Chapter 60: The Grand Deception (Patreon)

Without a doubt, the system's materialization was based on the rules and logic of this world. Beyond chakra, it could not create power systems from other worlds out of thin air. However, Hyūga Kumokawa had found a solution: to localize and mimic the power systems of other worlds by basing them on the existing concepts of the soul, the body, natural energy, and chakra within the shinobi world.

Thus, he constructed a logical "lie" that everyone would believe. It was a process of creating something from nothing, fabricating rules, and deceiving the entire world. This was "Deceiving Heaven and Earth" in the truest sense.

"The Void Realm is a destination for souls within the shinobi world, its domain suspended in the rift between the present world and the Pure Land, eternally cloaked in endless night. No sun traverses its sky; only a half-disc of a dim moon remains. Its land is as vast as snow and as desolate as death. The winds wail like ghostly cries, the sands surge like rushing skeletons, and withered trees stand like rows of dry bones."

"The Pure Land is a posthumous realm created by the Six Paths. Dead souls entering here have their consciousness sealed into a deep slumber. Their chakra gathers like threads into the Pure Land, all governed by the Six Paths in an attempt to harness the power of the dead to fend off 'heavenly enemies.' However, the method is crude. Souls gradually fade over time, ultimately dispersing into nothingness."

"As for those entering the Void Realm, they are all souls stranded in the shinobi world, bound by lingering obsessions or entangled in delusional karma. Subjected to years of erosion, they accumulate sorrow and resentment that corrodes the soul. Over time, their hearts and spirits become obscured, and their faces are covered by bone masks. Their shrieks sound like the wailing of ten thousand ghosts, chilling listeners to the bone. Their forms are hunched and incomplete, resembling withered, rotten stumps, with hollow cavities opening in their abdomens. I call them 'Hollows.'"

"Their nature craves souls to fill the emptiness within. Gradually, they devour their own kind, their appetites insatiable. Hundreds of weak Hollows kill and merge until their forms become mountainous, covered in long-nosed bone masks, their intellect as dim as beasts, driven only by the instinct to consume souls. I call them 'Gillian,' the Lesser Menos."

"Among them, if an exceptional one emerges by devouring hundreds or thousands of its kind, its body shrinks while its intellect awakens, transforming into a bestial armored form. Yet it lives in constant dread of regression, forced to continuously hunt its peers to maintain its form. A moment's negligence leads to regression and the loss of intellect. I call them 'Adjuchas,' the Middle Menos."

"In extremely rare cases, the bone mask shatters and falls away, revealing a human-like original visage. The hollow cavity remains, but their power reaches the extreme. I call them 'Vasto Lorde,' the Higher Menos. However, my lifespan ended before these beings fully formed, so I never witnessed their birth firsthand. It is a true regret..."

"...What... is this?"

As Orochimaru continued reading, the expression on his face gradually shifted to one of stunned disbelief. Though the text on the scroll was somewhat archaic, his extensive research into ninjutsu involved studying ancient texts, allowing him to comprehend the meaning.

The Pure Land—Orochimaru, who had mastered the incomplete Edo Tensei, naturally knew of its existence. Souls—having now developed Fushi Tensei, Orochimaru understood them all too well. Precisely because he knew so much, this content—seventy percent truth mixed with thirty percent fabrication—shattered his worldview. However, due to his trust in the scroll's origin and his reverence for its author, his worldview was instantly rebuilt.

Did the legendary Sage of Six Paths truly exist? Had he even created the Jōdo? Were all deceased souls truly drawn there just to fend off some so-called "heavenly enemy" in the future? And the author of this scroll referred to the Sage simply as "the Six Paths," his tone dripping with disdain for the Sage's methods, going so far as to create his own separate world called the "Void Realm."

"Did the Ōtsutsuki clan... possess the ability to create worlds?"

Orochimaru flicked out his long, slender serpent tongue, licking his parched lips as he murmured, "Was the Sage of Six Paths also an Ōtsutsuki, like the author of this scroll?"

Moreover, judging from the effects of Edo Tensei, the Sage's Jōdo seemed only capable of preserving a deceased person's power from their lifetime. If the vessel's quality was poor, they could not exert their full strength. The Void Realm created by the scroll's author was clearly more cruel and ruthless, absorbing the souls of those unable to enter the Jōdo due to lingering obsessions and grudges, then forcing them to fight and devour each other to birth stronger souls.

It seemed the scroll's author had not lived to see the day a "Vasto Lorde" was born.

"Possessing such immense power... yet still not achieving eternal life..."

This thought instinctively crossed Orochimaru's mind, but he quickly realized that wasn't the case, as the author had only said "this body ended." This meant the scroll's author was still alive, merely forced to change bodies for some reason. The Sage of Six Paths probably wasn't dead either, most likely existing in a soul form and hiding within the Jōdo while collecting powerful souls to await this so-called heavenly enemy.

"The corpse I obtained from that Hyūga brat... was likely a body the scroll's author discarded, right?"

Orochimaru's tail tapped the ground lightly as he mused. "With the terrifying power to create worlds possessed by that author, if it were their true body, no one could possibly withstand it. There probably isn't even a concept of 'organs' anymore."

However, the moment he thought of the brat named Hyūga Kumokawa, a surge of killing intent surfaced in Orochimaru's eyes. If not for that treacherous little bastard, he would not be in such a wretched state now!

On that day, in his severely wounded state, he had been suddenly summoned to Ryūchi Cave by the White Snake Sage using a Reverse Summoning. While evading the pursuing Konoha forces, it had plunged him into an even more dangerous situation. The snakes, the three Great Snake Princesses, and the White Snake Sage of Ryūchi Cave were all incredibly greedy and cold-blooded creatures, not friendly to their summoners like Tsunade's Shikkotsu Forest or Jiraiya's Mount Myōboku.

Just when Orochimaru thought he was about to die in a snake's maw, that ever-aloof, seemingly all-knowing White Snake Sage reacted as if she were seeing something unbelievable. Her previously indifferent attitude toward him turned enthusiastic. Not only did she instantly heal his near-fatal wounds with a stone, but she even offered to teach him Senjutsu.

The price he paid was becoming neither human nor ghost, neither clearly male nor female, and remaining constantly under the surveillance of Ryūchi Cave.

"That old white snake must have seen something in me." Orochimaru frowned. "My fate has been changed? What does that mean? It sounds as nonsensical as that 'Child of Prophecy' nonsense Jiraiya always spouts."

He could not figure it out. Neither Hyūga Kumokawa's sudden transformation nor the White Snake Sage's schemes—Orochimaru could not grasp the reasons behind either at the moment. He detested this feeling of being shrouded in fog, unable to see clearly.

"Right now, the most important thing is what I can gain from this scroll."

Orochimaru shook his head, dispelling the chaotic thoughts, and lowered his gaze again to the scroll's later contents. What followed were some of the scroll author's musings within the "Void Realm." Orochimaru even saw some familiar yet strange names—figures that seemed to appear in certain ancient legends. But according to the scroll's author, those people had truly existed... only they had been fed to the "Hollows" by him.

Finally, Orochimaru reached the very end of the scroll. The content following it was sealed again. His gaze lingered on the final sentence.

"The passage between the Void Realm and the shinobi world, I call the 'Temporal-Spatial Hole,' is hidden on a secluded island overseas. I dispatched my servant 'Gelel' to guard it through the generations."

"I once sternly warned them: Hollows are born of malevolent energy. Under no circumstances attempt to artificially cultivate them, nor open the passage. Otherwise..."

The final line of the scroll was precisely where the seal began. Orochimaru could not see it clearly. But from that short sentence, he grasped a truth.

"There is a passage between the Void Realm and the shinobi world. And it can be opened."

Orochimaru's hand holding the scroll trembled slightly. Greed and calculation gleamed in his eyes. "Hollows... can be artificially cultivated..."

At this moment, a decision quietly formed in Orochimaru's heart. The choices of the scroll's author and the Sage of Six Paths had proven that flesh inevitably decays. Only the soul has the potential for immortality. But a mere spiritual body was far too fragile. For the so-called "Vasto Lorde" to be described by the scroll's author as "powerful to the extreme," the power it possessed must be truly unique.

"Only souls bound by lingering obsessions and harboring resentment, after prolonged erosion, can transform into 'Hollows'?"

Orochimaru raised his head, his eyes glinting. "Then let me try. Whether it is cultivation... or summoning..."

He would attempt to cultivate "Hollows," steal their power, search for that secluded island overseas, and find the "Temporal-Spatial Hole." If the Second Hokage could summon the souls of the dead from the Jōdo using Edo Tensei, why couldn't he, Orochimaru, summon Hollows from the Void Realm using it?

It was merely a matter of connecting to the summoning location—finding the so-called Void Realm.