Aaaaah...
Moryo's shrieks of pain echoed from the black mist, sending chills down the spine and stirring unease in the heart.
"Damned, despicable, shameless, lowlife..."
Moryo cursed Satori Hyūga with the vilest words it knew.
But to Satori, who had experienced the high-purity internet flame wars of his previous life, this level of cursing was almost laughable.
Unfazed by the insults, Satori replied in a mocking tone. "Did you skip breakfast? Your voice is so weak."
"What about your brain? Is that really all the vocabulary you've got?"
"You're seriously low-tier, dude. Are you really the source of all evil?"
Satori's triple-barrelled insult completely broke Moryo's composure.
After living for so long, this was the first time Moryo had ever encountered someone so shamelessly audacious. It seethed with rage, its black mist swirling violently.
In the moment of its fury, Satori had already seized the opportunity to dive into the memories of yet another inheritor.
As expected, it was another shrine maiden's memory.
Beyond that, Satori noticed a pattern.
Since the shrine maidens' memories were linked with Moryo's, deducing the death date of each maiden would allow him direct access to their memories.
Without hesitation, he acted on the idea.
By calculating backward in time to determine the exact death dates of past shrine maidens, Satori's memory retrieval speed skyrocketed.
One after another—again and again—former shrine maidens' memories poured into Satori, expanding his understanding further and further.
And all the while, Moryo could only stand there, stunned.
It couldn't comprehend how Satori could pinpoint his memory nodes with such accuracy.
"This is impossible! How can you detect my memory nodes so quickly?"
After much thought, Moryo focused on Satori's ink-black eyes.
"It's those eyes—there's something wrong with them. I must obtain them. Possess them!"
Enraged, the monstrous spirit writhed furiously against its bindings, desperate to seize Satori's body and claim the Tenseigan for itself.
But Satori wasn't about to give it a chance. The Dark Chakra chains lashed out once again, piercing into the ground around Moryo.
Wave after wave of dark energy was devoured. Satori's depleted chakra gradually replenished, and his dōjutsu also regained strength.
Meanwhile, deprived of its own dark essence, Moryo's attempt to unleash a surge of power failed, leaving him weakened and powerless once again.
Stripped of his physical form, Moryo was entirely subdued under Satori's gaze.
With the balance shifting in his favor, Satori stabilized the connection channel and continued exploring the shrine maidens' memories.
He believed that if he traced these memories back to their source, he would finally reach the depths of Moryo's soul—gaining full control and uncovering all of its secrets.
Thousands of years of inheritance. Generation after generation of shrine maidens. The accumulated weight of centuries of memories was immense.
Just as Satori started feeling overwhelmed, his mind ablaze and vision blurring under the sheer volume of knowledge, he finally accessed the memory of the very first shrine maiden.
Within her recollections, Satori experienced Moryo's birth firsthand.
It turned out Moryo was an artificial monster—an ambitious schemer had used fragments of an unknown foreign demon to create it.
The reason for creating Moryo had always been the same: to attain overwhelming power, dominate, and control the entire world.
It's a pity how predictably tragic the tales of villains tend to be. The ambitious one was ultimately defeated, and Moryo was sealed by the treacherous shrine maiden.
Given that Moryo's rebirth is intricately linked to every generation of shrine maidens, sealing Moryo has become the sacred duty of each successive shrine maiden.
After a lifetime of connection, they ultimately fuse with Moryo—becoming one with it.
"This is how you came to be, Moryo."
No wonder such a being neither ages nor dies.
Satori Hyūga now saw the truth, having reached the very core of Moryo's soul.
With a mere flick of his hand, he erased Moryo's consciousness and memories in an instant.
The once-frantic Moryo, ready for a final battle, suddenly lost all ability to resist, standing motionless in shock.
Impressive. A soul this strong could nourish me—or even become a Puppet.
Satori raised a single finger, which transformed into a tiny black hole, instantly drawing in Moryo's soul.
After finishing off Moryo, Satori sat inside the temple to rest and drank several Chakra Supplements.
Though it looked effortless, the drawn-out struggle had taken a heavy toll on him.
Fortunately, the results were satisfying—he got exactly what he wanted—and gained much more besides.
Just then, heavy footsteps echoed from outside the temple, followed by the clang of steel.
Frowning slightly, Satori glanced toward the entrance.
Shrine Maiden Miroku, who had been held back by the stone golems earlier, was now approaching, flanked by a large group of companions.
Alongside her original guards, a fresh squad of ninja now surrounded Miroku.
Using his long-range observational advantage, Satori quickly identified them as Iwagakure ninja—and extremely skilled ones at that.
No wonder they couldn't be stopped. Reinforcements have arrived.
Under normal circumstances, Gongcheng and the creatures should have prevented Miroku from breaking through. But with Iwagakure involved, things made sense.
Iwagakure is one of the Five Great Ninja Villages, known for its immense and enigmatic power.
The Land of Demons lies nearby, so any unusual activity would immediately draw their attention.
Activating his Tenseigan, Satori's enhanced vision revealed that on the hill outside the temple, Bei Gongcheng was trapped within a sealing formation by over a dozen ninja.
Internally shaking his head, he murmured, "Not everyone is like Guy. Ultimately, Gongcheng's mastery of the Eight Gates came up short."
Of course, this was also his own weakness.
He lacked both rigorous training and real battlefield experience.
Fortunately, all of that changed now—his Tenseigan eliminated the problem of limited techniques.
"Where's Moryo? What did you do with Moryo?" The moment she stepped inside, Miroku sensed that something was off.
The evil aura within the temple felt too weak—as if Moryo had vanished entirely. Her face turned pale with alarm.
Satori looked at this generation's shrine maiden and said calmly, "Eliminated, of course. No need to thank me."
"The thousand-year-old feud between shrine maidens and Moryo ends with this life."
His words hit like thunderclaps, leaving the assembly speechless.
That was supposed to be the legendary source of calamity—the terrifying monster known as Moryo.
At that moment, a ninja bearing Iwagakure's forehead protector stepped forward, eyes narrowing as he scrutinized Satori and asked, "Who are you, sir? Why have you intruded upon the temple of the Land of Demons?"
"Didn't you know that the Moryo has always been guarded and sealed by a shrine maiden?"
Kitsuchi didn't buy a single word the Mysterious Stranger said.
After all, they were talking about the Moryo—the very one the former Tsuchikage had encountered and still failed to defeat.
In his eyes, Satori Hyūga, whose entire body radiated a dark aura and whose eyes were like icy black holes, certainly wasn't a good person.
He could just as easily be an ambitious schemer lusting after the Moryo's power, intending to unleash it upon the world.
Satori Hyūga had no interest in bantering with this foe. Without another word, he tore open a spatial rift and stepped through to leave.
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