A high pale moon hung suspended.
The earth was barren, desolate, silent, and bleak.
Black Zetsu, the ultimate dutiful son, had strived for a millennium and finally succeeded in rescuing his mother, Kaguya Otsutsuki.
Yet escaping the seal did not mean truly exiting peril.
As the progenitor of chakra, Kaguya Otsutsuki posed a fundamental threat to Hagoromo Otsutsuki, meaning he would never allow her to roam free outside.
The sages of the three summoning holy lands were allies with Kaguya for now, but fundamentally, both sides remained mortal enemies locked in an endless war. The synthesis of chakra relied on the Divine Tree absorbing natural energy, which caused massive destruction to the world.
Kaguya Otsutsuki!
Otsutsuki Hagoromo!
The three holy land sages!
A tripartite stalemate had formed among them. Once any side gained the advantage, the other two would gang up to strike them down.
They had fallen into a vicious circle of bizarre entanglement.
All of them wanted to end this cycle, but an abyss loomed behind each of them, leaving no room for retreat. They could only grit their teeth and press on.
Their powers were immense, and even amidst the chaos of battle, their sensory perception still blanketed the earth below. They had both discovered Orochimaru's sudden appearance.
Yet to beings of Otsutsuki Hagoromo's tier, Orochimaru was merely an ant, completely unworthy of their gaze.
Even White Snake Sage, who had signed a summoning contract with Orochimaru, merely swept a detached glance over him before instantly plunging back into the fray against Otsutsuki Hagoromo.
While Orochimaru had indeed signed a summoning contract with Ryūchi Cave, he had already been abandoned by them once his cultivation of Ryūchi Cave's Sage Mode failed.
It was precisely because he had been cast aside that Manda dared to extort living humans