Self-Destruct

Collapse?

It really was a collapse!

Naruto shook his head. He should have realized it sooner.

The floodwater that had inexplicably risen past his knees, the rusty copper pipes peeling away from the walls—every one of these signs had been telling Naruto the truth.

There was no point saying anything now. Naruto let out a soft breath, his thoughts turning. Countless fissures opened in the void once more, and a dense barrage of Runic Chains shot out, reinforcing the golden net above his head.

The next second,

Naruto appeared in front of Bibi Dong, who was on the verge of collapse, with rubble raining down around him.

Perhaps sensing Naruto's approach, Bibi Dong finally stopped laughing. Her voice had grown hoarse.

The Pope's crown she had worn was nowhere to be seen. Her pale purple hair streamed loose in the wind. She didn't even wipe away the tears at the corners of her eyes. With the corners of her mouth faintly raised, she stared straight at Naruto with bloodshot eyes.

"That's right! You really do know everything!"

Naruto was trying to figure out how to explain himself, but Bibi Dong cut in before he could speak. Bracing herself against the chair, she rose unsteadily to her feet, like a wandering ghost.

"I know what you're thinking, too!"

"This woman's so stupid it's ridiculous!"

"Isn't she?"

Bibi Dong's voice rasped as if she were grinding sand, yet even in this Sealing Space, which kept rumbling, caving in, and collapsing, it rang clearly in Naruto's ears.

Naruto opened his mouth, but under Bibi Dong's piercing gaze, he couldn't get a word out. Lying wasn't a good choice, and telling the truth would only add fuel to the fire. All Naruto could do was close his mouth in dismay and remain silent.

"Afraid to say it? Then I'll say it for you!"

Bibi Dong curled her lips into a cold smile, then staggered forward. Her voice dripped with anguish, and she really did sound as though she were cursing—except the one she was cursing was herself.

"The teacher she chose was a beast, a piece of human trash!"

"She didn't learn much from him, and instead got locked away in this lightless underground place. That would've been bad enough!"

"But that foolish saintess actually thought some hero would descend from the heavens to save her! And every night, she kept thinking the same thing! How devoted! How steadfast her love!"

Bibi Dong gritted her teeth as she cursed, berated, and mocked. She ignored the falling rocks around her. Even when her loose hair stuck to her face, plastered there by the splashing water, she paid it no mind and kept going.

Her voice grew louder and louder. The amusement in her bloodshot eyes deepened. She turned her head, her twisted face grinning wildly through the strands of hair.

"And the hero this woman dreamed of day and night! He's nothing but a complete and utter failure!!"

"He never came!"

"He was tricked away just like that by a fake letter! While this foolish saintess was wailing and praying, he was busy getting all tangled up with another woman!"

Standing in the storm, Naruto could only listen in silence.

Bibi Dong's hoarse voice began to tremble. She tipped her head back with difficulty, trying to keep the tears from spilling over. By then, she had reached Naruto. Slowly spreading her arms, she looked down at him.

"Look! It's so ridiculous! Is there any joke in this world more ridiculous than this!?"

"You can laugh out loud now!"

"Look at how stupid this woman is!"

"She killed her parents the day she was born! Her teacher was a piece of human trash! The hero she dreamed of day and night was a complete failure! She even pushed away her own daughter with her own hands!"

"What..."

Tears burst from her eyes. Bibi Dong could no longer keep her lovely face taut, and her body trembled uncontrollably. Her throat was too swollen to let her shout, so she could only speak through her tears, haltingly.

"There's... nothing... There's nothing left..."

"Isn't that... what you wanted to say?"

"Go on, say it!"

Bibi Dong pressed her lips together and stared at the silent Naruto. Her chest rose and fell as she questioned him through her sobs.

As Bibi Dong spoke those last words, the collapse of the Sealing Space finally stopped—or rather, it finally ended. No more rubble fell, and the caved-in walls settled back into silence.

The place lay in ruins, strewn with broken stones and puddles. There was nothing left in this wasteland, and nothing more that could collapse.

Naruto took a deep breath and apologized solemnly.

"I'm sorry."

"..."

"Get lost!"

Bibi Dong bit her lip and shouted angrily.

Naruto quickly withdrew his consciousness.

All that remained in the ruined Sealing Space was Bibi Dong, along with the faint echo of sobbing hanging in the air.

A moment later, the sobbing stopped abruptly.

The tears on Bibi Dong's face hadn't even had time to dry when purple-black Soul Power burst from her body. Gritting her teeth to suppress another sob, she stiffened her face and turned angrily toward Naruto, who had suddenly appeared behind her.

Naruto raised both hands in surrender.

"Just wait until I finish talking."

Seeing no reaction from Bibi Dong, Naruto let out a soft breath, gathered his thoughts, and spoke with a serious expression.

"I've always believed that you shouldn't treat one part of your life as if it were the whole. Your identity, meaning, and worth aren't entirely defined by the things you've lost."

"I was angry about your relationship with Yu Xiaogang because I still believe you have a future, and a life ahead of you. You can still choose and decide what you do with that life."

A flicker of surprise passed through Bibi Dong's eyes,

but it lasted only an instant before she quickly suppressed it. Her expression shifted into a mocking smile.

"Kid, you haven't even grown your first whiskers. Don't come spouting such old-fashioned nonsense in front of me!"

"You!"

Naruto pointed at Bibi Dong with a trembling hand, his face red with anger. He didn't dare say anything harsher. After struggling for a long while, he finally managed to blurt out,

"You don't know a good thing when you see it!"

With that,

Naruto promptly beat a retreat and vanished.

The Sealing Space fell silent once more. Bibi Dong casually found a slightly level patch of ground and sat down. She still hadn't completely emerged from the emotional collapse she'd just experienced, and as for Naruto's final words—

Bibi Dong shook her head.

That kid was unbelievably stupid!

Cursing under her breath, Bibi Dong looked up at the ceiling. With it caved in, the void beyond was exposed. A thought suddenly crossed her mind: what was she supposed to do from now on?

Back in reality,

Naruto first grimaced in pain.

Then, deep down, he wondered if he just wasn't passionate enough.

Why did Naruto only have to rattle off a few words to make a villain see the error of their ways on the spot, while after he'd racked his brains for ages, all he got was mocked?

Naruto shook his head with a sigh, slowly setting those stray thoughts aside and returning to the matter at hand.

Only by enduring the pain of cutting out an abscess could the wound beneath heal.

Naruto felt the same way. He'd thought he could easily resolve Bibi Dong's psychological problems, only to discover that it had nothing to do with some Grandmaster's intelligence-lowering aura. He'd been blown to a crisp by that human-shaped self-destructing tank.

Naruto raised a hand to his forehead and felt a headache coming on.

But how was he supposed to solve this problem?

"There's... nothing left..."

There really was nothing left. Faced with someone who had nothing to hold on to, Naruto felt that anything he said would sound insincere. Life was still beautiful; there were lots of people in the world who loved her; she should think of her family, her teacher, her lover...

If he dared to say any of that boilerplate nonsense, Bibi Dong would probably self-destruct right in front of him.

After turning it over in his mind,

he figured Qian Renxue was his only real hope. But where was Naruto supposed to find Qian Renxue now? Wouldn't the two Douluo guarding the entrance mince him into meat paste?

Naruto furrowed his brows and shook his head repeatedly. For now, all he could do was take things one step at a time. At least after what had just happened, he'd confirmed that Bibi Dong's mental state had stabilized. She'd stopped at the edge of the cliff.

His thoughts in turmoil,

Dong Trumpet really was more troublesome than Kurama.

Weren't Jinchuriki the ones with psychological problems? How had things turned around so that he was the one worrying about a Tailed Beast's mental health?

After grumbling to himself, Naruto relaxed a little. Then he looked up through the window at the crescent moon in the night sky. His eyes narrowed as he fell into thought.

Tang Hao still hadn't shown up...

The Clear Sky Sect's usual pattern—beat the young one, and the old one comes—hadn't happened, despite Naruto's original concerns.

Was it because he saw Naruto was young and, as a mighty expert, couldn't bring himself to stoop so low?

Or was there some other reason?

He had no answer,

but Tang Hao still hadn't appeared.

Naruto raised his opinion of Tang Hao a little from its previous subterranean level. Still, the thought that a Titled Douluo might be following Tang San around at any moment sent a chill down his spine.

How were these so-called Clear Sky Twin Stars so good at hiding?

Naruto tugged at the corner of his mouth and stopped thinking about it.

He focused his mind and began to meditate and cultivate.

Under the same night sky,

the night market in Nuoding City bustled with people and was truly lively.

"Shopkeeper?"

The hunched-over old man at the sugar-painting stall seemed to hear something. He scratched his ear, then laboriously leaned out and finally spotted the customer standing in front of the stall.

The short customer wore a long scorpion-tail braid and had delicate, doll-like features. She didn't look like a poor child. Straining up on tiptoe, she barely managed to peek over the counter.

The old man glanced around.

"Little girl, where are your parents?"

"Oh? I sneaked out to have fun on my own. I want this one, and this one too." Xiao Wu didn't even look up. Her eyes were fixed on the colorful bustle of human society as she picked out sugar paintings from the stall.

"Do you have any money?"

The shopkeeper asked out of curiosity.

"Of course!" Xiao Wu pulled out the Gold Soul Coins she'd just received and proudly patted her chest. "I'm a Spirit Master!"

At the sight of them, the shopkeeper naturally presented the sugar paintings with great deference, while conveniently quoting her an inflated price.

She paid generously,

and Xiao Wu wandered on with a beaming smile, her hands full of snacks.

A child carrying gold through a crowded marketplace drew attention. Several idlers leaning against the mouth of an alley rubbed the Spirit Marks on the backs of their hands, exchanged glances, nodded to one another, and quietly followed her.