For the Greater Good

You killed the White Snake Sage and gained 2,800 Dimensional Points.

You obtained D-rank Anomaly Point ×1.

The White Snake Sage and Ryūchi Cave-related faction missions are being partially removed. Some quest lines will no longer be completable.

A Purple Drop Card condensed beneath the massive white snake’s head.

You obtained Drop Card (Purple) ×1.

Satsui no Hado increased. Current level: Lv3 (1074/1200).

Puff—

Purple Satsui no Hado blazed fiercely across Bai Cangshu’s body once more. Its color was already nearing red.

Bai Cangshu could foresee that when Satsui no Hado broke through to Lv4, this powerful ability might cross another threshold. At that point, he would likely be swallowed by Satsui no Hado itself—but his strength would also break past its current limits.

At the very least, from the perspective of energy control alone, even without drawing on the Soul Power within him, the sheer intensity of the qi produced by Lv4 Satsui no Hado would be enough for Bai Cangshu to enter the Strong-tier.

Bai Cangshu pressed the white snake’s enormous remains into the opening at the base of the Erdtree. Scarlet Rot curses lay scattered all around. Because that woman had bloomed the flower of Scarlet Rot, nearly everything within a two-kilometer radius had been reduced to barren earth.

If the Erdtree had not already grown beyond a thousand meters tall, with underground roots extending an unknown distance, it too would likely have been killed by this Scarlet Rot curse.

Squelch!

The White Snake Sage’s headless, massive remains touched the Erdtree’s roots, and intense golden radiance began to spread. Since the Greater Will had yet to descend, the concept of death had not yet vanished.

What the Erdtree was doing now was practically competing with this world’s Pure Land for "customers"—absorbing abundant life force, then distributing it again in the form of blessings.

Everyone who received the Erdtree’s blessing became a citizen of the Golden Order. After death, they would no longer enter Yellow Springs or the Pure Land. Instead, they would Return to the Erdtree, returning to the Erdtree itself and completing the cycle.

As the dense life force was absorbed, the Erdtree visibly continued to sprout new branches, stretching higher into the sky. Golden Order radiance trembled with the branches and drifted endlessly in every direction.

From the corner of his eye, Bai Cangshu saw that half of the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama’s body had already been entwined by Scarlet Rot. The most disgusting thing about this "shit-tier technique" was that once it infected someone, no matter how powerful their life force was, they would eventually be dragged down.

Other than truly dying once, only an extremely small number of powers could suppress it.

Senju Hashirama was already in terrible condition. The thousand-meter-tall giant Buddha statue had collapsed, and he clutched his forehead as the Scarlet Rot curse on his jaw constantly assailed his mind.

Bai Cangshu smiled freely and casually crushed the Drop Card.

Purple radiance curled around his fingertips.

You opened Purple Drop Card: White Snake Sage.

You gained 3,000 Dimensional Points.

You obtained material: Dragon Transformation Serpent Head (Extremely Rare).

You obtained Ability Scroll: Ryūchi Cave Sage Mode Training Method (Purple).

Perhaps because the Uncertainty Principle of Luck had triggered dozens, perhaps hundreds of times when Bai Cangshu had killed the White Snake Sage with Shun Goku Satsu, his luck was extremely high right now.

He had obtained two purple rewards directly from opening the Drop Card. One was a material, and the other was a Sage Mode training scroll.

Both were extremely valuable hard currency.

The Erdtree continued to grow, and the wound corroded by Scarlet Rot was healing as well. Before it could be fully covered, Bai Cangshu lightly leaped inside.

The instant he entered, he saw an ancient, enormous toad holding a boy dressed in Uchiha Clan clothing. The moment the great toad saw Bai Cangshu appear, it vanished in a cloud of smoke along with the boy.

However, Bai Cangshu still saw the distinct golden gleam in the boy’s opened eyes.

Uchiha Itachi protected Hiranaka Hana as he followed behind Hiranaka Minoru and Uchiha Shisui. Traveling only a short while behind Mercenary Tao, they too returned to the Land of Fire.

Uchiha Itachi’s gaze occasionally drifted over Shisui and Hiranaka Minoru, while Hiranaka Hana kept her head lowered, her emotions unreadable.

Aside from Orochimaru, who had left the group midway to prepare to implant a Sharingan into himself, the atmosphere among the remaining four was extremely strange. It made Ran, who had stayed with the team, feel deeply uneasy.

The couple who should have been speaking to each other no longer did. The two Uchiha who had once been like brothers also spoke less and less.

For reincarnators, there was rarely such a thing as refusing to work together because their paths differed. All reincarnators acted in pursuit of profit. Even the most savage and cruel reincarnators would occasionally cooperate with those righteous and upright ones.

But Plot Characters were different. At this moment, Ran could clearly feel that the brothers and the couple had developed an irreconcilable conflict over the future of the Golden Order.

He did not know what had happened, nor did he know whether Mercenary Tao had fallen under Uchiha Shisui’s Kotoamatsukami. But in his eyes, this temporary team was already on the verge of collapse. He feared that at some unknown moment, the two members of the Uchiha Clan might turn against each other.

Ran secretly placed something into the Team Space shared by himself and Catherine to send a message.

"Stop!"

Uchiha Shisui suddenly raised his right hand, stopping the group from moving forward.

Ran had yet to realize what was happening, but Uchiha Itachi had already stepped forward. His Three-Tomoe Sharingan opened as he too looked toward the human settlement below the ridge.

It was a town built beside a massive river, taking advantage of its excellent location and resources.

Judging by its size, the town should have had over two thousand residents—far larger than the town where Hiranaka Minoru and Hiranaka Hana had originally lived.

But there was no trace of life in the town now. There was only a large group of men and women with golden gleams in their eyes, silently killing.

They held all sorts of things that could barely be called weapons: hoes, sickles, stones, wooden clubs, even wine bottles and all kinds of jars and containers.

In silence, they surrounded another group of terrified people in the center of town, then repeatedly brought their weapons down.

Blood quickly began to flow. The bloodstains elsewhere in town showed that this was not the first place they had attacked. Many corpses already lay scattered throughout the streets.

"This is…"

Watching this scene, Ran quickly realized something. Not just him—even without any information about the Golden Order, Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi both sharply understood what was happening.

"They’re killing… those who haven’t joined the Golden Order…"

Uchiha Shisui’s pupils trembled. This cruel sight shook him deeply, especially because those people—judging from their clothes and faces—were clearly not fighters. The elderly, the weak, women, and children were all holding anything they could find that might take a life, silently and coldly taking the lives of others.

Uchiha Shisui trembled faintly, unable to control himself. The golden gleam in those people’s eyes filled him with fear.

It was precisely because they carried no weapons, precisely because they were not trained professionals accustomed to taking lives, that he found them so terrifying.

Perhaps once the Golden Order truly descended, this world could escape the threat of death. But before that, these citizens of the Golden Order were being controlled by some kind of will, eliminating all those who were not citizens of the Golden Order!

"Shisui, is this the world you wanted…?"

Uchiha Itachi watched the scene with terrifying calmness. Hiranaka Hana, her face pale, also stared into her husband’s eyes.

Hiranaka Minoru’s pupils trembled, but in the end, the golden gleam grew ever brighter.

"For the greater good, for the future, for a future where no one will die, perhaps we truly can only…"

Slap!

Hiranaka Minoru turned his face slightly. He saw that his wife’s hand was already covered in blood, while an unhealthy flush had risen to her pale face from overwhelming agitation.

Hiranaka Hana could scarcely believe that the person before her was still the warm man who had held a war orphan who had lost her family amid the ruins, risking mission failure all the way to bring that little girl back.

"Minoru!"

"There is no greater good here, no future…"

"There is only death. That’s all."

The woman broke down in tears.