Arthev stood ankle-deep in the black water, the silence of the void heavy around him. Shukaku's warning hung in the air: Secrets. Big ones.
The massive tanuki floated on his back like a jagged island, scratching his stomach with a lazy, rhythmic skritch-skritch. He looked far too comfortable for a creature made of sand and malice.
"You mentioned roots," Arthev said, cutting through the silence. He refused to let the beast dictate the pace. "And surprises. You want to elaborate, or are you just going to splash around all day?"
Shukaku cracked one eye open. "Impatient, aren't we? Fine. Pull up a chair. Oh, wait, you can't. No furniture." He cackled, the sound vibrating through the water against Arthev's shins.
"You've got me now, kid. And that means you're not just swinging a stick anymore. You're packing artillery."
The beast rolled over, a wave of displaced water washing over Arthev's feet.
"Let's simplify it. You get Sand Dominion. That's my specialty. Crush, bury, suffocate, it's all yours. Then, you get the Cloak." Shukaku grinned, showing a mouth full of jagged razors.
"Think of it as wearing my skin. It's hard, it heals, and it hits like a falling mountain. And if things get really hairy? Possession. I take the wheel, and we flatten everything in a ten-mile radius."
Arthev's mind raced, connecting the dots to the lore he remembered. Gaara's sand. Naruto's cloak.
"Sand, armor, and a berserker state," Arthev summarized, his voice steady despite the adrenaline spiking in his blood. "That's... excessive for a Level 10 breakthrough."
"Excessive is my middle name. Actually, it's 'Sand Spirit,' but you get the point."
"But the ring," Arthev pressed, his thoughts circling back to the anomaly. "You masked the red ring as purple. A 100,000 year ring implies power that defies logic. In this world's terms... just how strong are you?"
Shukaku stopped moving. The water stilled. The playful glint in his amber eyes sharpened into something ancient and terrifying.
"In this world?" Shukaku rumbled, his voice dropping an octave. "If I let loose? I'm sitting at Level 95. Maybe 96 on a good day."
Arthev forgot to breathe. Level 95. A Super Douluo. A localized natural disaster. And this thing was currently renting space in his soul.
"I have a Titled Douluo living in my mind," Arthev whispered.
"Don't make it sound weird," Shukaku snorted, the tension breaking instantly.
"But yeah. That's why we hid the ring. You walk around flashing that kind of raw power, and every power-hungry maniac on the continent will be trying to dissect you. Purple keeps you under the radar. Mostly."
"Right. Camouflage." Arthev rubbed his temples. "Anything else? You look like you're sitting on a punchline."
"Sharp kid." Shukaku sat up, towering over him. "The breakthrough didn't just wake me up. It rewired your eyes."
Arthev blinked. He felt it then—a pressure behind his temples, cool and fluid, like mercury pooling in his optical nerves. He pushed Soul Power into his eyes.
The world snapped.
The darkness of the void wasn't just black anymore; it was textured. He could see the individual grains of sand falling from Shukaku's fur. He could see the flow of energy holding this mental space together.
He looked down at his reflection in the water. The crimson irises were brighter, burning with a cold fire. And orbiting the pupil, three black tomoe spun in a lazy, hypnotic rhythm.
"Three tomoe," Arthev breathed. The world slowed down. He could track the trajectory of a water droplet before it even fell.
"And check the tank," Shukaku pointed a claw at him.
Arthev checked his internal reserves. The barrier of Level 10 was obliterated. The energy surged past 11, 12, 13... and settled firmly at Rank 14.
"Four ranks in one jump," Arthev murmured. This wasn't a breakthrough; it was a mutation.
"You're welcome," Shukaku preened. "Now, give it a test drive. Don't embarrass me."
Arthev didn't hesitate. He channeled his energy. Wood spiraled out of his shoulder, not stiff and bark-like, but fluid. It formed a shape, detaching and landing on the water with a soft slap. A Wood Clone.
Arthev stared at himself. With the Three-Tomoe Shinragan, he didn't just see a copy; he saw the structure. He saw the weak points in the joints, the flow of soul power maintaining the form.
He willed the clone to attack. It lunged.
To a normal eye, it would have been a blur. To Arthev, it was moving underwater. He side-stepped the punch with a millimeter to spare, reading the muscle tension before the clone even moved. He locked eyes with it.
Genjutsu.
The clone froze, caught in an instant paralysis.
"Perception, prediction, stronger illusions," Arthev noted, dispelling the clone. It dissolved into a splash of water and drift-wood. "This would have turned that Shadow Drake fight into a joke."
"Drake?" Shukaku's ears perked up. "You fought a lizard? Was it big? Did it bleed?"
"About eight hundred years old," Arthev said, the ghost of a smirk touching his lips.
"Fast. Nasty. I had to pin it to kill it. With these eyes... I could have dismantled it piece by piece."
"Music to my ears." Shukaku laughed. "Next time, wake me up. I want to see you squash something."
Arthev deactivated the eyes, the drain on his stamina noticeable but manageable. "Next time, I might need the help."
Suddenly, the water beneath them rippled. Not from Shukaku, and not from Arthev. It was a deep, subsonic tremor that seemed to come from the abyss below the sand.
Shukaku's laughter cut off. His ears flattened against his skull.
Arthev spun around, hand instinctively going for a weapon he wasn't holding. "What was that?"
"Nothing," Shukaku said, but his voice lacked its usual mockery. He was staring at the darkness beyond the boundaries of the dream. "Just... growing pains. The Tree is settling in."
Arthev narrowed his eyes. The Tree.
He had a Tailed Beast. He had a Tree Martial Spirit. In the stories of his old life, those two things combined to form something apocalyptic. The Ten-Tails. The God Tree.
"You're a bad liar, Tanuki," Arthev said softly. "But I'll let it slide. For now."
"Smart choice." Shukaku grinned, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Go on, kid. Wake up. You've got a red ring to hide and a world to fool."
As the dreamscape faded into white, Arthev's last thought wasn't on the power he had gained, but on the tremor in the deep. Shukaku was Rank 95, a monster in his own right.
And yet, whatever was down there... seemed to make even the One-Tail silent.
To be continued.....