To confirm his suspicions, Shinji looked around, trying to find traces of the "Bulwark Plan."
But everything within sight was chaos. Apart from the mountains and terrain, which he could still make out, there was almost nothing left to use as a reference.
"Earthquakes, floods, wildfires."
Shinji's expression was complicated.
He had seen scenes like this many times before, but seeing them befall the Shinobi World still left him somewhat unsettled.
Suddenly, a massive shadow appeared in the distant sky.
Beneath it, the world shattered inch by inch, crumbling into dust that vanished into the endless void.
"That's..."
He sensed immense power within the shadow. It was a familiar force—the Overlord of Fear that had set its sights on the Shinobi World.
Shinji instinctively wanted to summon Godly Emperor Musubi and activate Godly Emperor Mode to confront it. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he held himself back.
He was a time traveler now. Everything he did in the "future" would affect the "past" and the "present." If he chose to fight here, the Time River would change. And if he failed, the Shinobi World's destruction would become inevitable, aligning every point in time—the "future," the "past," and the "present."
So he couldn't act rashly. His "present" wasn't ready yet; he couldn't rush to face the "future."
Rumble!
Just as Shinji was about to activate the "River" and return to his own timeline, a deafening roar suddenly came from the sky above him.
Shinji looked up and saw the moon in the starry sky shatter. Kaguya Otsutsuki, her long hair flowing behind her, broke free and rushed to meet the shadow approaching in the distance.
Then a huge black sphere appeared, gradually swelling in size.
"Expansive Truth-Seeking Orb."
Shinji recognized the growing black sphere at a glance.