██ - Red Ice

When Sasuke saw Neji frown, he could not help but advise him, "Don't worry, Neji. If there's really no other way, then all we can do is 'cherish life and stay away from the Hokage.'"

Neji shook his head helplessly. "Promise me this: if one day the Hokage 'reforms' me and I forget the grudge of my father's death, you must not hold back. That version of Neji Hyuga would only be a brainwashed walking corpse, unworthy of living in this world!"

Sasuke said the same thing. "If I ever forget the hatred of my clan's extermination, then please show me no mercy either!"

Whether it was Kotoamatsukami or Kotoamouth, both were things Sasuke despised beyond measure. His entire clan had been exterminated, yet in the end, he had willingly chosen to "atone" to Konoha. Rather than accept such a humiliating ending, he would rather die!

Before leaving, Neji deliberately asked, "Do you need me to take care of this experimental trash while I'm at it?"

"No. I still need to carry out follow-up experiments."

"Follow-up experiments? Don't you need new specimens?"

"No, these two colonies of ants are just right. Starting today, I won't inject them with any more foreign chakra. I'll let them reproduce on their own."

"What are you trying to do now?"

"I want to see whether the descendants of these ants, after reproducing naturally, can retain the mutated traits artificially induced by chakra.

If they can, then that would mean the personal will contained within chakra can be inherited without continued support, perhaps even remaining permanently active in the genetic blueprint.

If that hypothesis is correct, then the waters of the Shinobi World run very deep."

Many of the ninja world's strange, unwritten "rules" were likely the work of ancient powerhouses' lingering wills!

For instance, people who were clearly powerful yet firmly believed themselves to be tools, submitting to the rule of ordinary people.

Once someone was "contaminated" by a powerful will, it was as though an ideological brand had been stamped into their bloodline. Perhaps that could also explain why so many shinobi in the Shinobi World frantically pursued peace, even a twisted kind of peace.

Because chakra had been distributed by the Sage of Six Paths, all chakra contained his yearning for peace. Only those with firm wills could break free from that fixed way of thinking.

Those were all merely speculations, but Sasuke was in no hurry. He still had plenty of time.

Several years ago, in order to obtain the power of the Mangekyō, Sasuke entered the Black Lake of his spiritual world. After enduring tremendous pain, he finally awakened the Three-Tomoe.

Yet the Three-Tomoe still disappointed him greatly. So he repeatedly entered the Black Lake and soaked within it, until he finally awakened the long-awaited Mangekyō. But problems came with it.

His sanity remained unaffected, but most of his humanity had vanished, replaced by something akin to demonic or divine nature. He began to see all living things as ants, more like a monster wearing human skin and imitating humanity. Only when hatred was mentioned did he reveal the slightest trace of normal human emotion.

The longer time passed, the farther Sasuke traveled down this path. Perhaps it was related to the ocular techniques in his eyes. Although the Mangekyō was fake, and the painful torment within the Black Lake existed only to further twist his soul, the Demon had truly given him two rather useful abilities.

Left eye: [Grievance Bind]. Right eye: [Earth Bind].

[Grievance Bind: Causes the target to randomly acquire a permanent negative status.]

[Earth Bind: Turns the dead into earthbound spirits, forcing them to repeat the process of their death day after day, without end.]

Clearly, these two ocular techniques were exceptionally suited for torture and venting resentment. While making others experience pain, they also slowly twisted his own mind.

The negative statuses brought by [Grievance Bind] were far too random. There were powerful curses such as "plagued by misfortune," "reduced intelligence," and "short-lived," but also harmless curses like "hair loss," "nearsightedness," and "size reduction."

It was like opening a blind box, full of unknown surprises. Sasuke had yet to discover the limits of [Grievance Bind], and the Demon had not told him what level of powerhouse could resist, dispel, or even reflect its curses.

As Neji walked through Konoha's streets, the pervasive sense of decline could not help but please him. The buildings along the commercial district had not changed in years, nor had they even been renovated. Their dilapidated appearance was enough to reveal many things.

Over the past few years, both the soft and hard power of the Land of Fire had steadily declined. On the surface, everything appeared normal, but in truth, the battlefield had merely shifted to unseen places: information warfare, cultural warfare, economic warfare, and more. Beneath the facade of relative peace, war had never ceased.

In fact, the Land of Fire was still relatively stable. Those truly suffering were the Lands of Wind, Lightning, and Water.

Several years ago, a strange red ice suddenly appeared along the coast of the Land of Water. Its chemical composition was identical to ordinary water, but its physical properties were completely opposite: it solidified at high temperatures and evaporated at low temperatures.

Most terrifying of all, Red Ice could erode and assimilate normal water by some unknown means, including the water within living organisms.

As the saying went, when you spotted one cockroach, it meant the darkness was already too crowded to contain them all.

The ocean had always been unfamiliar territory to the Shinobi World. After Kirigakure noticed the anomalies caused by Red Ice, it spent enormous effort investigating and eventually discovered that the Red Ice might have come from the deep sea. What had surfaced was only the tip of the iceberg. More than a quarter of the ocean had already turned red, and its invasion of the continent was only a matter of time.

The good news was that the sea regions where the Red Ice disaster had erupted most intensely were still far from the Land of Water, and the Red Ice along the coast had been brought there by fish. The bad news was that shinobi were helpless against it. Red Ice had spread too widely and mixed with normal water on a molecular level, making separation impossible. Even the all-purpose sealing arts were useless!

—Sealing arts could only deal with small amounts of Red Ice, but missing even a single drop would make the effort no different from wasting one's time.

Because the physical properties of Red Ice were completely opposite to those of normal water, widespread ocean contamination disrupted energy exchange and the water cycle. Ocean currents became chaotic, rainfall decreased, and inland arid regions grew even drier than before, accompanied by abnormally high temperatures. The Lands of Wind and Lightning suffered greatly.

The Land of Fire possessed fertile land and abundant resources, allowing it to survive the first wave of drastic climate change. Only the Land of Earth's ecological environment remained completely unaffected; it was even improving by the day.

"When granaries are full, people learn propriety; when food and clothing are sufficient, they learn honor and shame." With material needs left unmet, the bottom line of Konoha's shinobi was visibly falling. With only the slightest bit of guidance, righteous heroes could quietly don masks and become villainous bandits.

Neji was more than willing to serve as that guide. Konoha had always held itself high, acting as though it alone loved peace most and everyone else were lowly fools deliberately undermining stability. Yet when Konoha faced the same resource shortages and financial hardship as Sunagakure, it had not displayed any particularly noble character.