The strongest? Nothing but an empty title

Sand Hidden Village.

The place had long been poor, though if Ye Zhuo had owned it, he probably would have struck oil long ago.

But in the Shinobi World, technology seemed to be of little use.

Even the scientific ninja tools of the future were scorned by shinobi.

Ye Zhuo disagreed.

As far as he was concerned, whether it was scientific ninja tools or oil, why not use something useful?

At that moment.

Like those safely ensconced in Konoha, Granny Chiyo and the others advising from within Sand Hidden Village all wore worried expressions.

The state of the war seemed to have nothing in common with what they had imagined.

"Are the Shadowkhan really inexhaustible?"

"We don't know either. These things aren't recorded in any forbidden technique."

"Legend says everyone who went to the shadow world went mad. It's another realm, different from the Pure Land."

"Even now, we know nothing about where the Demon Shadow came from."

"Where he came from doesn't matter. What matters is that the Shinobi World is on the brink of destruction."

Was the Shinobi World going to be destroyed?

Granny Chiyo leaned back in her chair, her face full of bewilderment.

She couldn't understand. Over the years, her son and daughter-in-law had left her, and then her prodigy of a grandson had left too.

Time was such a torment.

Akatsuki had always been a strange place.

Sometimes, this era seemed like a bank of fog. You thought you could see clearly, but only on the day you died would you realize you had been inside it all along.

Ohnoki's grandson, Granny Chiyo's grandson, the remnants of the Uchiha Clan, rogue shinobi from the Village of the Bloody Mist, a traitor from Hidden Waterfall Village...

Chiyo tossed an intelligence report onto the table.

It was