What Eternity Bears...

Silence.

The battlefield was filled with gunpowder smoke, the stench of blood, and a suffocating silence, awed by the extreme carnage.

In the center of the ruins left by the dissipating Earth Style Barrier, Uchiha Sakuya's eyelashes trembled violently a few times. A warm, rust-tinged liquid continuously slid from the corner of his eye, seeping into the corner of his mouth.

It was blood.

But... not just blood.

There was also a strange, yet eerily familiar, surging eye power, pouring out from the depths of his eye sockets, flowing through his dried meridians, repairing his broken body, and nourishing his nearly depleted soul.

This feeling...?

He suddenly opened his eyes!

What greeted his sight was no longer the blurry, dim world on the verge of blindness from before. Instead, it was an unprecedented... clarity! Extreme clarity! As if the entire world had been washed clean, the trajectory of every dust particle, the flow of every trace of chakra, was clearer than ever before!

And the field of vision seemed... higher? No, it was his perception, his insight, that had leaped to an entirely new level!

He subconsciously raised his hand, reaching for his eye sockets. There, there was no longer emptiness and searing pain, but eyeballs filled with immense power. The sensation from his fingertips, the patterns of the pupils...

It wasn't the familiar pattern of "Eighty Gods Mirror"!

Instead, it was... a more complex, more profound pattern, as if containing endless sorrow and power... a brand new pattern!

Eternal... Mangekyo Sharingan!

His brother's... eyes?!

This realization struck him like lightning, instantly cleaving through his brain, which had been clouded by the backlash of the forbidden jutsu!

All the fragmented memories surged in—the desperate charge, the forbidden jutsu's backlash, the genjutsu shackles, his brother's gentle yet despairing smile, that sentence, "Forgive me, brother... this is the last time," and the excruciating pain of... gouging out his eyes and the light of transplantation...

"Lian...?" he murmured, his voice terrifyingly hoarse.

He struggled to sit up, his gaze anxiously sweeping around.

He saw the heavily injured Haku, unconscious; Tie Xin and Zhua, fallen; the battered Fu and Obito; and... not far away, a huge, scorched pit, and in the center of the pit, a kneeling, blackened figure—Shikamaru Nara.

And... in the air, the pervasive, rapidly dissipating, yet all too familiar... his brother's final chakra aura and... soul fragments.

No corpse.

Nothing was left.

To save him, to heavily wound the enemy, Lian had chosen the most thorough... annihilation.

"Ah..."

A sound not human, a whimper squeezed from the deepest depths of hell, escaped Sakuya's throat.

He slowly, very slowly, raised his head.

Those newborn Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, imbued with all of Lian's eye power and life, stared fixedly, fixedly at the scorched pit, at the blackened Shikamaru Nara, at the Allied Shinobi Forces ninjas who were gradually recovering from their shock and raising their weapons again.

Despair. Loathing. Hatred. Madness.

These negative emotions, like boiling magma, instantly overwhelmed all his reason! The fact of his brother's death, like a red-hot brand, was seared deep into his soul!

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—!!!!!!!"

He let out a heart-rending roar, capable of tearing the sky apart! Terrifying chakra erupted from his body without reservation, like a tsunami! Far larger than before! More violent! More... destructive!

A beam of deep purple chakra shot up into the sky! Instantly dispelling the dark clouds!

Bones, meridians, flesh, armor... a Susanoo, larger, more solid, and more complete than before, rose from the ground at an astonishing speed!

No longer a half-body, but a true—Perfect Susanoo!

The colossal war god stood between heaven and earth, clad in ancient chakra armor, with wings on its back, its left hand gripping a massive chakra fan, and its right hand wielding a straight sword that seemed capable of severing causality! The pressure it exuded made the very ground of the battlefield groan and crack!

"Mon... monster..." "Run!" The Allied Shinobi Forces ninjas, just shocked by Lian's sacrifice, were now terrified by this even more terrifying Perfect Susanoo. Their hastily formed ranks instantly collapsed, and they fled in all directions, crying out!

But how could Sakuya... or rather, the demon completely consumed by revenge and madness, let them escape?

"Die!!!!!!!!!"

The Perfect Susanoo moved!

With an incredibly simple swing of its right hand's straight sword!

A purple blade light, spanning heaven and earth, swept across! Like the Grim Reaper's scythe, it mercilessly reaped lives! Whether Jonin or Genin, whether defending or fleeing, all were meaningless before this absolute power! Hundreds, thousands of Allied Shinobi Forces ninjas instantly turned to dust!

With a fierce wave of its left hand's fan!

"Uchiha Reflection!"

The torrent of ninjutsu unleashed by the fleeing Allied Shinobi Forces was completely absorbed, then reflected back with world-destroying might! Creating even more horrific explosions and deaths!

This was no longer a battle, but a slaughter! A one-sided, crushing slaughter!

Sakuya stood at the brow of the Susanoo, blood and tears flowing from his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, only endless coldness and slaughter in his eyes. He controlled the Susanoo, stepping forward, leaving only ruins and corpses in his wake!

His gaze finally locked onto the scorched pit, onto Shikamaru Nara, who had just been helped up by medical ninjas and seemed to have a sliver of life!

It was all him! It was all this guy's scheme! He killed Lian!

The Susanoo's massive palm reached out, ignoring the Allied Shinobi Forces ninjas desperately protecting him, and easily grasped the scorched Shikamaru in its hand!

"No! Let Mr. Shikamaru go!" a ninja tried to rush forward.

Swish! A flash of blade, and that ninja along with dozens around him instantly evaporated!

Shuoyue, controlling the Perfect Susanoo, brought the dying Shikamaru before him. He looked at the charred face, his eyes holding no pity, only boundless hatred!

The other hand of the Perfect Susanoo broke off a giant, flame-burning wooden beam from nearby, sharpening one end!

Then, under the terrified gazes of countless Allied Shinobi Forces ninjas—

Squelch!!!

He fiercely, slowly, cruelly... thrust the sharpened wooden pole into Shikamaru's chest, piercing through his back!!

"Urgh..." Shikamaru's body convulsed violently, his last trace of life completely extinguished.

The Perfect Susanoo swung its arm, planting the wooden pole, with Shikamaru's corpse impaled on it, onto the highest ruin in the center of the battlefield!

The body swayed in the air, blood flowing down the pole, a shocking sight!

Like a bloody trophy, a cruel declaration!

This scene completely crushed the Allied Shinobi Forces' last shred of will to resist.

Shuoyue coldly looked down at the battlefield he had personally turned into an inferno, watching the enemies collapse and flee. The satisfaction of revenge brought no relief, only deeper emptiness and pain.

He controlled the Perfect Susanoo, extending a large hand, and carefully protected Bai, Tie Xin, Zhua, and Fu, who were heavily injured and unconscious, within his palm. Obito also struggled to approach.

Kamui activated!

Space distorted violently, and though unstable, it was barely enough.

With one last look at the wooden pole impaling Shikamaru's corpse, at the place where his brother had died, Shuoyue, carrying endless hatred and emptiness, along with his surviving subordinates, vanished into the distorted spatial vortex.

The battlefield fell into complete silence.

Only piles of corpses and seas of blood, burning ruins, and the tall wooden pole, impaling the corpse of the Allied Shinobi Forces' leader, remained, silently recounting everything that had just happened.

The Five Kage Allied Shinobi Forces suffered an unprecedented crushing defeat and humiliation here.