If it were not for the existence of this darkness, the remaining half of the planet would have separated from the other under the influence of gravity, and would not have remained pressed against it, as it is now.
Of course, if this darkness had not been there, the planet would not have been in such a deplorable state at all.
At that moment, in the very heart of the eternal, bottomless, and indestructible darkness, a giant like a living black hole was floating motionlessly in the air.
—Oh, what a boundless, terrifying power!
Uchiha Yue spread out his arms, and an almost endless, unimaginably huge and terrifying energy, like a tsunami, poured into his body. The light of the sun, the force of the collision of matter, the gravitational attraction of the star to the planet — he absorbed and devoured absolutely all types of energy, turning them into an integral part of himself.
The limit? There was no limit!
There was only an unlimited increase in power and the evolution of the very essence of life. The idea of Nagato and the others was doomed to failure from the very beginning, because Uchiha Yue could not die of old age. Not to mention that his dojutsu reversed any harmful effects for him, including aging, and retained only positive aspects such as gaining experience.
But even without this ability, the very evolution of the essence of life led to an increase in its duration. After all, for a living being, the so—called death from old age is not a restriction imposed by the laws of nature, but a limitation of the flesh. No, not even flesh, but genes.
Death from aging has never been something predetermined and absolute. Life shouldn't have ended because of senility-it was the genes that made her die.
Gradually increase life expectancy by evolving at the essence level? From a hundred years to two hundred, three hundred, to a thousand, ten thousand?
Can this be called evolution? In a sense, yes, but it was not a genuine, absolute evolution. It was a concession to the genes. In fact, this is just an endless stretching of the time inherent in them, an order to the genes to delay the disintegration of the body. But the fundamental logic of the genes remained unchanged: the body was doomed to destruction anyway.
A thousand years, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, a billion?
No matter how large this number is, even if the allowed life span exceeded the age of the universe itself, death would still be inevitable. This was the logic inherent in genes—like a feudal dynasty, which, no matter how long it existed and no matter how prosperous it seemed, would one day inevitably decline and collapse.
It was fate, an inescapable fate—a fundamental program, predetermined from birth.
How can we avoid the predestined disintegration of the flesh?
Uchiha Yue decided to send this fate to hell. He quit the game by rebelling against the genetic code, rewriting it and forcibly cutting out the genes of aging and death. So decrepitude and death disappeared.
His cells acquired the ability to divide indefinitely, but this division did not become chaotic. As before, they joined to form a human form, and when the body was damaged, they divided to restore it. The cells were still dying, but it was no longer death from withering, but renewal: strong cells replaced weak ones. It was the metabolism.
Uchiha Yue did not become a super-being standing above humanity. He remained a man, but a man who would never die of old age. He wasn't a god, he was a mortal, an ordinary man who had just ascended.
The dead darkness continued to expand faster and faster, and the remaining half of the planet was turning black, corroded by it. Finally, the Shinobi world was completely plunged into darkness. There was an eternal, dead silence. The snow, like goose down, began to fall with incredible slowness.
It was falling so slowly that it formed entire continents right in the sky.
The planet's atmosphere was disappearing. The oceans began to freeze, turning into a giant block of ice. Countless sea creatures, without having time to realize what was happening, lost all their vital energy and, together with the icy water, froze into dead statues. Even the toughest and tiniest life forms couldn't survive in this darkness and cold.
At the micro level, the smallest organisms— bacteria, fungi, and others—turned into statues and died.
Rotting?
In a world where even microorganisms have disappeared, where there is no light or heat left, where the wind has subsided, and the movement of molecules has slowed down to the limit, the very concept of rot has ceased to exist.
The internal activity of the planet has stopped. The once-red-hot lava has cooled, the pulsating core has frozen. This planet was dying.
And she was killed by a tiny, mote-like creature born on her own surface.
If the Shinobi world had its own will, it would certainly have brought down heavenly punishment on Uchiha Yue, but it would immediately discover that all its means were powerless against such a living embodiment of disaster, and it would only have to wait in despair for its death.
Having completely swallowed up the planet, the bottomless darkness came into contact with the cosmic void.
Endless streams of sunlight rained down on the darkness, but failed to illuminate it one iota. On the contrary, they drowned in it, becoming prey, food for the darkness. As if processed into nectar, the radiant and dazzling light rushed like a river deep into the darkness. Uchiha Yue absorbed the power of the star.
—And now…
In the center of the area of dead silence, Uchiha Yue looked up at a dazzlingly bright, great star. He could feel a terrifying power surging in his body. After swallowing an entire planet and going into space, he began to absorb the energy of the universe, and his power grew at an incredible, breakneck speed.
Space. His absorption ability now allowed him to penetrate the fabric of the universe, sucking energy from deeper layers of the same dimension.
Pure Lands and other dimensions adjacent to the Shinobi world… Alas, he was too late. There was not a single soul left in the Pure Lands. The escape plan of Uchiha Obito and the others was a failure from the very beginning. If they really decided to seal themselves in there to wait out Uchiha Yue's death…
Even if he really could have died of old age, they would have disappeared into Kamui's space long before that, dying in a dream of a new world, never reaching its reality.
— Dragon Spring…