Chapter 223: The Old Man's Relic, the Mysterious Figure

As the artificial sun inside the moon gradually dimmed, the night belonging to the Otsutsuki clan slowly descended.

In the black sky, floating islands with glowing lights looked like twinkling stars, bringing a touch of unique color to this monotonous world.

Inside the palace of Otsutsuki Biraku.

"Hoo~ hoo~ hoo."

As the bedroom door was gently closed by a black puppet, Uchiha Gin, who had just been fast asleep on the massive bed in the middle of the room, slowly opened his eyes.

He sensed his surroundings and discovered that the puppet's chakra was still guarding the door; a flash of sharpness crossed his eyes.

Under the covers, he quietly formed a hand seal, and a greenish-blue wooden branch grew out from Uchiha Gin's body, subsequently transforming into a clone identical to him.

"That settles it~"

After settling the wood clone, Uchiha Gin pondered how to slip out of this heavily guarded room.

Breaking out with force would easily alert the enemy; if he had known, he would have swallowed his pride and asked his grand-uncle to teach him the Otsutsuki clan's puppet techniques. That way, he would be like a fish in water in a place filled with puppets.

Sigh~ in this situation, he couldn't exactly use the Sharingan to hypnotize a puppet, could he?

Just as he was racking his brains, he looked at the black reflection on the floor and suddenly slapped his forehead.

"How could I have forgotten such an important thing!"

Uchiha Gin, who had just said the Sharingan wouldn't be of much use, felt his eyes slowly dye crimson. Three mysterious tomoe rotated slowly, and an obscure, dark aura quietly overflowed.

Feeling the majestic ocular power in his eyes, Uchiha Gin quietly closed them, activating the power hidden deep within.

Within that bestowed power lay the ultimate strength of Uchiha Yao's remorse and love.

"Hoo~"

Opening his eyes again, the patterns in Uchiha Gin's eyes had changed; one had become his own Mangekyo without tomoe.

The other had turned into an equilateral triangle pattern, with a black dot embellished in the center.

With the change in his eyes, the previously obscure aura became even more intense.

"As expected, the pressure of the Eternal Mangekyo is much stronger than a regular Mangekyo."

The ocular power unique to the Eternal Mangekyo emitted waves of eerie aura.

One strand of it, without Uchiha Gin's knowledge, seemed to be guided by something, passing through layers of encirclement and seeping into the moon's crust.

"Old man, oh old man, your gift is really not bad~"

Sensing the Mangekyo that originally belonged to Uchiha Yao, Uchiha Gin exclaimed with some surprise.

Wangliang, Uchiha Yao's former ocular technique, just as he had once introduced it.

The primary ability of Wangliang was to create a clone with simple consciousness, which could help the host carry out operations like intelligence gathering, assassination, and other shady tasks.

At the same time, the ocular technique allowed the master to control shadows, using them to achieve the goal of lurking; the shadows could also transform into weapons, delivering an unexpected blow to the enemy at a critical moment.

"Let's use Wangliang's ability to slip out first!"

Although it was his first time operating this unfamiliar Mangekyo, such a simple matter...

... as just a piece of cake for Uchiha Gin, who possessed multiple ocular techniques.

After practicing a little, Uchiha Gin was already able to manipulate shadows skillfully.

He saw the triangle in Uchiha Gin's eyes rotate slightly, and a mass of shadow emerged beneath his feet; the black shadow was like a giant abyss-like mouth, slowly sucking him into it.

The scene looked quite terrifying, but his face was not only calm, but also faintly tinged with excitement.

【Shadow Rift】

This was the ability the opponent had used when Uchiha Gin first confronted the Wangliang clone.

It could generate a shadow area beneath the host or the clone; entering it was like entering the shadow itself.

Actions were taken in the Shadow Realm corresponding to the surface world, and the distance of movement was determined by the host's chakra.

Back when Uchiha Yao "manipulated" the Wangliang clone to see him, the distance Wangliang used Shadow Rift was very short, and the duration was not long either; this was all due to the old man's advanced age and frailty.

"Tsk! It's quite magical; I didn't expect Wangliang to be able to open this kind of space."

Uchiha Gin strolled through the black-and-white world, where things were a one-to-one replica of the outside, only lacking color.

At this moment, Uchiha Gin was the only thing with color in this space.

As Uchiha Gin walked out of Otsutsuki Biraku's palace as if no one were around, he turned his head to look at the black-and-white guards at the door, a look of contemplation appearing in his eyes.

This space looked very real, but he wondered if it could affect the surface world?

Holding a rigorous scientific spirit, Uchiha Gin reached out and pulled off the head of a puppet guard in the Shadow Realm.

"Crunch!"

In the surface world, the two puppet guards stood motionless at the palace entrance. Just as everything was perfectly calm, one of the puppets suddenly seemed to experience some kind of malfunction.

The yellow light in its eyes flickered, then it went dead like a crashed system; the light in its eyes dimmed, and it fell headfirst, never to move again.

"It actually works!"

Uchiha Gin looked at the puppet head in his hand with some surprise; he had thought everything in the Shadow Realm was fake.

But from the feedback of the surface world, he learned that the puppet guard had collapsed with a crash at the same time, its head and body separated.

"Hiss!"

Just as Uchiha Gin was rejoicing, a strong sense of exhaustion suddenly surged into his heart, almost making his legs go weak.

Fortunately, supported by his formidable physique, he did not collapse in a sorry state. Feeling his body instantly hollowed out by a large chunk, he was terrified and couldn't help but gasp.

Just that one move alone could easily drain a Jonin dry; the cost of this technique was too high. No wonder the old man never used this move until he died.

"Hoo~ hoo~"

Slowly taking two breaths to replenish the lost chakra, Uchiha Gin sighed slightly in his heart.

It was only him; if it were an ordinary Uchiha clansman using this ocular technique, they probably wouldn't live to see tomorrow's sun.

Putting this lethal move aside for now, Uchiha Gin wandered to a secluded spot in the Shadow Realm and returned to the surface world through the Shadow Rift passage.

"Hey, the air here is still more comfortable after all. Down there it's like the underworld; even breathing is a struggle."

Uchiha Gin breathed in the fresh air outside and couldn't help but mutter in his heart.

However, if Uchiha Yao were still alive and saw Uchiha Gin's current operation, he would probably be so scared his eyeballs would pop out.

It turned out that what Uchiha Gin didn't know was that the Shadow Realm opened by Shadow Rift was a world that only the Wangliang clone, or someone who had merged with the Wangliang clone, could enter.

If an ordinary person's flesh and blood entered, they would be tortured to madness by the dark shadow power.

To describe it, that so-called Shadow Realm was like the lair of the Cthulhu mythos; an average human would turn into a drooling idiot who only knows how to babble before long.

And Uchiha Gin, relying on his abnormal physique and pure Yin Release chakra, barely managed to resist the corruption, but he was still affected to some extent—his perception was completely gone, and his intelligence was reduced by more than 90%.

"Alright, now I need to go to that castle."

Uchiha Gin raised his head, looked at the castle not too far away, pushed off with his legs, and shot toward the sky.

The next moment, he landed on a small floating island, borrowed force again, and continued upward.

After many efforts, Uchiha Gin finally reached the floating island of the castle. Looking up at the towering palace from afar, Uchiha Gin couldn't help but exclaim.

"As expected, treasures only have prestige in places like this."

Sensing the countless puppet chakras around him, Uchiha Gin narrowed his eyes, seeped into the Shadow Realm again, and then walked swaggeringly into the palace, unimpeded all the way.

"The palace I live in is simply a pigsty compared to this one."

Walking in the Shadow Realm, Uchiha Gin looked at the gorgeous decorations around him and couldn't help but marvel.

He incidentally compared this place with Otsutsuki Biraku's residence; it was truly like heaven and earth.

"Huh? Why isn't there a Tenseigan?"

Although the palace was large, Uchiha Gin had good stamina and quickly toured all the floors of the palace, but he didn't find even a trace of the Tenseigan, so he couldn't help but frown and complain.

"No way, right? Didn't the puppet say the Otsutsuki clan's treasure was here?"

Uchiha Gin, unwilling to give up, headed toward the observatory on the top floor, hoping that his trip would not be in vain, that he could seize the Tenseigan in one go, complete the mission, and return home early.

"Whoosh~"

As Uchiha Gin passed through the last heavy door, he arrived at his final destination: the observatory at the very top of the castle.

But what puzzled him was why this heavily guarded observatory seemed to be inhabited.

In the black-and-white Shadow Realm, messy clothes were thrown everywhere, food scraps were all over the floor, and books piled as high as small hills were stacked in the corner.

The person living here was too sloppy!

Even without color, Uchiha Gin could tell at a glance that the owner of this room was an incredibly sloppy shut-in.

Walking a few steps inside, Uchiha Gin, who was still looking down, suddenly discovered a life-sized figure placed by the window of the observatory.

Out of curiosity, he tiptoed over, looked left and right, and found no sign of the shut-in owner, so he plucked up his courage and began to observe the exquisite figure before him.

This was a typical Otsutsuki clan design: skin like snow, small lips slightly upturned, the forehead embellished with the Otsutsuki-specific maro eyebrows, and a pair of cold, indifferent eyes that showed no emotion.

Although her figure was wrapped in a robe, it was still very curvaceous. It was clear that the owner had indeed incorporated a large amount of virgin fantasies when making her; otherwise, how could he have created such a life-sized figure that struck right at a man's heart?

"Tsk! The owner of this room has good taste. I must communicate with him when I have the chance to make progress together."

Uchiha Gin looked up and down at this exquisite figure several times; for some reason, he liked it very much.

But as the saying goes, a gentleman does not covet what others love. As a first-class gentleman, Uchiha Gin chose to communicate with the owner of the figure properly when he had the chance later.

However, why did the appearance of this figure look more and more familiar?

After observing it carefully again, Uchiha Gin found that he seemed to have seen this figure before, but he just couldn't for the life of him remember where.

"Uh, anyway, the owner isn't here, so it should be fine if I touch it, right?"

Uchiha Gin, who couldn't figure it out after thinking for a long time, had wandering eyes. Seeing no one around, he began to mutter to himself, performing self-hypnosis.

Subsequently, his sinful hand climbed onto the towering chest of the life-sized figure before him.

"Eh?"

Otsutsuki Tsukihime, the current head of the Otsutsuki clan, had shown talent far beyond ordinary people since she was a child. By the age of ten, she was already able to defeat all the adults in the clan.

By the time she was fifteen, the previous clan head passed away, and she was pushed into the position of clan head in a daze, relying on her iron fists.

At first, because she did not understand government affairs, Kaguya Otsutsuki could only rely on the help of the elders; after a period of learning, she realized a truth:

Mere government affairs did not require her to step in at all.

Consequently, she simply gave up, handing over all government affairs to the elders to handle, while she holed up in the clan leader's castle, becoming a shut-in; every day, aside from cultivation, she just ate, and when she was free, she would read books.

Let her go out?

Unless someone attacked the door, it was absolutely impossible!

Kaguya Otsutsuki spent many years living such a comfortable life, with subordinates bringing delicious food every day, and the books in the castle were so numerous she could never finish them.

In such a laid-back environment, she was even less willing to go out, lying on the stargazing platform every day in a daze, living happily~

Today was another leisurely day.

Kaguya Otsutsuki, who had read books all night yesterday, woke up again to find it was already the second evening; feeling somewhat hungry, she ordered a puppet to make some food and bring it up.

"Just that fried chicken, and fries; no ketchup, I want sweet and spicy sauce."

After tossing the recipe for what she wanted to eat to the puppet, Kaguya Otsutsuki, feeling sticky all over, stripped off all her clothes and threw them on the floor—the puppets would come to clean them up anyway.

Wearing only her undergarments, Kaguya Otsutsuki yawned and lay lazily on the floor, flipping through the book in her hands; as she looked at one romantic love story after another, a trace of imperceptible longing flashed through her cold white eyes.

"Beep, beep, beep."

Just as she was lost in some kind of pink fantasy, the sound of a puppet rang out from outside the door; with a wave of her hand, the door slowly opened, and a child puppet carrying the fried chicken and fries she had been longing for quickly scurried in.

"You may leave."

Facing the soulless puppet, Kaguya Otsutsuki couldn't be bothered to put on the cold mask she wore for the clan members; she scratched her itchy shoulder and ordered the child puppet, having completed its task, to withdraw.

"Mmm~ this is the taste; if I don't eat it for a day, I feel terrible all over~"

Once the child puppet closed the door, Kaguya Otsutsuki scurried over; without standing on ceremony, she reached out, grabbed the fried chicken, and started devouring it, while her other hand wasn't idle either, grabbing a handful of fries and stuffing them into her mouth whenever she had a chance, showing not a shred of ladylike grace.

Her wild way of eating did not match her ice-beauty appearance at all, yet it possessed a strong, contrasting aesthetic.

"Phew~ revived, I'm revived!"

Sucking the residue off the last chicken bone and throwing it on the floor, Kaguya Otsutsuki, with her mouth covered in grease, wiped her mouth with her arm.

Like an ordinary couch potato, she touched her slightly protruding lower abdomen, her tone filled with a bit of vitality.

"Sigh, I forgot, this hand is also oily."

Having just finished sighing, Kaguya Otsutsuki suddenly felt a greasy sensation on her lower abdomen and remembered that both her hands were oily.

She sighed, walked toward the inner room most reluctantly, and took off her undergarments as she walked.

"I hate bathing the most!"

Stripping herself down to a little white rabbit, Kaguya Otsutsuki sat with a bitter face in the tens-of-square-meters-large bath, feeling the warm water flow over her skin, and couldn't help but feel a shiver of dread.

She was most afraid of water; just like a rabbit, she would lose all strength when she touched it.

Enduring the discomfort in her heart, she barely managed to wash the greasy sweat off her body, threw on a robe, and fled the bathroom as if flying.

Shaking her wet white hair, she walked alone to the window of the stargazing platform, preparing to air-dry.

"Ah~~~"

Feeling the gentle breeze blowing in from outside the window, she, wearing nothing underneath, felt extremely comfortable, as if a large hand were stroking her, making her unable to help but cry out in comfort.

"Truly professional; the figure even comes with sound effects. As expected of a product from the Otsutsuki clan."

I am truly sorry, something came up and delayed me; the latter part has been modified and added.

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(End of this chapter)