Chapter Eighty-One: The One-Tailed Host [Third Update]

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One-Tail’s power was beyond question, but right now it had a vast reserve of chakra without being able to make proper use of it. Facing a pirate of Crocodile’s level, that was still a severe disadvantage.

Its immense chakra surged, and the wound across its back was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye. One-Tail cried out, and Shu Mingyuan could even hear a note of grievance in the sound.

The boy smiled softly, shaking his head as he patted the back of its foot. Then he pressed his palm firmly against its body. At that moment, a terrifying pull suddenly erupted from within Shu Mingyuan, and space itself seemed to fold and distort. One-Tail’s hundred-zhang colossal body began to shrink at an astonishing rate, and in the end, before Crocodile’s stunned eyes, it was completely absorbed by the boy.

Once One-Tail entered his body, it showed not the slightest resistance. It opened itself entirely and accepted Shu Mingyuan’s spiritual will with complete surrender. The boy closed his eyes tightly, as though a meditating monk had fallen into profound enlightenment.

“What exactly is going on with this kid... He seems to have absorbed that monster? Falling into enlightenment at a time like this is just begging to die!”

Crocodile seemed to have seen through the truth. With a cold laugh, he sent a sand blade viciously slashing toward him. The blade split the desert apart, but the instant it crossed within ten meters of Shu Mingyuan, the surrounding sand actually condensed of its own accord into layer upon layer of sand shields to block it.

“It isn’t being controlled, and yet this sand has developed a will of its own? Impossible!”

Crocodile was greatly alarmed. Even he had never mastered such a power.

“So you think a few grains of sand can stop me? Don’t make me laugh! Desert Treasure Saber!”

...

Within Shu Mingyuan’s deepest sea of consciousness, there was no prison. There lived a tiny young One-Tail, unlike the ferocious creature it would become when fully grown; at this moment, it looked almost honest and simple.

“So this is One-Tail in its juvenile form? Not bad at all.”

Shu Mingyuan teased the little thing, holding it in his arms, and immediately felt the bloodline bond between human and beast. This was a symbiotic relationship, one that could also be called shared life and death.

He was now the jinchuriki of the One-Tail, and its unimaginably vast power could be perfectly drawn upon through his body as the medium. In other words, with nothing more than a thought, he could enter full beast transformation, reaching the kind of state Naruto later attained.

That state was different from partial beast transformation. Inside a jinchuriki’s body was a vast amount of chakra carrying hatred, slaughter, and other negative emotions, which made the host violent, aggressive, and often unable to tell friend from foe.

Only after gaining the beast’s acknowledgment, and only by achieving a perfect conversion between human chakra and beast chakra, could one tap into the original chakra within the tailed beast and manifest in its giant beast form. In that state, the tailed beast’s terrifying chakra and overwhelming power were displayed through the jinchuriki in the most perfect way possible.

“So the system really didn’t lie to me.”

Shu Mingyuan murmured to himself. He could feel the colossal force hidden within his body, waiting for a single thought to be unleashed at will.

He withdrew his consciousness and slowly opened his strange, three-tomoe Sharingan. By then, countless streams of drifting sand had risen around him like a curtain, wrapping him within. Outside that curtain, any attack Crocodile unleashed would be blocked by the sand, which now seemed to possess its own awareness.

“Desert Greatsword!”

The enormous sand blade that had earlier split open One-Tail’s back came crashing down. Shu Mingyuan’s mind moved, and the drifting sand surrounding him immediately collapsed helplessly. Crocodile was overjoyed. Without that irritating veil of sand to obstruct him, Shu Mingyuan would already have been dead a hundred times over.

But when he saw Shu Mingyuan’s eerie eyes, the unease in his heart only deepened. Crocodile’s cruelty sharpened further, and he brought the sword down with all his might. Even if the boy had Armament Haki protecting him, Crocodile believed this strike could still cleave him in two.

A trace of faint mockery appeared on Shu Mingyuan’s face as he looked at the massive sand sword bearing down on him. He merely raised his right hand. Chakra unique to One-Tail rapidly gathered along that arm, while the countless grains of sand beneath his feet coiled around it.

Under Crocodile’s gaze, the boy’s arm gradually transformed into the very same monstrous form from before—a right arm shaped like One-Tail itself. Black-violet curse-seal tattoos surfaced across the arm, and from within them came the sound of One-Tail’s howl.

“What the hell is this... Could this brat really use that monster’s power?”

Most of all, Shu Mingyuan no longer looked human at all. He looked more like some beast-man who had eaten an animal-type devil fruit!

“Sand Beast Arm!”

The boy let out a low cry. His hand now fully possessed One-Tail’s power. Compared with that, his own thousand-plus points of physique were practically insignificant. This force was simply too tremendous.

No wonder it was called something comparable to a strategic nuclear weapon. If any tailed beast went berserk in a populated place, it would be nothing short of a catastrophe.

Shu Mingyuan swung his arm to meet the strike. A massive claw of sand firmly seized the Desert Greatsword. Although he could feel Crocodile’s strength within it, that force was still far too small compared with One-Tail’s. If not for the sword’s own sharpness, it would already have been shattered by a single claw.

The claw formed from sand was gradually sliced open by the Desert Greatsword, while the blade itself became covered in cracks. In the end, with a sharp crack, both attacks collapsed at once.

“Just now you tried to kill me while I was in enlightenment. Isn’t it my turn now?”

Shu Mingyuan smiled faintly. Raising his arm high, the endless desert behind him surged upward again like a colossal wave. Standing at the crest, he looked down at Crocodile below, then slammed his palm downward.

“Quicksand Waterfall!”

This was Gaara’s technique, but with One-Tail’s aid, Shu Mingyuan used it with perfect ease. A two-hundred-meter wave of sand roared down in a force mighty enough to shake the heavens.

The desert below was violently split apart, and the quicksand surged like tidal waves, crashing toward Crocodile one wave after another. He had already experienced this once, and under such terrifying force, even he had no desire to endure it again.

He quickly turned himself into sand and rose into the sky to evade the strike. He had a sandstorm; this boy had sand waves. Both were powers comparable to natural disasters, forces no human could resist.

“So you think I’ll just let you escape that easily? Where would that leave the dignity of a one-tailed jinchuriki like me?”

Shu Mingyuan’s face remained calm and confident. His ten fingers formed seals, and One-Tail’s immense chakra burst outward, blanketing the desert within a radius of five thousand meters.

“Sand Coffin!”

An endless torrent of sand grains shot up at once, surging toward Crocodile to wrap him up. He dodged left and right, but the area covered by the sand was simply too vast. The encirclement closed in, finally binding him before dragging him down from the sky in one violent motion.

At that same moment, the rising sand wave poured down like a river suspended from the heavens, and the entire capital, Alubarna, trembled without cease.