Imu immediately reined in his excitement.
His gaze and expression returned to their usual cold indifference.
Sure enough, about two seconds later,
a figure clad in a white robe, with nine black spheres revolving behind him, silently appeared in the air twenty meters away.
In an instant, Imu's sharp golden eyes met a pair of purple Ripple Eyes across the distance. Neither yielded an inch, their gazes clashing head-on.
In the end, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo chose to avert his eyes first and smiled faintly.
"You must be Lord Imu, ruler of the World Government?"
"I am the guardian of this Shinobi World, master of the Pure Land, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo. It is a pleasure to meet you."
Imu did not press the matter, though his gaze remained aloof and indifferent, as though all living beings naturally ought to appear this way in his eyes.
"Mu is Imu, yet Mu is not Imu. As for you, Mu has known of you for a long time."
With his hands clasped behind his back, Imu stood upon the boundless sea of clouds below, beneath the golden radiance of the blazing sun overhead, allowing the fierce high-altitude winds to howl around him.
"You came this time because Mu took Ryūchi Cave."
His words sounded like a question, but his tone was certain.
Imu had never thought Ryūchi Cave's disappearance could be concealed from the Sage of Six Paths.
That was not to say the other man could constantly sense changes in the Shinobi World's spatial dimensions.
Rather, as master of the Pure Land and the Underworld, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo would surely notice the sudden disappearance of a source of souls.
After all, Ryūchi Cave had previously contained a great number of snakes.
Their souls would naturally flow continuously into the Pure Land after their deaths.
And once