"Are you sure?"
Faced with the Sage of Six Paths' words, Chiba looked at the pure white flaming heart in his hand, raised his head, and asked in return.
It seemed it really would not be easy to bluff his way through.
That thought flashed through his mind.
Although he had only been giving it a try, when he was truly seen through, Chiba could not help but feel a trace of wishful hope.
After all, if the Sage of Six Paths had failed to see through the secret hidden within this heart, everything afterward would have been easy. He would only have needed to make his demands.
There would have been no need for the troublesome negotiations that were to come.
There were some things he truly did not want to happen.
As for what that secret was, and why it could make the Sage of Six Paths, or even the World Will, compromise, the answer was actually simple.
When Chiba had resisted—or rather, neutralized—the highly condensed, intensely powerful Chakra within the heart, or rather, a portion of the world's source power, he had used the last remaining core fragment of Nightmare Cycle within him: a power that possessed World Power beyond this world.
A power that truly and completely transcended this world.
The core of Nightmare Cycle could even create his soul, so suppressing this heart was naturally possible.
In fact, it had more than enough power to do so.
Although there was not much power left in the core of Nightmare Cycle—roughly one-tenth of the power it had possessed when his past self first obtained this core fragment—the power of the Nightmare Cycle core fragment had not only suppressed the heart, but had also passively restored the Supreme Power it had lost, namely the World Power of