Chapter Summaries

Natsume used Mooncake to demonstrate a sage technique and convinced Ananda that the Ninja World opposed the Otsutsuki. He offered proof of an undercover agent and warned of an impending Otsutsuki attack, securing Ananda’s agreement to take him to the Maha Clan in exchange for sparing the planet’s inhabitants.

• Natsume activated Mooncake’s Tyrant Body Sage Technique, impressing the Maha Clan members with its pure senjutsu chakra.
• Natsume denounced the Otsutsuki and claimed the Ninja World had also been invaded, but Ananda demanded convincing evidence.
• Natsume offered the location of the Otsutsuki nest as a bargaining chip, and Ananda seized him and demanded proof.
• Natsume placed a Karma mark on Ananda, demonstrating his knowledge of an Otsutsuki secret technique.
• Natsume warned Ananda that the Otsutsuki planned a massive attack and offered to share intelligence in exchange for the planet’s safety.
• Ananda accepted Natsume’s terms and agreed to take him to the Maha Clan.

Ananda and the other Maha Clan members accepted Natsume’s terms and took Mooncake and Hashirama with them, while Natsume continued his double-agent schemes. At a Mechanism Council meeting, the elders approved the core team and weapon for the God-Hunting Plan targeting Jashin.

• Ananda and the other two Maha Clan members agreed to withdraw from the Ninja World in exchange for Mooncake and Hashirama.
• Ananda sealed Natsume’s clone, Mooncake, and Hashirama inside a pocket dimension attached to a demon-subduing vajra before returning to the Saha Realm.
• Natsume told Hashirama through the Soul Communication Channel why he had been sent along, and Hashirama resolved to infiltrate the Maha Clan and keep pace with Madara.
• Natsume withdrew his consciousness from the Totsuka Blade soul clone, then replenished his soul power and entered the Mechanism Council as Nisshiki.
• Chief Elder Xushi pushed the council to approve Elder Otsutsuki Meishiki and five other elders to lead the God-Hunting Plan, equipped with a powerful sealed divine artifact.

Natsume helped provoke a Maha Clan invasion by leaking the location of the Otsutsuki stronghold, advancing the Council’s plan to draw the royal family into war. He explained the scheme to Obito, who wondered how Akatsuki could profit from a conflict on such a vast scale.

• Natsume learned that Otsutsuki Xushi had chosen to expose the Shiki Origin Realm and lure the Maha Clan into attacking, forcing the royal family to defend its home.
• Natsume decided to leak the stronghold’s location quickly and discreetly, before the Otsutsuki finished preparing.
• Natsume told Obito that he had let the location of Otsutsuki Nebula slip, and that the Maha Clan had verified the intelligence before attacking.
• Natsume explained that the Maha Clan would accept losses to breach the nebula’s defenses and enter the Shiki Origin Realm.
• Natsume argued that the Otsutsuki would be difficult to defeat on their home ground and said their conflict benefited him as long as both sides fought fiercely.
• Obito compared Natsume’s scheme to Madara’s manipulation of Kirigakure and Konoha, then wondered how Akatsuki could profit from the war.

Natsume told Obito and [Akatsuki] to secretly collect Maha Clan corpses during the war, then took Obito to his [Primordial Space] and helped him become a Ten-Tails Jinchuriki. Obito reached Six Paths-level power but struggled to suppress the Ten-Tails' will.

• Natsume instructed Obito to pretend to obey the Otsutsuki’s orders while gathering Maha Clan warriors and beasts killed in battle.
• Natsume promised to deal with Otsutsuki commanders who ordered [Akatsuki] into combat, and Obito agreed after Natsume offered him the Ten-Tails’ power.
• Obito relayed the corpse-collection plan to [Akatsuki]’s core members, who organized tens of thousands of peripheral members to carry it out.
• Natsume took Obito into his [Primordial Space], where Obito used [Six Paths: Ten-Tails Coffin Seal] to absorb the controlled Ten-Tails.
• Obito emerged as a Ten-Tails Jinchuriki with Six Paths-level strength, but the Ten-Tails’ will began resisting and causing him severe pain.

Natsume brought Kakashi into the Primordial Space to provoke Obito, who was being consumed by the Ten-Tails' will. Jealousy over Kakashi inheriting his wishes drove Obito to suppress the Ten-Tails and become a Six Paths Jinchuriki, after which Natsume sent both men back to the battlefield.

• Obito's body expanded as the Ten-Tails' will tore at his soul, and Natsume pulled Kakashi into the Primordial Space.
• Natsume told Kakashi that Obito had named him leader of the Akatsuki and entrusted him with reviving and caring for Rin.
• Kakashi vowed to fulfill Obito's supposed last wishes, and Obito heard their conversation from inside the Ten-Tails.
• Obito's jealousy and anger gave him the strength to suppress and seal the Ten-Tails, transforming him into a Six Paths Jinchuriki.
• Obito confronted Natsume and Kakashi, and Natsume sent both of them back to the battlefield.

Natsume attended the Otsutsuki Clan’s war council by soul projection as its leaders debated how to repel the Maha Clan’s invasion of the Shiki Origin Realm. The Royal House and Main Family elders disagreed over how quickly to commit their forces, each prioritizing its own political standing and plans.

• Otsutsuki leaders gathered in the Strategic Hall and learned that more than ten billion enemies had breached the realm’s defenses, apparently using a Demon God Weapon.
• Natsume arrived by projection, explaining that his main body was injured, and noted that Otsutsuki King Zhenruo, Otsutsuki Xushi, and Otsutsuki Xingye were absent.
• The Main Family elders wondered how the Maha Clan had learned the realm’s location and attacked ahead of schedule, but focused on organizing the defense.
• Natsume assessed that the Otsutsuki Clan’s huge slave army and elite legions could eventually repel the invasion, though the time and cost would vary.
• The elders wanted to prolong the war to weaken the Royal House’s prestige and advance the God-Hunting Plan, while the Royal House sought a quick victory and had already deployed its Fourth Army Group.

Obito and his companions witnessed the Maha Clan’s Demon God Weapon tear through the Shiki Origin Realm’s defenses and unleash a devastating invasion. Ordered to reinforce the Fourth Court’s territory, they faced a battlefield where even Obito’s Ten-Tails power offered little protection.

• Obito realized how insignificant he was after witnessing the Demon God Weapon emerge from the nebula rift.
• The Demon God Weapon fired a vast energy beam toward the Otsutsuki primary continent, vaporizing everything in its path.
• The weapon wedged open the rift while Maha vanguard forces poured into the Shiki Origin Realm and slaughtered Otsutsuki slaves near the breach.
• Obito, Kakashi, and the others watched the massacre from afar and understood why Natsume had warned them to be careful.
• Otsutsuki higher-ups ordered Obito and the Sixth Court forces to join the army heading to the Fourth Court’s territory.
• The Fourth Court’s slave army had lost nearly ten billion members to the blast, so neighboring districts were ordered to send forces to support it.

Obito sent Akatsuki’s slave squads into the brutal battlefield, promising Chakra rewards to encourage them to collect corpses. Meanwhile, Otsutsuki elders watched the Maha Clan’s attack fail and considered how the enemy had learned of their plans.

• Jiraiya questioned whether they should join the battle, and Obito warned that refusing orders would mean certain death at the hands of the Otsutsuki inspection squads.
• Obito promised a complete Chakra Extraction Method to anyone who collected more than three corpses and a Chakra Fruit to each of the five top collectors, claiming Natsume would pay.
• Akatsuki’s peripheral slaves rushed toward the battlefield for the promised rewards, while the other slave squads went reluctantly.
• Otsutsuki Meishiki, Otsutsuki Xushi, and Otsutsuki Genshi watched the Demon God Weapon’s beam hit the main continent, where the Otsutsuki Clan drained its energy without damage.
• Otsutsuki Xushi called the attack a probe and speculated that the Maha Clan had either planned ahead or learned about the information from a traitor among the elders.

Otsutsuki Xushi directed the Elder Council’s response to the Maha Clan invasion while keeping the God-Hunting Plan on track. He arranged for Nisshiki to recover in Dragon Palace City, both to heal him and to limit his influence during the war.

• Otsutsuki Xushi rejected unsupported accusations against Nisshiki, while Otsutsuki Meishiki noted suspicious details about his discovery and proposal.
• Xushi ordered Otsutsuki Genshi to calm the younger elders and cooperate with the royal family to defeat the invading Moka forces.
• Xushi told Meishiki to prepare the God-Hunting Plan and gave him the Jashin Sacrificial Ritual that Nisshiki had secretly provided.
• Meishiki agreed to connect the passage and kill the alien Evil God if the ritual and the creature proved genuine.
• Xushi ordered Genshi to send Nisshiki and the Ninth Court’s slave army to Dragon Palace City so Nisshiki could recover while remaining out of the war.

King Zhenruo ordered the Otsutsuki forces to repel the Maha Clan while secretly targeting its Demon God Soldier, and sent Otsutsuki Xingye to capture the Yasha Ghost High Priest. The Otsutsuki factions began coordinating their forces against the invasion, though they continued to pursue their own schemes.

• King Zhenruo told Otsutsuki Yufu that the Shiki Origin Realm’s location had likely been leaked by the elders and ordered him to mobilize half the armies to drive off the Maha Clan.
• King Zhenruo ordered the other half of the army to flank the Maha forces and seize the Demon God Soldier as a show for the elders.
• King Zhenruo promised Otsutsuki Xingye that she could deal with Otsutsuki Hishiki if she captured the Yasha Ghost High Priest, and she agreed to go.
• Otsutsuki Genshi and Otsutsuki Yufu delivered Xushiki’s and King Zhenruo’s orders to the Confidential Affairs Hall, ending the argument and prompting both sides to mobilize against the Maha Clan.

After the Otsutsuki Clan reassigned command of the Ninth Court’s slave army, Natsume returned to his High Tower and considered his next objectives. He focused on reaching the peak of Six Paths efficiently, and began weighing whether he could negotiate with the royal house for a divine artifact.

• Otsutsuki Xushi transferred command of the Ninth Court’s slave army from Natsume to Otsutsuki Genshi and ordered Natsume to recuperate in Dragon Palace City.
• Natsume judged that the clan’s main continent was secure behind its defenses and planned to use the war to pursue his own goals.
• Natsume reviewed two ways to reach peak Pseudo-God, rejecting the wasteful and dangerous method of consuming more than a hundred Chakra Fruits.
• Natsume considered refining Chakra Pills with a divine artifact, noting that Otsutsuki Xushi and the royal house each possessed one.
• Natsume looked toward the Royal City and considered approaching the royal house to negotiate for its artifact.

Natsume was ordered by Otsutsuki Xushi to enter [Dragon Palace City] under the watch of two powerful officials, limiting his ability to interfere in the ongoing war. At the Dragon Palace Well, he found more than two hundred people from several groups waiting to enter with him.

• Natsume considered how to enter [Dragon Palace City] while also infiltrating the main family's [Royal City], but two officials arrived to escort him.
• An official presented Natsume with a one-use [Dragon Palace Key], and Natsume recognized that Xushi had arranged the escort to monitor him.
• Natsume left [High Tower] with the officials and saw the distant starry sky consumed by fierce fighting while the main-house continent remained peaceful.
• The group reached the underground entrance to [Dragon Palace City], where Natsume learned that the ancient facility had served as a prison, research base, and place for entertainment, training, and recuperation.
• Natsume surveyed the people waiting at the Dragon Palace Well: royal-house members, researchers with miniature Ten-Tails, clansmen, and nearly two hundred slaves.

Natsume entered Dragon Palace City to master his power and seek a path to Demigod, but found it was an unfamiliar wilderness beneath a starry sky. He wondered whether the city was a separate dimension like the Yellow Spring Realm and whether the Thousand-Lead Stone Fragment could take him there.

• Natsume decided to enter Dragon Palace City because Otsutsuki Xushi's officials would not leave him unguarded and he wanted to seek a breakthrough to Demigod.
• Natsume activated the Dragon Palace Key and opened the Dragon Palace Well, releasing a flood of multicolored chakra.
• The Otsutsuki researchers entered the well, and Natsume followed last as the two Main Family officials watched and waited for the well to close.
• Natsume fell through the well for several minutes, passed through a barrier, and arrived in a grassy wilderness beneath a starry sky.
• Natsume wondered whether Dragon Palace City was a separate dimension like the Yellow Spring Realm and considered using the Thousand-Lead Stone Fragment to reach it.

Natsume explored Dragon Palace City, discovered that its corrupted wraiths could replenish Jashin Power through the Life-Generating Jewel, and sent the Phoenix True Spirit to hunt them. He then followed a mysterious wooden ring that had begun responding to something in the distance.

• Natsume defeated a mindless wraith with Hu Sinatuo and found its soul fragments too corrupted to absorb safely.
• Natsume fed the wraith fragments to the Life-Generating Jewel, where Jashin Power consumed them and could later be refined into life force.
• Natsume gave the Life-Generating Jewel to the Phoenix True Spirit and sent her to hunt weaker wraiths while avoiding powerful ones.
• Natsume examined a wooden ring from Ōtsutsuki Isshiki's possessions after it heated up and seemed to answer a distant call.
• Natsume flew in the direction indicated by the wooden ring.

Natsume followed a wooden ring to a gigantic living pillar in Dragon Palace City and discovered a torrent of golden chakra flowing inside it. Unable to absorb or contain the chakra, he followed its current to uncover where it led.

• Natsume reached the location marked by the ring and found an immense, tree-like pillar whose secrets seemed connected to Dragon Palace City.
• As Natsume approached, the ring heated up and opened a passage in the pillar; he sent in a Shadow Clone to scout before entering with the Nisshiki clone.
• Inside, Natsume found an enormous torrent of liquid golden chakra flowing upward at tremendous speed.
• Natsume learned that the chakra's speed and pressure prevented him from absorbing it or using spatial abilities to contain it.
• Natsume released his resistance and followed the chakra torrent to discover where it flowed.

Natsume found Kuramitsuha, a demigod imprisoned in a cage within the chakra torrent, and tried to trade information with her. After he revealed that he had visited the Underworld Great Kingdom, Kuramitsuha suspected he was an Otsutsuki Royal Family member sent to deceive her.

• Natsume spotted a white lattice cage anchored to the pillar and found Kuramitsuha imprisoned inside it.
• Kuramitsuha cursed the Otsutsuki Clan and initially refused to answer Natsume's questions.
• Natsume mentioned the war with the Maha Clan and offered to exchange information, prompting Kuramitsuha to give her name.
• Natsume asked Kuramitsuha about the Yellow Spring Realm and showed her an illusion of High Priest Yama.
• Kuramitsuha recognized High Priest Yama and accused Natsume of being an Otsutsuki Royal Family member who had come to deceive her.

Natsume convinced Kuramitsuha that he opposed the Otsutsuki Royal House by showing her evidence of his dealings with High Priest Yama and his attack on royal members. Kuramitsuha saw a chance to use Natsume to help the Yellow Spring survivors, and the chapter ended with him asking about her status, imprisonment, and the place where she was held.

• Natsume showed Kuramitsuha the semi-divine demon blade Hu Sinatuo, but she refused to accept it as proof that he was not part of the royal house.
• Natsume sent Kuramitsuha memories of his trade with High Priest Yama and his killing of three Otsutsuki royal members.
• Kuramitsuha believed Natsume was an ambitious Otsutsuki elder opposing the Royal House and began to hope she could use him to escape and unseal the Yellow Spring Realm.
• Natsume asked Kuramitsuha to explain her status, why and by whom she had been imprisoned, and what the place was.

Kuramitsuha revealed that she had been a Water Goddess imprisoned by the Otsutsuki, and that the chakra torrent trapping her flowed through the Otsutsuki progenitor’s body. Natsume learned that the Shiki Origin Realm lay within the progenitor’s true form and that Dragon Palace City may have been built near a vital part of it.

• Kuramitsuha explained that she had been one of the Eighty-Eight Divine Pillars of Yellow Spring and had been imprisoned after the Otsutsuki destroyed the Underworld Great Kingdom.
• Kuramitsuha told Natsume that the royal clan could not control the chakra torrent and that it existed inside the Otsutsuki progenitor’s body.
• Kuramitsuha said the Shiki Origin Realm had been built upon the progenitor’s true body, possibly within one of its blood vessels.
• Natsume asked about Dragon Palace City, and Kuramitsuha said Otsutsuki Ryushiki had built it after the Underworld Great Kingdom fell, likely near the progenitor’s heart or marrow core.
• Natsume realized that Dragon Palace City might have been sealed because Ryushiki had meddled with a vital part of the progenitor’s body.

Natsume negotiated with the imprisoned water goddess Kuramitsuha, who offered the location of a Divine Artifact in exchange for his help escaping. He agreed to the deal but demanded that she weaken her powerful soul before he freed her.

• Natsume asked Kuramitsuha where the chakra flowing through the area ultimately led, but she asked him to offer something in return.
• Kuramitsuha proposed that Natsume break her out of the physical prison, and he pressed her for a reason to help her.
• Kuramitsuha offered to help Natsume obtain a Divine Artifact inside Dragon Palace City that could alter matter and possibly compress energy.
• Natsume agreed to rescue Kuramitsuha if she first weakened her soul so he could keep her power under control.

Natsume forced Kuramitsuha to weaken herself so he could free her from the crystal cage, then brought her soul under his control inside [Hu Sinatuo]. They set off back toward [Dragon Palace City] to pursue the [Divine Artifact], while Natsume threatened the survivors of the [Yellow Spring Realm] to keep her cooperative.

• Natsume demanded that Kuramitsuha remove her defenses, and she agreed to protect the surviving people of Yomi.
• Kuramitsuha let the chakra torrent weaken her soul to the threshold of [Demigod], then restored her defenses.
• Natsume used [Hu Sinatuo] to break one crystal link, and Kuramitsuha escaped the cage by attaching herself to the blade and sealing herself inside.
• Natsume questioned Kuramitsuha about the chakra flow, but she said she did not know where it led and urged him to seek the [Divine Artifact] in [Dragon Palace City].
• Natsume threatened the survivors of the [Yellow Spring Realm] and used Little Phoenix's location to guide them back toward [Dragon Palace City].