True Illusion

"Mangekyō Sharingan!!!"

Shimura Ryoma stared at the masked man in black's eyes in shock, disbelief written across his face.

As someone from Konoha Village—and a high-ranking member of a major clan like the Shimura Clan—

he naturally knew that above the Uchiha Clan's Three-Tomoe Sharingan was an even more powerful eye known as the Mangekyō Sharingan.

However, rumors said the chance of awakening those eyes was extremely low. The Uchiha Clan had not produced anyone with them for many years.

No one in the current Uchiha Clan possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan.

Yet now, someone with the Mangekyō Sharingan had appeared before him.

"Someone in the Uchiha Clan actually awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan!"

Thinking of the rumors surrounding those eyes, the hairs on his body stood on end, and cold sweat soaked his back.

"Wind Release: Vacuum Great Sphere!"

There was great terror between life and death. Under the threat of death, he was in exceptionally good form.

In an extremely short time, he completed his hand seals faster than ever before.

One massive blast after another, like cannonballs, shot toward the masked man in black standing before him.

This was the most powerful ninjutsu he had mastered. Even so, he did not believe it could injure his opponent.

The rumors about the Mangekyō Sharingan in the ninja world were extraordinarily exaggerated. Because they were so exaggerated, many ninja who had never encountered the Mangekyō Sharingan believed them to be mere embellishments.

But as a high-ranking member of the Shimura Clan, he knew those rumors were no exaggeration. The Mangekyō Sharingan possessed terrifying power worthy of those extravagant tales.

He did not hope to hurt his opponent. He only hoped to delay him for a moment and buy himself time to escape.

Boom, boom, boom!

The cannonball-like blasts shattered the ground, sending dust flying everywhere.

The rising dust blanketed the area where the masked man in black stood, obscuring it from view.

Seizing the opportunity, he turned and fled. But in the next moment, his escape came to an involuntary halt.

The masked man in black had suddenly appeared in his path, not a speck of dust on him.

"Fire Release: Great Fire Dragon Technique!"

A gigantic fire dragon appeared before the masked man in black.

Radiating scorching heat, it roared like a flaming dragon as it charged at him.

Trees along its path ignited, while a straight blackened trail was scorched into the ground.

Bang—

Unable to dodge in time, he was struck by the suddenly appearing flaming dragon and sent flying, his body engulfed in flames.

"Aah—"

As the flames burned him, he let out a pained scream.

It felt as though countless ants were tearing at him. There was not a single part of his body that did not hurt.

After being flung dozens of meters away, his body was covered in burns.

His face had been burned completely black, making his original features unrecognizable.

He struggled to roll across the ground and extinguish the flames on his body, then stared at the masked man in black in shock and horror.

"No hand seals!!!"

If one was extremely proficient in a particular ninjutsu, one could simplify its hand-seal sequence, reducing dozens of seals to only a few.

But reducing them to no seals at all was absolutely impossible, unless the ninjutsu itself required no seals.

Yet his opponent had clearly formed no hand seals, and still cast the seal-required Fire Release: Great Fire Dragon Technique.

He could not understand it, and it filled him with terror.

The masked man in black clearly had no intention of explaining. After the Fire Release: Great Fire Dragon Technique, he once again cast a ninjutsu without hand seals.

"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation."

Flames poured forth like a tidal sea.

They surged and rolled forward in endless waves, covering a vast area as they swept toward Shimura Ryoma.

Wherever they passed, it was like a forest fire had broken out, and every tree burst into blazing flames.

"Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall."

Seeing the overwhelming flames rushing toward him, Shimura Ryoma panicked.

He could not evade such a large-scale fire ninjutsu even before he had been injured, much less now, when his wounds made movement difficult.

He hurriedly formed hand seals and, just before the flames reached him, barely managed to cast an Earth Style Ninjutsu.

An earthen wall rose from the ground, shielding him behind it.

However, the earthen wall created by his Earth Style Ninjutsu failed to stop the terrifying incoming flames.

Boom—

The earthen wall exploded. Behind it, he was swept up in the sea-like flames and carried forward.

Only after extending more than a hundred meters did the sea of flames finally disappear.

By then, Shimura Ryoma's entire body had been severely carbonized, reduced to charcoal. Not a trace of life remained; he was completely dead.

All around him was a forest devastated by the blaze.

Trees had been burned to ash.

The ground had been scorched black.

Scorching heat still lingered in the air.

Suddenly, every trace of burning vanished.

Dense trees reappeared throughout the forest.

The charred marks on the ground disappeared.

The lingering heat in the air also vanished.

Only Shimura Ryoma's corpse remained lying on the ground, still heavily carbonized like charcoal, without the slightest sign of life.

"As expected, it feeds back into reality!"

The Mangekyō Sharingan faded from his eyes. Uchiha Fugaku removed his mask and looked at Shimura Ryoma's burned corpse.

The previous battle had not truly happened. It had only been an illusion.

The moment Shimura Ryoma saw his Mangekyō Sharingan, he had already fallen into the Dojutsu of Fugaku's right eye—True Illusion—and fought Fugaku within the illusion.

Because it was True Illusion, the injuries his opponent suffered within the illusion were reflected onto his real body.

And the reason Fugaku had been able to cast ninjutsu without hand seals, defying common sense, during the battle—

was because an illusion was different from reality, allowing him to do things impossible in the real world.

"It's not just casting ninjutsu without hand seals!"

Within True Illusion, aside from casting ninjutsu without hand seals, he could also do other things that defied common sense.

Such as reviving endlessly, possessing infinite chakra, instantly appearing anywhere... and other similarly absurd abilities.

It was simply that Shimura Ryoma's strength was far too lacking to force him to use any of them.

After all, Shimura Ryoma was merely an Elite Jonin, while Fugaku had already reached Kage-level.

Moreover, with the Mangekyō Sharingan, his strength was not as simple as that of an ordinary Kage-level ninja. Even among Kage-level ninja, he was known for his power.

"Everything else is fine, but every use puts an enormous strain on my eyes!"

He rubbed his somewhat sore and swollen right eye.

Without even looking in a mirror, he could already guess that his right eye was surely bloodshot.

Not only that, he could feel that the vision in his right eye had worsened somewhat.

Clearly, this use of the Mangekyō Sharingan had brought him a little closer to blindness.

To avoid going blind, the previous owner of this body had rarely used the Mangekyō Sharingan despite awakening it.

Fortunately, he had a way to solve the problem. Otherwise, to avoid blindness, he would likely have no choice but to seal away the powerful Mangekyō Sharingan, just as the previous owner had.

"No Kekkei Genkai, and no special talent in ninjutsu, Taijutsu, or genjutsu. He isn't suited for Corpse Melting."

Walking over to Shimura Ryoma's corpse, he shook his head.

Shimura Ryoma's corpse was unsuitable as material for Corpse Melting.

And it had been burned so severely that it would probably be difficult to use as material for Corpse Melting anyway.