Shinobi World No. 1.
Autumn, Year 51 of Konoha.
A secluded valley somewhere along the border of the Land of Rain.
This place had no name. It could not be found on any map, and ninja never came here. Thick fog shrouded the valley, carrying a faint, nauseating stench of decay. It was not the stench of corpses, but something far older, something that had seeped deep into the soil, as though the land itself had died.
Deep within the valley stood a city.
No, not a city. It was a monster pieced together from wood, stone, bones, and corpses. Its walls were woven from human leg and arm bones, the gaps packed with dirt and shredded flesh. Its gate had been hewn from a single massive boulder, and a distorted symbol was carved into the stone-not writing, but an image resembling a person's rotting face.
The Zombie Gate.
It was one of the organizations established in the north by the Evil God Inheritors. Its leader was called Corpse Demon, and no one knew his real name. Some said he was a refugee from the Land of Rain, others said he was a rogue ninja from Konoha, and still others said he was not human at all—a monster the Evil God had pieced together from corpses.
He certainly looked like a monster.
He never revealed his true face, always wearing a mask stitched from human skin. The mask had no features, only two pitch-black eyeholes and a perpetually open mouth exposing stark white teeth. His body was as thin as a bamboo pole, yet he possessed astonishing strength, enough to tear a cow apart with his bare hands.
He wore a black robe densely embroidered with runes-not Sealing Runes, but "Corpse Transformation Runes." Every rune was a corpse.
At that