The Mastermind Behind It All: Beelzemon

Indra thought that by ending the war in one swift, overwhelming strike and sparing countless people its suffering, he would surely win his father's approval.

But in Hagoromo's eyes, Indra's actions only made him more disappointed.

Indra's methods were no different from Kaguya's: might made right, and violence was answered with violence.

Hagoromo had founded the Ninja Sect to connect people's hearts and put an end to conflict, suspicion, and war.

He had not meant for peace to be forced on others through sheer strength. Kaguya's and Indra's methods would only breed more hatred.

Asura believed the opposite of Indra. To him, lasting peace could never come from oppression by the strong. It could only come when people understood and accepted one another, bound together by their ties.

That was precisely Hagoromo's belief. So when the time came to choose a successor, Hagoromo chose Asura to inherit the Ninja Sect.

The decision shattered Indra's pride. He became convinced that his father favored Asura.

Indra could not accept it. Resentment, fury, and hatred swallowed every last shred of his reason.

Two followers who had also been his friends for years tried to comfort him, but in his rage, Indra attacked them.

Neither tried to defend himself. Both died at Indra's hands.

Even in their final moments, they were still trying to comfort him.

Rejected by his father, his closest friends dead, his convictions in ruins—Indra was consumed by grief and hatred.

Bzzzt!

Indra's pupils changed violently. The three tomoe spun, merged, and transformed as a pair of dark, unfathomable Mangekyō Sharingan awakened in his eyes.

Indra immediately took his followers to confront Asura. He demanded that Asura surrender the right of succession or die by his hand.

A battle between the brothers was about to erupt.

Indra struck first. A torrent of Lightning Release Chakra raged outward, unleashing a vast storm of lightning that crashed down from every direction.

Asura channeled his Chakra, raising layer upon layer of wind barriers to block the lightning while forming a barrage of Wind Release Chakra spheres to attack Indra.

Indra activated his Susanoo Skeleton. The purple skeletal frame easily blocked every attack.

Then he poured in more Chakra and unleashed his Complete Susanoo.

It was smaller than Hagoromo's Complete Susanoo, but still stood three hundred meters tall.

The purple giant raised its long blade and swung. A razor-sharp slash tore through the sky, carving a deep gorge across more than a hundred kilometers of land.

Hagoromo chose not to intervene. Instead, he reached out to every follower of the Ninja Sect with his mind, asking them to join hands and pour all their Chakra into Asura.

Empowered by everyone's strength, Asura fully awakened his Sage Body and gained Wood Release.

Asura pressed his palms together.

"Six Paths: Thousand-Armed Kan'on!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The earth thundered as a giant Thousand-Armed Kan'on, over a thousand meters tall, burst from the ground.

Asura's Thousand-Armed Kan'on then crushed Indra's Susanoo.

Defeat brought Indra no remorse. He swore a blood oath that his soul would reincarnate forever until he proved that "power was the only truth."

Asura made a vow of his own: however many times his elder brother reincarnated, he would be reborn alongside him to stop Indra from bringing about war.

Years passed.

In his final years, Hagoromo knew he had little time left.

He knew that once he died, the Ten-Tails' complete Chakra within him would break free and reunite with the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path inside the moon. His mother and the Ten-Tails might then return to the world sooner.

To prevent that, Hagoromo divided the Ten-Tails' Chakra at its source into nine Tailed Beasts before his death and sent them to different parts of the planet. He released the Ten-Tails' remaining Chakra into the air.

After Hagoromo died, wars broke out more often than ever.

Asura spent the rest of his life traveling from place to place, settling disputes and comforting the people. Yet he could not curb humanity's greed or bloodshed. The wars never abated.

After Asura died, the fighting escalated again. Even children as young as six or seven were sent to the battlefield.

The Titled Douluo across Douluo Star actually breathed sighs of relief as they watched the Ninja World's wars from this era.

The Kage Level fighters among these Ninja were only about as strong as they were.

Kaguya, Isshiki, Hamura, and Hagoromo had simply been far beyond the rest.

It was no exaggeration to say that Six Paths-level beings and ordinary Ninja existed on entirely different planes.

A Six Paths-level being could kill Asura or Indra in an instant. Indra and Asura could easily defeat their own Chakra reincarnations, who in turn could overwhelm everyone else.

What was more, anyone below the Six Paths level seemed to have weak defenses. Even Indra and Asura might have killed each other if their attacks had landed cleanly.

The wars on the Sky Curtain grew fiercer. All kinds of ninjutsu, secret arts, Kekkei Genkai, and cooperative techniques were developed.

Later, the people of the Ninja World discovered the Tailed Beasts' terrifying power. They began hunting them down and sealing them inside humans, creating Jinchūriki to strengthen their forces and fight for supremacy.

A Tailed Beast was not particularly formidable on its own. But once sealed inside a human as a Jinchūriki, its combat power increased severalfold and its destructive power by dozens of times. A single Tailed Beast Ball was equivalent to a high-yield nuclear bomb.

With the Tailed Beasts in battle, the devastation soared. Cities were wiped out under barrages of Tailed Beast Balls, countless lives vanished in an instant, and the world became a living hell.

Indra's and Asura's Chakra reincarnations also clashed again and again.

Across Douluo Star, all who watched this thousand-year age of carnage unfold beneath the Sky Curtain felt fortunate to have escaped it.

Even in today's world of Soul Masters, the strong still preyed on the weak, sects fought, and factions struggled for power.

But compared with the terrifying chaos of the Chakra era—when cities and their people were destroyed without warning, Tailed Beast Balls rained down, the earth was shattered, and even six-year-olds went to war—

Ordinary people in the age of Soul Masters were at least a hundred times safer than ordinary people in the Chakra era.

Yes, thank goodness I live in an age of Martial Souls where I have no Innate Soul Power! Praise this age of Martial Souls where I can't cultivate!

Just as everyone was reflecting on their good fortune, Gamamaru appeared on the Sky Curtain. His body suddenly swelled and twisted, his form changing at a startling speed.

In the blink of an eye, he had become a warrior wearing a dark purple demon mask and black biker leathers and armor, with a shotgun in each hand.

An introduction appeared on the Sky Curtain:

Beelzemon: One of the Seven Great Demon Lords of the Digital World. A Digimon born from the fall of Ophanimon, one of the Three Great Angels. His original sin is gluttony.

Beelzemon's crimson eyes swept over the ravaged land. His low, wicked laughter rang through heaven and earth. "Kill! Slaughter to your hearts' content! Give me more life force and souls to satisfy my gluttony!"