Early autumn, Year 62 of Konoha.
The Ark did not land within sight of any shinobi village. It stopped beneath an abandoned World War II-era offshore drilling platform in the central Pacific Ocean, its cloaking field synchronized with the tides, like an ancient leviathan slipping into the shallows.
Lin Ye changed back into his faded dark-blue casual shinobi clothes and sealed the Purification Prism inside an ordinary Uchiha Clan Crest pendant. He notified no one-not even the Fifth Hokage's office. After experiencing the deathly silence of the Silent Corridor, he understood better than anyone why Soval kept succeeding: the Void Devourer excelled at infiltrating through "official communications" and "collective will." The Five Kage system itself was a web all too easily infested by roots.
As he waded ashore onto a rocky beach along the Land of Waves' coast, he snapped a dead branch beneath his foot.
The sea breeze carried salt, smoke from fishing boats' lights, and... a faint trace of chakra interference that tasted like rust.
Something was wrong.
Since when had the Shinobi World's chakra become so "dull"?
A Grass Ninja merchant caravan had made camp beside the road. Lin Ye glanced over without drawing attention as he passed-several young genin were building a fire. Their hand seals flowed smoothly enough, but the chakra they released had a distinctly gray tint, as though coated in grease that would never wash off. The oldest jonin sat cross-legged, feigning sleep, dark-purple veins faintly pulsing between his brows.
The roots had already begun to branch out. And they were doing it silently, by slowly corroding every shinobi's chakra pathways.
Lin Ye lowered his hood and offered no warning. Speaking out now would only spark widespread panic, giving the Void a chance to swallow that panic too and brew an even greater