evading every single chain without one landing.
It's useless – your attacks can't hurt me.
Satoru dodged the Golden Locks in midair while laughing boisterously.
Simultaneously, Satoru charged toward Yuto at tremendous speed, as if the ten Golden Locks didn't even exist.
This preemptive sensing ability went far beyond simply detecting killing intent.
Yuto watched Satoru with a calm expression from beginning to end, his eyes growing brighter.
Satoru's ability to sense attack trajectories without looking was far more powerful than Yuto had imagined, especially in combat.
According to the movie's explanation, Satoru's power derived from his opponent's fear and killing intent. But Yuto felt no fear whatsoever.
As for killing intent, Yuto was skeptical – killing intent alone couldn't produce such precise awareness.
In the movie, Naruto had relied on suppressing his killing intent and Ryuuzetsu's fearlessness to land a blow on Satoru. In Yuto's view, that method was completely useless.
Playtime is over.
Yuto watched Satoru charging closer and closer, twisting his neck slightly.
In that instant.
Satoru seemed to sense something and forcibly halted his charge, simultaneously beating his wings rapidly to ascend.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Over a hundred chakra chains poured from Yuto's body like a golden torrent, sealing off every direction Satoru could flee.
In nearly the blink of an eye!
Satoru was bound by the Golden Locks, his body forcibly dragged to the ground, unable to move even slightly.
When one force can overcome all techniques – if ten chakra chains weren't enough, then a hundred would do!
Even if Satoru could sense the trajectory of every Golden Lock, with all directions sealed off, there was nowhere to run. He could only surrender.
Yuto wore a slight smile, and his figure vanished from where he stood, reappearing atop Satoru's head in the blink of an eye.
ROAR! Damn you!
Satoru roared in fury and struggled violently, but under the restraint of so many Golden Locks, he couldn't even move.
I hope this yields good results.
Yuto chuckled, and a brilliant white light suddenly erupted from both his hands. The radiance carried a sacred aura – the complete opposite of the evil energy emanating from Satoru.
Shrine maiden!
You damn shrine maiden!
Satoru's body trembled as if he realized something, struggling and roaring desperately – but it was all useless.
Yuto's hands, each forming a different seal, pressed down on Satoru's head.
Satoru's furious roar immediately transformed into a piercing shriek.
Yuto's expression remained unchanged as his hands shifted into claw shapes, ripping upward violently. A pitch-black soul radiating an evil aura was torn from Satoru's body.
The shrine maiden's power, specifically designed to deal with demons, was far easier to use than expected.
Yuto's eyes brightened as he thought with admiration.
The Six Paths' power was indeed far stronger than the shrine maiden's power. Killing Satoru would have been no problem at all. But cleanly separating his body from his soul with such ease – that was something the Six Paths' power couldn't achieve.
Using the Six Paths' power for this purpose might accidentally cause Satoru's soul to dissipate.
As Satoru's soul was extracted, the massive demonic body rapidly disintegrated, reverting to the form of the black-haired youth in the blink of an eye.
Moreover, the youth's body began decaying at a visible rate before ultimately turning to ash and vanishing completely.
Shrine maiden! You can't kill me! All you can do is seal me away!
After being extracted, Satoru's black soul coalesced into a basketball-sized sphere of dark energy.
According to Satoru's memories, at this stage, the shrine maiden would normally seal his soul. In the past, the shrine maiden would have had to fight a fierce battle to accomplish this, usually paying with her life. But the man before him was simply too powerful.
He had extracted Satoru's soul with effortless ease.
Seal me? I'm no shrine maiden.
Yuto raised an eyebrow slightly, his tone carrying a hint of coldness.
A terrifying, overwhelming aura rose from Yuto's body as he entered Sage Mode.
Without a single wasted word, Yuto employed the same method he had used against the Makyo, extracting and dismantling Satoru's soul.
In the span of a few breaths, the basketball-sized black soul had been reduced to a fist-sized sphere of pure energy that radiated a faint white glow.
After absorbing this pure white energy, Yuto felt his mental energy increase significantly. It was an extraordinary sensation that he could genuinely perceive.
With the improvement in his mental energy, Yuto also sensed his overall strength climbing. Chakra was the product of cells and mental energy combined, though because Yuto's base power was so immense, the improvement wasn't particularly dramatic.
Of course, this slight increase in strength wasn't what Yuto truly valued.
What he truly cared about was that with his mental energy enhanced, his resistance to genjutsu and other spiritual attacks had increased dramatically.
This had compensated for a weakness Yuto had always carried.
Yuto hovered in midair and closed his eyes, quietly sensing the changes. Just as he had initially predicted, devouring Satoru's soul energy had granted him the same near-omniscient perception of others' minds that he had gained from the Makyo.
A rare look of delight appeared on Yuto's face. In his view, this ability was practically broken – especially in the hands of someone with his level of power.
If Yuto without this ability fought Yuto with this ability, the latter could achieve near-total suppression.
No matter what attack the opponent launched, he could sense it and dodge in advance. With quick enough reflexes, he could even counter-attack while the opponent was still striking.
Yuto smiled and opened his eyes, turning toward the Box of Heavenly Peace with a thought.
A Truth-Seeking Ball flew toward the Box. Just before reaching it, the ball expanded and swallowed the Box whole.
Then the expanded Truth-Seeking Ball shrank back to its original size and returned to Yuto's side.
[
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