A burning sensation suddenly flared in Neji's Byakugan, and the Primordial Bagua Diagram in his mind unfolded on its own. The Yin-Yang twin fish flowed along his meridians to his palms, forming an Illusory-Real Grinding Disc three feet across.
"Sensei!" Neji charged into the oncoming tide of vengeful spirits. "Give me three seconds!"
The Yin-Yang Grinding Disc roared like a primordial beast. The instant it touched the vengeful spirits, it erupted with a suction force capable of devouring heaven and earth. Those clawing malicious thoughts were ground into silver motes of light. Half fused into the disc's patterns, while the rest surged through Neji's acupoints into his Sea of Consciousness. The phantom of the Thousand-Armed Statue abruptly solidified, all nine hundred and ninety-nine arms forming Sage Art seals at once.
"Sage Chakra... so that's how it is!" Neji felt every cell in his body leap with excitement as immense natural energy flooded into him like a celestial river pouring backward.
The grotesquely bulging veins that appeared when his Byakugan activated vanished. A power from his bloodline flowed out of his Byakugan, forming horn-like chakra crystals on his forehead as his hair shimmered with an emerald glow without wind.
A silver rune silently appeared between Neji's brows, adding another trace of mystery to his strikingly handsome face.
The entire cave began to shake violently. Rocks and gravel cascaded down, only to be blasted away by the immense air current three yards from the boy.
Tsunade barely managed to open her eyes against the gale. In a daze, she saw the silhouette of her grandfather emerge behind the boy. The man who had always loved patting her head stood with his back to Neji, one hand braced against his waist.
"This is..." She took half a step back, clutching her wildly pounding heart. The markings of the Strength of a Hundred Technique suddenly spread across her entire body. "My chakra is resonating? Could it be... Wood Release..."
Neji was undergoing a wondrous transformation. The Primordial Bagua Diagram had devoured most of the Evil God's energy, but the energy remaining in Neji's Sea of Consciousness still made him feel stuffed to bursting. The Thousand-Armed Statue formed a hand seal, and the energy transformed into a translucent silver-blue Sage Art robe draped over the Dharma Form.
At that moment, Neji felt his consciousness expanding without limit. He could hear dew forming more than a dozen miles away and see the paths of moonlight rippling through the air.
A sudden realization rose within him, and his hands began forming seals instinctively. Rat—Horse—Monkey... The instant Neji pressed his palms together, heaven and earth fell silent.
Moonlight pierced through a hundred meters of rock, condensing into a pillar of light that wove a Sage Art formation beneath his feet. The Thousand-Armed Statue completed its final outline within his Sea of Consciousness. Every palm formed seals in succession, each holding a different hand sign.
As the final seal was completed, ripples like water spread through the void. Blue-gold chakra surged from his spine like liquid metal, condensing behind Neji into the phantom of a three-eyed, eighteen-armed Dharma Form.
"Sage Art: Glazed Lightfall!"
The next moment, emerald light instantly pierced the entire cave ceiling. The Dharma Form radiated boundless brilliance, while natural energy surging from the earth veins became a glazed waterfall of light, illuminating every ghost and demon.
"Ahh! Damn it, what is this?"
Twisted malicious thoughts slithered out from every dark corner. Scorched by the boundless light, they fled back into the Great Elder's mutilated body one after another, followed by cries of agony.
Billowing black mist reflected the Great Elder's painfully twisted face. He was already at the end of his rope.
"It's time to end this!" The boy clenched his outstretched hand, and natural energy formed a tangible giant palm that seized the Evil God's true body.
The Yin-Yang Grinding Disc spun faster. A sharp crack like shattering glass rang out from within the black mist. The devoured soul fragments turned into fireflies and rose into the air, seeming to find release within the glazed world.
"Impossible! I am a god! Gods cannot fail! Explode!"
"Boom!"
Amid a deafening explosion, black mist suddenly burst from the Great Elder's body and twisted together into a vicious ghost draped in a black cloak.
The ghost bared blood-dripping gums in a savage grin and pulled a phantom-like God of Death Scythe from beneath its cloak.
Neji's gaze sharpened. He sensed boundless danger gathering upon the blade. His Byakugan glowed dark blue, and he could actually see countless souls struggling and howling across the blade. Enormous mouths stretched to their limits and claws trying to tear apart everything sent a chill through his heart.
Whoosh!
The ghost suddenly swelled in size, extending its scythe and slashing toward Neji's waist with unimaginable speed.
Bang!
The next second, several smoothly severed arms flew through the air and dissolved into specks of starlight. The Dharma Form had automatically protected him.
After severing several arms, the God of Death Scythe was firmly blocked by the remaining arms.
Neji could even see the venomous resentment in the souls upon the blade. They flailed their claws, desperate to drag him down into hell with them.
"Neji!"
Tsunade cried out and flashed before Neji, about to strike the descending scythe. Yet just as she was about to touch it, the howling souls stunned her. Her heart, which had only just healed, cracked open again beneath that utterly pure malice.
Her body went limp, and Tsunade slowly fell to the ground.
"Sensei! Damn you, evil ghost! Die!"
Neji's eyes nearly split open with rage. He drew out the last of his Qi, which surged from his spine. The Dharma Form's arms spread like a peacock's tail, instantly gathering nine hundred and ninety-nine arms behind him.
Every palm fired chakra threads wrapped in Sage Art runes, weaving a three-dimensional Eight Trigrams Diagram cage around the Evil God.
As Neji's true body unleashed the Gentle Fist, all the Dharma Form's arms simultaneously struck with the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms. Their palm winds collided in the void, producing blazing white spheres of light. The struck rock layers instantly underwent fractal collapse. The God of Death Scythe was knocked aside, and the ghost's body was riddled with holes in an instant.
Strike while he was down and finish him.
Neji did not pause for even a moment.
"Sage Art: Yin-Yang Deity Sealing!"
As Neji pressed his palms together, nine hundred and ninety-nine chakra threads descended from the void, pinning down the hundreds of resentment cores struggling within the black mist.
He pushed his palms apart, and the Yin-Yang Grinding Disc doubled in size once more. Amid its teeth-grinding crushing sound, the ghost screamed as it was ground into the gap, instantly vanishing into ash.
The Great Elder's mutilated body suddenly caught fire. Flakes of drifting ash peeled away from the cracked remains, carrying the Great Elder's final unwillingness and screams into oblivion.
When the last wisp of black mist dispersed, the cave ceiling collapsed with a thunderous crash. Moonlight poured down like a waterfall, revealing Neji's complete Sage Mode form—his Yin-Yang cloak fluttered, its ends burning with black-and-white flames as though hanging into hell; scale-like patterns covered his skin with a metallic sheen; his sky-blue eyes glowed like translucent sapphires; and the crystalline horn on his forehead flickered as it absorbed and exhaled natural energy.
An intense spiritual energy was once again retained by the remaining Eight Trigrams Diagram. The Thousand-Armed Statue in his Sea of Consciousness, which had been on the verge of collapse, solidified once more. As illusion and reality shifted, a spiritual exhaustion Neji could no longer suppress surged from the depths of his heart and swept through his body.
Neji's Byakugan rolled back, and he fainted. His Sage Mode quietly receded, while Sage Chakra scattered and drifted away, sparking specks of fluorescence beneath the moonlight.
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