It was over...
The hand spread wide over the boy's head slowly lifted. Strands of pure white, liquid-like radiance rose with the motion, like threads being pulled free, gradually melting into the palm. As the hand withdrew, they vanished within it.
"Puh!"
In the next instant, the vacant look in the boy's eyes slowly dimmed, eventually turning ashen. He fell face-first to the ground, crashing heavily at the owner of that hand's feet and kicking up a little dust.
With merely three effective abilities and one ineffective one, he had reached the very limit a mortal could attain...
Copying, Absolute Chakra Control, clone enhancement... When it came down to it, they were all exceedingly ordinary abilities.
Compared to ocular technique amplification, Mangekyō Sharingan ability enhancement, unique Kekkei Genkai, the power of combining different Kekkei Genkai, portable growth systems... it was practically no different from having no outsider abilities at all.
Amazing! Truly amazing, Taki Chiba! Uchiha Nobuhiko thought, then bent down and gently closed those lifeless eyes, praising him from the bottom of his heart.
He had taken the lives of quite a few outsiders. After reincarnating through many lives, around the era of the Second Hokage, he had already been able to ensure that his strength surpassed many of the powerful figures of each generation. He had indeed hunted down many outsiders, and that was how he had learned how to enter and leave the outsiders' Sealed Space.
Because of that, he knew just how terrifying the Light Orbs those outsiders carried were, how heaven-defying their abilities could be. Almost every one of them could obtain immense power through painless, effortless training with those abilities.
For a time, he had even felt that these outsiders were born to stand at the peak of the shinobi world.
Fortunately, no truly