Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 214

In the memories of the insectoid, Hinata's consciousness was immersed in various seemingly whimsical fantasies.

When she last felt the existence of her own self, her original body had completely dissolved, and her consciousness had entered the form of an ugly creature known as a Shan.

On an endless, gently rippling water surface, she flapped her wings amidst the emerald-green morning mist.

After a while, she ascended through the mist, eventually emerging above it to witness a more distant scene.

At the edge of the water lay a valley composed of translucent, diamond-cut rocks. Between the valleys was a peculiar depression that resembled a pathway.

Following this path with her gaze, she saw a black structure at the bottom of the valley. Its architectural style was difficult to discern, but it featured dizzying slanted roofs and multifaceted towers.

Under the purple night sky, illuminated by two distant stars, these black buildings emitted an extraordinary glow.

This was the planet described as "full of power" by these creatures—their homeworld, Shaggai.

Their name, the Shan, originated from this very planet, Shan.

Shaggai was the original home of these beings, a place far beyond the reach of the shinobi world, perpetually orbiting twin suns.

On this planet, the Shans were the dominant species. They built cities characterized by spherical domes, as well as gray metallic conical towers.

Most of the buildings were opaque black, devoid of windows, with only doorless openings for ingress and egress.

Among these structures, one stood out: a pyramid-like conical building.

Each city had only one such structure at its center—a temple. The Shans gathered there only during specific, mysterious religious ceremonies.

Unfortunately, through the memories of the creature, Hinata could not discern the exact steps of these rituals.

Astonishingly, however, each of their temples housed a living creature—always the same one in every temple.

This phenomenon resembled techniques like the Shadow Clone Jutsu, but the nature of the being went far beyond such ninja tricks. A better interpretation might involve "multi-dimensional" concepts.

The Shans had no particularly fixed routines on Shaggai, but they shared one common behavior: when the planet's suns rose above the horizon and dispelled the purple night sky, all Shans would fly to the rooftops of their domed buildings to absorb the sunlight.

Indeed, although the Shans bore terrifying triple mouths that suggested a voracious appetite, they did not need to eat. Their energy source was a unique form of photosynthesis, akin to but distinct from that of plants.

As long as they could bask in the green sunlight of their suns, the Shans never needed to worry about food.

Additionally, they had extraordinarily long lifespans, taking hundreds of years to develop from larvae to adulthood.

In their long lives and idle existence, besides maintaining a fervent belief in a malevolent deity, the Shan developed a perverse pastime.

They derived pleasure from tormenting enslaved species from other planets. Unrestrained by any moral or ethical considerations, they regarded self-torment or the abuse of other creatures as a supreme form of entertainment or leisure.

Although they did not need to work, their physical forms were relatively frail and weak, leading them to make remarkable advancements in technology.

They possessed a mysterious metallic device capable of emitting a pale ray.

When this ray struck non-living matter, it disintegrated it at the molecular level. When directed at living beings, it unleashed a spell-like psychic torment, inflicting unbearable pain on the target.

Additionally, through their worship of Azathoth, their species gained a racial talent akin to phasing technology.

They could move freely through the brains and skulls of other creatures.

However, even a race with such powers eventually faced annihilation.

To Hinata's eyes, "that thing" appeared at dawn, just as a green glow began to rise.

On the horizon, an unusual, hemispherical red sphere gradually emerged, eclipsing one of the green suns.

Its edges were hazy, like evaporating gas, but its center featured a sharply defined point of deep red flame—or perhaps something akin to an eye.

Within just three days, this sphere filled the sky with a massive red radiance, completely obscuring the green sun and turning the Shan planet from a verdant world into a crimson ocean.

Although the Shan initially felt no heat emanating from the sphere, some of them instinctively hid within their conical temples.

When the red-glowing sphere began to fade, the entire Shaggai planet had transformed.

Every living being and structure on Shan underwent changes, radiating the same red light as the sphere, with occasional flickers of red, orange, yellow, and white hues.

The Shans writhed in agony on the ground, their forms grotesquely contorted.

A handful of surviving Shans made the decision to abandon their homeworld. Through a form of hazy teleportation, they transported themselves and their entire conical temples to other planets.

On the nearest colony world to Shan, these survivors witnessed the destruction of their home planet firsthand.

The buildings of Shans trembled and collapsed, while their bodies were torn apart in the explosive heat. The entire planet was engulfed by a deep crimson ocean, obscuring any view of what lay within.

Through the memories of the creature, Hinata was unsure if her reaction stemmed from her own shock or the sheer terror the Shans felt at the time. Nonetheless, she was overwhelmed by a sense of oppressive fear.

It was awe at the cataclysmic destruction caused by the crimson ocean and dread of the enormous crimson eye on that red sphere.

The Shan's new home was named Xiclotl. During her time there, Hinata finally realized that "she" had grown into a mature Shan.

In this place, the Shans discovered a gray, faceless life form. These creatures resembled Earth trees but were uniform in appearance, all exhibiting a metallic gray hue.

The Shans used these creatures as laborers, hoping to leverage this cheap workforce to recreate the glory of their lost homeworld.

However, it wasn't long before the Shans uncovered a staggering secret—one so unsettling that the Shan currently residing in Hinata's mind still felt a deep unease about it.

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On Xiclotl, the Xiclotlans were a relatively primitive species with immense strength and limited intelligence. They were easily enslaved by the Shans to carry out arduous tasks for constructing insect cities.

Although these Xiclotlans resembled plants, they were actually natural carnivores. If not enslaved, they would occasionally prey on the slow-moving Shans.

Even after enslaving these Xiclotlans and forcing them into servitude, the Shans discovered certain peculiarities within a short span of two centuries.

For the Shans, whose lifespans were extraordinarily long, two centuries was a brief period.

During this time, they found that the Xiclotlans maintained their own primitive belief system: the worship of Zy'tl Q'ae.

Despite their enslavement, the Xiclotlans' ingrained belief in Zy'tl Q'ae remained unshaken. According to their sacrificial rituals, they would offer other creatures, including the Shans, to Zy'tl Q'ae deep within the planet's core.

When Hinata viewed the memories, it was revealed that the Shans had already decided to flee from Xiclotl.

The remaining members of their species, along with a few Xiclotlan slaves, boarded a cone-shaped temple to leave Xiclotl and prepared to teleport to another planet.

During this preparation, the Shans finally witnessed Zy'tl Q'ae.

Zy'tl Q'ae resided in a colossal pit at the planet's center. When it realized the Shans were attempting to escape, a large, moist, purple flower emerged from the pit's darkness.

At the pit's edge, countless Xiclotlans lined up and leapt into the abyss one after another.

Zy'tl Q'ae did not hesitate, devouring the bones and flesh of its followers with its ravenous petals. Yet even this did not satisfy its hunger.

From the pit's dark depths, numerous green, vine-like tendrils extended outward. At their tips, grotesque yet beautiful appendages resembling "fingers" reached out.

These green tendrils desperately grasped at the cone-shaped temple hovering mid-air, attempting to drag the last temple of the Shans into its gaping, violet maw.

As in many heroic tales, the Shans managed to escape at the last moment, teleporting away from Xiclotl.

Their next colony was on a planet called Thuggon. However, after less than a year, they discovered a mysterious force from the dark swamps of Thuggon that began persecuting both them and their enslaved plant-like species.

Learning from their prior experience, the Shans did not investigate further. They immediately fled Thuggon in their cone-shaped temple.

After leaving Thuggon, they arrived at a place called L'gy'hx.

Here, the Shans' devotion to Azathoth led them to be scorned by L'gy'hxian, local rectangular, multi-legged creatures, who worshipped a seemingly insignificant deity named Lrogg.

Out of fear of the Shans' weaponry and the wrath of the Blind Idiot God, the local species coexisted with them peacefully for a few years.

The Shans, being fervent worshippers of Azathoth, regarded all other gods as false or inferior. Meanwhile, the local species' desire for sacrificial offerings to Lrogg grew, and they sought to sacrifice the Shans to their two-headed bat god.

The ultimate conflict arose when some locals, influenced by the Shans, converted to worshiping Azathoth. These converts stormed the local temple, destroyed the statue of Lrogg, and killed three priests.

Following this incident, the high priest of the local species declared zero tolerance for the Shans. They allowed only those who worshipped Lrogg to remain while expelling the rest.

Eventually, over thirty Shans boarded their conical temple and fled to the world they now inhabited.

This world, vibrant and full of life, barely noticed their arrival. Drawing on past experiences, the Shans used their Xiclotlan slaves to move stones and conceal their conspicuous conical temple.

The only drawback was the electromagnetic frequency of this world's sunlight, which adversely affected their metabolism. As a result, they mainly operated at night.

Once darkness fell, the Shans would engage in a series of sinister activities, such as finding targets to hypnotize, infiltrating their brains, and luring them to the conical temple to be sacrificed.

In the memories of the Shan, Hinata saw the three Kamizuru ninjas who had entered the forest searching for the rare Bikōchū.

On the first night, the Shans quietly infiltrated their minds, controlling their actions during the hours of darkness.

Because sunlight's electromagnetic waves disrupted their metabolism during the day, the Shans rarely controlled humans' behavior in daylight.

The Shans' mode of operation in this world involved nighttime activity near the temple. During the day, except for those already parasitizing human brains, the rest of the tribe rested in the living quarters at the top of the temple, minimizing the need for photosynthesis.

The Xiclotlan from Xiclotl lived in the central section, guarding the temple during the day, while the base of the temple housed the hall used for rituals and sacrifices.

At this point, the memories abruptly ended. Though it seemed unbelievable, Hinata, who didn't even understand the Shan's language, had comprehended this entire account—an entire history of the Shan tribe's existence.

For centuries, the Shan had wandered from world to world in hardship, eventually arriving here. While the sunlight here wasn't ideal for their photosynthesis, it was already far better than the conditions in several worlds they had previously inhabited.

However, the Shan had overlooked one crucial aspect of this world: the existence of a unique group of humans.

These humans, though incapable of resisting the Shan's mind infiltration, possessed an energy called chakra. Their physical and mental strength far exceeded that of any species the Shan had encountered before.

These superhuman beings were known as ninjas.

Among the ninjas, the most troublesome were the Konoha's genin.

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In the real world, one of the three Shan had already been slapped away by Hinata. Another had entered her brain and was attempting to hypnotize her.

The Shan's mental hypnosis allowed victims to initially resist slightly. During the day, victims could remain entirely unaware of the Shan in their brain. However, their consciousness would eventually sync with the insect's until they fell under its complete control.

The third Shan was wielding a weapon to attack Naruto.

This weapon, which Hinata had seen in the Shan's memories, was the only technological weapon of the tribe and was called the Neural Whip.

The whip emitted pale beams that inflicted unbearable pain on almost all sentient beings, even energy-based entities like the Nine-Tails.

But now, with only one whip striking the partially tailed-beast-transformed Naruto, its power was greatly diminished. It could no longer suppress the Nine-Tails.

Slowly but surely, under the pale beam's assault, Naruto began to stand.