Arriving in the underworld dimension of Hades, Naruto saw a magical sight of spirits wandering the glowing fields. It was a world created by Hades where the spirits of the people that died while believing in him would reside.

The souls would have his imprint, dragging them to his underworld which was growing in size. It didn't mean that Hades owned the real afterlife and he wouldn't dare interfere with the natural order. The souls had chosen to live in his realm, and Hades gained power from each citizen of his world.

As far as the eyes could see, the world was filled with mythical nature and beings. It was not an advanced world, as it was very much medieval. Other than the normal and ideal looking region, there was also the area of the damned where the souls were tortured for their evil.

"What do you think? Isn't it peaceful here, away from all the negativity of the world?"

Taking in the atmosphere, Naruto couldn't deny it. He felt at peace as all the souls were filled with positivity, it was the ideal world.

Though, that was only so when you ignored the torture region.

"How are they like this?"

"That is very simple. They have no worries anymore, and no evil thought can enter their mind. This is a place for the victorious souls that deserve praise, and here they will live in peace until the great end comes for all of us."

"Great End?"

"It is the day when Death will take all of us, and nothing can stop it from happening. It is unknown when it will happen, so don't focus on it since it will be a pointless distraction."

"I understand. So, how do we do the contract?"

"It is very simple, but first I want to see your limits. I want you to see where we stand to give you a better idea of your allies." Hades started walking and the region around them changed to an empty void.

Naruto didn't have a problem with it, and it made sense that Hades wanted to experience his skills before planning his course.

Going full power, Naruto used the full body enhancement and attacked with his body to see what it felt like.

His speed along with the rest of his stats was beyond his dreams, with just pure strength Naruto held the ability to annihilate a Jupiter sized planet and his speed was at least 10 times light speed.

Sage Arts: Ultimate Combo

With his fists and feet shining with golden light, Naruto appeared in front of Hades while another Naruto used the adamantine chains to hold him in place from the back.

Naruto's fist had the power to bypass defences and annihilate the inner body of the foe, but it never hit. The chains were reflected while Hades countered the punch with ghost hands that tried to rip Naruto's limbs.

Chakra hands stopped the spirit hands before Naruto teleported a mini-bijuudama made by his clone directly into Hades.

However, the attack never went inside the foe as Hades cancelled it with his spatial mastery. It was clear that spatial attacks wouldn't work on Hades at this moment.

Using the Golden Mandala barrier, Naruto blocked the blue spirit fire that covered his vision. The barrier would normally absorb the attack, but instead it was being burnt while the flames were increasing in power.

Both attacks fed on power to increase their power, so the result was decided by skill level.

Ignoring the blue flames, Naruto had his clones attack Hades while he charged the Bijuu beam along with the elemental rasenshuriken using the TSB.

This was his strongest move and this time Naruto used the cellular technique on his jutsu as well. Forming the attack with high levels of Senjutsu chakra, it was like trillion of cells gathered together to form a single one of those attacks and each cell contained the power to destroy a city.

Using the concept learned from the Sage about using his energy as the guide instead of the full source of his attacks, Naruto managed to form an attack that would leave him no chance of survival if it hit him.

Hades glanced at the attack with casual grace as a black barrier appeared to stop it. The explosion from the collision was large enough to cover the whole planet and even reach the moon, erasing everything in its path.

However, nothing like that happened and all of it was erased instead.

Seeing that his strongest move was pointless, Naruto decided to use a conceptual attack.

Ultimate Sacrifice

With the start of the move a three-dimensional magic circle appeared as a glowing orb of Yin and Yang, within which it confined the opponent. When shut within this magic circle, it was a 50/50 decision whether the opponent was either completely annihilated or suffered great damage.

However, just like the other move it was also erased and Naruto found his senses shutting down. First, he went blind then he lost his taste. Smell followed, touch soon after, hearing and then even his special senses disappeared leaving him completely blind to the world.

Naruto never experienced such a thing, and it left him powerless as even his mind started shutting down along with his cells.

He couldn't feel a thing and suddenly it all returned but his body had become weak like a normal human.

"You have achieved a lot in a short time, Naruto. However, you are still lacking a lot. I hope you can see that with us on your side, your journey into this new field of power will become easier." Hades cancelled his attacks and Naruto returned to normal.

Just with his aura, Hades had defeated Naruto. Though, it was one of his main skills called the Aura of Immortal King.

Gasping on the ground as he caught his breath, Naruto experienced a new terrifying thought of completely losing all his power. Just the short instance had almost driven him into despair as all his work was reduced to nothing.

'Calm down Naruto, even if we lose all our powers we still have our knowledge and with it we can always return to our peak. Don't get to attached to the physical existence, only your soul and mind is necessary for us to continue on our path.' Kurama spoke to him and gave him an answer to his dilemma.

It clicked and Naruto realized he needed to focus on the knowledge even more. There was always a possibility of losing power in some way.

"Thank you for the battle, I have learned a lot from this experience." Naruto stood up and looked at Hades, his expression still wasn't normal but he was trying to get back in form.

"It is my pleasure. And, you don't have to worry too much since Ishiki isn't above my level. He might be even weaker at this point because we actually continued to improve since the day we lost to him in battle.

When Ishiki and Kaguya came to this world, Ishiki was around my current strength level and he defeated all of the immortals. However, he didn't kill us. He wished for us to improve the human beings with blessings, so the harvest would be better.

Fortunately, Kaguya took him out and we were allowed freedom again. However, we couldn't fight Kaguya at that point since our bodies had been damaged greatly.

By the time we had recovered completely, Kaguya had been sealed away by her sons and we didn't care to fight them.

Though we did act arrogant and improperly which caused our future battle and we were sealed away by Hagoromo. At that time he was around 50 years old, his power was greater than all of us combined. I don't for sure where it stood but he had the equivalent power of 100 Stars at that point. His mastery of reality warping was very high to the point we were in a similar state to you when we fought him.

I am unsure what level he achieved by the end of his life, but replacing him is a very difficult task."

"Then how did he die, it doesn't make sense once you look at his power." Naruto had already started questioning the incident since it felt odd, and it only got worse with time.

"I doubt he died, he is probably travelling the universe while keeping this place safe from the stronger Otsutsuki. His blood connection to the Otsutsuki might have attracted the real ones, so he might have created this convoluted plan to keep them from finding out. This is all assumptions, as I am unable to actually locate his soul or existence."

The revelation of the possibility of the Sage's survival shook Kurama and Naruto to the core, and gave them a boost of positivity. They didn't even consider his survival since his ghost hadn't mentioned a thing.

'I knew it was impossible for him to die, father was invincible.'

"Okay, okay, let's focus." Naruto took deep breathes to put his mind in place.

"Before we start the procedure, have you noticed the difference in our energies?"

"Yes, it felt similar to Senjutsu without the connection to the world. It also felt like there were constant explosions inside your bodies to form the energy. Is it utilizing the concept of creating a stronger energy by exploding what is already present? How does that work and isn't it dangerous?" Naruto's senses were sharp and he had seen everything inside Phobos and Ares while they fought.

He had felt everything within their bodies.

"Very good, it is as you said. Unlike chakra our energy feels natural to the world because we utilize the concept of the Big Bang. Our energy is called the cosmos and everyone in our world has it.

By burning our cosmos we create an explosion like the Big Bang in the hope of creating a universe within ourselves. That is the end goal of our method, but most of us haven't gone beyond a star sized universe.

I believe you can use our method to completely surpass our realm. However, before that you need to break down all the gates inside your body since such limitations would cause an adverse affect when using this method.

It means you need to upgrade your physical stats to endure all of your energy. With our contract, your body should go through a minor change but that won't be enough. Naruto, are you willing to go through an inhumane training regime for power?" Hades explained his powers and even showed the inside of his body where small stars exploded to create huge amounts of power.

"I understand, but how will this work with my Sage mode. This method is entirely based on your personal power and not a combination of two or more."

"It is a new territory and it is for you to explore."

His words were similar to the Sage who had asked him to explore the powers of Sage Arts focusing on reality manipulation.

Hearing the promise of torture in the training proposal, Naruto had to consider it for a moment. By agreeing, he was about to walk away from his physical existence as a human.

"The body is not what makes me human, it is my soul. And it matters not whether I am human, I only desire to be a force of good no matter what I am…..I am ready to do anything that doesn't ask of me acts of evil." Naruto spoke with conviction as he let go of his attachment towards his humanity.

"I will never guide you towards evil, Naruto. I will lead you towards becoming the ideal King of your world."

"Can you not do that, I only desire to become the Hokage and help all people. I don't desire to rule over them."

"I see, you have still to realize the importance of a single leader. Regardless, skills are skills so there is no need to ignore this point." Hades didn't force him, just gave him another way of approaching new things.

Leaving Naruto and team with their adventure in the immortal world, Team Shino arrived in Star City.

Star City also known as Hoshigakure was formed sometime after a strange meteorite, which the inhabitants called the "star", struck its location two hundred years earlier. Information gathered from the citizens suggested that the city was founded much sooner than Konoha. Its leader was the Star King with unknown powers and strength.

The meteorite itself was not that large, but it emitted a chakra-enhancing radiation. The Star King was able to devise a training method to allow his followers to harness the power of the star, thus allowing them to gain supernatural chakra levels and even go through mutations that gave them unique bloodlines.

The Star fragment was a treasure of the Orion Kingdom and was worshipped by its citizen. It's location was unknown, though the citizens believed it was placed inside the Palace of the Star King and it would be paraded during the annual celebration.

The Kingdom of Orion was different from the Kingdoms inside the Land of Fire as it was more western based. The people were taller and bulkier, and their official language had taken inspiration from the Languages of the Land of Lightning like Latin called English.

Just one look at the capital city, Star City, Team Shino was able to see the difference in the people of the outside world. Shino was able to sense higher density of chakra within the people of Star City and the official forces were unusually strong for a small nation. The police force was strong enough to take down the Hokage, which was too suspicious.

The team had managed to enter as normal people while their powers were hidden by seals, so the officials hadn't targeted them yet. However, it was easy to see that they were being monitored.

Shino took control of the insects in the city and gathered information through them. It was one of the abilities he gained through the Seven Tailed Bijuu.

Through it he was able to find out about the elite forces of Star City and even get a glance of the Star King. Their strength levels are still unknown but he was able to confirm the existence of the powerful bloodlines.

He also found out about the Hero Water and Star fragment. Both items were located in the palace which was heavily guarded.

It was also apparent that Kingdom of Orion was planning to take over the world through the powers granted by the Star fragment that was boosted by the Hero Water. They were also looking for other items to gather even more power.

"Are these people dumb? How can anyone dare to fight Naruto at this point?" Kiba was flabbergasted alongside his partner Akamaru as they felt it was impossible for anyone to defy such an impossible force.

"Maybe they are delusional, but it is not impossible for them to overcome Naruto if the mutations are actually miraculous as they say. Plus, they are still in the preparation phase as can be seen by their usage of methods to hide their powers. Can you sense their power levels?" Storm was quiet as she thought about what they had learnt and disregarded Kiba's blind belief that people wouldn't dare fight against Naruto.

"Agreed, their abilities are truly miraculous."

"What do you mean?"

Shino explained the abilities he had seen through the bugs that could give them a problem. There was the fighter called Iceman who had absolute control of ice and could turn his body into ice. He was unkillable because he could return from a single water molecule.

Iceman was his code name, and during official times he would only use that name.

The other fighter who was also one of the most dangerous was called Vulcan. He could absorb energy passively and use it as he pleased. His limits were unknown and if the power was limitless then he was dangerous obstacle for all energy users.

Vulcan had two younger brothers and one of them was called Havok, who also had the ability to absorb all energy and transform it into plasma.

There was also the speedster called Quicksilver who could move at high level of speeds, and even had the ability to phase through his enemies.

There was another warrior called Captain Marvel that also had the power absorption ability that could enhance their power according to how much she absorbed.

There was a psychic power user called Supergiant that could read and control minds. She could even absorb mental energy, and to make it worse she was immune to physical damage.

There was also the strategist known as Magneto with the power of magnetism, he could manipulate the electro-magnetic spectrum.

These were all very powerful but Scarlet Witch was one of the warriors under the Star King that had rumors around her that said she was the strongest of them all.

She used chaos magic by having contracts to the Dark Dimension that gave her multiple abilities. Her dangerous abilities were reality warping and power manipulation along with clairvoyance.

Finally, it was the leader of the Orion Kingdom. He had existed since the beginning of the Kingdom and was the first and only King.

Star King also known as Apocalypse had the power superior adaptation that allowed him to survive all adversity. He was also immortal with regeneration.

He had energy absorption and power bestowal. He also had psychic powers. With all these abilities in hand, it was clear why he was the strongest.

Listening to Shino share his information, Kiba and Storm were extremely shocked.

"Do you think we can handle this?" Storm asked Shino as he was the strongest amongst them and he was also very logical.

"I am unsure as it should be normally impossible to bridge the gap created by Chomei. However, all these abilities are a cause of concern."

"Don't tell me you are asking us to retreat." Kiba butted in and gazed at him intensely.

"We will retreat when necessary. First, I will send a clone to assess the situation and if possible I will steal the items. If combat is necessary we will decide according to how they deal with the clone, is that acceptable?"

"I have no problem." Storm agreed but it was clear that Kiba didn't like it.

"Are you sure about our new capabilities?"

"Kiba, if I can't fight them then none of you can." Shino replied matter-of-factly, but his words struck Kiba deeply. Even after getting a new boost in power by becoming the vessel of Cerberus and getting Akamaru mutated, his power was still nowhere close to Shino or even Gaara.

Kiba stopped as he didn't want to look like a kid making a tantrum. He understood his responsibilities as a shinobi and endured the inferiority and frustration within his heart that could only be cleared when he felt important.

Seeing his best friend take refuge with his partner, Shino felt the desire to change his decision but ignored it. Making a clone made of insects and transforming it into a single fly, Shino sent it towards the palace.

Shino's clone split into multiple flies that went towards different locations. However, his entry was stopped by a barrier forcing him to utilize his power.

Insect Nightmare

With his power over insects, Shino caused all of them to fly towards the palace and dive into the barrier causing massive explosions.

The power of the explosions was undeniable as Shino broke the barrier and flew towards his target while the insects outside continued being a nightmare for the palace.

However, all these distractions proved to be fruitless as the enemy already knew he was coming as Havok, Vulcan and Captain Marvel were present to stop the clones while Scarlet Witch, Iceman, Magneto, Quicksilver and Supergiant had appeared outside of their hotel.

"Greetings honored guests; it will be an honor if you could willingly follow us." Scarlet Witch spoke with a confident tone as she looked towards them.

Shino was silent as he read the situation. The king was missing, meaning there were definitely others that would stop them from escaping.

But, none of it made sense. If they knew that the shinobi were coming, why did they not create a non-suspicious environment to avoid conflict?

"What is the meaning of this?" Storm asked as she showed her true form.

"Please stop being aggressive, we don't wish to fight and your act of violence is illegal. Please turn yourself in, so we can talk to your superiors about this event."

Shino understood why they weren't worried; they knew Naruto's nature and realized that he wouldn't allow his people to force things.

Storm also got it and she looked towards Shino for confirmation. Should they ignore Naruto's order about dealing with things peacefully?

"Who do you think we are? Your intentions are clearly hostile, so we have no need to play nice." Kiba jumped down the window as he faced the crowd.

"Hostile, I don't know what you mean by that? Isn't it clear that your side is being hypocritical? Where is the peace and unity your leaders spoke off?"

"It is obvious that your leader is aiming for world domination, so we are authorized to take action in such cases." Shino stood beside Kiba as he was worried for his friend.

"Cut the bullshit man, you are just looking for excuses." Quicksilver spoke an annoyed tone as the hostiles were acting out of place and talking back to his sister.

With those words, Iceman tried to freeze them while Magneto tried to paralyze them in place and Supergiant tried to take over their minds.

All of these individuals were somehow as strong as Madara, meaning around large Island level in power. Kiba was easily subdued as his power had only gone up to the Kage level while Storm put up a better resistance as he power had already been Kage level and it was upgraded to twice her power level.

Regardless, even Storm was subdued leaving Shino to fight alone.

Shino had reached a level of power above Madara in just base form and with his fusion form he was large country level in power, around Bijuu Naruto during the war.

During the month, he had also mastered Sage mode from the Toads since there wasn't any insect Sage realm. This allowed Shino to get a ten times boost in power, putting him at continental level.

His Senjutsu wasn't high level like Naruto, but it gave them the power boost needed.

Using his powers, Shino gave his partners a boost and out them on a higher scale of power.

"I hope you will refrain from fighting us. We don't wish to cause you any harm." Shino's power spread like a wave to show his dominance. He wanted them to step down and resolve the issue effectively.

Scarlet Witch chuckled at his words, "We are already aware of your abilities, Mister Shino. And, there is no chance of your victory in this battle."

"Since we are already in this position, let us fight them Mister Aburame." Storm took on her fusion form with King Ghidorah that put her directly on Island level in power and with Shino's boost, she was small country level.

Kiba agreed to her sentiments as he wished to bash the heads of these arrogant people. Fusing with Cerberus put him at Kage level and he further fused with Akamaru to reach Island level, this was boosted to Large Island with Shino's help.

"Stop your hubris, child. Both of your partners are a liability for you, surrender unless you wish to see them die." Magneto advised as he looked at them with a tone filled with pride.

To prove his point, Magneto raised his hand and the duo was stuck to the floor again while only Shino was able to cancel the affect of his magnetism power with his large stats.

Samadhi Śānti

A rainbow-colored barrier covered the team; it had the ability to stop all abilities unless the stats were superior then the user.

Wisselen

Shino moved his wings and released large amount of dust like scales that tried to latch on to the foes. This would make the victims his slaves.

He was trying to avoid causing mass destruction since his most powerful could erase cities with utter ease.

The attack didn't seem to work so Shino decided to go with poison, as his scales turned poisonous and covered the enemies in a poison tornado.

Taking flight with his team, Shino sent them away with his clones since it seemed that the enemies could easily take them down.

The clones dug into the ground and protected them with the rainbow barrier while Shino took the battle towards the skies.

This removed Quicksilver from the fight since he couldn't fly, leaving Shino to handle the rest.

Vulcan, Havok and Captain Marvel flew into the sky to join the battle while Magneto, Supergiant, Iceman and Scarlet Witch followed behind.

Looking at the foes, Shino decided to take them down one by one.

Insect Cyclone

Shino's body was filled with huge amounts of insects that he had been enhancing with his new powers. Each insect now had the power of a jounin and he had thousands of insects stored inside his body. Summoning thousands of them, along with hundreds of thousands from the surroundings Shino was able to create a battlefield that suited him.

These insects could absorb chakra, paralyze, weaken, cause nerve damage, death, confuse and even explode when needed. The insects were filled with poison that was stronger than anything in the normal world. It was created through Chomei that could create poison that could bypass all immunity and cause death, even cause cells to break apart.

This forced Magneto to create a barrier to stop the insects from killing him. Havok, Vulcan and Captain Marvel also created a barrier while trying to absorb the energy from the insects.

Iceman tried to freeze the insects as he was able to avoid getting hurt because of his ice form. The same went for Supergiant who could become energy that tried to drain Shino's mental energy.

King Spiral

Insects gathered around Shino while being filled up with the energy of the world, and with his command they moved towards his target like a giant spear.

Keeping the energy dopers busy with the insect cyclone, Shino decided to drain Magneto, Supergiant and Iceman.

Three giant spears spinning with intense speeds covered up the enemies. Supergiant was able to avoid physical attacks but the bugs were also pure energy by now and could cancel out her immunity to drain her dry.

It was the same for Iceman who was unable to freeze the bugs anymore because of their energy bodies.

Magneto managed to actually stop them, but Shino was mixed into the spear and used the chance to take him.

Deadly Sting

Through the insect spear, a stinger pushed through and broke through the force field created by Magneto. He was able to push the bugs back with his magnetism, but it wasn't strong enough to completely counter the force generated by Shino's chakra.

To make things worse, he was impaled by the stinger that shut down his body.

With that three of them were out of the battle, leaving the energy beasts.

Summon Insect soldiers

Shino combined his insects into three humanoid warriors to target them, and equipped them with energy absorption.

He wanted to see if they could drain him or not.

Havok went out of the battle very quickly as his ability wasn't strong enough, but Captain Marvel and Vulcan went into overdrive.

They devoured energy from his soldiers and created a vacuum that continued to expand as all energy was being gathered by them.

They were absorbing heat energy, cosmic energy and all energy in the world to grow in power to beat the enemy in front of them.

Shino dodged all of the attacks and hit Marvel with a deadly sting to take her out of battle while Vulcan tried to stop him by released an energy shockwave.

Energy reflector

Shiny large scales floated around Shino that reflected attacks aimed at him before gathering around his arm to form a canon.

Ballet gun

Energy from the world absorbed into the millions of scales that formed the large reflectors shot out as a single blast that totally outclassed all his previous moves.

It was enough energy to destroy the continent or even destabilize the whole planet, and it was enough to take out Vulcan from the battle.

"You have done wonderfully Mister Shino, how about becoming mine?" Scarlet Witch appeared behind him and her hand was placed on his back.

She had bypassed his precognition and insects, avoiding his senses.

Shino didn't say a word and exploded into thousands of insects before reforming and unleashing a dimensional attack.

Dimensional Slash

With his tyrant claw, Shino slashed at the area in front of him using spatial manipulation. This utilized the concept of cutting all things in creation, so it was able to bypass all barriers to cut the target.

Even the distance was negated and it arrived instantly, but Scarlet cancelled it with her blood red energy and released a barrage of red energy balls towards him.

The energy attacks ripped through his body bypassing his defence, showing her mastery of space. It all seemed unrealistic but Shino noticed the problem.

Scarlet was using powers from the Dark Dimension; the demons were boosting her capabilities to easily match him. Naruto had warned everyone about the dangerous place, so Shino already knew about the extremely powerful beings of the other dimension.

'How do I deal with this problem?' Shino tried to find the solution while continuing his assault as even Scarlet had trouble pinning him down.

"This is pointless, and you know it. Why not work with us? You have seen our Kingdom; does it look like we are evil or selfish? Is your path the only right path?"

"I can't trust any person with that kind of power except for Uzumaki Naruto."

"Why is he so special?"

"Because he doesn't desire to rule over others, he just wishes to help people and would even sacrifice his life for them. I doubt you can say the same."

"That is just sophistry, and there is no reason for me to believe those words. Regardless, the king sacrificing his life for a citizen is the most unwise thing to ever happen."

"Agreed, but it also shows that he doesn't put himself above others." Shino replied casually while trying to test her limits. He assumed that she would have limits to her usage of the power and after talking to her, Shino saw that her personality wasn't hardened either.

She was still lacking in experience with her powers.

Death Sound

Shino's wings vibrated and released a sound to emulate the footsteps of Death. The resulting sound was fatal and killed everything in the region. It utilized concepts of reality warping so even the air around him was killed.

Shino could cover a big area but he focused it around Scarlet and just like he had expected, she was extremely afraid of death that the sound was very effective.

With screams filled with horror, Scarlet fell from the sky leaving Shino gasping for breath as he had exhausted a lot of energy in a short time. Nonetheless, he was in awe of the abilities granted by the Sage to his children. If the Bijuu had gained these abilities before befriending humanity, then human beings might have been second class citizens to these overlords.

Leaving the defeated foes to their unknown fates, Shino hurried to leave the region for help as he assumed that the King was even a bigger than they had believed. However, he was suddenly inside the palace where he found the Star King waiting for him inside a pool of water that was glowing pink.

"You are too late mortal." Apocalypse smiled as he raised his hand towards Shino and caused him to ball up as the pressure broke his body.