Naruto: Passerby and Returnee

Chapter 512 The End of a Universe

Time is the deepest regret, the most terrible enemy, and an inescapable curse.

He had forgotten how many days and nights he had lived. For many years, he had no idea who he was now. He could see the entire silent galaxy as soon as he opened his eyes, and he had completely lost his concept of time. Only when he gradually analyzed himself and everything else did he finally touch the edge of time.

Shedding old dreams is the hardest step; memories try to erode his will and dismantle his soul. But illusory dreams can never become reality; he cannot pretend that one puppet after another is still alive.

Later, he had to contend with the boundless universe.

His ever-expanding senses allowed him to "hear" distant sounds, but no matter how much he grew, stars always shone in more distant places, and he seemed forever unable to reach the top of this sky.

He is constantly trying to salvage the past from time.

Initially, he retrieved some useless fragments, and the small-scale impact didn't seem to have much effect. Later, he chose the moon, which was nearby but wouldn't have too much impact. However, this time the retrieval was fraught with difficulties. Time doesn't allow things to repeat at the same moment. He made many attempts and finally chose to completely destroy the "present" moon, merging all the debris into his body and disappearing completely. Only then did he retrieve half a moon from the past, connecting the "past" to the "present".

This should have been an exhilarating start, but the world's cruelty towards him seemed endless. He desperately tried to find the past submerged in time, but could only ever see the glimmer of planetary destruction, unable to go any further, not even for half a day, not even for a few hours, when tens of thousands of lives could be saved. Time forcefully kept him out, severing him from his hope.

He refused to give up, constantly striving to become stronger or immersing himself in the past. Gradually, the stars in the vicinity dwindled; some were swallowed up by him and became part of him, while others disappeared without his noticing.

When people focus too much on something, they tend to overlook important things, and this was no exception in his case.

He finally noticed the anomaly in the night sky: the once lush celestial canopy now bore a massive hole, a hole so conspicuous even from billions of light-years away. The hole was eroding outwards every moment, at an ever-increasing speed, making it impossible to ignore.

He sent out several clones to investigate, but only half of them returned.

That's right, only half. In order to bring back the sample of the eroded starry sky, this clone was eventually eroded down to only half its original size.

He discovered that the part was exactly the same as the power that enveloped his core. Only a small amount could be controlled, but once it became overwhelming, and once it collided with the power of this universe, they would cancel each other out and unleash enormous energy, sweeping away everything.

What's more troublesome is that the chaos that was originally neutralized could recombine into two forces, with the proportions of the two forces remaining roughly equal without external interference. However, once human intervention is carried out, one of them can be guided to become more abundant.

The gradually encroaching void is expanding using this principle. Within the black mist are many powerful life forms, each with a different power at its core; they sacrificed almost all of their clones to stop them.

He suddenly remembered the guy who had asked him to save the universe countless years ago. Shibai wasn't lying after all; the universe... might really be doomed.

Normal people would choose to flee when faced with a seemingly invincible enemy, but he could not. Behind him was a white star that was still burning quietly, and his homeland, which had not yet recovered, was a tiny dot on that white star. That was the bottom line that he could not retreat from.

"We meet again, Naruto."

One day, Shibai reappeared with his black core.

"Pushing me into the dark universe was the stupidest decision I could have made."

He had never heard of the term "dark universe," but that didn't affect his understanding.

"Are you making excuses for your own decadence, Otsutsuki Shibai? Do you even remember that name now?"

Back then, he wouldn't have hesitated to die alongside Shibai on the spot; sparing him was already the last act of mercy. If Shibai could withstand the corruption and survive, he wouldn't bother searching for him as long as he didn't appear before him. But now, Shibai had become an enemy of the universe, and was still spouting nonsense in front of him. What reason did he have not to take action?

A battle fought after countless centuries, millennia, or even tens of thousands of years is no longer as simple and brutal as it once was. Time, which he hated most, has now become his best weapon. Stopping is the simplest operation, while acceleration and reversal are second nature to him. But his opponent seems to have someone who can counter him, possessing abilities similar to his own, and their sizes are comparable, while his side is at a significant disadvantage in numbers.

Shibai didn't come alone; they seemed to have assessed his strength during the last battle with the clone, so they sent enough people. Without exception, those "people" all possessed black cores, and they weren't entirely human-like; after all, beings at their level could change however they wanted.

He didn't know how long he had been fighting. The erosion that was fatal to his own universe seemed to be equally effective against his opponent, only the energy was being used in reverse. And he, this anomaly who could wield dual powers, was completely immune to the erosion—his only advantage. To continue the fight, he had to use his core from the dark universe as a battery, while constantly consuming the power of his own universe in the battle. This prolonged fighting would eventually disrupt the balance within him, exposing his core to excessive amounts of dark universe energy.

That core holds the entirety of a civilization. Over the long course of time, the complex soul forces have become unified, and except for one stubborn individual, they can no longer be distinguished from each other.

His homeland was destroyed, the sun's glory was fading, and all that remained were these things. Even if he were to be shattered to pieces, he could not lose them.

He recalled a time when he had tried to enter the flow of time by combining two energies, but the part of his soul that he released was almost swept away by chaos. That might be his only chance. So, ignoring the other attacks around him, he grabbed Shibai, who had been dodging, and finally crushed his core in his hand.

This was everyone's wish, and he was determined to fulfill it in the final moments of his life. Then, he released everything except the core, the aftershocks of the explosion nearly sweeping away the entire galaxy. And within the light of the explosion, a massive rift opened, and a chaotic torrent instantly engulfed the core, making it vanish.