In the end, Obito escaped.
Aoba saw it clearly, but didn't stop him. With Kakashi's current dual Rinnegan abilities, Obito should not have been able to escape.
The Kamui Rinnegan's powers were essentially bug-level, in the entire shinobi world, probably only Aoba himself, and perhaps the two who had yet to appear, Kaguya and the Sage of Six Paths, could counter them.
That Obito managed to flee could only mean one thing: Kakashi let him go.
And just like that, this strange and sudden invasion came to an end, almost eerily quiet.
Obito and Hashirama had failed to do any real damage to Konoha. But that didn't mean the Sage of Six Paths came away empty-handed.
Quite the opposite, he gained extremely valuable intelligence.
Key information about Sasuke and Kakashi had now been leaked.
To most of the shinobi world, that didn't really matter. If anything, it just added to the enemies' despair, because hardly anyone could stand up to the Sasuke and Kakashi of today.
Kakashi's Rinnegan ability was called Infinite Domain.
Naturally, the Kamui dimension wasn't literally infinite, but Kakashi could clearly sense that as his eye power grew, the new Kamui space could be continuously expanded.
As for how to enhance the Rinnegan's eye power? God Tree fruits and Ōtsutsuki clan pills were both viable.
And as a top-tier space-type ability, Kakashi's power had now elevated him to god-like status in the eyes of ordinary shinobi.
When Infinite Domain was activated, he could instantly pull everything within a thousand-meter radius into Kamui space.
Even if he did nothing else, he could simply let the trapped enemies starve to death.
What's more, he could teleport instantly anywhere within Kamui space by controlling his entry points.
And with his control over gravity and temperature, Kakashi became something akin to a god within his domain.
Even if the enemy had an ultimate defense like Susanoo, capable of resisting temperature and gravity damage, Kakashi still had his trump card: Domain Partition.
He could directly split the opponent's space.
Imagine this, you're fighting Kakashi, and suddenly the world goes dark. The next moment, you're inside a tiny, coffin-like space just big enough to hold your body.
It's an isolated dimension, designed to confine and immobilize you.
No matter how many jutsu you have, you can't use any of them.
And if Kakashi wants to go further, he can burn more eye power to shrink the space even further, into a coffin smaller than your body…
Well… yeah.
Meanwhile, Sasuke's ability was even more oppressive for regular shinobi.
Once he activated Tendō Ōmiya, he could control all chakra within a certain range.
Theoretically, as long as a shinobi was inside the domain and Sasuke looked at them, they could be instantly detonated.
In theory, within his domain, Sasuke could cast almost any jutsu with a mere thought.
Kakashi and Sasuke's Rinnegan were two trump cards Aoba had carefully prepared.
Ever since Aoba completed his divine authority fusion and completely sealed off Konoha, the Sage of Six Paths had lost all ability to spy on what was happening inside the village.
Not knowing what Aoba was planning, the Sage had no choice but to send out the few remaining pieces under his control to gather intel.
He never expected Obito or Hashirama to actually harm Konoha, or Aoba.
All he wanted was to force Aoba to reveal a few of his cards, and by that metric, his mission had succeeded.
Don't be fooled into thinking the Sage lacked options, sure, his pieces were few, but quantity wasn't the issue. He was currently working on one ultimate trump card:
The Pure Land.
To the living world, the Pure Land represents death. But from the Sage's higher-level perspective, it is more than that, it's the realm of souls, the place where reincarnation begins.
What the Sage truly desires isn't just the Pure Land itself, it's the souls waiting for reincarnation within it.
How many souls are in the Pure Land? You might think it should match the number of people in the living world—but in reality, it's much more.
At least ten times more.
Because the death rate in the shinobi world is abnormally high. For perfect balance, every soul would have to die naturally, with no war or accidents.
But that's just an ideal fantasy. Even without war, accidents alone outnumber natural deaths by a huge margin.
And this is a world ravaged by thousands of years of nonstop conflict. Birth rates have never been high. Countless souls are trapped in the Pure Land, waiting for reincarnation.
Every soul retains a faint imprint of its chakra affinity, an imprint etched into the soul itself.
To control those souls is to slowly accumulate control over chakra itself.
Over time, with quantity turning into quality, the Sage aims to steal the totality of chakra authority from Kaguya, and become the true master of chakra.
That's why the Sage is in no rush. Sure, Aoba's current trump cards are extremely powerful, so much so that the Sage cannot deal with them without intervening personally.
But once he fully assimilates the Pure Land, none of that will matter.
At least, that's how he calculates it.
If you would like to read more...
The novel has be completed (Chp. 362) on the patreon -> SaintXI