Third Form, The Otsutsuki's Wailing

A spear condensed in the hands of the Susanoo, raised high before being brought down with crushing force.

Otsutsuki Baldy was reduced to a pulp with a wet splat, flesh and blood spraying in every direction.

Watching the bloody "riverbed" he had carved out, Aoike exerted force once more, sweeping his weapon in an arc and painting the ground with fan-shaped patterns of carnage.

"Retreat! Everyone who can escape, flee..." The very thing Otsutsuki Ikki feared most had come to pass; Aoike's Mangekyo Sharingan was far beyond a mere novice level. He was already one of the strongest beings in this world.

Otsutsuki Ikki gritted his teeth, his muscles taut and veins bulging on his forehead. He poured every ounce of chakra within him into the fray, his energy erupting with the heat of a volcanic blast.

Yet, facing the overwhelming power of Aoike, all of this was like throwing an egg against a rock or a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

Still, he did not shrink back, determined to offer at least some resistance against the opponent's peerless onslaught.

Clang! A thunderous roar echoed as the white figure was sent flying like a kite with a snapped string, slamming heavily into the distant mountain wall.

Surprisingly, Otsutsuki Ikki did not fall there. He scrambled out of the crater he had created, his eyes burning with firm, desperate resolve.

He took a deep breath, pushing his potential to the limit, letting the chakra around his body burn fiercely until it began to churn and surge violently.

Through sheer, unyielding will and astonishing perseverance, Otsutsuki Ikki had temporarily gained the power to clash head-on with the Susanoo.

He extracted a continuous stream of chakra, slamming it relentlessly against the Susanoo's hardened shell, producing a series of dull, heavy thuds.

Though Otsutsuki Ikki had exhausted every fiber of his being, the gap between them was simply too vast.

When that materialized chakra struck the Susanoo, it was as if fragile eggs were colliding with an indestructible boulder, leaving behind nothing more than insignificant, shallow scratches.

But the massive, glowing white Susanoo swung its weapon, every casual strike landing with the force of a divine thunderbolt.

The duel was entirely one-sided; every exchange tolled the death knell for Otsutsuki Ikki.

His muscles, bones, and internal organs were as fragile as crumbling tofu under the recoil.

Unable to mount a decent counterattack, Otsutsuki Ikki was covered in wounds before long.

His left arm was twisted like a braided rope, devoid of all sensation; his frame was distorted by dislocated bones, and his entire body trembled uncontrollably from the trauma as blood leaked from his seven orifices.

On the verge of death, all his ambitions echoed through his mind.

Destroying the Ninja World that had failed Hamura and rebuilding a new world belonging to the Otsutsuki—this ideal was the very reason for the existence of the Otsutsuki branch family.

The moon was too cold and desolate; they had been trapped there like prisoners, wasting generation after generation guarding Kaguya's seal.

Yet, the beneficiaries on Earth did not cherish the peace, even allowing the husk of the Ten-Tails to be stolen.

This was betrayal!

This was a desecration of their mission!

Of the three Kage-level powerhouses in the branch family, only he, the strongest, remained.

Clinging to extreme resentment and unwillingness, he struggled once more to rise from the ruins!

"I still have a noble ideal yet to be realized!"

"The failed world has yet to be purged!"

"How could I possibly fall here!"

His only remaining hand formed seals in a distorted fashion. The branch family members who hadn't yet retreated, along with the souls lingering within the corpses scattered across the ground, carried their chakra toward him, clinging to Otsutsuki Ikki's mangled body like sticky maltose.

"Your secret techniques are truly disgusting," Aoike thought of the zombies from Resident Evil, feeling a chill run down his spine.

"Takemikazuchi."

Lightning transformed into a divine nectar, coating the Susanoo's fist like blue chains locked firmly in place.

He aimed at the charging Otsutsuki Ikki and unleashed his full strength.

Shattering Punch!

The blinding white light briefly eclipsed the sun itself.

The shockwave from the collision tore the topsoil away, causing the ground to sink and devastating the barren landscape.

Everything... along with Otsutsuki Ikki's life and his ambition to destroy the Ninja World, came to an end.

Half of his bloated body was blasted into smithereens, flesh and blood flying everywhere; the other half was scorched pitch-black by the intense heat, his skin covered in hideous, terrifying cracks as countless pale, raw buds of flesh erupted from within.

Only the mangled remains stood upright on the ground, his eyes dead and devoid of any life.

The Susanoo's arm, now covered in cracks, shattered into pieces after losing the reinforcement of "Takemikazuchi."

"You are the strongest opponent I have encountered thus far."

Forced to deactivate the Susanoo, Aoike couldn't help but offer a word of praise.

Although it was only the Susanoo in its muscular state, very few in this era could have broken through it.

Under Aoike's hunt, the majority of the inferior Otsutsuki had fallen on this battlefield, with only a small fraction managing to escape with their lives.

"Heavenly Controller of Fate."

The Mangekyo in his left eye rotated, and ocular power surged into the surroundings like a tidal wave.

Plunder, deconstruct, digest.

Taking the essence and discarding the dregs, the corpses that had littered the ground turned into flying ash.

Most of them were just chaotic, redundant genetic factors; only the factors from Otsutsuki Ikki and a few others were of any use.

After restoring his state to full, two-thirds of the ocular power in Aoike's Mangekyo remained, and the purity of his Byakugan had reached its limit.

If not for the ocular technique Heavenly Controller of Fate, Aoike would likely have been half-crippled after this battle.

The consumption of the Mangekyo was truly staggering, but fortunately, Otsutsuki Hamura had been born after Kaguya consumed the fruit of the God Tree, and his descendants still retained a small amount of God Tree factors.

It boosted his ocular power slightly while significantly reducing the drain.

His physical state was replenished, but the mental exhaustion from the successive battles could not be erased.

However, to prevent any unforeseen complications, Aoike had no choice but to force himself to go and reap the fruits of his victory.

That was Toneri, the one closest to the original Otsutsuki in terms of bloodline, and the key to mutating the Byakugan into the Tenseigan.

At the same time...

The members of the branch family who had managed to flee back had no time to rest; they were busy making tight preparations around the synthetic Tenseigan, setting up the final... lethal trap for Aoike!