The temporary ownership of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path changing hands again did not immediately draw the attention of Black Zetsu and Obito Uchiha.
After all, they were currently on the moon, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from Earth.
Even without any interference, sensing what happened in the shinobi world would be nearly impossible.
That was not to mention the fact that they were still in a situation where they could not afford the slightest carelessness while battling Rei's clones.
Obito Uchiha maintained his uninterrupted intangibility, weaving and shifting under the pursuit of four Bone Clones.
He tried to find an opportunity to break free from their entanglement and interfere with Rei's main body again.
But under the clear and coordinated cooperation of four Bone Clones whose raw power surpassed his in every direction, he did not even have the right to deliberately expose a flaw and use it to trigger a change in the battle.
After all, what Obito Uchiha possessed was merely a pair of ordinary Mangekyo Sharingan.
Even with the additional enhancement of Hashirama cells, when facing an enemy who had already crossed the threshold of the Six Paths tier, he still revealed a clear trend of being unable to keep up.
And compared to Obito Uchiha, whose every possible action had simply been sealed off and who could only rely on Kamui's ocular power to stall—stubbornly, endlessly stall—Black Zetsu was also facing an extremely troublesome problem.
Otsutsuki Shinya had given up his desire to live.
And after making that decision, Otsutsuki Shinya's body, which had already been ruined by Black Zetsu's reckless overdraft and squeezing, instantly reached the end with only a single breath left.
To Black Zetsu, which had not inherited the Byakugan or the chakra of the Otsutsuki clan and needed Otsutsuki Shinya as a medium to use the Giant Tenseigan's power, this was undoubtedly terrible news.
And what was even worse was that as Otsutsuki Shinya's death officially entered its countdown, the white meteor formed by Rei's figure was flying toward Hamura's temple, where the Giant Tenseigan was stored, at a speed far beyond the gathering lunar surface plates that had been torn away.
"You… lost…"
"I will wait… in the underworld… to watch… your despairing face."
Before the Giant Tenseigan, now shining brightly with golden light, Otsutsuki Shinya could no longer even stand properly.
The skin across his body's surface had become dry and lifeless like tree bark.
With a miserable laugh, he knelt on the ground and used the last of his strength to speak to Black Zetsu, who was still trying to use his flickering candle of a body to struggle.
"Then wait in the underworld until even your soul withers a second time."
Black Zetsu squeezed the final chakra out of Otsutsuki Shinya's body and poured it all into the Giant Tenseigan.
It gave the Giant Tenseigan its final output order.
Then, just as it had done when possessing Otsutsuki Shinya, it transformed into a pool of pitch-black liquid and seeped into the ground, moving at the fastest speed toward the outside of Hamura's temple.
And almost in the very next second, Hamura's stone statue, which had just recovered to a size of a thousand meters, was pierced straight through by a white meteor only a few hundredths of its size.
The white meteor's main body also smashed through the outer shell of Hamura's temple amid violent tremors, breaking into the core of the temple with overwhelming brutality.
"Tch. You ran rather fast. You only left me a corpse?"
Rei's clone looked at the shriveled corpse on the ground, dressed in a white robe patterned with magatama that symbolized the position of head of the Otsutsuki clan.
Then he looked at the Giant Tenseigan before him, whose light had dimmed as though all its energy had been consumed.
He slowly stepped forward and gently pressed his palm onto it.
"With this, you should be able to communicate with me again, Ancestor Hamura?"
As Rei's voice fell, Otsutsuki Hamura's extremely unstable phantom appeared before the dim Giant Tenseigan.
With a very complicated gaze, he looked at Rei, who was pressing one hand against the Giant Tenseigan.
"Was this also part of your calculation, Rei Kaguya?"
"Unless you explain it directly, I will not know which aspect you are referring to, Ancestor Hamura."
While trying to input his chakra into the Giant Tenseigan and obtain authority to control it, Rei answered casually.
"If you had gone all out, Mother's third child would never have had the chance to use Shinya's body and the Giant Tenseigan's power again and again like this, causing such severe damage to the moon that seals Mother."
Otsutsuki Hamura's tone was mixed with countless emotions.
"But you clearly sensed what it wanted to do, yet you did not do everything in your power to stop it… Why?"
"Because after thinking about it, I felt this might be an extremely suitable opportunity to resolve Otsutsuki Kaguya."
The dim Giant Tenseigan lit up faintly.
It acknowledged Rei, who possessed the Byakugan and the chakra bestowed by Otsutsuki Hamura, giving him authority to control it.
Immediately afterward, Rei's clone floated out of the collapsing Hamura temple at an unhurried pace while holding the Giant Tenseigan, which had been formed from countless Byakugan voluntarily offered by members of the Otsutsuki branch family.
"Why? Because the chakra I gave you allowed you to cross the threshold of the Six Paths?"
Otsutsuki Hamura's brows furrowed tightly.
His tone also became even more serious and heavy.
"If that is what you think, then you are gravely mistaken! Mother is absolutely not an opponent who can be defeated by the little bit of chakra I left behind before my death! Your understanding of both yourself and the enemy is far too inaccurate, Rei Kaguya!"
"If Otsutsuki Kaguya were at her peak, then those words would indeed be correct, Ancestor Hamura."
Holding the Giant Tenseigan, Rei flew out of the crumbling Hamura statue and Hamura temple.
Gazing at the moon, which was now accelerating toward Earth at several times its previous speed while collapsing, he analyzed calmly,
"But at this moment, can Otsutsuki Kaguya, who breaks free from the moon after it has already been emptied of everything, truly be considered at her peak?"
Otsutsuki Hamura froze.
Meanwhile, Rei's clone once again transformed into a white meteor and chased after the falling, collapsing moon while calmly analyzing in a surprisingly persuasive tone.
"Several thousand years of being unable to receive chakra replenishment while sealed have left Kaguya extremely weak."
"The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, stolen by people of the earth but not filled with even a single Tailed Beast, has caused Kaguya to lose the absolute immortality she would possess as the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki."
"The Giant Tenseigan, whose ocular power has been exhausted by Black Zetsu, will not provide her with even the slightest chakra or ocular power replenishment…"
"Oh, right. She may not even be able to retrieve her own Rinnegan."
"Even if the current Kaguya truly breaks free from the seal, what she will face is the weakest moment she has experienced in a thousand years."
"Do not assume that the information I know from the future is limited only to Otsutsuki Kaguya being the progenitor of chakra and the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, Ancestor Hamura."
…
At the same time, above the Boundary Lake connecting Earth and the moon.
"The moon is accelerating its fall? Heh. Looks like my clone forced Black Zetsu to precisely the right point."
"Then it is time for me to forge the blade that will 'kill' Otsutsuki Kaguya."
"Reverse Summoning Technique!"
Rei's main body, who had been waiting there, took a deep breath.
The seals in his hands shifted, then he bit his finger and slammed his palm onto the ground.
"Hisssss—"
A mythical giant serpent with eight enormous heads and surging natural energy across its entire body emerged from the white smoke.
It roared and hissed furiously, displaying the rage and violence of something that wanted to destroy everything around it.
And what made one feel a little uneasy was that on each of Yamata no Orochi's heads, there were horns and purple markings almost identical to Rei's after entering sage transformation.
It was as if…
They were monsters formed by a Rei whose sage transformation had failed and run wild.
"Sage Art: Yamata no Orochi succeeded? Then it was worth specially trading with Orochimaru for this forbidden technique… Looks like my clone has already collected enough natural energy from the other side of the Boundary Lake."
"Then next, I will use you to forge the strongest sword, one capable of slaying the undying goddess."
Rei ended his monologue.
In Six Paths Mode, he dodged Yamata no Orochi's indiscriminate attack against everything around it and appeared with a Body Flicker on top of one of its heads.
Then he raised the Six Paths staff in his hand high, and with all his strength, drove it completely into the serpent's head.
"Sage Forging: Ame-no-Murakumo!"