Zander
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Chapter 130 – The Vessel of Greed
🕑 Added 2025-07-22 09:46:42 +0000 UTCChapter 130 – The Vessel of Greed
The halberd swung with thunderous momentum, arcs of warp-lightning tearing through the air. But just before impact, Jigen vanished, his form swallowed by a swirling portal of fractured space. The halberd sliced through empty sky, its edge crackling against nothingness.
Above, far beyond the shattered ruins of the temple, Jigen reappeared.
He hovered in the stratosphere, silent, still.
Wind howled thinner up here. The clouds below were broken and scattered from the force of the earlier battle. The stars above were distant, watching coldly. Beneath him, Hajime’s energy shimmered, low and steady like a forge not yet cooled. The golden ring of his halo pulsed faintly in the darkness, marking his presence like a second sun waiting to rise.
Jigen stared down, breathing hard.
“That power…” he muttered. “Not of this world. Not chakra. Not science. You are a mistake… but one I can still use.”
His body began to twist.
Veins bulged unnaturally across his arms and neck. His skin paled to ash white. A horn erupted from his right temple, spiraling upward with sickly grace. His left eye flared wide, revealing a Byakugan glowing with faint lavender. And on the right, a golden, black-ringed Kokugan emerged, its gaze alien and unblinking.
This was no disguise.
This was Jigen’s true face, his body now used beyond its limits by the Ōtsutsuki embedded within.
The ground shuddered as Hajime slowly raised his head, tracking the change without surprise. He could feel the difference. Not just chakra. Not ninjutsu. Something deeper… something unnatural to this world’s balance.
Jigen descended slowly, his presence warping the air around him. With each step upon the ruined stone, the force of his weight cracked the earth beneath him. He no longer walked, he imposed.
“This form…” Jigen said, voice deeper now, distorted by the alien influence within. “I didn’t want to use it so soon. But you forced my hand.”
Hajime didn’t answer. His armor shifted slightly with the breeze, the long haft of his halberd still crackling with blue-gold energy.
Jigen vanished again.
He reappeared behind Hajime with a thunderclap, his fist already mid-swing. Hajime spun, deflecting the blow with the shaft of his weapon, but the sheer power of the strike sent him skidding backward across the broken floor. Stone buckled under his feet.
Without wasting a moment, Jigen launched forward, following with a barrage of strikes, palms, knees, elbows, each empowered by Ōtsutsuki strength and speed. His Kokugan darted with micro-calculations, trying to predict Hajime’s responses.
But Hajime wasn’t predictable.
He sidestepped, tilted his upper body just enough to let a punch skim past his helmet, and countered with a devastating knee to Jigen’s ribs. The blow exploded with kinetic force, launching Jigen into a crumbling wall.
Stone shattered. Dust rose.
Jigen laughed.
“I see,” he said, voice strained. “You’re not a vessel… you’re a threat.”
He extended his hand, and black chakra rods erupted from his palm, hurled like spears. Hajime raised his halberd and spun it in a blur, deflecting each rod as they whistled through the air.
Jigen surged forward again, moving with blinding speed. His Kokugan swirled, and in a flash, he shrank mid-motion, vanishing from Hajime’s direct line of sight.
But Hajime’s perception didn’t rely on sight alone.
He pivoted to the side, swinging his halberd like a reaper’s scythe just as Jigen reappeared in full size. The blade caught him across the shoulder, searing through cloth, flesh, and bone.
Jigen screamed, his voice raw with rage, but his healing kicked in immediately, skin knitting together far faster than any ordinary shinobi.
Warp-lightning danced around Hajime as he pressed forward, unleashing a devastating series of strikes. Each swing wasn’t just force, it was precision. He carved through space, bending reality just enough to catch even the slightest flicker of Jigen’s movement.
And yet, Jigen endured.
He summoned black cubes from the Daikokuten dimension, massive weapons that dropped from the sky like meteors. Hajime raised his palm, and a psychic barrier flared, an invisible wall of force that split the falling objects mid-air like paper.
Jigen spat, staggering. “You’re just a human.”
Hajime didn’t speak. He moved.
In a burst of speed, he closed the distance between them and drove his halberd forward, impaling Jigen through the chest.
There was no explosion. No scream.
Just a heavy silence as warp energy crackled along the embedded weapon.
Jigen coughed blood.
His Kokugan dimmed. The Byakugan flickered. He tried to raise a hand, but his body no longer responded.
His form began to crumble.
Not like a man. Not like flesh.
Like something trying to imitate humanity… now unraveling from the inside out.
Ash spread from the wound outward, devouring his limbs. His body dissolved into fine, white powder, scattered by the wind.
And in the center of that pile of ash… only two things remained.
His eyes.
The Kokugan and the Byakugan, untouched by the devastation. Hajime stared at them silently.
He had struck with enough precision to destroy the Ōtsutsuki parasite within without damaging the ocular relics. A calculated move.
Not out of sentiment.
Out of preparation.
His eyes narrowed slightly behind the blue lenses of his helmet. Those eyes, especially the Kokugan, were too dangerous to leave behind… and too valuable to discard without care. For now, he would store them in the miniature Containment Pod, stored in his backpack with The Containment Pod containing Rinnegan.
The wind howled quietly around the scorched temple ruins. The earth was cracked, the stone blackened, and the once-hidden sanctuary of Jigen lay in ruin.
Hajime turned his gaze to the scorched floor. Beneath it, he could feel something, a presence buried deep within. His helmet’s sensors pinged faintly as he stepped toward what was once the altar’s center.
A faint seam.
He raised his boot and stomped down.
Stone collapsed inwards, revealing a spiral staircase leading down into the mountain. Cold air, untouched by the surface battle, wafted up.
With one last look at the silent sky above, Hajime descended.
The threat of Jigen was over, but it isn't over yet.
The organization behind him… it's member is still alive… were still in motion.
(Total words today written 4,049.)
