Chapter 308: Amplification Begins, Waste Recycling
A jagged tear in the fabric of reality ripped open directly in front of the Rogue Ninja.
The twisted sneer of malevolence and madness plastered across his face froze. The muscles in his cheeks twitched, quickly giving way to an absolute, soul-deep terror. His eyes widened, reflecting the pitch-black abyss yawning before him.
An overwhelming, inescapable suction force erupted from the void.
The Rogue Ninja did not even have the chance to scream. His limbs violently twisted inward, his entire body contorting as he was violently dragged and crammed into the suffocating darkness. With a sharp, snapping sound, the spatial rift sealed shut.
The entire execution took less than a second.
The two Konoha guards who had been restraining the prisoner stood frozen, their hands still raised in a gripping posture, clutching nothing but empty air. A short distance away, the prison Warden stared with a slack jaw. Cold sweat beaded on their foreheads.
What had just transpired? Was this some terrifying new ninjutsu developed by the Hokage? Where had a living, breathing human being vanished to?
Uchiha Akira paid absolutely no attention to the stunned silence of his subordinates. His consciousness had already shifted inward, descending into a realm entirely of his own making.
Six Paths: Imperial Heaven.
This primordial, boundless dimension belonged to him and him alone.
Deep within the central core of this desolate expanse, a foreign entity had intruded. With a mere thought, Akira traversed the infinite distance, his projection materializing instantly at the epicenter of the Imperial Heaven dimension.
Suspended in the air was the Chunin-level Rogue Ninja he had just devoured. The man was completely immobilized, encased within a transparent, crystalline structure of pure energy. His eyes darted wildly in mute horror, unable to move a single muscle. Faint, shimmering threads of pure chakra, nearly invisible to the naked eye, were being systematically siphoned from his chakra network. These wisps of life force drifted upward, integrating into the foundational core of the dimension.
Yet, this was not a simple execution. As the space ruthlessly extracted his power, the crystalline core simultaneously injected a meager, calculated stream of life-sustaining energy back into the prisoner's veins.
It was a precise equilibrium. Not a drop more, not a drop less. Just enough to keep his heart beating and his chakra coils producing, ensuring he would not die. He was a living battery.
Akira observed the process with cold, calculating eyes. Through his deep soul connection with the Imperial Heaven, an incredibly faint surge of power trickled back into his physical body in the real world.
'Better than nothing,' Akira concluded, his expression indifferent.
For a being who had already ascended to the Six Paths level, this minuscule amplification was entirely negligible. It felt like tossing a single pebble into a vast, raging ocean. However, as he watched the Chunin's chakra drain, he noticed something else. The absolute boundaries of the primordial space had pushed outward, expanding by a microscopic fraction.
A flicker of realization crossed his dark eyes. 'So that is the true mechanism.'
He instantly understood the core principle. The primary function of [Six Paths: Sealing Jutsu - Soul Imprisonment] was not to directly buff his own physical strength. Instead, it used the suppressed victims as raw nourishment to continuously strengthen and expand the primordial world of Imperial Heaven.
As the dimension itself grew vaster and more stable, he, as the absolute master of this domain, would naturally receive a proportionately massive feedback of power. It was an infinite, self-sustaining cycle of growth.
The chakra reserves of a single, mediocre Chunin could only expand the borders by a hair's breadth. But what if he scaled the operation? What about ten? A hundred? A thousand?
What if he threw Kage-level powerhouses into this crystal prison? What if he chained up the Tailed Beasts themselves to act as eternal batteries for his world?
A dangerous, fiery glint flashed through Akira's dark pupils. A clear, unmistakable path to an even higher world of godhood opened up before him. If the sheer quality of a single Chunin was insufficient, he would simply overwhelm the requirement with absolute quantity.
And the Ninja World was currently crawling with endless swarms of Rogue Ninja, bandits, and enemy combatants.
The corner of Akira's mouth curled into a faint, chilling smile. 'Waste utilization. Perfect.'
With a mere thought, his consciousness vanished from the crystalline core.
Back in the dim, damp corridor of the Konoha maximum-security prison, Akira's physical body stirred, his dark eyes snapping open.
The Warden and the two guards immediately straightened their postures, bowing deeply in reverence.
"Warden," Akira spoke, his voice carrying a cold, commanding weight that echoed off the stone walls.
The Warden's shoulders jerked, his body trembling violently at the sudden address. "Your subordinate is here, Hokage-sama!"
"Empty the deepest levels," Akira ordered, his tone completely flat. "Bring out every single criminal in this facility who has been sentenced to death or life imprisonment."
"All... all of them?" The Warden snapped his head up, his eyes wide with disbelief.
This was not a matter of moving one or two inmates. The lowest levels housed over one hundred and eighty of the most dangerous, irredeemable scum across the elemental nations. Dragging all of them out at once... what was the Fifth Hokage planning? Was he intending to conduct a mass execution right here in the compound?
"Do I need to repeat myself?" Akira's voice dropped a fraction of an octave, turning bone-chillingly cold.
In an instant, a suffocating, terrifying pressure crashed down upon the corridor.
The Warden's knees buckled. It felt as though a physical mountain had been dropped directly onto his spine. He was violently pinned to the stone floor, his lungs burning as the very air grew too heavy to breathe.
"No... I wouldn't dare!" the Warden gasped out, using every ounce of his strength to force the words through his gritted teeth. "Your subordinate... your subordinate obeys immediately!"
The crushing gravity vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. The Warden collapsed onto his hands, gasping greedily for air, his uniform completely drenched in cold sweat as if he had just been dragged from the bottom of a lake. He did not dare harbor a single shred of hesitation or doubt anymore.
"Move! Go quickly!" The Warden scrambled to his feet, roaring hysterically at the two pale-faced guards standing behind him. "Wake the entire garrison! Drag every single one of those bastards out from the deepest parts of the dungeon!"
The two guards bolted down the corridor as if granted a divine pardon, their boots echoing frantically into the abyss of the prison.
Soon, the harsh, metallic screech of heavy iron doors sliding open echoed through the facility, one after another. Squads of fully armed Konoha shinobi flooded the lower levels like a pack of starving wolves. They stormed into the maximum-security cells, violently dragging the heinous criminals from their cots.
The entire prison instantly descended into absolute chaos.
A cacophony of vicious curses, furious roars, and pathetic pleas for mercy filled the damp air.
"Take your hands off me! Do you have any idea who I am?!"
"Konoha running dogs! Unseal my chakra and fight me one-on-one if you have the guts!"
"Please, sir! Spare me! I am willing to do anything for the village! Put me on the front lines!"
Akira turned a completely deaf ear to the pathetic noise. He turned his back on the cells, his footsteps steady and measured as he walked out of the gloomy, oppressive atmosphere of the dungeon. He stepped out into the large, open-air courtyard situated just outside the main cell blocks—a heavily reinforced exercise yard enclosed by towering stone walls and a shimmering chakra barrier.
Bright, midday sunlight streamed down from above, washing over his black hair and dispelling the lingering damp chill of the underground.
Several minutes passed.
The heavy steel gates of the yard groaned open. One hundred and eighty-six heavily shackled prisoners were violently marched into the open space by the Konoha guards. Batons cracked against the backs of knees, forcing the mob of criminals to kneel on the hard dirt. They were arranged into a massive, tightly packed square formation.
Akira's eyes swept over the kneeling crowd. The weakest among these dregs of society possessed the chakra reserves of a standard Genin. The vast majority were hardened, elite Chunin-level mercenaries and missing-nin. Kneeling near the front were even three individuals who had once held the rank of Jonin before their capture.
The prisoners stared up at the tall, imposing figure of the black-haired young man standing upon the elevated platform. Their expressions ranged from defiant rage to trembling fear. Whispers broke out among the chained ranks.
"Isn't that... the Fifth Hokage? Uchiha Akira?"
"What does he want with us? Is he doing a public execution?"
Akira's gaze remained entirely devoid of emotion as he looked down upon the sea of faces. He had absolutely no interest in wasting his breath on a courtyard full of dead men walking. Moving with deliberate slowness, he raised his right hand toward the sky.
An indescribably terrifying spatial fluctuation erupted, rippling outward with Akira at the absolute epicenter.
The ambient light in the courtyard instantly warped. It was as if the sun itself had been eclipsed, the sky plunging into an unnatural, oppressive darkness.
Every single prisoner in the formation, as well as the Konoha shinobi standing guard along the perimeter, felt a visceral, freezing shudder rip through their very souls. The air grew heavy, thick with an ancient, suffocating dread.
"What... what the hell is that?!" a prisoner near the front row shrieked, his chained hands trembling violently as he pointed at the space directly above the Hokage.
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