Luck is also a part of a Ninja's strength. Inoyue couldn't quite remember who said this, but it seemed like Kakashi had said it to someone.
Currently, luck was on the side of Inoyue and the three women. It could be said that if not for luck, the three of them would have died several times already.
The first crisis, facing the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, Asakura Myojin's suddenly burning right calf was the first stroke of luck.
The second time, when summoning the Hell Asura, they encountered Kakuzu's great outburst. Not only was the Asura not summoned, but Asakura Myojin's strength was greatly damaged.
Asakura Myojin must not have burned enough incense after his revival, causing the Buddha to be angry, which is why his luck was so terrible.
And now! They were on the verge of cornering the three women, each having been hit once by the fatal "Little Five-Star Nebula" technique, which would kill them in two hits. They could be dealt with in minutes with just one more strike.
But, but, luck once again went against him. Because suddenly, the moon in the sky fell. The moon, which was already only half, lost a large chunk, leaving only a small crescent.
The fallen part crashed onto the earth with a loud sound, startling the four individuals who were fully engrossed in their battle and struggle.
With a thunderous roar, the shattered moon fragment struck the ground. The force of it was even more powerful than Karura's "Sandstorm: Imperial Funeral," an utterly irresistible natural disaster.
A massive crater appeared on the ground, and the scattered earth and flying stones flew everywhere, as sharp as Kunai.
The destructive power of a Ninja was simply negligible in the face of such a natural disaster. No matter what they were doing, all they could do was scramble to evade.
Karura's sand, at this moment, became an absolutely excellent defense. The quicksand condensed, forming a sphere that enveloped the three of them. Thumping sounds of impact emanated from the sand sphere, and inside, many parts could be seen bulging and then rapidly recovering.
...
Dong! A faint sound, somewhat like another piece of the shattered moon falling. And somewhat like a stone dropping into a calm lake.
Whether Karura and Ryoko heard it was unclear, but Inoyue heard it clearly and distinctly.
Inoyue's heart was this lake, and this sound seemed to fall directly into her heart.
The sound wasn't loud, a gentle 'dong,' like a pebble falling into water. But it was this faint sound that made her whole body tremble.
Dong! Another sound, at the same frequency as a heartbeat, together with her heartbeat, as if this sound was inside Inoyue's heart.
With a gentle thud, her heart felt as if it had been struck hard, and Inoyue's entire consciousness seemed somewhat blurry. At this moment, she only felt as if there were two beating sounds in her heavily struck heart. One was the sound of her own heart beating, and the other, she didn't know what sound it was, or whose heart's sound.
Unwillingness, that intense unwillingness, the feeling of approaching death, Inoyue suddenly felt it. It was as if she was about to die, filled with that deep sense of unwillingness.
She didn't want to die. This kind of death didn't seem like a human soul going to another world after death. This kind of death was annihilation, turning to ash and smoke, directly erasing all traces of existence.
Inoyue felt this inexplicable emotion, and she now seriously suspected whether she was possessed by something. Because she had never had such an experience; even when she died in her previous life, it was a brief moment, with no time to lament these things. But now, her emotions were filled with a sense of vicissitude, as if she had experienced thousands of years.
If she had to describe it in human terms, Inoyue could only compare it to a sage who had achieved enlightenment and become immortal, living as long as the heavens. Only such a person might have this kind of emotion when approaching death.
At this moment, Inoyue was completely overwhelmed by this emotion. Only when her condition improved slightly and she opened her eyes did she finally know whose this extra heartbeat belonged to?
And from whom did this unusual sense of vicissitude come?
...
...
This was another world, a familiar yet strange world. This world was exactly like the scene in Inoyue's dream; this was the true Underworld.
The trees here were colorful, and it was equally vibrant, a flourishing vitality that only existed after death.
Countless souls of the deceased from the human world entered this world. The wicked went to hell, and the good entered paradise to continue living.
Paradise was not in the sky; it was also in this Underworld, merely a designation for a specific area.
The human world corresponding to this world also had demons, all sorts of demons, imaginable and unimaginable, everything was there.
Everything in the human world, whether animals or plants, a headpiece, a sword, etc., or even a stone, all had the chance to become demons. Living beings transformed into demons through their vital essence, while inanimate objects, passively absorbing human blood and resentment, accumulated into demons.
Humans remained the largest ethnic group in the human world. A small number among them could communicate with the Underworld and use their special Yin Yang Jutsu to slay demons and monsters, eliminating those evil spirits. Such people had a unified title: Onmyōji.
Most of these slain demons and monsters entered the hell of the Underworld.
As long as human souls and demon souls continuously entered the Underworld, the Underworld would remain vibrant and stand forever.
However, all of this changed until a meteorite flew in from beyond the heavens.
The meteorite was very large, causing tremors in the human world, and eventually becoming a catastrophe. The catastrophe was not dust engulfing the entire world, but the rapid decline in the abilities of Onmyōji, as well as the abilities of various demon spirits.
At the center of the meteorite was a seed. This unknown seed germinated and grew into a large tree. It absorbed the unseen power of this world as nourishment, and its demands increased daily.
This seed was the Chakra tree brought by the meteorite.
It was enormous, and neither powerful demons nor humans with special abilities could approach it.
The power of Onmyōji and demon spirits was almost completely absorbed by it, becoming its nourishment.
The human world began to change; humans and demon spirits no longer went to the underworld after death, but to another newly born world.
The underworld was slowly eliminated and began to decay, and the souls that originally existed disappeared, heading to another new world.
The entire underworld entered death, and the great battle between Kaguya Otsutsuki and her two sons accelerated this demise.
Because the full moon in the sky was shattered by this century-long war, and the full moon was the basis for Onmyōji to communicate with the underworld.
From then on, the underworld completely lost the human world as a source of souls, becoming isolated.
...
Perhaps the underworld should disappear, as it had already been replaced by a new world.
However, things seemed to take a turn; a peerless genius Onmyōji named Asakura Myojin managed to communicate with the dying underworld using the shattered full moon.
At that time, the human world had already evolved into the domain of Ninja; he was the last Onmyōji in the human world who could connect to the underworld.
He had a heaven-defying idea: to use his own soul as the link between the underworld and the human world.
The Chakra Ninja World changed Asakura Myojin, this genius Onmyōji, and his connection to the underworld similarly affected the underworld.
The lifespan of an Onmyōji was always limited, so he used a unique Yin Yang Jutsu to coexist with the underworld before his death, keeping himself in a state of slumber, hoping to awaken in some future year.
To achieve this goal, he did two things.
First: He made a purple jade pendant from a fragment of the full moon's center, and sealed powerful, mutated, cold Chakra within it.
This Chakra was evolved from the underworld's own power.
He did this to find individuals with exceptionally strong spiritual power in the future, so that the jade pendant would automatically select them, inject powerful Chakra, make them the key to open this world, and become the sacrifice for Asakura Myojin's complete resurrection.
Second: He connected his soul to the underworld.
By doing so, he continuously absorbed the power of this dying underworld to strengthen his own soul, ensuring that he could possess god-like power throughout the long river of history.
The underworld became the source of Asakura Myojin's power.
For a world to become a person's life-preserving source, what kind of unwillingness was this, yet it was utterly unable to resist.
Because only Asakura Myojin could communicate and connect with it.
Although it was a world, it truly had no other choice.
The underworld originally had no choice but to be controlled by Asakura Myojin.
But now it was different; now there was Inoyue, and this was its, or rather, the underworld's, additional choice.
That was why the luck of Inoyue and the three girls was so good.
During two critical moments, either Asakura Myojin's leg caught fire, or Kakuzu had a massive revival.
All of this seemed like luck, but it was a manifestation of the underworld choosing Inoyue.
It was because the dying underworld's destiny was closely linked to Inoyue.
Destiny is an ethereal thing, but it does exist; otherwise, some people are always very lucky, winning big prizes and escaping disasters, while others constantly encounter misfortunes and are utterly unlucky.
...
In this world, which he did not know was real or illusory, Inoyue experienced the evolution of the Ninja World.
Onmyōji lost their abilities, demons and ghosts greatly decreased, and Ninja replaced Onmyōji, becoming the dominant power in the world.
Some demon spirits gradually cooperated with Ninja, then adapted to this world and survived.
The most famous among them are: the Toads of Mount Myōboku; the Slug of Shikkotsu Forest; and the Snake Clan of Ryūchi Cave.
These three are the three great Summoning Beast holy lands of the current Ninja World.
No matter what evolution happens in the human world, it will continue, even if humanity goes extinct, there will still be a continuation.
But the underworld, which is paired with it, is different; change means elimination, and elimination means disappearance, leaving no trace.
Inoyue could truly feel this emotion of unwillingness at this moment.
Recalling the deep unwillingness he felt when he first transmigrated and found himself transformed into a Little girl, that same feeling wrapped around his heart.
After such a long time, Inoyue can only wryly smile now; besides accepting, he can only accept.
"Unwillingness, what can it do? The power of time evolves everything; it will not change because of your unwillingness."
Inoyue inexplicably felt a bit of sympathy for such an underworld deep down, and the words he spoke in his heart seemed to be for this unwilling underworld, and also for himself.
...
...
The sky collapsed and the earth caved in; the entire underworld completely crumbled.
Asakura Myojin, floating in the air outside, was still trying to absorb the subtle power of this collapsing world to preserve himself.
However, the next moment, his connection with this world was severed.
Asakura Myojin was now like a light bulb, and the power of this collapsing world was like electricity.
When the electricity was cut off, his continuously lit lamp should also go out.
He felt this despair of powerlessness, and he was also unwilling.
Asakura Myojin strenuously used all the Yin Yang Jutsu he knew, wanting to re-establish contact with this collapsing underworld.
But, everything seemed impossible; this world had already collapsed.
Anger, roars, hysterical madness—Asakura Myojin, this temporary god, no matter how unwilling he was, quickly became transparent without the support of a power source, struggled a few times, and finally disappeared.