Life and Destruction God Kings!

The rain had stopped.

The eastern sky had turned pale, and dawn pierced through the clouds, spilling over this land that had just endured a massacre.

Dai Tu opened his eyes.

He lay on the ground, still holding Arin in his arms. The air after the rain carried a strange mixture of earth and blood that filled his nostrils, leaving him dazed.

Had that... been a dream?

He had dreamed that he was still in Konoha, where the sun shone brightly and Arin, wearing a new dress, waited for him beneath the old locust tree at the village entrance.

Hunter Wang had returned with a wild boar over his shoulder, laughing as he said they would stew meat that evening. Aunt Li had been hanging laundry in the courtyard. When she saw him, she waved and called, "Xiao Tu, come here. Auntie made you a new pair of shoes." The blacksmith's boy chased after a butterfly and nearly crashed into him.

Then they went home.

Many years later, he and Arin got married. The old village chief presided over their wedding, and everyone in the village came to drink celebratory wine. They had children of their own—a little girl who loved to laugh just like Arin.

Their days were ordinary, but warm.

But why... did his heart feel so empty?

Dai Tu sat up and looked around.

Sunlight illuminated the corpses strewn across the ground. The blacksmith's family of three still lay together in the positions they had died in. Hunter Wang's head had rolled several steps away, his eyes still open.

Aunt Li lay facedown on the ground, a gaping hole through her back. The old village chief leaned against half a broken wall, a snapped spear lodged in his chest.

And Arin.

She lay beside him. Her small body had already gone stiff, and the blood around the sword wound in her chest had clotted into a dark red scab.

"So... it wasn't a dream."

Dai Tu spoke softly.

There was no expression on his face. He did not cry or smile; he did not even look sad. His large, round eyes were hollow like two deep wells, reflecting not a trace of light.

He set Arin down, rose to his feet, and began digging graves.

He had no tools, so he used his hands. Kneeling on the ground, he dug his fingers into the soil and clawed at it with all his strength.

It did not matter if his nails broke. He kept digging. It did not matter if his fingertips split and bled. He kept digging.

One person, with two hands, silently dug amid the morning light and beside the piles of corpses.

Once he had dug a grave, he carried Arin over, gently laid her inside, and covered her with dirt.

Then he erected a wooden marker and used the blood from his fingertips to carve, stroke by stroke: Arin's Grave.

Then he kept digging.

Three graves for the blacksmith's family.

One grave for Hunter Wang.

One grave for Aunt Li.

One grave for the old village chief.

He dug graves for the soldiers' corpses as well. Not out of pity, but because he did not want the villagers lying together with those beasts.

He dug from dawn until noon, then from noon until dusk.

His hands had become a bloody mess, with soil mixed with blood stuck between his fingers in hardened clumps. His back burned under the sun, and sweat soaked through his tattered clothes, leaving them wet and sticky against his body.

But he did not stop.

Not until the last corpse had been buried and the final wooden marker had been erected.

The night passed without a word.

Dai Tu stood before the densely packed graves, looking at the crude wooden markers and the names he had written on them in blood.

The slanting sunlight stretched his shadow longer and longer.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands. Just yesterday, they had been mangled to the bone, but now they had healed completely, without even a scar remaining.

Only beneath his nails did traces of dark red soil remain—the marks left after digging fifty-three graves.

"Heh..."

Dai Tu tugged at the corner of his mouth, trying to smile, only to realize that he had forgotten how.

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. The forest air after the rain should have been fresh, but the only scent lingering in his nose was blood—Konoha's blood, Arin's blood, the villagers' blood, and the soldiers' blood.

They had mixed together, seeped into the earth, seeped into his memories, seeped into every breath he took.

They could never be washed away.

"Martial Soul..." he murmured, as if confirming something.

With a thought, it stirred.

A scorching power suddenly awakened deep within his left eye. Crimson light flared in his gaze, and a sinister shuriken-like pattern silently emerged, slowly rotating.

The world before him instantly changed. The veins of every leaf became clearly visible. The path of a flying insect's wings a hundred meters away slowed to a snail's pace. The motes floating in the air resembled motionless stars.

Mangekyō Sharingan.

It governed slaughter, destruction, and insight into all things. It also governed... falling into the abyss.

At the same time, an entirely different pulse came from his left palm.

Gentle, rich, and vast life force poured from his palm. The phantom of a small tree appeared in the air. No, it could no longer be called a "small tree."

Its trunk was as thick as a wrist and about three feet tall, with lush emerald leaves. Pale golden veins ran through the leaves, flowing with a warm luster beneath the morning sun.

Its canopy unfurled, spreading a small green halo. Wherever the halo reached, several tender shoots of grass sprouted from the charred ground beneath his feet.

Tree of Life.

It governed vitality, healing, and the nurturing of all things. It also governed... persevering amid destruction.

The two forces circulated through his body at once. One was scorching and violent, like surging magma. The other was gentle and rich, like murmuring spring water. They should have clashed and annihilated each other, yet they had strangely reached a delicate balance.

The fury of destruction was wrapped in life's gentleness and tamed.

The frailty of life was supported and strengthened by destruction's sharpness.

Dai Tu could feel that the originally scant Soul Power in his body had reached the threshold of Rank 20 under the nourishment of these two powers.

No, it was more than Rank 20.

He could clearly sense that as long as he obtained a suitable Soul Ring, he could break through immediately—perhaps even rise directly to Rank 22.

"My Innate Soul Power should be higher now... Rank 10?"

Dai Tu muttered.

No, perhaps even higher. Under the dual enhancement of the Mangekyō Sharingan and the Tree of Life, his cultivation talent had undergone an earth-shaking transformation. The days when his Soul Power grew as slowly as a crawling turtle were gone forever.

But he could not feel happy at all.

If this power had come a day earlier, even an hour earlier...

Would Arin not have died?

Would the old village chief still have been able to drink the tea he brewed?

Would the blacksmith's family still have been able to laugh and talk beside the forge?

Dai Tu closed his eyes. The crimson Mangekyō vanished, and the Tree of Life withdrew into his body. He stood motionless like a statue.

Only his tightly clenched fists betrayed him. His knuckles turned white, and his nails dug deeply into his palms until they drew blood.

God Realm, Castle of Destruction.

This was a majestic structure built entirely from dark purple crystals. The aura of destruction surrounding it never dispersed. Even ordinary deities would have their souls scorched by the violent will of destruction if they merely approached it.

On the platform at the castle's highest point, a man and a woman stood side by side.

The man wore dark purple divine armor. His face was stern, and his gaze was sharp as a blade.

He merely stood there, yet the space around him continuously distorted, shattered, and reformed in an endless cycle. It was a sign of the natural manifestation of destruction's laws at his side.

God of Destruction.

The woman wore a long emerald dress. Her beauty was peerless, and her bearing was gentle.

A soft aura of life radiated from her. Where she stood, even several tender green vines quietly sprouted from the cold purple crystals of the Castle of Destruction, blooming with tiny white flowers.

Goddess of Life.

These two first-class deities, who controlled the cosmic origins of life and destruction, were at this moment watching the black-haired youth standing at the edge of the forest in the lower realm through endless void.

"Did you see it?" the God of Destruction said, his voice low and metallic.

"Those eyes... pure will of destruction, yet restrained and balanced by another power."

The Goddess of Life nodded gently, a trace of pity flashing through her eyes. "That child... carries too much pain in his heart. His soul is crying. I heard it."

"Crying?" The God of Destruction snorted. "Weakness. True destruction should sever every bond and cast aside all attachments. Only then can one carry the will of destruction to its ultimate extreme."

"Then why are you still watching him?" The Goddess of Life turned her gentle eyes toward her husband.

The God of Destruction fell silent.

After a long while, he slowly said, "Because of his balance. Did you feel it? The destruction carried by those eyes and the life carried by that little tree you bestowed upon him have formed within his body a kind of... balance that we have pursued for hundreds of millions of years."