The golden radiance slowly faded above the firmament. That massive whirlpool barrier, which had enveloped the entire Land of Whirlpools like a deity's crown, having completed its mission that shocked the entire Shinobi World, dissolved back into billions of light particles, silently sinking into the deep earth veins of the island.

The sky returned to its original azure, so pure that it seemed as if everything that had just happened had never occurred.

But for everyone who had witnessed this scene with their own eyes, the waves stirred within their hearts could not calm down for a long time.

Deep beneath the main island of the Land of Whirlpools, inside the central hub.

As the light of the last rune completely faded, Uchiha Kei, Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Shisui, and the other four Mangekyō Sharingan wielders who served as the pillars of the "Seven Luminaries," almost simultaneously experienced uncontrollable, slight swaying of their bodies.

Uchiha Fugaku subconsciously reached out, pressing hard against the cold stone platform behind him, and only then managed to barely steady his figure.

His breathing became somewhat rapid. In those eyes that had just evolved into the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, resembling green jade, the once brilliant, flowing light now appeared a bit dimmed.

A long-lost stinging sensation, stemming from excessive consumption of ocular power, once again struck from deep within his eye sockets.

Although this pain was far less intense than when he had been on the verge of blindness, it was still enough to cause fine beads of cold sweat to seep from the forehead of this Military Department head, known for his iron-blooded nature.

He subconsciously closed his eyes, attempting to alleviate the discomfort of feeling as if his soul were being unraveled by cutting off his vision.

It was not just him.

Shisui, Inabi, Tetsuya, Jingxin, and Feiniao—these top Uchiha combatants who also possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan—did not look good at the moment.

Their ocular power had been frantically drained at an unprecedented speed during the grand ritual just now.

That feeling was as if half the blood in their bodies had been instantly sucked away by a massive pump, bringing with it a sense of weakness stemming from the very essence of life.

"Is this the price of the 'Gods Maelstrom'?" Uchiha Tetsuya's voice carried a hint of hoarseness. He covered his right eye with one hand, and the unique Mangekyō Sharingan pattern within that eye had become somewhat sluggish in its rotation because of this.

Uchiha Jingxin leaned against the cold rock wall, a wry smile appearing on his face as he provided a more precise addition to his companion's words: "Just activating it once consumed nearly half of our ocular power. If we were to maintain its operation around the clock, I fear it wouldn't take three days for the seven of us to re-experience what it feels like to be blind."

This sentence made the already heavy air in the entire underground space sink even further.

The display of strength directed at the entire Shinobi World just now was undoubtedly a success.

The war threat from the Kumogakure, which had almost pressed right to the gates of the country, was resolved without a drop of blood shed in the face of absolute power.

The Land of Whirlpools, this newborn nation rebuilt on ruins, had for the first time truly established a firm foothold in this Shinobi World where the weak are prey to the strong.

Yet, behind this glorious victory lay the heavy price of them, the top combatants serving as the nation's core, being almost completely drained in one go.

Uchiha Kei slowly opened his eyes.

Those Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan eyes, which fused the patterns of the Yin-Yang fish and the hexagonal Shuriken, were the only pair in the entire room that remained deep and bottomless.

But even he could feel a fatigue stemming from the depths of his soul, as if he had been engaged in high-intensity combat for several days without sleep or rest.

"Let's go, to the conference room."

The calm voice broke the silence of the place.

Ten minutes later, inside the strategic conference room on the top floor of the Uzukage Building.

Beside the massive sand table hung a brand-new black tactical board.

The core high-level officials of all departments in the Land of Whirlpools, including Military Department head Uchiha Fugaku, Kage Guard Squad captain Uchiha Shisui, Department of Internal Affairs head Uchiha Inabi, and Coast Guard commander-in-chief Uzumaki Feimo, were all in attendance.

Everyone's expression was extremely serious.

Uchiha Kei did not sit in the main seat; instead, holding a piece of white chalk, he walked straight to the tactical board.

"Today, we won a war that should have broken out without shedding a drop of blood. But I must tell you all, we also exposed our greatest weakness."

Turning around, he used the chalk to heavily write a word on the black tactical board.

"Energy."

The chalk tapped against the blackboard, emitting a crisp and powerful sound, like an alarm bell striking at the heart of everyone present.

"The 'Gods Maelstrom' is an ultimate defensive system that the ancient Uzumaki Clan required the Chakra of thousands of clansmen and months of time to barely activate. We took a shortcut, using the vast spiritual energy contained within seven pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan as a lever to forcibly pry it open."

Beneath the words "seven pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan," he drew a heavy horizontal line.

"According to real-time data monitoring from the backend, the moment the barrier was fully activated, its peak energy output, if converted into the standard Chakra units commonly used in the Shinobi World, was approximately equal to the total energy of three thousand Jonin releasing A-rank Ninjutsu simultaneously without reservation."

Hiss—

A clear sound of gasping echoed through the conference room.

Even Fugaku and Shisui, who were personal participants, felt their pupils uncontrollably shrink slightly after hearing this precisely quantified data.

They only knew the consumption was huge, but they had never imagined that the magnitude had reached such an inconceivable level.

"And this is merely the consumption at the moment of activation."

Uchiha Kei's tone remained without the slightest ripple as he continued to state the cold facts.

"Once the barrier enters a sustained operational state, the regular hourly consumption is approximately equal to the total amount of Chakra consumed by a Kage-level powerhouse fighting at full strength for one hour. In other words, if we want to make the 'Gods Maelstrom' a conventional defensive measure that can be activated at any time, it would require the seven of us, without sleep or rest, like batteries, to continuously provide it with ocular power."

"I don't need to tell you what the result of that would be, do I?"

The conference room fell into a deathly silence.

Everyone understood.

The "Gods Maelstrom" was not a sturdy shield they could use at will, but an ultimate trump card that could only be revealed at the most critical and dangerous moments—a card that would leave them severely weakened after use.

It was a forbidden technique scroll hanging over the heads of all potential enemies, possessing unparalleled deterrent power.

But every time it was deployed, it would cost them their own blood.

"We used one successful deterrence to buy a brief peace for the Land of Whirlpools. But how long can this peace last?" Uchiha Kei's gaze was sharp as a knife, sweeping over everyone present. "One month? Half a year? Or a year?"

"Once the Kumogakure, or any other power eyeing us covetously, finds a way to break it, or if they gamble through intelligence analysis that we dare not—or cannot—activate the barrier again in a short time, then the next time they pounce, the momentum will only be fiercer and crazier than it is now."

"Because they have already seen the splendor of our 'treasure vault,' and they have also seen that the power guarding our treasure vault is likely 'disposable'."

Uchiha Fugaku's fist, hidden under the table, quietly tightened without anyone noticing.

As the Military Department head, he could best understand the heavy weight in Kei's words.

To entrust the safety of a nation to the enemy's "daring not" was how ridiculous and dangerous that was.

"Kei, do you mean that we need to find a... new, sustainable energy source that can replace our ocular power?" As the Department of Internal Affairs head, Uchiha Inabi, being meticulous, keenly grasped the core of the problem.

"Correct."

Uchiha Kei heavily wrote four words on the blackboard.

"Artificial Tailed Beast."

Everyone was stunned, completely unable to understand the connection between this term and energy.

"The energy required to drive an ultimate barrier at the national level is a massive number. Relying on individual power, whether it is Chakra or ocular power, is ultimately just a drop in the bucket."

"We need a core that, like a Tailed Beast, can continuously provide us with vast, almost infinite energy. A man-made source of Chakra that truly belongs to our Land of Whirlpools."

Artificial Tailed Beast!

This term had completely exceeded the cognitive scope of everyone present, including Fugaku and Shisui.

But from these four words, they could feel a grandeur and madness that was unprecedented and capable of overturning the entire Shinobi World.

"Is... is this possible?" Uzumaki Feimo, this newly appointed Coast Guard commander-in-chief, could not help but ask.

He was somewhat scalp-numbed by being shocked by this crazy concept; it was more bizarre than any myth or legend he had ever heard.

"Before today, did you believe that we could activate the 'Gods Maelstrom' with the power of a mere seven people?" Uchiha Kei countered.

Everyone fell silent.

"The question is not whether it is possible. It is that we must make it possible." Uchiha Kei's voice became resolute. "From today on, searching for and developing a sustainable, ultimate energy source capable of supporting the regular operation of the 'Gods Maelstrom' will become the highest-level strategic goal of our Land of Whirlpools. Its priority is higher than all military, political, and economic activities."

"I need the R&D Department, the Military Department, the Department of Internal Affairs, and all departments to operate around this ultimate goal. I need you to mobilize every resource that can be mobilized to think, to search, and to try."

"I will personally be in charge of this project."

The meeting ended in a complex atmosphere mixed with shock, confusion, and a hint of ignited fanaticism.

The high-level officials left the conference room with an unprecedented, almost impossible problem to solve.

Uchiha Kei remained alone in the empty room.

He walked to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the city of Uzushiogakure below, which had already begun to take shape and was brightly lit at this moment.

The power system in the city came from the lightning attraction tower and Chakra energy storage cores he had personally designed, but for the terrifying energy demands of the "Gods Maelstrom," it wasn't even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.

Artificial Tailed Beast.

The term sounded light, but the technical barriers contained within were an almost insurmountable chasm in this world.

In his database of knowledge, he had complete theories regarding the conservation and transformation of energy. But that required a complete modern industrial system as support. With the current manual workshop-style industrial level of the Land of Whirlpools, wanting to achieve mass-energy conversion was no less than asking a primitive tribe to build a Kage-level statue by hand.

This path was a dead end from the very beginning.

He closed his eyes, listing all known forms of energy in his mind, one by one, and then crossing them out one by one.

Natural energy? Wind, water, geothermal, lightning? The energy density was too low, the efficiency too poor, and it simply could not meet the demand.

Sage Art energy? Natural energy was indeed vast enough, but it was extremely difficult to control, and it required extremely harsh talent and inheritance; it could simply not be used as a standardized industrial energy source.

Kekkei Genkai? The decomposition ability of Dust Release did indeed have a similar effect to energy release, but that was the closely guarded secret of the Third Tsuchikage Ōnoki, and it was also extremely dependent on the individual, making it impossible to replicate.

The line of thought seemed to have returned to a dead end once again.

Uchiha Kei's brow furrowed deeply.

He felt that his knowledge, which transcended this era by nearly a thousand years, appeared so powerless in the face of this world's unique power system.

He needed an energy source that was "native" to this world, one that inherently contained world-destroying energy, and one that could theoretically be "captured" and "utilized."

An energy source... comparable to a natural disaster.

"Natural disaster..."

A blinding flash of lightning suddenly crossed Uchiha Kei's mind.

He suddenly opened his eyes. In those Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, the lights of ten thousand homes outside the window were reflected, resembling two stars rapidly calculating.

He had thought of it.

In this world, there did indeed exist a kind of living, walking "natural disaster" that could even be captured.

He walked quickly to the sand table, his gaze like lightning, sweeping across the vast map that represented the entire Shinobi World.

His gaze finally fell upon several pieces that had been specially marked, representing the major Ninja villages.

The Sunagakure of the Land of Wind, the Kumogakure of the Land of Lightning, the Hidden Stone Village of the Land of Earth, the Hidden Leaf Village of the Land of Fire...

And, what those villages possessed, serving as their highest strategic deterrent power...

Tailed Beasts.

A crazy and bold plan began to sprout and spread frantically in his mind, like vines after the rain.