Slayer: Look directly at the Seraph, standing on the sun

"How did you find out?" Zhang Haiqiang suppressed the shock in his heart, his voice turning cold. "My stealth technique is so powerful that even the resurrected Second Tsuchikage might not be able to detect it. Let alone in your current state..."

“Status?” Ban seemed to have heard a joke. He laboriously raised a finger and pointed to the desolate underground space. “Child, I have been sitting here for too long. This darkness, every inch of rock around here, every grain of dust, has become a part of my body.”

"This is a dead land, where even the wind refuses to visit. The moment your presence is felt several kilometers away, it's like a pebble thrown into a calm mirror lake. No matter how well you disguise yourself as a stone, in the mirror, you are still an alien."

Ban lowered his hand, his tone indifferent: "At first I thought you were just a lost mouse, until you stopped and wouldn't leave. Staying in this godforsaken place for three days, what other purpose could you have besides looking for me?"

Zhang Hai fell silent. He finally understood that he was facing not just a powerful ninja, but a living legend, a monster whose experience and intuition had reached a state of perfection. Before such a being, any tactical cleverness seemed pale and powerless.

If we continue to be led by Ban's pace, we've already lost this negotiation before it even begins.

Zhang Hai took a deep breath, forcibly severing the fear and wavering within him. He raised his head, his eyes sharpening once more; he was no longer the reprimanded junior, but an equal communicator.

"Since you know everything, aren't you curious?" Zhang Hai suddenly spoke, his tone rising, "Aren't you curious how I found this 'abyss' that even the intelligence networks of the five major powers couldn't reach?"

Ban raised an eyebrow slightly, seemingly showing some interest in Zhang Hai's change in attitude.

Zhang Hai took a step forward, his aura no longer restrained, but rather sharp and piercing.

“Nietzsche once said: ‘When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.’” Zhang Hai quoted that philosophical saying that did not belong to this world, staring intently at Ban. “I was able to find this place because I was once in hell. Only those who are like themselves can smell the scent of their own kind.”

He was trying to tell Ban in this way: I am not one of those ignorant ants. I have also seen the darkness of the world. I am qualified to stand here and talk to you.

To prove his point, Zhang Hai abruptly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the original three-tomoe Sharingan had undergone a dramatic change. Black lines spread wildly across the blood-red background, weaving into a complex and bizarre geometric pattern—it was the Mangekyou Sharingan.

A cold, oppressive chakra filled with an ominous aura instantly filled the entire underground space, rivaling Madara's domineering aura.

"This is my proof, Uchiha Madara." Zhang Hai's voice became somewhat distorted under the enhancement of the Mangekyou Sharingan. "I too struggled in that endless darkness, and I paid a terrible price to awaken these eyes. Now, do I deserve your attention?"

Zhang Hai stared intently at Madara's reaction. He thought those eyes would at least surprise Madara, or even elicit a hint of approval. After all, in the history of the Uchiha clan, very few people had ever awakened the Mangekyou Sharingan.

However, he was met with laughter.

"Ha ha ha ha ha……"

At first, it was just a low chuckle, but then the sound grew louder and louder, turning into unrestrained, maniacal laughter. The laughter was hoarse and dry, like a broken bellows being violently pulled, echoing in the empty cave, causing the pebbles overhead to fall in a rustling sound.

"Hahahahahaha!"

Ban laughed so hard he almost fell over, even as the pipes behind him were stretched taut and his decaying body trembled violently. It was the kind of reaction one has only when they hear the funniest joke in the world.

Zhang Hai was stunned, a sense of humiliation welling up inside him, his eyes darting around like a kaleidoscope: "What's so funny!"

"Sorry, sorry..." Ban finally stopped laughing. He was panting as he looked up at Zhang Hai, tears welling up in his eyes. But in his eyes, there was an unprecedented contempt and pity.

"You call this the abyss? You call your insignificant suffering hell?"

Ban looked at Zhang Hai's pair of kaleidoscopes, which he was so proud of, as if he were watching a child showing off a newly bought toy.

“Junior, the darkness you have seen is nothing more than the shadow after the sun sets. As for me…” Madara’s voice suddenly turned cold, and the temperature in the entire space dropped to freezing point, “I am a Shura who crawled out of that world that was completely deprived of light.”

"Because of the death of a comrade? Because of the village's betrayal? Or because of the shattering of ideals?" Ban shook his head, his tone filled with vicissitudes and disdain. "You think you've seen through the world with this level of despair? You're too naive, far too naive."

"In the face of true hell, the story in your eyes doesn't even qualify as a fairy tale."

Ban slowly closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, as if that one glance had exhausted all his expectations of Zhang Hai.

"Put away your ridiculous pride. Showing off your Mangekyou Sharingan in front of me is as foolish as waving a torch in front of a dragon."

The air in the underground cave seemed to grow even colder and more biting because of Ban's words.

"You call my darkness a 'fairy tale'?" Zhang Hai frowned, the red light in his Mangekyou Sharingan flickering as he suppressed his anger. "You have no idea what I've been through."

"Understand?" Madara slightly opened his eyes, his gaze as deep as the endless night. "No, I don't know your experiences, but I know what this world used to be like. Junior, you were born in an era after the establishment of ninja villages. Even in the midst of war, you still had a place to belong called 'Iwagakure' or 'Uchiha,' companions to rely on, and an order that existed even if it was hypocritical."

Madara's voice became ethereal, as if it had traveled through the long river of time: "And the Warring States period in which I lived was a true wasteland. There were no ninja villages, no mission ratings, and not even the concept of 'tomorrow.' Ninjas had to live in anonymity, because even the disclosure of a surname could lead to the extermination of their clan."

“There, toddlers who have just learned to walk are forced to grip swords taller than themselves; there, so-called ‘comrades’ only mean the next possible traitor; there, the average lifespan of civilians and ninjas is less than thirty years. We sleep in piles of corpses, bathe in blood, and every sunrise may be the last farewell.”

Madara looked at Zhang Hai, a cruel smile playing on his lips: "Compared to the constant, hopeless pressure of survival hanging over your heads, your current Ninja World War is nothing more than a bunch of overgrown children protected by their villages playing house. The darkness you see is just a corner of the collapse of order, while in our era, there was no order at all."