With both members of the Immortal Duo having "perished" one after the other, the crisis at Hozuki Castle was completely resolved.
Still, there was a whole mess that urgently needed dealing with.
Although this battle had yielded impressive results, the casualties had been considerable.
The players of Hidden Jun Village naturally would not truly die.
Those who had died in Hozuki Prison earlier, or exceeded their allotted revivals in the preceding battle, were no exception.
Although they could not revive directly in Hidden Jun Village, there was nothing wrong with their accounts.
Their game interfaces were simply stuck on the final image from the moment of their deaths, without any prompts from the revival system. All other game functions remained normal.
One expert on the forums had dubbed this special "frozen-screen" state "soul" mode.
Their game characters were stuck at the moment of death, unable to revive, just like "souls."
This state existed because of Hozuki Castle's unique nature.
Both its building materials and the materials used for its prison cages incorporated some special substance with "sealing" properties.
Exactly what that substance was would have to be left to knowledgeable crafting players to investigate.
Hozuki Castle was now leaderless.
Given its unique geographical setting and practical value, everyone needed to discuss the matter of the castle's ownership further.
Taking the lead, Master of Open Stratagems gathered the "leader"-level figures from the various ninja villages to discuss ownership of Hozuki Castle.
More than half of those "leader"-level figures were watching Sunagakure's representative: Granny Chiyo.
Seeing everyone turn toward her, Granny Chiyo waved impatiently and said:
"This island, isolated out at sea, has no value to Sunagakure. Discuss it among yourselves."
As she spoke, Granny Chiyo fixed her gaze on Master of Open Stratagems.
"Young man, you promised me that as long