Chapter 258: The New God & The False God (2)
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Neji-prime in Kumo was still sitting on his wooden chair that was more like a badly made throne. However, there were more dead bodies around him now compared to half an hour ago.
The Kumo ninjas had obviously heard of the battle, and seen the tailed beast bombs and the fully transformed Gyuki since it was too tall to miss. So the Ninjas ran to check what was happening and then tried their luck against Neji. At last, most of them had died. Some had fled, but Neji didn't care to stop them.
He had earned 77 levels from their deaths. Allowing him to pass Level 600 and therefore gain a new Voidmancer ability. This skill, [Shadow Swimming] allowed him to jump into shadows as if they were water and swim inside them and travel from one place to another without notifying anyone.
Even now, he could also feel gazes looking at him from the far—probably using binoculars—but none of them had the courage to attack. At first they tried doing long-ranged jutsus, but Neji just countered the same attack with much more lethality. Annoyed at all that, upon he threatened to kill the unconscious Raikage (who basically was a Hostage) once, no other attacks came.
Neji stood up from his chair and walked up to Raikage's still unconscious figure, Neji placed a hand on top of the kage's head.
"Sisty, make sure [Gamer's Mind] doesn't destroy his mind," Neji requested and got a hum from his system in return. He needed the Kages alive for them to start the 4th Great Ninja War when the plot moves—and they would be more likely to do it if Neji just left them alive after a harsh defeat.
Neji activated the Yamanaka clan Jutsu that one of his clones had just stolen- ‹Psycho Mind Transmission› -and entered Raikage's mind. Usually, it took the user hours to search for the right information, but with his high INT and WIS it was surprisingly easy.
He soon found the location of the [Lightning Cloak] Jutsu. It was in a hidden chamber inside Raikage's living quarters. Neji swiftly sent a clone there who found the technique laying around and learned it in an instant—by clicking [Yes] when the system prompt popped up.
With that done, he had consequently finished three quests today. The first was the quest to beat the Raikage and Killer Bee. The second was Lady Luck's quest of becoming a God that he got when he first arrived in the Naruto world. The third one was about pulling off a successful heist on Kumo's village Jutsu Vault and also stealing the Lightning Cloak jutsu.
As it's reward, the first quest provided Neji with 95-levels and additionally, a titled A-rank Jutsu called the ‹Firefly Bombardment›, which was basically the continuous firing of smaller-tailed-beast-bombs that Gyuki showed. Except Neji could use it in his human form as well, from his palm.
The third quest provided 25-levels and a spicy lightning magic- [Railgun]
At last was the second quest, the one for which Neji had decided to spend time in this world at all.
[Quest: Rise of a God
Details: You are strong enough to become a God, but you lack divinity. The easiest way to gain divinity is to create a cult with devoted followers.
Objective: Gain 5 loyal subjects who would serve you as their God.
Reward: Divinity- [Luck Eater].
Failure (or reject): Lost affection with Lady Luck.]
[Quest— "Rise of a God" —has been completed!]
[You have completed the quest by attaining 5 loyal subjects! Current believers: (1) Temari (2) Hanabi (3) Toga (4) Tenten (5) Tsunade (6) Kurenai (7) Shizune]
[You have received the Divinity: Luck Eater!]
[Due to having crossed the Level-500 mark, you have attained another divinity! Every 500-levels, you'd gain a new one!]
[You have attained the Divinity: Dragon Icon!]
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List of divinities: 02
(*) Divinity: Luck Eater
Details: The ability to "eat" other people's luck and make it your own. Works by touching the person.
Weakness: If used against a Main Character the user needeth to have stolen precious things from the MC beforehand. Example; lovers, powers, items.
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(*) Divinity: Dragon Icon
Details: There are beings in this world who are born as the personification of abstract concepts—called the Abstract Beings. These abstract concepts, and any concepts in general, have a peculiar weight to their existence. A few very capable individuals can connect to these concepts despite not being born as it. The "Dragon Icon" is a power that is connected to the concept of what a dragon is and should be in essence, allowing the bearers of this icon the many powers and authorities of a dragon (beyond what they own already).
Current Effects:
(1) Strength of a Dragon. [+500 STR]
(2) Wisdom of a Dragon. [+500 WIS]
(3) Wrath of a Dragon. [+500 DEX]
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1500 stat-points. They were a lot.
[Master,] Sisty's voice interrupted his musing. [As a full-fledged God, Master, you have countless more abilities such as appointing "Avatars" and also the ability to "Bless" someone. Also the ability to create a Divine Heaven. They are still divinities, but they come as a starting package.]
Neji nodded to the air. A Divine Heaven… Didn't his Arcane Plane count as one? Speaking of Arcane Plane though, he could feel faith from many people in that realm who really considered him as their God. Around three hundred thousand people, to be precise. Tsk, why didn't His Lady count them as his believers? What a rude woman.
["Hey~ even though they believed in you it didn't build up to anything since you lacked a divine status to begin with. Be grateful!"] Lady Luck's sweet voice complained in his ears.
Neji ignored her tantrum. Speaking of building up though, he did feel all that faith built up his Divine Authority—the thing that helped channel all his divinities. As it would grow, so will his divinities, and the effects they have. Kind of like a Mana Pool but different. He could also feel the choice to bring out that authority to… maybe temporarily empower himself? He wasn't sure. Something to test later on.
Still. This meant… he really was a God now.
A real, full-fledged Deity.
…If that's the case, then it was time for the fake God to go down.
"Because nobody gets to hurt my girls and just walk out of it alive."
It was time for Pain to feel a bit more pain than he can handle.
—-—
Nagato—the face behind "Pain"—sighed as he positioned his Six Paths of Pains in their resting bed. Today took a toll on him. Not because he faced any particularly strong enemy—quite the contrary since he barely had to use only five of the six pains—but because he had to move his real body close to Konoha, since otherwise he wouldn't be able to control the Pains from that distance.
That was somewhat hard for a cripple like him. Usually, moving from the Village Hidden by the Rain was but a minor inconvenience since he always had Konan by his side, but this time the new recruit Hiruko—and his squad of three—had joined the mission as per Madara's orders. Usually, Akatsuki perform in a two-man-team format, but Hiruko lacked a teammate so Nagato just had his former three subordinates fill the one-man-gap in Hiruko's team. It usually didn't work like that in Akatsuki, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
So Nagato had to use the Human Path—the one who can read minds via reading a person's soul, who was expendable in a battle—to move his real body in a cave close to Konoha, while the other five Paths moved with Konan and Hiruko and his team.
In any case, in this particular mission, due to Nagato always keeping the Human Path beside him—given it wouldn't have been much help in the battle anyway—he couldn't read the people's memories. That's why the interrogation was only left to the Naraka Path who utilised the King of Hell to ask people questions. Danzo managed to dodge the technique many times using his implanted Sharingans' Izanagi, but against a higher being like Nagato himself such techniques fell short sooner rather than later. At last, when ten of his Sharingan had died-out, Danzo had used his right eye—the Kotoamatsukami—against the King of Hell to escape the interrogation.
Honestly, Kotoamatsukami would have worked against his Pains, and thereby himself since he was using their sight to see, but Danzo used it against the King of Hell, Yama. It made even Nagato release a soft chuckle when he saw that, despite himself. To Danzo's credit though, when he realised the technique wasn't working, he used Izanagi with that remaining Sharingan as well. But this time he didn't try to escape, he rather caused his body to crumble to dust. Perhaps the old man feared he would be forced to tell the truth about not only Neji but also reveal the village's secrets? Otherwise it wouldn't make sense why such a person would kill himself.
Unfortunately for his soul, doing all that to keep Konoha safe was for naught given the state Nagato left the village in.
It was a sad outcome, for both parties. Nagato could have taken Shisui's eyes and used it for many opportunities. But oh well, even a God like him couldn't reverse the force of time.
Stopping these useless thoughts, Nagato stayed in his mechanical walker, waiting for Konan to arrive. A few minutes later, he heard two knocks on the door of his room before Konan walked in with her blank face that had become her natural expression by now.
—-
Konan looked at her long-time friend with her expression as blank as always. She liked talking to him face-to-face, even though he wasn't the prettiest guy around in person, instead of talking to him via any of the pain—especially the Deva Path that used Yahiko's body.
"Nagato," Konan said, looking at his eyes. "I have prepared a room for Hiruko in one of the hotels on the other side of the city. I also told him he will be notified when we get a hold of Neji Hyuga's current location."
Nagato nodded after registering her words. "That is good. Speaking of his location, any good news?"
"Not yet," Konan shook her head. "But the Zetsu is looking around, so we expect to find him soon enough."
Nagato nodded after a second.
Truthfully, Konan had a bad feeling about all this… She didn't doubt Nagato's powers, never, but she felt somewhat ominous about this Neji. Perhaps it was Tsunade's words? Maybe something else entirely?
"What about Hidan?" Nagato after a short silence, breaking her out of her daze. "How is the search for the rest of his body going?"
Right, Hidan was captured by Konoha after being defeated by Might Guy. Before Nagato destroyed the village, Konan had rescued Hidan from the Interrogation Department in Konoha. Most of his body was taken to Konoha, his limbs later cut into pieces, but they were easy to recover. However, his arms were already separated from his body when he fought Might Guy and lost, they weren't in Konoha and needed to be recovered too.
In the two weeks he spent in Konoha as a prisoner, Hidan hadn't spilt any beans. Torturing him was practically useless, after all. Yet, the Yamanaka clan head had managed to get quite a bit out of Hidan's memories. Fortunately, everything he had gathered was useless now that he and the entire Konoha was obliterated.
"Zetsu already found Hidan's arms since he had observed the battle and knew where the arms ended up," Konan let Nagato know. "Hidan is ready to function."
Nagato seemed pleased. This also meant there were currently four Akatsuki in Hidden Rain (not counting Hiruko's subordinates).
Nagato was about to speak, however his eyes sprung up and his neck snapped to the window that showed the rain outside.
"What's wrong, Nagato?" Konan asked in worry as she stepped closer to Nagato who frowned deeply.
"A strong… very strong, tailed-beast level, Chakra has entered the vicinity of my rain." Nagato said as a sweat bead dropped from his forehead. "Konan, head out to Hiruko's location, that's where the chakra is, I will wake up the Pains and follow behind. Go."
…Why did he look so panicked with just that little threat? Konan was confused but she didn't waste a second and obliged to his order.
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Master4thWall Note: You make me us reach 600-powersones — I give you this week's third chapter tomorrow right away. 🤝
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