Chapter 409: The New Savior
"Wake... my child... wake up..."
A vague voice continuously echoed in Arato's ears. He opened his eyes in confusion, only to feel darkness surrounding him. There was no up or down, left or right, no passage of time either. Only consciousness itself floated and sank in the boundless void.
In his daze, he seemed to see a figure suspended in the void in the distance, as if that was the only coordinate in this deathly silence that could anchor his perception.
His expression was somewhat blank, his mind in complete chaos.
"I... where is this?"
"Who is that person?"
Seeming to perceive Arato's confusion, that ethereal figure suddenly closed the distance between them, though the two were still very far apart, so far that even the silhouette couldn't be seen clearly.
Hazily, Arato could only make out that this person wore gray-white robes decorated with pitch-black tomoe. White hair. Those eyes were like mosquito coils, circle within circle, emanating an inhuman divine radiance.
This appearance... seemed somewhat similar to that extremely tall stone sculpture in the very center of Konoha Divine City!
Could this be the legendary Uchiha God?
Arato's heart stirred. A trembling sensation mixed with shock, awe, and absurdity began climbing up his spine.
He tried walking forward, but no matter how he walked, the distance between him and that figure remained very far, unable to get any closer.
As if perceiving something, that figure suddenly raised a hand and pointed at him.
Boom. Arato's head felt like it had been struck heavily.
It wasn't a physical impact, but a violent shock at the consciousness level.
As if an invisible torrent forcibly broke through some barrier, brutally pouring into the depths of his thoughts.
Pure white light exploded before his eyes, followed by countless fragments of light and shadow whistling past, too fast to distinguish at all.
A peculiar sensation suddenly descended upon him.
The feeling was indescribable, like being stripped of bodily constraints, his senses extended and reorganized infinitely in ways beyond comprehension.
He no longer merely "saw" through his eyes, but could simultaneously "perceive" the structure of space, the flow of energy, even... the planet itself's vague "pulsation."
When he raised his head again, he saw that the space before him was no longer the original pitch-black nothingness.
The darkness receded, replaced by a grand, shattered, suffocating dynamic tableau.
He seemed to float outside the planet, yet also seemed to merge into every corner of the planet, overlooking everything happening from an "omniscient" perspective transcending mortal understanding.
He "saw" the atmosphere torn open by violent energy, massive amounts of energy escaping through these gaps into the universe, wasted for nothing.
He "saw" the crustal plates shattering like fragile eggshells, scorching magma gushing from the abyss like blood, drastically shortening the planet's lifespan.
He also "heard" the deep rumbling as continental shelves fractured, the roar of oceans pouring into newly formed rifts...
The planet, this blue celestial body that had nurtured countless lives, was now emitting a soundless yet soul-shaking wail.
Waves of invisible pain resonated in his heart through some strange sympathetic connection, making Arato feel heartbroken beyond measure, suffering immensely.
This wasn't his pain, yet it was more unforgettable than his own injuries.
Every tremor of the earth, every burning of forests, every severing of rivers, every annihilation of living beings... all these wounds and destruction transformed into sharp, overwhelming waves of grief that directly assaulted his soul.
He couldn't isolate it, couldn't escape it. He could only passively endure this planet's anguished wailing. Tears involuntarily poured from his eyes, transforming into points of light that dissipated into nothingness.
Arato suddenly understood why the land had become barren, why resources had become scarce.
Someone was stealing the planet's life force!
Arato couldn't help but become furious.
As a child whose entire family had died and who had nearly starved to death himself, Arato had an extraordinary obsession with food.
Before, he'd only thought it was his own bad luck that he'd encountered disaster.
Later, after traveling to many places across the shinobi world with Zabuza, he discovered that many places, many people were actually just like his family. Their lives were all similar, all extremely impoverished. Deaths from starvation were countless.
The shinobi world was vast, yet the mold of suffering was so similar.
This made him realize that this phenomenon of hunger was actually universal.
It wasn't that his luck was bad, but that his luck was good in encountering Zabuza, allowing him to narrowly survive. Those with truly bad luck had all died long ago.
This was more suffocating than simple personal misfortune.
While secretly feeling fortunate, he became increasingly grateful to big uncle, but with his extremely strong empathy, he also felt pain for those unfortunate people.
Whenever he saw those faces struggling in suffering, it was as if he saw his former self, saw countless "what ifs."
That empathetic stabbing pain prevented him from truly feeling at ease enjoying his own "luck."
He'd thought about saving people, but how many could he save alone?
Moreover, many of those he saved repaid kindness with enmity, still requiring Zabuza big uncle to clean up the mess for him.
Yet even so, he still couldn't turn a blind eye to those suffering disasters.
This seemed to be an instinct in his soul, stronger than rational calculation, stronger than the fear of self-preservation.
Whenever he saw life fading before his eyes, his body always reacted before thought.
This caused him pain, yet also made him feel he was still "alive."
He saved one after another, but he knew in his heart that in places he couldn't see, hundreds and thousands more would still be suffering disasters.
Save one, and ten more would fall ahead. Fill one belly for one meal, and tomorrow hunger would arrive on schedule.
His heart was willing but his strength insufficient. He was completely helpless about this!
No matter how he struggled, how he tried, the world's suffering remained boundless. Individual actions were like stones thrown into a deep pond, even the ripples quickly dissipating.
That sense of powerlessness was like the thickest swamp, dragging his heart downward, nearly drowning him.
He'd once thought that was perhaps the world's normal state, the unchangeable cruel undertone, a cruel natural law like the sun and moon rotating, the four seasons changing.
But now, he'd actually discovered that this earth's barrenness and poverty wasn't originally like this, but was caused by someone.
These disasters were actually not natural calamities, but man-made disasters!
This discovery instantly overturned his entire understanding of the world, also igniting purer, more intense fury than any moment before.
Natural calamities might be helpless, but man-made disasters must have a culprit.