Demons

A crimson moon hung high in the sky, and tonight the Uchiha Compound lacked its usual bustle, left with only utter pitch-blackness and a deathly stillness. A faint, sickeningly sweet scent of blood still lingered in the air.

In the moonlight, Itachi dragged his exhausted body away from Konoha. His expression looked exceedingly calm, calm to the point of numbness, and his eyes rolled from time to time, occasionally flashing with a bit of struggle and pain.

"I have some rather bad news to tell you." A mysterious person wearing an orange vortex mask suddenly appeared, a hint of mockery in his voice.

Itachi turned his head slightly to look, not speaking.

The mysterious person did not seem to care about Itachi's attitude, only saying, "A lucky little fellow got away..."

Itachi remained expressionless, but his fists inside his sleeves tightened slightly. The compound was surrounded by the Root outside; how could anyone possibly escape?

Although a mere survivor was unlikely to stir up any waves, still... he hoped this survivor was not too smart, that he would not guess the truth of the Night of the Massacre, and even less that he would disrupt his future life planning for Sasuke, otherwise...

"Konoha will handle this matter. Now take me to your organization."

Seeing that Itachi was unmoved, the masked man said nothing more, and the figures of the two gradually grew distant.

At this moment, inside the Root base, a ninja knelt on one knee, reporting the situation to the bandage-wrapped old man before him: "Lord Danzo, after checking, the Uchiha Clan is missing one member. There is one less corpse."

"Hmm?" Danzo frowned. "Someone escaped?"

"Currently no signs of anyone fleeing the village have been found, and the missing Uchiha clan member was just an ordinary person, not a ninja."

Danzo pondered for a moment. "I know. Continue tracking. Find and dispose of them directly."

"Yes!"

Just an ordinary Uchiha clan member, Danzo did not believe he could escape the pursuit of the Root.

Just at that moment, a violent explosion suddenly arrived, causing even the ground to tremble slightly, showing just how massive the scale of the explosion was. A sinister premonition instantly arose in Danzo's heart.

Soon, the entire village was in motion. Looking at the soaring flames, smoke, and dust and the shattered Hokage Rock, Danzo understood that his premonition had come true.

"What's going on?"

"Was it an earthquake?"

"Could the Demon Fox be running amok again!"

The Konoha citizens, rudely awakened in the middle of the night, fled in panic. The higher-ups held an emergency meeting, and lower-ranking ninjas spontaneously organized rescue efforts. Because the Nine-Tails' Rampage had occurred in previous years, Konoha's evacuation facilities were relatively well-prepared. At this moment, however, someone noticed something wrong: "Where are the Uchiha? Why aren't those bastards participating in the rescue again!"

The speaker was a Konoha Genin. His voice was loud, filled with anxiety and anger, and he also successfully stirred up the crowd. At least the nearby Konoha villagers were furious. During the last Tailed Beast rampage, not only did the Uchiha Clan turtle up inside their compound, but the Sharingan's pattern had even appeared in the Tailed Beast's eyes. Could it be that this time was related to the Uchiha again?

The good news was that the explosion was only a single wave, with the most severely damaged area being the Hokage Rock. The bad news was... the Uchiha Clan was gone.

After a single night, the Uchiha, one of Konoha's two founding clans, suffered the calamity of genocide. Only the clan head's younger son, Sasuke Uchiha, survived. Aside from him, everyone else in the clan died, including pregnant women with large bellies, infants in swaddling clothes, white-haired old people...

As soon as this news came out, it instantly shocked the entire village. The villagers who had been denouncing the Uchiha moments before fell silent in an instant. Yet this silence did not last long, as discussions mixed with sympathy, pity, and schadenfreude rose one after another. The higher-ups failed to issue an official notice in time; right now, they were bickering in the office.

The atmosphere inside the Hokage's Office was terrible. Although many people participated in the meeting, most only possessed the right to participate, while true decision-making power had always been tightly controlled by those four old men.

Regarding the extermination of the Uchiha, those present could more or less guess the hidden foul play behind it. This was a tacitly understood murder, and everyone tacitly avoided speaking of the matter. The current pressing issue was—when on earth had so many Explosive Tags been planted in the village? Who had the guts to do such a thing? And how should they explain it to the public?

The Hokage Rock had been blasted without warning, and Konoha had lost all its face to the outer reaches of the world!

Most people present furrowed their brows, save for Shimura Danzō, whose eyes flashed with a trace of unusual ripples. The evil Uchiha Clan had finally been wiped out; this single matter alone was enough to make him ecstatic.

Although the current state of the village was slightly turbulent, perhaps he could take the opportunity to shake Hiruzen Sarutobi's position? He had nothing to lose anyway; even if he assassinated the Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi would forgive him!

"Lord Third, this is bad!" An ANBU suddenly appeared in a panic.

Hiruzen Sarutobi's heart gave a jolt. "What happened?"

Gazes all locked in unison onto that ANBU. A drop of cold sweat welled on the ANBU's forehead, his voice urgent: "A large number of unidentified ninjas have been discovered ten kilometers outside the village..."

Before he could finish, the Konoha higher-ups already understood that the worst-case scenario had appeared. With the Uchiha exterminated, Konoha had severed one of its own arms, weakening the village's overall strength. Other factions had seized the opportunity to target Konoha!

Thinking of this, Hiruzen Sarutobi could not help but gaze closely at Shimura Danzō. The Night of the Uchiha Massacre should have been top-secret intelligence; why would the enemy attack Konoha at such a coincidental juncture?

Someone must have leaked the news!

There was no time to investigate Shimura Danzō's responsibility right now. Hiruzen Sarutobi swiftly organized a counterattack. Although the village currently lacked high-end combat power slightly, it was still not to be underestimated.

This violent machine of Konoha rapidly whirred into motion.

Naka Shrine.

The youth draped in a black robe stood quietly before the stone tablet. A certain cold and ominous aura surging from his fingertips continuously poured into the tablet, wantonly tampering with the hidden content inscribed upon it.

This was a trap casually laid by a hunter in his leisure, waiting for ignorant and innocent prey to stumble right in.

Sargatanas, a demon from the Abyss, and also a demon who had broken away from the Abyss.

Among the heavens and myriad realms, the origins of demons were not unique; for instance, the Burning Legion, and the Demon Realm possessed many different kinds of demons, and even some fallen cultivators could be broadly called "demons."

Demons born in the endless Abyss were all vassals of the Abyssal Will, as well as soldiers for the Abyss to invade other planes. Demons could die, and they might also become precious specialty materials of the Abyss—certain unscrupulous mages were very fond of fishing enforcement, summoning lower demons and directly capturing them for research.

In Sargatanas's memories, he had never heard of a demon leaving the control of the Abyss alive, and even the most powerful Demon Lords could only submit to the Abyssal Will. Of course, perhaps he was simply too young and unclear about the history of the Abyss; perhaps there really had once been powerhouses who dared to set up shop independently.

If Sargatanas were a high-ranking entity in the Abyss, he probably wouldn't have entertained thoughts of leaving it. But unfortunately, he was merely a subordinate of a certain lord.

As cannon fodder, wanting to cast off the fate of being cannon fodder and trade for a stable growing environment was entirely reasonable. Yet this reason alone was not enough for a demon to betray the Abyss.

Closing his eyes, gray thick fog poured in from an unknown place, writhing like ancient marine creatures. Imperceptibly, it gradually surrounded Sargatanas. The center of the fog seemed detached from the material universe, with only an oil lamp floating there. Its whole body was brilliantly golden, carved with strange and twisted patterns, shaped somewhat like a kettle, with a section of unlit wick extending from the spout.

--The Wish-Granting Lamp, Sargatanas's golden finger, and also the culprit that caused him to break away from the Abyss.

As the dense fog dissipated, the magic lamp summoned from the different space to the real world immediately became active. A large hand suddenly reached out from the spout of the lamp, followed by a winding arm, and a smoke-like body spewed out immediately, circling for a moment before converging into a humanoid shape with only an upper body. Below the waist was a tuft of smoke like a small tail, still connected to the spout of the magic lamp.

He had no eyes; inside his eye sockets were two beating golden flames. With grayish-blue skin, a pair of bracelets on his wrists glowing brightly, and a radiant crown on his head.

"I am the lamp spirit ████, my dear contractor, I smell the scent of a sacrifice. Do you wish to make a wish to me again?"

Sargatanas shook his head and reached out to fish a test-tube-sized glass bottle out of the shadows beneath his feet. It was filled with a transparent liquid, with a pair of blood-red eyeballs floating inside, and a tiny "comma" quietly resting in the scarlet pupils.

"One-Tomoe Sharingan, Sasuke Uchiha's eyes." Sargatanas cast these eyes into the magic lamp, and the wick immediately ignited with a flame the size of a sesame seed.

"Just this? It seems I overestimated its value."

"Do you have any wishes?" the lamp spirit asked.

Sargatanas shook his head. "Consider it a sacrifice for the next wish."

Hearing this, the lamp spirit rolled his eyes very humanly, and then shrank back into the magic lamp.

The true origin of the magic lamp was unknown. Sargatanas obtained it from the hands of the elven queen when the Abyss invaded a high-level magical plane, and at the same time acquired the rules for using the magic lamp from the queen's diary—

[1. The magic lamp can grant all the contractor's wishes.]
[2. Please invest a "valuable" sacrifice before making a wish to the magic lamp.]
[3. Wishes can still be made without sacrifices.]
[4. Wishes granted by the magic lamp will inevitably descend in a distorted form accompanied by unpredictable risks.]
[5. Sufficient sacrifices can weaken the risks and degree of distortion when granting a wish.]

The magical plane's only Elven World Tree was about to wither, and the elven queen wished upon the magic lamp to restore the tree's vitality. This wish was granted—the magic lamp used unknown means to attract the gaze of the Abyss. Later, the Abyss invaded, the plane fell, and the Elven World Tree became a potted plant in the home of a certain Demon King, still lush and full of vitality to this day...

The magic lamp was not a product of the magical plane; it might have come from a more distant and mysterious place beyond the myriad worlds. Sargatanas kept this magical lamp hidden and once made a wish—he knew the eerie nature of the magic lamp, but at that time he was facing a life-and-death crisis and only had the magic lamp left as his last trump card.

At that time, he only asked to escape to a place where no one could find him to safely farm and develop. Without providing any sacrifice, the wish was granted.

The light ignited by the magic lamp attracted an unknown existence named Umul. His descent caused the underlying logic of the Abyss to collapse—the original Abyss was merely chaotic in order, but now it was chaotic in rules.

The Abyss was in turmoil, and the Abyssal Will expelled Umul. Sargatanas's body was destroyed in the chaos, his soul was on the verge of annihilation, and the magic lamp took advantage of the chaos to leave with his remnant soul, incidentally tearing an authority named [Concealment] from the Abyssal Will.

Authority referred to the ability to control a certain rule or concept. Common authorities in the Abyss were mostly of the likes of [Jealousy], [Greed], and [Fear]. Demons only had the right to use these authorities, while the ownership forever belonged to the Abyssal Will.

Sargatanas did not know whether he had profited or lost. His body was destroyed, his soul shattered, and he was constantly on the verge of collapse, which forced him to run around frantically. Meanwhile, possessing the complete [Concealment] authority meant that he possessed extremely high growth potential.

With a superficial application of [Concealment], he gained numerous abilities such as physical invisibility, elimination of presence check, counter-memetics, and anti-divination. The lamp spirit fulfilled his wish; as long as he was willing, no one could find him, and he could also avoid the pursuit of the Abyss. When he completely fused with this authority, he would become the newborn God of Concealment!

The magic lamp was his last trump card, except that this lamp was overly bizarre—in the beginning, the fellow who claimed to be the lamp spirit did not exist at all.