Chapter 143: In the Name of Caroso

On Otsutsuki Shouya’s side, a frown creased his brow when he saw Uchiha Li’s sudden movement.

Uchiha Li’s expression had been far too calm from the very beginning. Something about it was deeply wrong.

When the statue had just regenerated, even the Uchiha companions below him had been utterly shocked. Yet Uchiha Li had shown almost no reaction, as though he had known in advance that it would happen.

“Impossible. Absolutely impossible. There’s no way he could have known.”

The suspicion in Otsutsuki Shouya’s mind seemed absurd even to him. He was certain that the statue’s secret had never been exposed.

Uchiha Li had to be bluffing!

With that thought, Otsutsuki Shouya controlled the statue and made it take another step forward. He directed its newly restored arms to strike together from both sides, attempting to crush Uchiha Li’s Susanoo between them.

He refused to believe that Uchiha Li could destroy the statue without limit.

As long as he repeated the attack enough times and waited until Uchiha Li could no longer sustain himself, the battle would be over.

Whoosh!

A sharp sound of displaced air rang out. Despite its enormous size, the statue was not clumsy in the slightest. Its speed was completely at odds with its massive frame.

In the blink of an eye, the statue’s hands had reached both sides of Uchiha Li’s Susanoo. If Uchiha Li continued standing there and attacking, he would inevitably be struck.

Under such terrifying force, Uchiha Li was likely to suffer a disastrous fate.

Thus, in the eyes of Otsutsuki Shouya—and of Itachi below—the best course of action for Uchiha Li was to retreat first.

He could use the Susanoo’s relatively small size to evade the statue, then launch another attack afterward.

Otsutsuki Shouya had already prepared his next assault, waiting for Uchiha Li to dodge.

Yet, to his disbelief, Uchiha Li remained where he was, as though he could not even see the statue’s attack approaching.

“Courting death!”

Seeing this, Otsutsuki Shouya gave a cold smile.

He did not know whether Uchiha Li was simply confident or had some other motive, but this time, Uchiha Li would pay the price for his mistake.

The statue’s rapidly closing hands suddenly accelerated once more, and it seemed that Uchiha Li was about to be crushed completely.

“Divine Wheel Dance!”

But at that moment, accompanied by a low shout, the four divine wheels of Uchiha Li’s Susanoo merged together once again. They began to expand at an astonishing speed.

The complete divine wheel instantly surpassed the height of Uchiha Li’s Susanoo and began spinning at tremendous speed.

“No matter what trick you’re trying to play, it’s useless,” Otsutsuki Shouya said coldly when he saw what Uchiha Li was doing.

Since Uchiha Li wanted to destroy the statue again, then let him.

The statue could repair itself endlessly. The only thing being wasted was Uchiha Li’s chakra.

Therefore, Otsutsuki Shouya did not bother making the statue evade. He simply allowed it to collide with the divine wheel.

Exchanging injury for his opponent’s life was advantageous to him. He could only wish that Uchiha Li would try it a few more times.

“Teacher, what exactly are you trying to do?”

Below, Itachi watched Uchiha Li’s every move, sinking into thought.

At the beginning of the battle, he might have worried that Uchiha Li was taking an excessive risk. But now, he suddenly understood something: his teacher was far from simple.

Recalling all of Uchiha Li’s actions in the village, Itachi suddenly felt that his teacher’s seemingly wasteful expenditure of chakra and ocular power must serve some special purpose.

The only problem was that, even now, Otsutsuki Shouya had no idea what that purpose was.

“Could it be that Teacher truly has a way to break this undying statue?”

With that thought, Itachi began to look forward to what would happen next.

At that moment, the statue’s arms collided with the divine wheel.

The divine wheel was as sharp as ever—especially with all four wheels combined.

Its edge was like a row of razor-sharp saw teeth. In an instant, it shredded the statue’s arms to pieces.

Otsutsuki Shouya, standing atop the statue, witnessed everything without the slightest change in expression. Once Uchiha Li had attacked, it was his turn.

The statue, its arms destroyed yet again, shot forward like a cannonball and slammed directly into Uchiha Li’s Susanoo.

At that speed, there was no way Uchiha Li could control the divine wheel in time to return and defend him.

Once the statue struck the Susanoo, Otsutsuki Shouya was certain that Uchiha Li would be seriously wounded even if he survived.

Faced with such a scene, everyone present grew tense.

Boom!

The next moment, a violent impact resounded.

Uchiha Li’s Susanoo flew backward like a kite torn from its string, plummeting from the sky before crashing heavily into the ground.

The force was so great that it triggered a blast, sending clouds of dust billowing in every direction.

“It worked!”

The Otsutsuki descendants below shouted in excitement.

“It worked?”

Itachi, however, began to look expectant.

The words they murmured were the same, but the meanings behind them were entirely different.

Before long, the dust began to settle, and everyone waited for the final result.

Then they saw a deep crater in the ground. Uchiha Li’s Susanoo was nearly shattered.

Having reached its limit, the Susanoo cracked like a porcelain vessel before breaking apart and dissolving into specks of light.

At the sight, the Otsutsuki descendants nearly burst into cheers.

A smile also appeared on Otsutsuki Shouya’s face as he stood atop the statue. But he was the first to notice that something was wrong.

Uchiha Li’s Susanoo had indeed been shattered by the statue’s impact.

But where was Uchiha Li?

Otsutsuki Shouya focused his senses and searched the ground for Uchiha Li’s presence, but found nothing.

“Wait—the divine wheel!”

As though he had suddenly thought of something, Otsutsuki Shouya shifted his attention back to the divine wheel suspended in midair.

After slicing apart the statue’s arms, Uchiha Li’s divine wheel had simply remained motionless in the sky.

When he had ordered the statue to attack Uchiha Li’s Susanoo, he had instinctively avoided the divine wheel.

After all, even the statue could not withstand its cutting edge.

But Uchiha Li’s Susanoo had already been destroyed. Whether he could summon it again so soon was still uncertain.

Then why was the divine wheel, a weapon belonging to the Susanoo, still floating in the air without being affected in the slightest?

Unless the divine wheel and the Susanoo were not completely one entity, but had merely been combined together.

If that were true, then Uchiha Li—

“Damn it! He tricked me!”

Realizing the truth, Otsutsuki Shouya’s expression changed. He hurriedly prepared to deal with the divine wheel.

But by then, Uchiha Li had already appeared above it.

The divine wheel rapidly shrank until it finally attached itself to Uchiha Li, just as it had once been attached to the Susanoo.

Empowered by the divine wheel, Uchiha Li gazed down upon everything with an indifferent expression.

His clothing had changed as well. Black-and-gold divine armor covered his body, while both of his hands were stained crimson.

At that moment, he truly resembled a god.

Finally, an ethereal, emotionless voice spread across the moon.

The Otsutsuki present, including Shouya, were bewildered when they heard it.

But Itachi was struck by utter horror. He realized what was happening.

“In the name of Calroso, I grant you death!”