"This…"
Even with Uchiha Chizumi's willpower, the sudden flood of chakra pouring into his body still left him stunned.
Over the past few days, besides refining his Radiance Release, he had also been trying to condense more Truth-Seeking Orbs.
The Water Covenant had already solved his biggest weakness in battle—lack of chakra. In a sense, the Water Covenant gave Uchiha Chizumi the same kind of infinite chakra as Impure World Reincarnation.
But even the Water Covenant only showed its full value near the sea. No matter how hard Chizumi pushed its power, condensing a second Truth-Seeking Orb had still remained a distant goal.
Yet now, with this almost uncountable surge of emotional energy flooding into him, Uchiha Chizumi barely had to try at all before he effortlessly formed a second Truth-Seeking Orb!
And more than that, he could feel that this power born from emotion would continue endlessly!
Which meant he would hardly need any time at all to condense yet another Truth-Seeking Orb!
As the two Truth-Seeking Orbs floated behind him, the Radiance Release Chakra Mode around his body became even more sacred. Threads of a golden divine robe began weaving themselves around him, making Uchiha Chizumi truly resemble some ancient god.
But he also had a problem of his own now.
There were simply too many emotional sources—too many, too mixed together. Countless voices crowded his mind, making him feel dizzy and disoriented.
Even so, Uchiha Chizumi forced himself back to where Kitsujiro and Uzumaki Karin were waiting.
"Chizumi, your face looks kind of bad, meow."
Kitsujiro looked at Chizumi's pale face, then at the chaos in his eyes, and couldn't help saying something.
"We'll rest at Hōzuki Castle for a few days."
"There's a small problem with me that I need to sort out."
Uchiha Chizumi only had time to tell Kitsujiro that much before the flood of voices finally overwhelmed him and he blacked out.
His brain had simply become unable to process that amount of information, so it shut down on its own. And with Kitsujiro beside him, he didn't have to worry about his safety.
"Did the god get hurt?"
Little Karin looked at Uchiha Chizumi with worry. She had seen the terrifying monster fly out of Hōzuki Castle, and she had also seen Chizumi command nine suns as he swept across the sky and lit up the land.
In Karin's eyes, Uchiha Chizumi was a god from legend.
If he weren't a god, then how could he have heard her prayer and rescued her from the hell that was the Grass Country? If he weren't a god, then how could he have taken the form of the sun and patrolled the world, illuminating the earth?
"I'm not sure, meow. But Chizumi will be fine!"
Kitsujiro enlarged his body, hoisted Uchiha Chizumi onto his back, and led Karin toward Hōzuki Castle.
He didn't know what Chizumi was going through, but Kitsujiro believed this much with absolute certainty: whatever it was, Chizumi would overcome it.
That was his faith in Uchiha Chizumi.
On the other side of the Grass Country—
"Is… is it over?"
One Grass ninja looked at the extinguished sun in the distance and stammered out the question.
He didn't know whether he was asking himself or the others around him, but he knew exactly how terrified he was.
Before Uchiha Chizumi, they had never imagined that a ninja could become this powerful.
Holding a sun in his hand, with several more behind him illuminating the land, he had looked like a god of the sun patrolling his own divine kingdom.
The sight had been so shocking that it made people instinctively think of the legendary Sage of Six Paths—or rather, even the Sage of Six Paths himself might not have possessed power this overwhelming.
Wood Release had spread through the shinobi world through rumor and legend for years. Even when ninja heard of it, they only marveled at its strength. After all, Hashirama Senju had been the first one to wield it. At most, people just found it strange that Uchiha Chizumi could use Wood Release too.
But Radiance Release was different.
This was the first time such a power had ever appeared in the shinobi world.
And with how Radiance Release had manifested, if someone told these Grass ninja that Uchiha Chizumi was actually the reincarnation of a sun god born into the Uchiha clan, they'd probably think it sounded perfectly reasonable.
"Run."
"Run as far as you can."
"The Grass ninja at Hōzuki Castle are almost certainly all dead by now. And the thing Uchiha Chizumi was hunting before—I suspect it was the Box of Ultimate Bliss our village has talked about for a thousand years."
"If even the monster inside the Box of Ultimate Bliss wasn't his match, then there's no way we can be."
"Everyone… let's split up here. Maybe if we scatter, some of us still have a chance to survive."
One Grass ninja spoke with a sigh. He had completely given up. A being like Uchiha Chizumi was not something the Grass Village could ever oppose. He had already surpassed the very concept of a ninja.
"But what about the Grass Village…"
One greedier Grass ninja spoke softly. He still couldn't let go of the village, because they had fled in such a hurry that all the wealth and assets he had stored there were still inside.
"There is no Grass Village anymore!"
"The Grass Village has already been erased from the shinobi world!"
The Grass ninja who had spoken earlier turned and glared at him.
He now wanted nothing more than to cut all ties with Kusagakure. Unless Uchiha Chizumi appeared in front of him personally, he had no intention of admitting ever again that he had once been a Grass ninja.
At the same time, he had already resolved that for the rest of his life, he was going to do as many good deeds as he could.
Not because he believed doing good would make Uchiha Chizumi spare him.
He only hoped that if he did enough good, then when Uchiha Chizumi finally came for him, it might take a little longer.
"So the Grass Village… is gone…"
Hearing those words, the other Grass ninja all lowered their heads.
They were wicked men. They had oppressed the weak, bullied women, and abused anyone beneath them. But they still had feelings for the Grass Village. After all, it was the Grass Village's own rules that had made them into beneficiaries.
And now, hearing that Kusagakure had been erased from the shinobi world, they naturally felt reluctant and even saddened.
But none of that had much to do with Uchiha Chizumi anymore.
At that moment, in the haze of his unconsciousness, he began to see strange visions.
In his dream, he seemed to watch the five chakra natures—wind, fire, water, earth, and lightning—twisting together before his eyes.
And as those five forms of chakra intertwined, the powers of Yin Release and Yang Release were also woven into them, as if all seven chakra natures were revealing their true forms to Uchiha Chizumi in some unique way.