Chapter 479: Possession
The playful look on Ryo's face gradually vanished.
Peering into the hollow crater at the tail end of the White Snake Sage's slough, he could see a massive amount of the same viscous fluid that coated the outside, and there were even traces of shredded internal organs mixed in!
If this were truly a standard, empty shed skin, such biological remnants should not have been present inside.
"Did the White Snake Sage... get hollowed out from the inside?" Ryo muttered, reaching forward to pinch a tiny fraction of the viscous fluid to inspect it.
However, the absolute millisecond his finger made physical contact with the structure, the entire 'snake slough' instantly dissolved into a fine white powder, scattering across the stone floor.
"What on earth... is going on here?"
Mount Myoboku, the Toad Palace.
The bubble resting on the nose of the Great Toad Sage—who was supposed to remain asleep for several months—suddenly popped, and he slowly blinked awake.
"Yo, Gamamaru, did you have a nightmare? I haven't even called you yet, and you're already awake?" A teasing voice drifted out from right beside his rattan chair.
"The White Snake is dead."
"Mmm?" Following a sharp gasp of surprise, a man whom Ryo had been tirelessly searching for materialized directly in front of the Great Toad Sage—Teuchi!
"The White Snake Sage?"
"Yes, the White Snake... is dead..."
"The White Snake Sage can actually die? An unexpected anomaly has truly struck after all..."
Inside the Shikkotsu Forest, the Katsuyu Sage experienced an identical instinctual resonance, casting a deeply solemn gaze toward the northern reaches.
Did Ryo Uzumaki do this? Does there exist some ancient blood feud between him and the White Snake?
Back inside the Ryuchi Cave.
Ryo looked down to examine the white powder on the ground, his hands rapidly weaving hand seals: "Wood Style: Wooden Box Jutsu!"
A solid wooden chest materialized out of thin air. With a sweep of his hand, Ryo channeled a gust of wind to pack every single speck of the powder securely inside before storing the chest directly into his pocket space. Although he couldn't fully parse what ghostly anomaly had occurred here, the snake powder of the White Snake Sage absolutely couldn't be allowed to go to waste. Bringing it back to brew for his descendants would serve as a premier health supplement...
"The baseline efficacy of standard snake powder includes calming the mind, relieving pain, moisturizing the intestines, and relaxing the bowels! The powder of the White Snake Sage must possess significantly more properties... it can definitely detoxify the system and beautify the skin." Murmuring under his breath, Ryo turned his head to look directly at the entrance of the grand hall.
Several colossal snakes were currently slithering toward Ryo's position at maximum velocity, with Manda leading the pack. Completely ignoring the 'tiny speck' that was Ryo, they entered the hall and immediately began scanning their surroundings in frantic panic, their jaws emitting sharp hissing noises as though desperately calling out to someone.
Receiving zero response after a prolonged silence, the giant snakes fell quiet. With seamless coordination, they systematically fanned out to encircle Ryo in the dead center.
Ryo scanned the perimeter. There were familiar faces as well as unfamiliar specimens among them. When he had visited thirty years ago, there were only three giant snakes including Manda, but now there were seven. The Ryuchi Cave had clearly rested and recuperated quite well over the years...
However, the current gaze of these seven giant snakes was entirely packed with panic and sheer terror. Even though they had successfully cornered Ryo, even the notoriously short-tempered Manda chose to temporarily maintain absolute silence.
"Did something happen to the White Snake Sage?" Ryo proactively shattered the quiet.
The panic and terror in the eyes of the seven snakes spiked even higher, giving Ryo absolute clarity.
"Manda, Aoda, Akada, you three should still retain memories of me, right? I am Ryo Uzumaki, the one who brought Orochimaru here thirty years ago!"
"Ryo Uzumaki?!"
The seven giant snakes exchanged a look, and they simultaneously launched a ferocious assault straight at Ryo!
Ryo's face instantly went black. Only now did he realize he had proactively hoisted a massive black scapegoat shield onto his own back, and it was going to be incredibly difficult to throw off. Without explicitly revealing his identity as Ryo Uzumaki, these snakes would never have believed a mere 'child' could do anything to the White Snake Sage. But now that he had stated his name, it was completely impossible to convince them he wasn't the culprit...
"Sigh, what a headache... Almighty Push (Shinra Tensei)!"
Roughly half an hour later, within a mountain forest in the northwestern region of the Land of Fire, a black void rift tore open. Ryo stepped out onto the grass, letting out a long, slow sigh.
Once they verified his identity as Ryo Uzumaki, those seven giant snakes had gone completely berserk trying to kill him. Initially, Ryo had intended to hold back his strength to interrogate them regarding the logistics of the situation, but the snakes stubbornly refused to engage in communication. Left with zero alternative, he had been forced to kill a chicken to warn the monkeys, cleanly executing Manda and harvesting 20 Witness Points along the way...
Yet the remaining six snakes completely disregarded Manda's death, adopting a suicidal combat stance of 'either you die or I perish'. Sensing tens of thousands of snakes rapidly swarming toward his location from every corner of the Ryuchi Cave, Ryo had been forced to unleash a wide-scale ultimate technique to cleanly break away... As for the casualties sustained by the Ryuchi Cave, he could no longer afford to care!
"Those giant snakes appeared to be harboring a death wish; it seems the White Snake Sage truly ran into disaster, and is highly likely dead," Ryo fell into deep, focused contemplation. "The only person capable of systematically orchestrating the death of the White Snake Sage... would be Orochimaru."
Ryo had continuously been speculating exactly how Orochimaru had smoothly executed his escape from Konoha. Naturally, he had considered the possibility of resurrection via the Curse Mark, but he had rapidly vetoed that theory.
Orochimaru had painstakingly cultivated for fifty years, utilizing all sorts of alternative methodologies to command a baseline of SS-rank strength. How could he possibly allow himself to die so easily in Konoha just to resurrect via a secondary Curse Mark? Doing so would severely compromise his raw strength tier, and heaven knew how many decades it would take to cultivate back to the SS-rank.
But the state of the White Snake Sage's slough today gave Ryo a bold, spectacular hypothesis. What if Orochimaru had orchestrated his resurrection directly inside the vessel of the White Snake Sage? Didn't the hollow crater at the tail end of the slough happen to provide just enough clearance for an adult human to crawl inside and out?
Although the exact mechanics remained a mystery, Ryo boldly deduced that Orochimaru had used a specialized method to launch a hidden ambush against the White Snake Sage, possessing its vessel and taking over its body (Duo She) to undergo a rebirth. His individual strength, instead of dropping, would have spiked to an entirely superior tier!
"The White Snake Sage's raw capability wasn't weak. If this hypothesis holds true, the current Orochimaru likely commands a tier of strength that sits close to, or perhaps even eclipses, Madara's baseline—a Great Snake Sage?"
Weighing the details for a long while, Ryo increasingly felt he had successfully mapped out the truth. Deducing a massive structural narrative from a mere handful of clues... he truly was Master Detective Ryo.
As for Orochimaru's primary objective, it most likely remained focused on true immortality. By possessing the White Snake Sage, aside from the monumental surge in raw strength, he would inherit an exceptionally long, marine-biological lifespan.
"Aside from me, another immortal entity has been added to the world in the form of Orochimaru?" Ryo chuckled softly. "Should I perhaps say 'our path is no longer lonely'? I wonder exactly how many centuries this 'Great Snake Sage' can accompany me. When all is said and done, he still won't outlive my system attributes..."
By now, the ambient sunlight had steadily dissolved into twilight. Ryo performed a brief sensory sweep of the surrounding landscape. Finding zero trace of Orochimaru's active tracks, he turned and set his course to return to Konoha.
"It feels... as though I've accidentally forgotten a minor detail?"
Simultaneously, back at Mount Myoboku.
Naruto officially concluded a full day of arduous Senjutsu training, rubbing his stomach with a thoroughly miserable expression.
"Grandpa Toad, is there anything available to eat? I feel like I haven't had a single bite of food all day!"
"Hold on a moment, little Naruto, my dear has already gone to prepare dinner."
Jiraiya given a violent pause. Prepare dinner? Holy heaven! The Senior just left via teleportation like that, without leaving a single scrap of normal human food for us!
He hurriedly lifted his head to speak up: "Sage Fukasaku, I suddenly remembered an exceptionally urgent matter that requires me to make a swift trip back to Konoha. Please summon me back via the Summoning Technique first thing tomorrow morning!"
"Little Jiraiya, you're not staying to eat? My dear prepared an extra portion specifically for you..."
Jiraiya waved his hands in a frantic blur: "No, no, the situation over there is incredibly urgent, I must depart immediately!"
With those words delivered, Jiraiya dissolved into a plume of white smoke and vanished.
Naruto scratched his hair, a face full of absolute bewilderment.
A moment later, Sage Shima stepped into the room, holding a massively bountiful dinner platter for Naruto.
Reds, whites, greens, yellows—every color under the sun was dynamically represented, a visual feast that would normally jump-start anyone's appetite.
But Naruto desperately wanted to die.
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