Kabuto Yakushi stopped struggling and let himself float on the sea like a buoy that had lost its mooring. The waves rocked him gently, and the sun warmed his face with a heat that felt almost unreal.
But...
His thoughts returned to the battle beneath the sea.
When Longqi died, that water-aligned demonic energy didn't seem to disappear completely!
As a scientist who had once combined multiple Kekkei Genkai and Forbidden Techniques and studied the nature of energy in depth, Kabuto caught a subtle anomaly.
I scattered most of the demonic energy, but the purest strand—about three percent of it—didn't dissipate into nature. It broke free of Longqi's control as if it had a mind of its own and fled deeper into the sea.
That strand of demonic energy was far purer than anything Longqi had displayed before.
If the energy inside Longqi had been watered-down liquor, the strand that escaped was straight from the still.
A theory gradually took shape in Kabuto's exhausted mind:
What if the power Longqi called a "gift from the Evil God" was actually something he'd "borrowed" through a ritual or medium from a being deep beneath the sea?
And what if the real Water Immortal has been sleeping somewhere in the Deep Sea all this time, its occasional leaks of power worshipped as miracles by the Jashinist Cult?
If that's true, the secret hidden in the depths of this ocean may be even more terrifying than I imagined!
Kabuto Yakushi closed his eyes and set the theory aside for now. He could barely stay conscious, much less explore the Deep Sea.
I need to get back to the ship. Anya's waiting for me.
He tried once more to draw on his Chakra, but his channels were empty. He could not extract even the smallest