The Nine-Tails focused its gaze on Carl for a moment before speaking in a deep, rumbling voice.
"So, what benefit do you get from all this? Are you really doing this purely for that brat, Uzumaki Naruto, who has nothing to do with you?"
Carl looked a little surprised, then smiled faintly.
"The benefits I want... I'll take for myself. It does have something to do with you, but it has nothing to do with your consent."
"What?"
The Nine-Tails' pupils shrank. Before it could even react, Carl's hand suddenly flashed out in a chopping motion—severing one of the Nine-Tails' tails clean off.
With a deafening roar that shook the sealed space, the beast's blood-red chakra surged like a raging tide, instantly engulfing Carl's body.
But Carl stood motionless amidst the tsunami of chakra, completely unfazed by the Nine-Tails' fury. He simply raised his hand lightly, and from his palm, a wave of dark gravitational force erupted—drawing in the severed tail before absorbing it into the swirling black vortex in his palm.
The tail was instantly broken down by the darkness into pure chakra energy. Carl felt the powerful current flowing through him, then guided the dark energy to condense it into a droplet-shaped chakra crystal that floated within the black void.
Though it originated from the Nine-Tails' chakra, the crystal wasn't red—it was pitch black, veined faintly with dark crimson patterns.
With a thought, the palm-sized crystal floated out into Carl's hand. The instant it appeared, a terrifying suction force spread through the sealed space, distorting it entirely.
Even the raging Nine-Tails froze in shock. It stared in disbelief at the diamond-shaped crystal hovering in Carl's hand. From that crystal, it could sense the pulse of its own chakra—but that was all. It could no longer connect to it in any way.
For the Nine-Tails, this sensation was unbearably strange. For a human, it would be like watching someone steal your wife right in front of you—and then she turns around and no longer recognizes you. Its chakra had completely become something else.
What made it worse was that the opponent was truly powerful. Its... no, his chakra, now fused with Carl's darkness, had transformed—becoming something beyond comprehension, something that devoured all. That power exuded an overwhelming sense of inevitability, even greater than when Hashirama Senju's Buddha hand once crushed it in the past.
Under the Nine-Tails' wary gaze, Carl drew the chakra crystal back into his body. With just a flicker of focus, he could feel a new energy coursing through his veins like blood—the "special energy" unique to this world: chakra.
Chakra was incredibly versatile. In mere moments, Carl was already able to release elemental powers of different attributes. The Nine-Tails watched, dumbfounded.
Wasn't this the legendary Sage's physique?!
Now it was completely certain—Carl came from the clan that the Sage of Six Paths once spoke of.
After playing around with the most basic chakra nature transformations, Carl recalled the contents of the Scroll of Seals. With his power, most forbidden jutsu were useless trinkets. What truly caught his attention were the sealing techniques—especially since sealing arts were the one field in this world that could truly trip him up.
Now that he possessed chakra, he could begin studying sealing techniques—learning how to counter them. At the very least, he wouldn't be helpless when faced with a seal again.
Among the sealing techniques recorded in the Scroll, the one that caught Carl's eye first was the Four Symbols Seal.
...
Speaking of the Four Symbols Seal, it had two main variations: the Eight Trigrams Seal and the Reverse Four Symbols Seal.
The Reverse Four Symbols Seal possessed the strongest sealing power of all. Once activated, both the target and the user would be completely erased from existence.
However, in the original timeline, its track record was... less than glorious. Danzo had sacrificed his life to use it—and only managed to seal a bridge.
Even so, the Reverse Four Symbols Seal was unquestionably one of the most powerful sealing arts. Otherwise, Danzo would never have needed to pay for it with his life. It had two fatal flaws: it was indiscriminate, meaning the caster couldn't escape its effect, and it consumed an amount of life force far beyond what any normal human could endure.
But for Carl, these drawbacks were meaningless. His life force no longer belonged to the realm of ordinary humans—and with his vampiric abilities, his vitality was near limitless.
As for the "indiscriminate" nature of the technique, that wasn't a problem either. His spatial abilities were far beyond even Kamui—the seal couldn't possibly touch him.
In other words, even the most dangerous version of the Four Symbols Seal was practically tailor-made for Carl. He was the perfect caster.
The other variation—the Eight Trigrams Seal—was even more significant. The sealed space he was currently in had been created by that very technique. If he could master it, he could escape this sealed space with far greater ease.
Carl closed his eyes, letting his immense spiritual power flow. In his mind, the steps for the Four Symbols Seal unfolded and replayed several times. When he opened his eyes again, he had already mastered it.
He slowly raised a hand, channeling chakra in a precise pattern. A complex sealing sigil appeared in his palm.
Looking at the pattern, Carl murmured with a faint smile,
"This one's... a bit tricky. Took me a little effort to figure out."
If anyone else had heard that, they'd probably die of frustration. A sealing technique of this level normally required decades of study, unless one possessed extraordinary talent. Yet Carl had learned it in less than the time it took to finish a cup of tea. His learning speed was simply monstrous.
Still, his research wasn't done. The advanced version—the Eight Trigrams Seal—had been developed by Minato Namikaze. Unfortunately, he hadn't lived long enough to add it to the Scroll of Seals before his death.
But that didn't matter to Carl. The principle of the Eight Trigrams Seal was mentioned—it was simply the layering of two Four Symbols Seals on top of each other. A nested formation, so to speak.
Thinking of that, Carl lifted his gaze toward the grand seal mark high upon the gate before him, a faint smile curling at his lips.
It was time to break the seal.
He gathered chakra into both palms, forming two Four Symbols Seals. Then he pressed his hands together.
In the next instant, an enormous sealing pattern spread out beneath his feet.
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