"Y-you said what?!" Obito's voice broke completely with sheer horror. His body, ravaged by both gravity and the power of the earth, could not make even the slightest struggle. He could only watch as Shengu Xuan's demonically smiling face loomed ever larger before him.
"Didn't understand? Need me to say it again?" Shengu Xuan tilted his head, a faint, eerie light kindling at his fingertip. "Or did you think those toys didn't put on a good enough show, and you need me to spice things up?"
"No... don't!" Obito roared, his voice filled with the terror of a dying beast. "Kill me! Kill me now! Please!"
Death, at this moment, was instead the most merciful release he could hope for. He could not imagine what kind of hell awaited him if he fell into this man's hands and was slowly tortured with that bizarre, unfathomable power.
"Kill you? That would be letting you off too easily." Shengu Xuan extinguished the light at his fingertip, stood up, and brushed nonexistent dust from his hands. "Besides, you're still of some use to me."
He paid no further attention to Obito, who had plunged completely into an abyss of despair and terror, and instead turned his gaze toward the distant battlefield, already thrown into utter chaos by the Shadowkhan, White Zetsu, and the reincarnated shinobi.
"Hmm... looks pretty lively."
He could clearly "see" those powerful figures of past generations who had crawled out of their coffins: the former Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist wielding enormous Chakra Blades, for instance; the copy of Ōnoki using Dust Release-the original was still buried beneath Mifune Castle-and the ancient Kage unleashing all manner of kekkei genkai... Though undying and indestructible, they too were locked in a bitter struggle against the Shadowkhan, whose numbers were even stranger