Naruto: I, who fooled the ninja world, was hailed as a savior.

Chapter 483 You Forgot Fear
"..."

Grell almost instinctively raised his head, his scarlet eyes shrinking to the size of pinpoints, clearly reflecting the two figures standing in the air.

He's back.

That being who, five hundred years ago, granted him new life, gave him a name, and bestowed upon him power and a long life.

Just as Grell lost his composure.

Standing behind Otsutsuki Kumoshiki, Kawashiki's expression turned cold when he saw that this guy below, whom he considered no different from an ant, dared to look directly at Lord Kumoshiki.

"court death."

He uttered two cold words, and the veins around his white eyes bulged menacingly.

boom!!

The pressure, as if the entire sky had collapsed, crashed down with a deafening roar.

Bang!Bang bang!

The crowd, who were originally kneeling on one knee, were instantly overwhelmed and turned into a full-body prostration.

His head was slammed into the ground by an invisible force, his forehead hitting the ground with a dull thud.

Some people can even hear the cracking sound of their neck bones straining under the weight, but they can't make a sound, can't even move their fingers, and have difficulty breathing.

Trembling under this oppressive force, all that remained was the most primal fear.

Click!

Grell, who was hit first, let out a muffled groan. His tall and burly body seemed to have its spine broken, and he was powerless to resist. His knees slammed hard into the ground, and a crisp sound of bones cracking rang out.

The force pressed down on his head, forcing him to lower it deeply, his forehead almost touching the ground, and he could even feel the excruciating pain of his bones dislocating.

“God… God…” Grell struggled to let out a painful sob.

Ōtsutsuki Unshiki's eyes remained unmoved, ignoring Kawashiki's presumptuous actions, as he looked down at Grell: "It seems you've had a very comfortable five hundred years."

"Indulging in mundane conquests and enjoying the worship of ants."

“So…” Yun paused slightly, the brief silence hanging like a guillotine over Grell’s head, before continuing, “Where is what I want?”

These words were like an icicle, instantly piercing Grell's last remaining hope, and cold sweat soaked through his thick inner lining.

In his early years, during the first few decades after gaining power, he did indeed lead the tribe and excavate underground mines while keeping the divine oracle in mind.

He was still driving his people to search for legendary places, remote valleys, or sacrificial sites, where they found stone slabs with strange patterns and other objects whose purpose was unclear.

He carefully kept the things he considered special, examining them regularly in a secret room known only to him, his heart filled with apprehension.

But decades have passed, a hundred years have passed...

That deity never appeared again.

As his power grew through the continuous plunder of lives, as his territory expanded, as more and more orcs were created, as countless enemies knelt at his feet in submission or turned to dust...

The sense of urgency that arose from awe was gradually replaced by an ever-expanding lust for power and the thrill of conquest.

He began to wonder if the gods had just mentioned it casually? Perhaps the things in those ruins weren't so important? Perhaps...

Once he establishes a powerful enough kingdom to rule this land, he can use more resources and manpower to search for what the gods need.

However, he clearly overestimated his abilities and underestimated the difficulty of completely conquering a continent.

Internal rebellions, the repeated uprisings of conquered tribes, disputes over resource allocation, control and mining of mineral veins, enslaving captives to establish their own territories...

Over the course of five hundred years, he spent most of his time on endless suppression, massacres, reconstruction, and consolidation of power.

The so-called "search for ruins" has long since been transformed from a primary mission into a trivial matter that is only thought of occasionally in spare time and symbolically handled by sending a few teams to deal with it, so...

"You've already forgotten."

Otsutsuki Kumoshiki pulled him back to reality from his chaotic thoughts, his calm tone revealing a cold indifference that seemed to know everything.

"You have forgotten your status as a servant."

"They have forgotten the vows they once made."

"They have forgotten the mission they were entrusted with."

"And I forgot..."

Yun Shi lowered her eyes slightly and said softly, "Fear."

As soon as he finished speaking, the pressure exerted on Grell suddenly increased, no longer forcing him to kneel, but as if the weight of the entire world was concentrated on him alone.

Click! Crack! Pfft!
The bone-crushing sound of bones shattering was deafening and deafening, not just at the knees, but starting from the spine, as bones were slowly crushed and ground down inch by inch!

Ribs, arm bones, leg bones...

His entire skeleton was groaning and cracking under the strain, and intense pain was pounding against his nerves like a tsunami, far exceeding any pain he had endured in the past five hundred years.

Blood gushed from his mouth, nose, ears, and the corners of his eyes, spraying out tiny jets of blood that soaked the soil beneath him into a crimson mess.

"Aaaaaah!!" Grell screamed, his voice broken and shrill, from deep within his throat.

"Spare me, spare my life..."

From his mouth, which was full of blood and foam, he squeezed out a weak, mosquito-like voice, pleading, "My Lord God... forgive me... I dare not... I will never forget again..."

The Great Cloud Style, suspended in mid-air, looked down at the pool of blood, twisted bones, and wailing "thing" below.

A moment later, he raised his finger almost imperceptibly.

Seeing this, Kawashiro, who was standing to the side, narrowed his eyes, which contained terrifying pressure, and the terrifying pressure pressing down on Grell receded like a tide.

"Uh……"

The moment the pressure disappeared, Grell had turned into a real puddle of mud, sprawled on the ground, only able to twitch instinctively and groan in pain.

However, immediately afterward, within his shattered body, the broken bones automatically pieced themselves back together and healed, the damaged internal organs were repaired, and the torn muscles and skin rapidly merged...

All the injuries healed at a visible speed under the influence of that drop of "blood" in his body, and he experienced the pain again, no less than before.

"Remember," Otsutsuki Kumoshiki's voice rang out again, "this is your last chance."

As soon as the words fell, the figures of Yun and Chuan vanished silently into the air, as if they had never existed. Only the lingering oppressive aura in the air still made them tremble with fear.

Dead silence.

A suffocating silence enveloped the blood-soaked jungle clearing.

After what felt like an eternity, Grell, sprawled in the blood, trembled slightly.

Then, using his healed arm to support himself on the ground, he slowly pushed himself up, stood up unsteadily, his legs still a little weak, and stiffly turned around.

Those scarlet eyes were filled with humiliation and lingering fear, as well as a burning rage that he could only suppress deep inside, daring not to reveal a single trace.

Grell looked at his men, who were still lying on the ground, trembling with fear.

Their fear was so glaringly obvious to Grell at that moment.

Because they witnessed his most wretched, humble, and powerless side.

They saw him pinned to the ground like a dead dog, his bones shattered, blood flowing freely, screaming in agony, begging for mercy in a pitiful manner.

They witnessed his "kingly" facade being ruthlessly torn away, revealing his pitiful essence as a "servant" and an "ant." Humiliation and anger gnawed at Grell's heart like venomous snakes.

He slowly raised his hand, his five fingers spread, and aimed it at the trembling figures.

puff!puff!puff!

A series of dull, chilling explosions rang out in succession.

Those people lying prone on the ground suddenly swelled up from the inside, and then, like blood-filled sacs being punctured and burst open with a bang!

There were no screams, no struggles, and not even time to react.

Blood, bones, and internal organs bloomed like red flowers in the forest, and the intense stench of blood instantly overwhelmed everything from the previous battlefield.

Immediately afterwards, the splattered blood did not fall to the ground, but was drawn by a powerful suction force, transforming into torrents of crimson blood that surged wildly toward Grell and entered his body.

Grell's body trembled slightly, and his aura recovered at a visible speed, even becoming slightly more solid than before.

Yes, that's right, that's exactly it.

Even if his power is insignificant in the face of the gods, at least in the eyes of these ants, he is still the king who holds the power of life and death.

"Hiss...whoosh..."

Grell's chest heaved as he gasped for breath, looking down at his body, now fully recovered and even stronger, before gazing at the blood-red, muddy mess that lay around him...

creak!

He gritted his teeth so hard they made a grinding sound, raised his hand to cover his face, which was filled with resentment, curled his fingers, and scratched down with his nails little by little.

Hiss!

The fingernail scratched the skin, leaving five clear bloody marks that stretched diagonally from the temple to the jaw, with the skin turned outwards and fresh blood immediately seeping out.

But he seemed oblivious to the pain, staring intently at what lay before him with his darker red eyes, barely suppressing the roar that threatened to burst from his throat.

Just now...

What kingdom, what king, what power of life and death, what five hundred years of conquest...

Under the gaze of those emotionless eyes, before that absolute power, everything was like a dazzling yet illusory bubble under the sunlight, which would dissipate and vanish with the slightest touch.

Not even a trace was left.

His heart was filled only with the deep-seated fear of being stripped of his true form and the burning humiliation that had trampled his dignity into mud.

He seemed to have transformed back into that weak, dying boy named "Lei" who was mired in the mud, humbly begging for mercy and only able to look up to the gods.

Do not……

It's not even as good as it was back then.

At that time, he had nothing but the desire to live.

He had possessed it, and now he had been instantly stripped of all his illusory possessions. The shame brought about by this disparity was even greater than simple fear.

Only then did he finally realize that he was no different from those people.

He hated it so much, he really hated it, but he was terrified and dared not show the slightest resentment even after the other person had left.

"..."

Grell stood there for a long time before calming down, suppressing his resentment deep in his heart, and the bloodstains on his face healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Power," he thought coldly. "I need greater power, more subordinates, and stronger strength—powerful enough to escape the fate of being an ant."

Without a doubt, the only way to realize this ambition is to place our hopes on something that even the "gods" covet.

The jungle has returned to its deathly silence.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in this land, thick fog blanketed the sea, and the salty, cold sea breeze seemed to weep as it blew across a few simple wooden boats and rafts.

These dilapidated boats drifted on the undulating waves, as if they could be swallowed up by the next wave at any moment.

But fate is on our side, and the ocean is unusually calm today.

The boats and rafts were crowded with the last survivors of the Black Stone tribe, their bodies still bearing the scratches and mud left behind in their hasty escape.

Almost everyone faced their homeland, which was gradually disappearing into the thick fog, their faces filled with blank sorrow, deep-seated hatred, bewilderment about the future, and emptiness at the loss of everything.

They didn't know what awaited them ahead; all they knew was that they could never return to that land.

High in the sky, beyond the reach of ordinary people, above the sea of ​​clouds, sunlight shines down without obstruction, dyeing the clouds a dazzling golden-white.

The Otsutsuki Cloud Style floats silently here, overlooking the vast blue planet below and the ships that are as small as a few fallen leaves in the vast ocean.

Judging from their hairstyles and where they went, they must have been the ancestors of the people of the Ancestral Kingdom later on.
"Let's go," said Otsutsuki Kumoshiki calmly, shifting his gaze away from the ships.

"Yes." Kawashiki, who was standing to the side, bowed slightly and asked, "Senior, shall we go and plant the divine tree?"

"No rush." ​​Yun Shi shook her head, raised her head, and looked at the mountains and rivers that were faintly visible below the clouds. "Chuan Shi, don't you think this planet is beautiful?"

Chuan Shi paused slightly, then followed Yun Shi's gaze.

This planet is indeed exceptionally "perfect".

First, there is its stable and abundant ecological environment.

Compared to those planets that once relied on divine trees to modify the atmosphere, regulate temperature, and even stabilize the crust in order to barely give birth to and maintain a fragile ecosystem, this is a far cry from the planets of the past.

The atmospheric composition, temperature range, water cycle, geomagnetic protection, and other aspects of this planet are all at a level suitable for the reproduction of life.

Mountains, rivers, forests, oceans, grasslands...

The various landforms are teeming with life, so much so that they are capable of giving birth to the strange mineral veins that Grell occupies.

This planet is truly a 'natural work of art'.

In his view, this planet was even more fertile than some of the Ōtsutsuki clans' carefully cultivated nurseries, and if the divine tree were planted there, the harvest would surely be plentiful.

"This is a planet capable of evolving its own rich ecology and civilization," said Otsutsuki Kumoshiki calmly. "It has many possibilities, but..."

Planting the divine tree means that this planet will lose all its possibilities, just like those planets colonized by the Otsutsuki clan.

This thought didn't come out of Otsutsuki Kumoshiki's mouth; it was a subconscious thought that surfaced in Kawashiki's mind.

But the next moment, realizing what he was thinking, his heart skipped a beat, and he lowered his head, extinguishing that unwarranted sense of regret.

He didn't notice Yun Shi's meaningful gaze in front of him.

"No rush to plant the divine tree." Ōtsutsuki Unshiki withdrew his gaze, his tone as calm as ever. "Let's go see what interesting things this planet has to offer first."

"The more perfect it is, the more worth looking forward to the fruit it produces."

After all, the so-called Chakra Fruit is a collection of everything, including information about all life on the planet.

To some extent, planting the Divine Tree in the current ninja world would be a waste of resources.

Aside from absorbing a large amount of chakra, they don't get any high-quality genetic information at all.

"..." Chuan Shi came back to his senses, and after a rare moment of silence, he lowered his head and replied, "Yes, senior."

As soon as the words were spoken, a gust of wind blew by, and the two figures disappeared from the spot.

(End of this chapter)