After Yuya left

A soft sigh echoed throughout the heavens.

The world trembled.

Every beast fell prostrate at that moment, trembling in fear.

But they would forever remember that supreme, majestic figure.

And they took his words as a sacred decree.

Yuya said nothing more.

The seed had been planted. All things followed their own laws of development.

He left.

Space rippled, and he appeared beside Abe Kiyuki.

"It's been almost three months. You finally came out."

Abe Kiyuki pouted, but worry lingered in her voice.

"Three months?"

Yuya furrowed his brow.

Though he wasn't certain how long he had spent in the third trial,

it definitely hadn't been more than a month.

It was very likely that the Yin-Yang Tomb not only isolated space,

but also had a different flow of time from the outside world.

If three months really had passed,

then the dōjutsu he had cast on Princess Kaguya would have long since worn off.

She would be facing the God Tree's encroachment again.

But now,

the exit from the Wind-Snow Realm had closed.

Although the realm was dying,

waiting for it to slowly collapse and reopen the exit would take at least another six months.

How could Yuya afford to keep waiting?

[Warning: Your bond, Kaguya Otsutsuki, is being consumed by an unknown energy.]

[Time remaining: 09 days 9 hours 37 minutes 43 seconds]

[Time remaining: 09 days 9 hours 37 minutes 42 seconds]

Fewer than ten days remained.

Yuya's expression shifted uneasily.

The next moment, space rippled.

A suit of golden Susanoo armor towered between heaven and earth.

He arrived at the weakest point in the entire space, ready to force his way out of the Wind-Snow Realm.

[One month after Yuya left]

In the vast, deserted hall, Princess Kaguya sat in her chair as usual,

humming a little tune.

She held a doll in her arms.

After Yuya's clone dissipated,

she began spending every day like this.

It was like all those countless times she had waited for Yuya before.

But this time,

Yuya had left... truly left... he wouldn't even return at night anymore...

One day, two days, a week, half a month.

When tree-like markings began creeping over her body again,

she felt lost.

"Just hold on a little longer. Ye'er will be back soon..."

She said it to herself.

Yuya hovered high in the sky, his senses sweeping above and below.

The next moment, an immensely concentrated surge of chakra erupted from his body.

His golden Susanoo blotted out the sky and moon, towering between heaven and earth in the Wind-Snow Realm.

It seemed ready to burst the entire space apart.

Sage Mode chakra coated its golden armor.

The Amaterasu flames that burned everything also blazed and roared to life.

He swung the Susanoo Sword toward the center of the Wind-Snow Realm.

Vast energy spilled outward at that moment.

In an instant, it was as though the end of the world had come.

Space shook, endless ripples spreading through it.

Yet it returned to stillness just as quickly.

Yuya's eyes were bloodshot.

He hammered the space with one sword strike after another.

[Two months after Yuya left]

Princess Kaguya's health grew steadily worse.

With it came an ever stronger longing for Yuya.

She missed Yuya now, missed him terribly.

She no longer simply sat in her chair.

Instead, she began wandering around.

Before, she had stayed in her chair because she feared Yuya wouldn't be able to find her when he returned.

So she always sat in the most conspicuous spot.

But now, whenever she sat down, chaotic images would surface in her mind.

She no longer dared to remain seated.

She began leaving the Royal Palace and walking through the streets and alleys.

She visited every place she had once explored with Yuya.

But she could no longer find the haunted house.

The claw machine arcade had closed.

The bar had shut down too.

At last, she came to the lake where the boats were moored.

Looking at the calm water, which once again reflected her wrinkle-covered face,

she fell into a daze.

She felt lost, too.

Before... it wasn't like this...

Pitch-black energy gathered in Yuya's palm.

Almost instantly, it covered the entire sky of the Wind-Snow Realm.

All the beasts were terrified, their vision swallowed by darkness.

The energy spilling from it alone pressed down on them until they could barely breathe.

The Silver Dragon also poked its head out of the Great Marsh,

letting out a puzzled roar.

This was the Expansive Truth-Seeking Orb!

If he unleashed it in a single strike, the entire Wind-Snow Realm would be destroyed.

Although that would forcibly break the Wind-Snow Realm apart,

the lingering souls of those Onmyōji would surely resent him.

Whether they would still save Princess Kaguya would become uncertain. Naturally, Yuya would not do that.

Instead, the next moment,

the Expansive Truth-Seeking Orb began compressing, growing long and thin.

Before long, it became an incredibly slender black sword stretching for an unknown number of miles.

Yuya gripped the long sword formed from the Expansive Truth-Seeking Orb.

With a single strike, he slashed at the entire Wind-Snow Realm.

An overwhelming force swept through heaven and earth.

It manifested life and annihilation, like the destruction and creation of a world.

In an instant, a scene like the Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion slicing through the moon unfolded.

That strike cleaved the entire Wind-Snow Realm in two.

[Two and a half months after Yuya left]

Rumors began spreading throughout the Land of Ancestors.

Even though the Tianyu Xingye Second Pavilion had been continually maintaining order and controlling the flow of people,

rumors that the heavenly queen of the Land of Ancestors was a demoness still spread like wildfire.

Cries demanding her destruction rang out across the Land of Ancestors.

Fortunately, the Second Pavilion and Yuya's guards suppressed them.

But Princess Kaguya knew nothing of any of it.

Her memory grew worse and worse, her consciousness hazy.

She began forgetting things frequently.

She stopped going outside. She feared that if she went out again, she would get lost,

unable to find her way home.

Then Yuya wouldn't be able to find her...

She locked herself in her room again.

She often wrote things in a notebook.

But midway through writing, she would suddenly freeze,

confusion in her eyes.

Only after a long pause would she bite the end of her pen and continue writing...

Yuya wielded the sword formed from the Expansive Truth-Seeking Orb,

slashing at several regions of the Wind-Snow Realm in succession.

Now, he would divide the entire Wind-Snow Realm ahead of time, making its fragments scatter early.

The little toad closest to Yuya

watched in terror as a streak of black light slashed down from the sky.

In an instant, it was as though an enormous black curtain had fallen from above,

dividing the entire firmament.

The little toad discovered that its mountain had been separated from the rest,

drifting farther and farther from the other regions.

Endless, pitch-black nothingness divided them.

Perhaps through sheer luck, it discovered

that it alone had claimed one of the largest mountains.

And the natural energy there was the richest.

Scenes like this unfolded throughout the Wind-Snow Realm.

All the beasts lay prostrate, trembling.

They worshipped the figure in the sky.

This scene was etched into their very bones. In the years to come, they would call this day the Day of Creation.

The Silver Dragon also rose into the air,

circling and wheeling around Yuya.

Black curtains kept falling from the sky, reshaping this world.

Once Yuya had hacked the entire Wind-Snow Realm into scattered fragments,

he finally sensed... the presence of the main world...

"If I leave, Ye'er will be so lonely, won't he..."

Princess Kaguya murmured to herself.

She sensed that she had little time left.

She wanted to do one last thing for Yuya.

That day, her mind grew clear for the first time in ages, as though in a final rally before death.

She floated high into the sky,

and kept rising until she reached the God Tree.

Her powerful aura blanketed heaven and earth, ancient and decaying.

No one knew exactly what had happened,

but everyone who witnessed the scene became even more convinced that a witch lived in the Land of Ancestors.

Before long, the other nations joined forces to besiege the Land of Ancestors.

Their armies stood at the city gates.

The Tianyu Xingye Second Pavilion's influence across the nations kept them from storming the city,

but they maintained the siege, demanding that the witch be handed over.

Princess Kaguya lay on the bed with her eyes closed, holding a baby in her arms, already unconscious.

Trees had slowly crept through her entire room.