Chapter 165 Parallel Universes

Looking at the surrounded figure, the young man with short yellow hair, namely Shoichi Yoshida, said, "Someone has drawn the puppets away for us. Seize the moment later and look for a chance to escape."

The man with the large red nose caught the hidden meaning in Shoichi Yoshida's words and asked, "What about you?"

Shoichi Yoshida had told them to seize the moment, but he hadn't mentioned himself at all.

This group had implicitly accepted Shoichi Yoshida as their leader. He possessed strong leadership and a spirit of self-sacrifice, which everyone acknowledged.

If Shoichi Yoshida could run away with them, it would be for the best.

"Me?"

Shoichi Yoshida looked at the surrounded figure, his azure eyes glowing faintly as he said, "I'm staying behind to see if I can save him."

"This..."

The man with the large red nose and the other team members showed signs of objection. There was no need to plunge into danger for a complete stranger.

Seeming to read everyone's thoughts, Shoichi Yoshida said, "Compared to me, you are pretty much strangers too."

That was indeed true. They had only gotten to know each other while fleeing for their lives, and their bonds weren't deep.

Yet only someone like Shoichi Yoshida would be willing to sacrifice himself for strangers.

Ordinary people simply couldn't do that.

They admired Shoichi Yoshida's character, but they couldn't agree with his actions.

When one was safe and sound, one could reach out to help others, but when one's own survival was on the line, the most they could muster was pity.

It was utterly impossible for them to sacrifice themselves to help others.

They hadn't expected such a person to actually exist.

***

The battle had broken out over there.

As soon as Orochimaru's clone appeared, he sensed a certain desolation in this universe.

In terms of cosmic energy, there was simply too much of it.

Essentially, everyone across the universe was utilizing cosmic energy. Unlike his previous universe, there was definitely no remaining cosmic energy in such abundance there.

Yet here, it was overwhelmingly plentiful, much like a thoroughly barren planet.

From this, it could be deduced that the population of this universe was extremely small.

This parallel universe had only come into existence when he arrived in the future universe, with very little time having passed by any strict calculation.

Therefore, something must have happened to cause a drastic population decline.

There was only one possible explanation: a war had broken out, and countless lives had perished in that conflict.

While lost in thought, Orochimaru suddenly sensed someone flying toward him.

The approaching figure was of an unidentifiable race, with a pair of black, bat-like wings sprouting from his back.

The person was expressionless, wearing a face like a paralyzed mask, and flew straight toward him to launch an attack.

Observing this individual, Orochimaru suddenly smiled and said, "Interesting. He actually lacks the backdoor to my cultivation technique—no, wait, he once had it, but it was eventually erased, though some residual information remains."

Quite casually, Orochimaru used a sealing jutsu to immobilize the person, his eyes glowing as he began to investigate the reason why.

***

At that moment, similar figures were flying in from all directions.

They belonged to different races, yet shared the same expressionless, paralyzed faces.

Likewise, they all carried residual traces of the cultivation technique's backdoor.

"These people seem to have been turned into puppets." Looking at the throng of people surrounding him, Orochimaru felt no panic.

Even if the Sage of Six Paths and the patriarch of the Otsutsuki clan were to arrive in person, it would merely elicit a brief flicker of surprise from him.

Those figures made their move.

Instead of instantly defeating or immobilizing them, Orochimaru maintained an appearance of fighting to a standstill, or perhaps holding a slight upper hand.

He was testing and observing the underlying principles behind these puppets.

After fighting for a while, Orochimaru selectively destroyed the puppets that held no reference value.

For those hiding in the shadows, this was the opportunity!

"Now is the time, run!"

Orochimaru was too powerful, having attracted all the nearby puppets, and yet he remained undefeated despite the protracted battle, causing more and more puppets from the surrounding area to converge and besiege him...

The opportunity had arrived. At Shoichi Yoshida's command, the big red-nosed man and the others rapidly fled in the opposite direction, while Shoichi Yoshida quietly slipped toward Orochimaru's position.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

The longer Orochimaru fought, the more he understood about the puppet people. These things actually carried the presence of both the Sage of Six Paths and the Otsutsuki clan.

They were products belonging to those two parties.

One could see that their souls belonged to the Sage of Six Paths, while their physical bodies belonged to the Otsutsuki clan.

Coupled with the war that had caused the population collapse and the erasure of his cultivation technique's backdoor, it was easy to draw a conclusion.

The Orochimaru of this universe had engaged in a violent conflict with the Sage of Six Paths and the patriarch of cyclical Otsutsuki clan.

Judging by the situation, the Sage of Six Paths and the Otsutsuki patriarch had joined forces, and they held the upper hand.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to manufacture puppet beings to scour the stellar regions for something.

Seeing that the big red-nosed man and the others had retreated to a safe distance, Shoichi Yoshida discarded his concealment and quietly mingled among the puppet beings.

If the big red-nosed man and the others could witness this scene, their jaws would drop in shock!

Because those puppet beings actually did not attack Shoichi Yoshida, treating him as if he belonged to their own kind.

Yet Shoichi Yoshida was not one of them; he possessed his own thoughts.

Immersed among the puppets, he watched Orochimaru being besieged, and the more he watched, the more astonished he became.

Orochimaru was overwhelmingly powerful, calmly countering with a placid expression. Although it looked like an evenly matched fight, he actually appeared completely casual, without having unleashed his true strength.

Shoichi Yoshida's courage instantly vanished; abandoning any further designs on Orochimaru, he prepared to slip away.

However, Orochimaru pointed in his direction and used a binding jutsu to immobilize him.

He struggled desperately, but astonishingly, he could not break free!

"It's over, it's over. I've been discovered," Shoichi Yoshida thought bitterly to himself in distress.

***

Because Orochimaru had singled him out for immobilization while leaving the other puppets untouched, he must have noticed his distinctiveness.

Before long, Orochimaru destroyed all the puppet beings.

Upon death, those puppets dissolved into white and blue points of light, vanishing into thin air.

Finally, Orochimaru walked over to Shoichi Yoshida's side.

Shoichi Yoshida kept his eyes fixed on his nose and his heart focused inward, pretending to be a puppet himself.

He hoped Orochimaru hadn't truly seen through him.

Without wasting any time, Orochimaru directly controlled his mind with a genjutsu and asked, "What happened in this universe? Why has the population plummeted?"

Shoichi Yoshida replied blankly, "The Sage of Six Paths and the patriarch of the Otsutsuki clan launched a jutsu targeting all races across the universe. The Sage of Six Paths wanted their souls, and the Otsutsuki patriarch wanted their bodies, leading to the drastic population collapse."

Orochimaru asked, "Why did they initiate this ninjutsu?"

Shoichi Yoshida answered, "They needed to deal with the leader of the remnants of Earth, a man named Orochimaru..."

Inquiring sentence by sentence was far too cumbersome. Orochimaru placed his hand upon Shoichi Yoshida's head, invoking a mind-reading technique to directly access the memories within his brain.

He thoroughly grasped the current state of this universe.

Unlike the universe he hailed from, the moment Orochimaru of this universe appeared, he had clashed violently with the Sage of Six Paths and the Otsutsuki clan patriarch.

The three of them had battled across the cosmos.

At that time, Orochimaru had utilized the backdoor of his cultivation technique to aggregate the strength of all races throughout the universe, inadvertently exposing a grand conspiracy targeting every race in existence.

While Orochimaru merely aggregated strength, the Sage of Six Paths sought the souls of the entire universe; the patriarch of the Otsutsuki clan likewise demanded the physical bodies and power of all cosmic races!

In essence, they were demanding their very lives!

When Orochimaru activated the backdoor to his cultivation technique, the Sage of Six Paths and the Otsutsuki patriarch also triggered the backdoors they had left behind.

Orochimaru's cultivation technique backdoor clashed with the Otsutsuki patriarch's backdoor, and as they struggled against one another, some individuals unexpectedly ended up in a state of equilibrium or even found Orochimaru gaining the upper hand.

Everyone who happened to be in such states survived, while those in any other state perished completely.

In that battle, the Orochimaru of this universe had been defeated, hunted down and driven away by the Sage of Six Paths and the Otsutsuki patriarch.

Presently, that version of Orochimaru was in hiding, while the survivors revered him as a savior, establishing bases and awaiting a chance to launch a counterattack at any moment.

Their base had been discovered, which was why so many puppet patrols had been dispatched.

The only reason Shoichi Yoshida had sneaked over was to take advantage of Orochimaru's supposed death to scavenge his belongings—he was nowhere near as righteous as he had pretended to be.

Yet Shoichi Yoshida always possessed the uncanny ability to prevent the puppets from attacking him.

Understanding everything, Orochimaru withdrew his hand and released the genjutsu.

Shoichi Yoshida blinked himself awake.