The Otsutsuki Elder's puppet vented a massive plume of fire from its rear thrusters, propelling him forward in a blur of accelerating light.
Ahead of the puppet lay an endless swarm of insects, raining down a torrential barrage of steel flechettes. However, the projectiles failed to penetrate the puppet's hardened shell. At the final moment of impact, a faint blue glow surrounding the hull applied a powerful repelling force, causing the slugs to deflect harmlessly.
Disguised as an ordinary Sky Insect, Aburame Tetsumaru continuously fired rounds, methodically testing the Elder's defenses and reaction speeds across various points as planned.
Once the initial interception failed, he watched calmly as the Elder's puppet punched through the swarm, evaded two plasma lightning orbs, and made a direct beeline for the core of the formation—the Thunder Giant Insects. The maneuver successfully carved a path for the following puppet army.
Before retreating with the "routing" swarm, Tetsumaru directed several Sky Insects to launch a final series of attacks, verifying the last few data points before pulling back with a sense of satisfaction.
Directly confronting an elite "Hero Unit" on the front lines required an unshakable resolve to face death, but that didn't mean Tetsumaru was foolish enough to charge in blindly for a suicidal clash. That wasn't brave combat; it was mindless self-destruction.
The most critical task at the front was gathering first-hand data and real-time intelligence from the heat of battle.
"Alright, brothers, the data collection is complete," Tetsumaru announced via the mental link. "What's the assessment?"
"The Elder's puppet is formidable. Dangerous. But winnable."
"As long as it's winnable, we're good. Everyone quiet down; let the Tactical Group explain the points of concern."
"Understood. The Tactical Group has identified three critical factors."
"First, and most troublesome, is that faint blue glow. It's absolutely a repelling force applied by the Tenseigan. That buff is broken—it doesn't just repel projectiles upon contact or turn them into soft impacts; it also grants the puppet incredible short-range maneuverability. Its agility is off the charts."
"Second: the puppet's hull is unique, far harder than the standard models. However, we've broken through before. Recent tests show that without the Tenseigan's repulsion buff, Mach 4 projectiles can cause damage, and Mach 6 rounds are lethal."
"Third: the puppet army is under his direct command, and he never strays far from them. He's constantly covered. We only have one shot at an opening."
Tetsumaru drifted in the center of the space station, manipulating a spark of lightning between his fingers. "One chance is all we need. We'll set a trap to lure him out and end him in one go."
"Perfect. Wait one more day for our specialized Giant Insect to mature. Then, we'll show that Otsutsuki Elder what a 'Sticky Mouse Trap' feels like."
"Hahaha! If this trap actually works, do you think the Elder will die of rage before we even hit him?"
"I can't wait. Small trick, big trap."
"Low damage, high humiliation."
"Then we give him the 'Big Sniper' treatment and send him on his way."
"If we catch him, can we take him prisoner?"
"No. we don't have the advantage yet, and we certainly don't have the 'Great Teacher's' magnanimity."
"We're just ordinary citizens; how could we compare to him?"
Tetsumaru smirked, listening to the avatars' banter while playing with the lightning in his palm. Suddenly, a booming voice echoed: "Original! Main Body! The gear is ready. Time to get to work!"
Startled, Tetsumaru's finger twitched. The lightning instantly bridged his index and middle fingers, vanishing with a sharp crackle.
The electric shock sent Tetsumaru's entire body rigid. He froze in the middle of the zero-G station, smoke curling from his fingers as he drifted in a slow, awkward spin.
"After this fight," he gritted out, "I'm muting the group chat for a month."
"Hahahaha! This is amazing! Nothing beats the feeling of crushing those giant bugs!" The hot-tempered Elder's face was creased with a grin like a blooming chrysanthemum. His risky sortie had been a resounding success, forcing the Swarm into a steady retreat. He was basking in the glory.
The Great Elder handed his brother a cup of wine, asking with a smile, "You've worked hard. Take a good rest tomorrow."
"No, Brother. We have to strike while the iron is hot. We can't give the enemy a moment to breathe. I'll head back out after a quick break." The Elder downed the wine in one gulp. "I'm going to sleep for a bit. Make sure to wake me on time."
The other elders watched him leave. The Great Elder sighed. "Even our most reckless brother knows we can't hold out much longer. We have failed in our duties."
"It's the fault of those idiots in the Main House. They didn't stockpile nearly enough resources."
"Exactly. With so little to work with, we're forced to gamble our lives."
"Forget them. Let's make our own preparations."
The former Otsutsuki Main House had stockpiled resources according to the standards of a Shinobi World war—hundreds of thousands of puppets and massive warehouses that would have been overkill for any earthly conflict.
Unfortunately, someone had broken the rules, drifting through the void to attack the Moon. The severely diminished Otsutsuki lacked a "Top-Tier" powerhouse for deterrence, forcing them to fight an interstellar war on the enemy's terms.
In interstellar combat, the battlefield is "transparent"—there is total visibility for both sides. There is no terrain, only flight paths; there are no mountain passes, only open space where any number of combat units can be fully deployed.
In such an environment, you can only fight head-on. You need a massive amount of units to form a battle line; if you have even a few less than your opponent, you risk being surrounded and suffering a crushing defeat.
This kind of attrition was more than the resource-poor Moon could handle—honestly, even the production capacity of the Shinobi World would struggle. The materials the Otsutsuki purchased from the surface seemed like a lot at first, but as the scale of the war escalated, it became clear it wouldn't be enough.
The Otsutsuki were walking toward a rapid defeat. Even though they were scoring massive victories and wiping out tens of thousands of insects daily, it was futile.
The monsters from the surface were being replaced as fast as they were killed. There was no sign of the Swarm thinning, filling the Otsutsuki with a growing sense of dread. If we don't kill enough today, will we lose tomorrow?
The hot-tempered Elder didn't dare rest for long, terrified that if he slept a day, the enemy numbers would become truly insurmountable.
The following day, the Elder's puppet returned to the battlefield, draped in blue light.
The avatar lurking within the Swarm watched with a look of pure envy. The Tenseigan was truly a higher-level biological entity; its power was incredible.
With the Tenseigan's blessing, the enemy puppet could complete a round trip on the 90,000-kilometer orbit in just three hours. Fighting in space was easier for them than the commute for an IT professional in Shanghai. They could fight all day, go home for a hot meal, and get a good night's sleep.
Meanwhile, the avatar had taken four days just to get into position and hadn't left the front since.
The main body, stationed at the space station for three and a half months, was constantly complaining in the chat that his bones were becoming soft and his face was swelling into a ball from the fluid shifts.
Jealousy was a powerful motivator. The avatar viciously clicked off the safety on the railgun, checking it one last time. The metallic thud of the mechanism closing traveled through the Bio-Armor's hull and into his headset.
"Easy there, brother. You're radiating a lot of heat."
"How are you making that much noise in a vacuum? What the hell?"
"Hey, watch the movement! You're going to blow our cover."
"I'm fine," the avatar grumbled. "I just hate seeing the enemy go home to eat and shower while I'm stuck here. It's bad for my mental health."
"..."
Click. Click. Click.
[He's dying today.]
As usual, the Elder's puppet tore through the swarm's perimeter. He slammed into the rear of a massive Thunder Giant Insect—and then he stopped.
The giant insect's bloated abdomen shook violently, bulging sporadically from the inside. It was obvious the Elder was struggling within, his thrashing so powerful it cracked the insect's meter-thick carapace. The giant bug writhed in agony.
With a blinding flash of blue light, the Thunder Giant Insect was blown apart. Fragments of chitin and flesh scattered into the void, along with a massive spray of internal fluids.
Within seconds, the weakened, exhausted puppet realized with horror that the debris wasn't drifting away. The high-viscosity "glue" that had trapped him had been blown into a web-like sphere by his repelling burst—and now, the web was rapidly contracting.
The Elder panicked, trying to maneuver his puppet through the gaps in the web, but he had just exhausted his Tenseigan-boosted repulsion. The puppet's internal thrusters weren't enough for the necessary agility.
A moment later, the Elder was snagged by the adhesive. He was quickly enveloped into a transparent sphere of glue, like a small insect trapped in pine resin. He struggled desperately, flailing within the sphere, but every movement was meaningless.
"Prepare to fire. Enemy reinforcements are incoming."
"Copy. Unit 1 is locked."
"Unit 2 is locked."
"Unit 3 is locked."
"Unit 4 is locked."
"Unit 0 here. Everyone hold... wait for the enemy's next repulsion burst. Fire the moment the sphere is pushed away."
Struggling in vain, the Elder saw dozens of the Sky Insects he considered "trash" closing in. They hooked their tails onto the glue sphere and ignited their thrusters, moving him toward the Shinobi World. They were clearly taking him prisoner.
Feeling the viscosity of the sphere increasing, the Elder panicked. "I'm trapped! Brother! Great Elder! I need support! Now!!"
"I see you. Reinforcements are arriving."
A heartbeat later, a surge of divine power descended. The blue light flared again on the Elder's puppet.
Feeling the familiar Tenseigan repulsion surging back, the Elder's confidence returned instantly. He laughed maniacally. "Hahahaha! Perfect!"
"You lowly vermin! You thought such a pathetic trap could hold me?" His face contorted into a mask of pure malice. "Delusional!! Feel the wrath of the Otsutsuki!!"
Back on the Moon, the Great Elder—funneling power through the Tenseigan—paled. "Don't use it all at once!!"
A massive repelling force exploded outward. The hardened glue sphere was instantly shattered and pushed hundreds of meters away, the adhesive bond failing as it turned into thousands of tiny droplets.
In that exact microsecond, five dazzling flashes of electricity erupted. Five streaks of light pierced through the layer of glue, fought through the decaying repelling force, and struck the Elder's puppet simultaneously.
The terrifying machine was blown into scrap.
The five avatars clearly saw human blood and severed limbs among the drifting shards of the puppet. Together, they let out a long, collective breath.
[Finally handled.]
The Elder's puppet had nearly reached the "Maximum Difficulty" they had projected. It could trigger a Six Paths-level repulsion burst and receive an immediate recharge from the Tenseigan for a second burst.
It was only one step away from the absolute worst-case scenario: a permanent, real-time link between the Tenseigan and the puppet for continuous repulsion.
As for higher Six Paths powers, they hadn't even let themselves think about it. If the puppet had manifested Truth-Seeking Orbs or converted energy into a Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion, the Tetsumarus would have abandoned the Swarm and hidden in the deepest holes in the Shinobi World they could find.
Fortunately, the Otsutsuki seemed to lack that capability. If they were truly that powerful, the Fourth Shinobi World War would have been suppressed the moment the Ten-Tails revived; there would have been no need for a Savior to appear.
"Retreat," the first avatar to arrive at the front said. The Otsutsuki would undoubtedly launch a retaliatory strike; there was no reason to linger in such a dangerous position.
"Agreed. Let's go."
Orange thruster flames flickered as the five Bio-Armor units detached from their disguised "giant insect" shells and began to exit the battlefield.
The enemy puppet army had come to a complete standstill. It seemed the death of their leader had shattered the morale of the operators.
The Sky Insects moved in to fill the void left by the repulsion blast. After confirming the enemy wasn't moving, a portion of the swarm began collecting the debris of the Elder's puppet.
The flesh and blood of a pure-blooded Otsutsuki powerhouse held immense research value. Furthermore, once they eventually conquered the Moon, it might serve a diplomatic purpose.
Beyond the Elder's remains, they had millions of insect carcasses to recycle.
As they say, war drives technology. Over the past three months, the Tetsumarus had deployed over four million insects. The massive losses had created a resource crunch, making the millions of floating carcasses incredibly valuable.
The "Resource Regeneration Group" (formerly the Garbage Disposal Group) had received a temporary boost, completing research on organic matter regeneration and heavy element separation in just one month. They had even solved the "Prion Problem." This technology was now integrated into the Broodmother bases, allowing for the efficient recycling of all organic and metallic resources.
Away from the battlefield, the five avatars reached open space. Their thrusters shifted from orange to a brilliant blue as they began to accelerate.
Suddenly, the first avatar to reach the front felt an inexplicable chill. He looked back at the battlefield. A burst of blue lightning erupted as a massive puppet stepped out of a slowly opening portal.
Seeing the colossal puppet—and the nearly physical Tenseigan energy radiating from its surface—the avatar's heart went cold. He immediately cut his acceleration and shouted to the others: "Don't stop! Keep going!!"
Another avatar instantly turned his unit around, joking grimly, "Don't be stupid. One of you isn't enough to buy time. I'm staying, too."
The other three avatars remained silent for a heartbeat before redoubling their thrusters, fleeing at maximum acceleration.
Facing the terrifying enemy—whose interwoven gravitational and repelling forces were already shredding the surrounding swarm—the two remaining Bio-Armor units checked their gear. Finally, they deployed the wrist blades on their arms with a pathetic snick.
"I finally understand why the 'Chest Particle Cannon' was a thing," one muttered. "In an environment like this, who gives a damn about a little less defense? Raw power should have been the top priority."
"Gravity controllers would be nice, too. Relying purely on rocket thrusters makes our agility look like a joke. I'm not even sure I can land a hit on him."
"Forget it. That's a problem for the 'Future Me.' Let's split up and take him from both sides."
"Go."