"Was emptiness... this painful?"
The cracks inside his body were neither a virus nor hidden injuries.
He could no longer remember how many years he had been in this world. In his earliest memories, when he had first left the Ōtsutsuki planet, the entire universe had still been in a primitive age.
The Insect Mother and the Faceless King from before were both his juniors. His age was already impossible to calculate; even some planets were younger than him.
Those cracks had been born at the start of the previous era.
Utaka focused his energy on filling the cracks. The moment they were filled, fractures appeared again, but they were much smaller than before.
Afterward, his power visibly declined, though the change was so slight that it was almost no different from before.
But only he knew that compared to his peak in the previous era, his strength had already fallen by a third.
In other words, after another two eras, his life would likely come to an end.
"What kind of joke is this?!" Utaka clenched his fists in fury, utterly unable to accept the truth. "Why is that transmigrator growing so slowly? Doesn't he have some kind of cheat?"
As he spoke, he stared into the void. Through the distant reaches of space, his gaze locked onto a white-haired woman before slowly shifting toward Uchiha Gen.
"Only at the third stage? Good... good!! Soon. I'll be waiting for you!"
When Ōtsutsuki Utaka saw Uchiha Gen's current state, the delight in his eyes was impossible to hide. His mouth split into a wide grin, making him look utterly insane.
Beyond the star system, Uchiha Gen, who was traveling onward, suddenly felt a jolt in his heart. He sensed someone watching him and immediately called for a stop.
"Kaguya, did