The endless dark chakra continued to surge within the space formed by the Adamantine Sealing Chains.
Tsunade stared at the colossal, serpentine form of Zero-Tail circling in the air. Perhaps due to the influence of the dark chakra on her mind, a look of unconcealable fear suddenly appeared in her eyes. She covered her mouth, gagged, and hid behind Orochimaru, her eyes shut.
"Ugh..."
"Orochimaru, what is that thing?"
Tsunade pressed her head against Orochimaru's back, her body trembling uncontrollably. Even the voice in which she asked the question became somewhat distorted.
Orochimaru blinked, turned, and retreated with Tsunade to the edge of the Adamantine Sealing Chains. Seeing that Tsunade seemed to be feeling slightly better, he tentatively asked,
"Zero-Tail is a monstrous entity born from the negative emotions of sentient beings. Staring at it for too long can cause irreversible damage to one's spirit."
"Tsunade, were you staring at Zero-Tail the whole time?"
"What did you see?"
Tsunade shrunk her neck, her eyes tightly shut as she hid in front of Orochimaru. She said with a look of pain,
"A pile of haphazardly assembled flesh and blood, like a mass of meat formed from the compressed corpses of many people after death!"
"It had you, it had Grandmother and Nawaki. It also had Jiraiya, it had the old man, and even my two grandfathers..."
"Ugh..."
As she spoke, Tsunade felt a sharp pain in her head. Her internal organs seemed to revolt, and she couldn't help but gag again.
Orochimaru frowned, gathered a ball of water-natured chakra in his palm, and gently pressed it against Tsunade's forehead.
"You're starting to gag and hallucinate?"
"This indicates your mental strength has been severely depleted."
"Relax your mind, don't think about it anymore!"
"If you don't want to become an idiot or a puppet of a demon, try to think about methods of ninjutsu training or recall some happy memories!"
The coolness emanating from her brow jolted Tsunade's spirit. Following Orochimaru's guidance, she began to think of things that would bring her joy.
"Don't think about it, don't think about it..."
"Happy things..."
"Right, I won money, I was raking it in at the casino..."
Under her self-hypnosis, Tsunade indeed felt her spirits slowly improving.
Watching Tsunade gradually calm down, Orochimaru breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Zero-Tail with a trace of solemnity in his eyes.
"Even with the mental fortitude of a Jonin, prolonged exposure to Zero-Tail's dark power is unavoidable."
"It seems preserving Zero-Tail's autonomy carries significant risks."
"Indeed, treating it as a pure source of power is the best way to handle such a monstrous entity."
Leaning on her dream of becoming a gambling god, Tsunade finally resisted the erosion of the dark power on her spirit, and her mind gradually cleared. As soon as she regained some ability to think, a question suddenly popped into her mind.
"Right, Orochimaru! Why weren't you affected by this mental power?"
Orochimaru was suddenly stumped by the question. He paused for a long time without being able to give a satisfactory answer.
"That's right! Why wasn't I affected?"
"Perhaps..."
Orochimaru stroked his chin and muttered to himself,
"Perhaps it's because there's no darkness in my heart?"
Tsunade opened one eye and glanced at him sideways, annoyed, before quickly closing it again. She let out a grunt,
"Hmph!"
"You? You have no darkness?"
"Wasn't it me who wanted to kill Jiraiya before?"
Orochimaru shook his head.
"Alas!"
"As expected, even Tsunade doesn't understand me!"
"Heaven and Earth as my witness, ever since I fused with that memory of the future, I, Orochimaru, haven't done a single thing against my conscience!"
"Well... of course, eliminating spies for the village and stealing others' secret techniques cannot be equated!"
After a brief period of self-justification, Orochimaru firmly believed in his heart that he was actually a good person.
...
Zero-Tail continued to weave through the gaps in the interlocked chains, its eerie laughter echoing as the dark chakra surged, and the surrounding Adamantine Sealing Chains were visibly stained black at an alarming rate.
Judging by the situation, if there were no continuous power to maintain the seal, even the Uzumaki clan's sealing jutsu might not be able to contain this monstrous entity for much longer.
"Miserable mortals, do you see!"
"This is the power of a great deity!"
"The erosion of darkness is everywhere, and nothing can stop My power!"
"Obey your heart, surrender to the darkness!"
"In the end, all your power will be used for My sake!"
Zero-Tail's serpentine body grew larger, moving nimbly within the Adamantine Sealing Chains. It occasionally poked its faceless head, adorned with a white mask, towards Uzumaki Mito, who stood with her eyes closed, to taunt her.
"All power will be used for your sake?"
"Then let's see!"
Uzumaki Mito's tightly shut eyes suddenly snapped open. To Zero-Tail's surprise (?), the Adamantine Sealing Chain extending from her right sleeve was deliberately severed by her.
With a clatter, the heavy cage of Adamantine Sealing Chains surrounding them instantly disintegrated into scattered chakra energy.
Seeing the cage that restricted the spread of its dark chakra vanish, Zero-Tail let out a piercing shriek. The dark power around it surged even more violently, filling the entire Four Symbols Seal in the blink of an eye.
"Heeheeheehee..."
"Finally recognized reality?"
"Embrace the darkness, and I shall grant you immortal power!"
Uzumaki Mito sneered and reached towards her lower abdomen. Four fingertips simultaneously conjured a ball of sapphire chakra, which she pressed and twisted onto the Eight Trigrams Seal branded on her abdomen, uttering a soft command.
"Eight Trigrams Seal Release!"
Within the Eight Trigrams Seal space in his body, the Nine-Tails clearly felt a not-so-small crack appear in the seal that suppressed its power. Having experienced numerous forceful extractions of its power, it knew what was about to happen.
It would involve a few chains extending from that crack and, depending on Uzumaki Mito's mood and how much chakra she needed, her pulling out that much chakra from him, the Nine-Tails.
Over the years, the Nine-Tails had become extremely familiar with this process.
In the beginning, it had tried to resist...
However, the ultimate outcome was merely gaining a few more chains attached to itself!
With a disdainful snort, the Nine-Tails flopped to the ground in resignation, closing its eyes and waiting for the sealing chains that would extract its power to descend.
However...
"Nine-Tails, this is truly the last time!"
"Please!"
Instead of the usual violent extraction through sealing chains when borrowing Nine-Tails' chakra, Uzumaki Mito slightly lowered her head, a smile on her face as she looked at her lower abdomen, and pleaded softly.
The Nine-Tails twitched its ears, barely believing what it had heard.
After a moment of stunned silence, it suddenly stood up from the ground in annoyance. It roared in the direction from which Uzumaki Mito's voice came, separating a strand of its divine sense, carrying half of its Yin-Yang Release chakra, and rushing towards the crack.
"Uzumaki Mito, don't think I'm helping you!"
"This is merely my repayment for you having broken my restraints earlier!"
"Remember this, what Hashirama Senju owes me, you can never repay!"
Uzumaki Mito smiled, her eyes closed as she felt this gentle power she had never experienced before. A sense of guilt towards the Nine-Tails, which her husband had inexplicably brought back, grew within her.
"Nine-Tails, I never imagined that your chakra, known as a natural disaster, could feel so warm!"
"Perhaps everyone has misunderstood you before!"
In the current ninja world, apart from Orochimaru, who knew the past and future, and the Sage of Six Paths, who existed in the liminal space between life and death, perhaps no one truly knew that the Tailed Beasts were originally wondrous creatures created by the Sage of Six Paths using Yin-Yang Release power, combining physical and spiritual energy.
No one knew that when they were first born a thousand years ago, they had flesh and blood, souls and thoughts, pure as a blank sheet of paper.
But humanity's greed and ambition had painted different colors on this blank paper.
Slaughter, hatred, violence, destruction...
This was how the Tailed Beasts appeared in the ninja world a millennium later.
Among the nine Tailed Beasts, the Nine-Tails' spirit and power at birth were the purest and strongest, and consequently, the negative energies it accumulated afterward were also the greatest.
The Nine-Tails' immense chakra surged out of the seal, instantly materializing. A terrifying pressure swept through the entire area.
A colossal, materialized half-body of a fox protected Uzumaki Mito's body. After greedily breathing in the fresh air of the ninja world, it then turned its gaze towards Zero-Tail, circling within the seal.
A flicker of human-like disdain crossed its eyes. The Nine-Tails snorted,
"So it's this disgusting fellow!"
"No wonder you needed my power!"
"Without the restraint of Yin-Yang Release, this demon born from darkness cannot be completely sealed!"
"If it weren't for back then..."
Continuing further would involve the secrets of the Sage of Six Paths from a thousand years ago, so the Nine-Tails consciously closed its mouth.
The half-finished sentence from the Nine-Tails left Uzumaki Mito and Tsunade completely bewildered.
What was Yin-Yang Release? What happened back then?
Tsunade, emboldened, opened her eyes and looked at the Nine-Tails in astonishment.
"Is this the Nine-Tails sealed within Grandmother's body? So powerful!"
"But, do Tailed Beasts talk?"
As everyone knew, weren't Tailed Beasts just ferocious monsters like wild beasts? Did Tailed Beasts also possess their own thoughts and memories?
Orochimaru nodded thoughtfully upon hearing the Nine-Tails' mutterings.
"Sealing such a demon indeed requires the power of Yin-Yang Release!"
"Presumably, Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha in my memories managed to forcefully disperse the origin of Zero-Tail's power by relying on the relatively compatible Yin and Yang Release chakra within them."
"Anyone else would probably have no way to deal with this demon!"
"As for what the Nine-Tails didn't finish saying, it must be about the Sage of Six Paths sealing Zero-Tail a thousand years ago!"
Without mentioning the thoughts flashing through each of their minds, the originally arrogant Zero-Tail froze in mid-air the moment the Nine-Tails' half-body appeared.
"You... how are you here?"
"Nine..."
Zero-Tail's trembling words had not yet finished when the Nine-Tails' arm shot out like lightning, roughly grabbing its neck and pulling it down from the air.
With a forceful squeeze, Zero-Tail let out a shrill cry, its neck exploding into a puff of smoke in the Nine-Tails' claws.
"Void, who gave you the courage to dare utter my name?"
"Go back to your seal obediently, or I'll make you completely dissipate!"
Such a powerful claw stunned everyone present except for Orochimaru.
Uzumaki Mito and Tsunade exchanged glances, countless question marks popping into their minds simultaneously.
"Did these two know each other before?"
"Isn't the Nine-Tails called Nine-Tails? Then what is it called Nine...?"
"Zero-Tail isn't called Zero-Tail, it's called Void?"
"No wonder it always called itself the God of Void!"
Uzumaki Mito looked up at the Nine-Tails' massive body, unable to suppress her curiosity, and asked,
"Nine-Tails, do you have a name?"
"I apologize, I know so little about you!"
The Nine-Tails snorted, too lazy to bother with the human who had spent the longest time with it but understood it the least.
"Right, this demon calls itself Zero-Tail, but why do you call it Void?"
The Nine-Tails blinked and mumbled twice.
"Zero-Tail..."
"Zero-Tail?"
Its voice suddenly rose, as if insulted. The Nine-Tails roared in anger and smashed the newly reformed Zero-Tail into dust with a single paw.
"A lowly demon, daring to bear the title of Tailed Beast?"
"A disgrace to the Tailed Beasts, a scum that endangers the ninja world, perish!"
The Nine-Tails braced itself on its front paws, its head held high. Terrifying Yin-Yang Release chakra began to gather in its mouth at an eight-to-two ratio.
Seeing this, Orochimaru was so shocked his soul almost flew away.
Damn it, it just picked a name with "tail" in it, and you're already going for a big move? There are innocent bystanders here!
Orochimaru, terrified, mentally hurled all the吐槽 (tǔcáo - sarcastic complaints) he had brought from his memories. Facing the bombardment of a Tailed Beast Bomb at such close range, even he, with his future countless life-saving abilities, would have a hard time, let alone now.
In a moment of desperation, Orochimaru grabbed Tsunade behind him and teleported behind the Nine-Tails, shouting at the idiot gathering the Tailed Beast Bomb,
"Kyu... Lama, wait a moment!"