A deathly silence!
The silence was more chilling than any deafening explosion. The surviving Shinobi World warriors visibly lost their color from their faces, their pupils dilating in extreme fear. The tiny hope that had just been ignited by Lady Tian Yu's self-sacrificing, supernova-like explosion was instantly frozen, shattered, and reduced to dust, as if thrown into an absolute zero ice cave.
Lady Tian Yu... that strongest Immortal King in the Shinobi World, and the embodiment of the Shinobi World's will, unleashed an attack that exhausted all their strength, even burning their very existence... yet, they couldn't even make that being named Ōtsutsuki Sōichi move an inch? Furthermore, that power capable of annihilating Xingchen was simply wiped away by the opponent with a mere flick of their wrist, as if brushing away dust?
"A decent tonic." Ōtsutsuki Sōichi's indifferent voice, devoid of any emotional fluctuation, was like an ice pick, piercing deep into everyone's soul. The pale flame at his fingertips, which easily neutralized the Tian Yu's strongest attack, ultimately vanished in his palm.
Hope was utterly shattered; all that remained was a bottomless abyss and utter despair.
"It seems there will be no more surprises. Then, let's eliminate them completely." Ōtsutsuki Sōichi raised his hand again, the movement as casual as swatting away mosquitoes. But everyone knew that this time, death was inevitable, engulfing all survivors—the sages on the command ship where Shikamaru Nara was, still desperately analyzing and trying to find the last weakness; Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha, their bodies half-kneeling from exhaustion; and every ninja on every planet still panting, still fighting for their homeland...
A despairing darkness engulfed everything.
However, just as Ōtsutsuki Sōichi's hand was about to grasp Setsuna—
The anomaly did not originate from the outside world, but from the dying will of the Shinobi World itself! A vast yet extremely sorrowful consciousness, like a final burst of light before annihilation, sensed the irresistible, world-destroying blow from Saint Level powerhouse before the impending catastrophe. The Will of the Shinobi World, the very source of the ninja sphere that nurtured countless lives, made its final choice at the last moment!
It did not choose to resist, for it was pointless. It transformed the last remaining, most primal vestige of life force—the life force of the oldest planet since the beginning of the world—no longer in the form of Chakra, but something more essential, into a faint, almost imperceptible stream of light. This light traversed space and precisely poured into the forbidden area of Shikkotsu Forest, into the body of the golden lotus that was the visitor from another world with whom it had the closest connection and which carried its greatest hopes—the one transformed from the Immortal King Tsubasa!
Almost simultaneously, Tsubasa's newly born and awakened soul trembled, and an unprecedented sense of deadly crisis exploded like thunder! It wasn't aimed at him personally, but at the ultimate destruction of all living beings in the Shinobi World!
"No--!" His soul cried out. Tsubasa instinctively made the wisest decision. Using the trace of primordial life force infused by the Will of the Shinobi World as a catalyst, the primordial Golden Lotus Dao Soul at the core of Tsubasa's soul, which was intertwined with his life, suddenly bloomed with a faint light!
It wasn't an attack, it wasn't a defense, it was... an escape!
The Golden Lotus Dao Soul enveloped his slumbering soul, forcibly tearing open a tiny spatial rift. It wasn't a conventional Space-Time Ninjutsu like the Flying Thunder God Technique, but a deeper level, involving the essence of existence—"escaping into the void"! Like a drop of water merging into the ocean, it instantly vanished without a trace from the material world.
Ōtsutsuki Sōichi's hand paused for half a second. For the first time, a very subtle hint of surprise appeared on his eternally calm and expressionless face. His gaze pierced through layers of warship wreckage, the dissipating life force, and even spacetime, landing on the Shikkotsu Forest, but he found nothing. Then he looked towards the vicinity of the absolute energy void formed after the area was annihilated by the Tian Yu's attack.
There, on an inconspicuous fragment of Shinobi World warship, no bigger than a house, a faint green light, like a candle flickering in the wind, was beating tenaciously, like a heart.
"This is..." he murmured, a hint of inquiry in his voice. The green light emanating from it wasn't Chakra, nor was it the energy of the God Tree; rather, it was a more ancient, purer, and even slightly unfamiliar "life" aura. "I didn't expect that after an attack of that level, a ' Insect Race Life Seed ' could still remain? It was left behind by that Katsuyu..."
With a slight thought, the green light uncontrollably detached from the wreckage and slowly flew to his front. The green light was only the size of a fingernail, and inside it was vaguely wrapped the tiny, lush green shadow of a tender leaf. Although its vitality was weak, it was incredibly tenacious.
As for this star system... Ōtsutsuki Sōichi had already lost interest. He waved his hand casually.
An invisible force, representing the " Annihilation of Fire," spread out like calm ripples. There was no earth-shattering explosion, no dazzling light effects, but wherever the force passed, all traces of life vanished silently. Shikamaru Nara had just opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to give a final command, but his body, along with the entire command ship and all the remaining life forms on Jupiter, Mars, and Shinobi Planet further behind, instantly turned into the most basic particles and dissipated into nothingness.
In a short while, the once bustling, tragic, and crowded battlefield of Neptune Star Domain became deathly silent. Only countless cold warship wrecks, broken asteroids, and architectural ruins floated like tombstones in the deep darkness, telling the story of a once glorious civilization that had fought a decisive interstellar war.
A deathly silence, this time, truly enveloped the entire Shinobi World Star Domain.
There was no aftershock of the explosion, no hiss of energy, not even the echo of agonizing cries of life. With Ōtsutsuki Sōichi erased the remaining Allied Shinobi Forces, along with the planet they had pinned their hopes on, completely "wiping" them away from the material world, like an eraser wiping away pencil marks.
Shikamaru Nara's final tactical deduction, Naruto Uzumaki's final attempt at self-ignition, the final scene reflected Rinnegan Sasuke Uchiha... all of it, in that silent ripple of the " Annihilation of Fire " law, turned into the most basic particles and dissipated into the cold cosmic dust.
The once-shining Shinobi World civilization, like a shooting star briefly streaking across the night sky, ultimately left behind only this enormous cosmic tomb filled with countless floating debris, proving that it once existed.
Ōtsutsuki Sōichi hovered silently in the void, his eyes, which seemed to hold the birth and death of stars, sweeping over the desolate battlefield without the slightest ripple. To him, this did not seem to be a war that destroyed civilization, but merely... a cleanup operation.
With a slight twitch of his fingertips, the Insect Race Life Seed, wrapped in the phantom of emerald green leaves, found near the annihilation zone of the Katsuyu's final attack, transformed into a glimmer of light and fell into his wide sleeve.
"Fall back."
A detached voice, transmitted through some unknown means, reached every sacred wood spaceship of the Ōtsutsuki Clan's army. There were no cheers of victory, no relief at surviving a catastrophe, not even any emotional response. All the sacred wood spaceships, like precise machines receiving commands, silently and orderly changed direction, the mysterious patterns on their hulls glowing faintly, beginning to Sky Splitter and construct a passage for their return journey.
The massive legion, along with its unfathomable commander, vanished silently into the ripples of the void, disappearing without a trace. It was as if they had never arrived, nor brought about utter destruction.