Just now, when he came up from the lobby on the first floor, he hadn't noticed the mural on the wall.

It was an abstract mural, showing a gray-green plain, with distorted smoke swirling across the long, narrow landscape. How did I miss this before? Jiraiya's brow furrowed as he studied the painting. Something's not right here.

As he looked at the mural, he felt a strange sense of space, as though he were gazing into a real world through the painting on the wall. In this world, the closest thing to him was a mountain of corpses, with fresh blood still slowly trickling down.

At the base of the corpse mountain lay human bones, some still with scraps of flesh, as though they had been devoured and discarded by some kind of monster. Above that were human bodies dressed as soldiers, their heads or bodies bearing large claw marks. Blood continued to flow from these wounds, still fresh and wet.

He confirmed multiple times that he wasn't mistaken—the blood in the mural was indeed flowing! Not only that, but the colors of the gray-green plain also moved like fluid, and the swirling smoke morphed into various shapes. Jiraiya's eyes narrowed as he analyzed the mural. No genjutsu I've ever seen could create this level of detail. What kind of technique is this?

As Jiraiya concentrated on this mural, a hand suddenly extended from it. Before he could react, the unusually long arm grabbed him by the waist.

"What the—" he exclaimed. His hands flew through a series of seals, attempting to break free, but his techniques seemed to have no effect on the limb.

In the next instant, both Jiraiya and the arm vanished completely, leaving behind an eerie silence in the empty lobby.

Meanwhile, Momoi, who had been hiding in the corner of the first-floor lobby, trembled as he curled up, too afraid to make any noise or peek outside. Don't move. Don't breathe. Maybe it won't find me.

Although Jiraiya had told him to run, the fight between Jiraiya and the monster had moved from the second floor down to the first, blocking the only escape route through the side door.

Thus, he had no choice but to hide in an inconspicuous spot, waiting for the battle to end before making his escape.

Ever since entering the mansion, he had felt a discomfort in his neck, as though something were gripping his throat. Yet after the terrifying events just now, his neck and throat strangely felt much better.

A horrifying thought suddenly surfaced in Momoi's mind. Was that thing on me this whole time? His eyes widened in terror. No, no, no. It couldn't have been. Could it?

Panicking, he immediately clutched his neck with both hands, as if to prevent it from being grabbed by some supernatural being again. But suddenly, the sounds in his ears faded into silence.

After waiting for a minute, there was still nothing but dead quiet around him.

At this point, Momoi, whose nerves were stretched thin, finally mustered the courage to lift his head and glance toward the first-floor lobby. "Fanboy?" he whispered. "Are you there? Anyone?"

To his shock, he found that not a single soul was there.

The once 'lively' first-floor lobby of the Lotus Manor had abruptly fallen into an eerie stillness, with only his own heavy breathing and pounding heartbeat filling the air.

Did the ninja escape on his own? Did he abandon me here? The worst possible scenario crossed Momoi's mind. Where is he? Where is the monster? Why can't I see either of them?

I have to get out of here now! Momoi's mind, already shattered by fear, could no longer process more complex thoughts. He stood up, intent on running across the lobby toward the other side.

As long as he could cross the lobby and make it through the long corridor ahead, he'd reach the mansion's side door and see daylight again. Come on, legs. Don't fail me now, he tried to encourage himself.

But after just two steps, the numbness and oxygen deprivation from crouching too long kicked in. His stiff legs felt like they didn't belong to him. It was like trying to walk on stilts, and he lost control.

His foot missed a step, and Momoi fell heavily to the ground, raising a cloud of dust. His chin slammed hard against the lobby floor, and it felt like he'd nearly lost two teeth from the impact.

The intense pain briefly cleared his mind. With all his remaining strength, he pushed himself up from the floor and began scanning his surroundings. The spacious first-floor lobby was empty.

There was no monster and no ninja.

For the moment, it seemed he was safe. I'm going to make it. I'm actually going to survive.

Ignoring the blood slowly trickling from his gums, Momoi quickly looked down at his legs. They felt utterly useless, so weak that he couldn't even stand for the moment.

"Damn it all! Why now?" he groaned. Just a few more steps. Freedom is so close.

Cursing in frustration, he stayed alert to his surroundings. Lying half-prone on the floor of the quiet lobby, his gaze unconsciously drifted toward the enormous mural on the wall.

In an instant, Momoi's heartbeat surged to its limit, and his face twisted in exaggerated terror. The fear was so intense that it completely overwhelmed his rationality, and he screamed.

"Ah!"

At this moment, anyone would understand and sympathize with his scream. Because he saw something unimaginable in the mural.

The gray-green plain, the mountain of human bones and corpses—all of it was there, just like the scene he had witnessed. But though the horrifying scene and strange corpse mountain were disturbing enough, they weren't the real shock.

What truly broke Momoi's mind was the sight of a person standing next to the mountain of corpses. The figure had long white hair and wore a red cloak, tall and muscular. In fact, just moments ago, he had been standing less than a meter away from this very person.

Yes, the man in the mural... It was...

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

My fan! This isn't real. This isn't happening. Wake up, Momoi! He desperately tried to deny the reality before him. "It's a trick! It has to be!" he cried out. "Can you hear me?"

He crawled towards the mural, his useless legs dragging behind him. He reached out to touch the painting, his fingers meeting the cold, flat surface.

"He's gone," Momoi sobbed, his body shaking uncontrollably. "He's really gone. And I'm next."

---

Jiraiya suddenly found himself in a state of complete mental blankness, all thoughts wiped clean in an instant. Where am I? What happened?

When he came to his senses, he realized he was standing in an unknown land. The ground beneath his feet was gray-green, and all the land, including the ground beneath him, was slowly flowing. In the distance, strange, eerie smoke rose and twisted into bizarre shapes in the gray-green landscape.

He instantly recognized this scene. The mural. I'm inside the damn mural!

To confirm his suspicions, he turned his head and saw the same mountain of corpses from the mural. The stench of decaying human bones and bodies assaulted his nose, filled with the heavy scent of blood.

Though the smell was intense, Jiraiya didn't cover his nose. After all, the blood-soaked battlefields of the ninja world were no less gruesome than this. Stay focused. There's always a way out.

Did that monster pull me into the mural? How is this possible? Could this be some kind of genjutsu?

Although that monster likely didn't know ninja techniques, if it could attack the senses and create hallucinations, it would still be considered an illusion. Just like the statue once possessed by Konoha.

If that's the case, I should dispel the genjutsu first. Jiraiya stretched out his hand, preparing to perform the chakra disruption technique to break the illusion, but as soon as he extended his hand, he noticed something shocking.

His hand was as thin as a sheet of paper—no, even thinner. More accurately, his entire body had become a two-dimensional surface.

"What the... I'm flat as paper!" Jiraiya exclaimed.

Although he couldn't comprehend the situation, based on the visual information he was receiving, it seemed that his limbs and torso had been flattened to an extreme degree, losing any sense of three-dimensionality, as if he had become a mere flat figure in a two-dimensional world.

Even when he tried to lift his hand, it could only remain parallel to his body, tightly pressed against him, overlapping with his form. He couldn't move his hand in front of or behind his body. "Come on, fingers, work with me here. Up, down, anything!" he muttered.

This was a bizarre situation that defied any common understanding. Upon closer observation, he noticed that it wasn't just his hands overlapping with his body. Even the distant gray-green fluid plains ahead, which appeared far away, were actually fused with his body, as if the distant landscape was firmly attached to him.

The strangely distorted mist seemed to be enveloping his body as well!

It's like I'm part of the painting itself.

Moreover, Jiraiya realized that the mechanics of his body's movement had also changed. When his brain signaled him to move forward, his body instead leaned against the right side of the mountain of corpses. And when he wanted to move backward, his body would move away from the mountain.

He could no longer move forward or backward!

His body could no longer perform any movements along the forward-backward axis. Every action was confined to a plane parallel to his body. Whenever his brain issued commands for forward or backward movement, his body automatically translated them into left or right movement, as if it were being controlled by someone else.

Forward is right, backward is left? Who designed this? Jiraiya's frustration grew with each attempt at movement.

Could this be a genjutsu like the Kurama Clan?

The inability to perform normal movements, combined with the sight of an unrealistic world overlapping with his body, seemed to suggest a genjutsu capable of manipulating all five senses. If it was a genjutsu, naturally, it needed to be dispelled.

Just as he had done before, Jiraiya stretched out his hand to form the hand sign to break the illusion, but he quickly realized it wouldn't be that simple. His hand couldn't move forward or backward, so no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't form the correct seal to break the genjutsu.

Can't even make a simple hand sign. Some Legendary Sannin I am...

Seeing no other option, he flattened his hand parallel to his chest and formed a one-handed seal. "Here goes nothing!" he said, concentrating all his focus on the task.

After a chaotic surge of chakra within his body, he slowly opened his eyes again. However, what greeted him was not the real world he had been in moments ago, but the same endless gray-green plain that was fused with his body.

What was going on? It's not a genjutsu?

Although he wasn't particularly skilled in genjutsu, he was proficient enough at dispelling them. Yet, the illusion before him remained intact.

This left two possibilities. One possibility was that this was a high-level genjutsu beyond the scope of ordinary techniques, much like the one cast by the Cthulhu statue—something that couldn't be dispelled by standard methods.

The other possibility was that everything in front of him wasn't an illusion at all, but that he had indeed entered some kind of real world.

However, this was not a world that could be understood by normal humans, nor had anyone ever reached it before. In this world, the rules of the three-dimensional realm no longer applied, and even viewing it through the lens of two-dimensional logic seemed unreasonable.

What could be confirmed, however, was that this was a lower-dimensional world, below the three-dimensional realm.

Chaos, disorder, incomprehension, and the unspeakable were the keywords that defined this world.

"Alright, let's assume this is real." Jiraiya said grimly, shifting from disbelief to acceptance.

How had he been brought into this world?

Jiraiya quickly recalled that just moments ago, while he was observing a mural, he had let his guard down and failed to avoid a monster's ambush, leading to him being dragged into this place.

Rookie mistake, letting your guard down like that.

Considering the direction he had been pulled and the current scenery, this place must be the world within the painting.

"Inside a painting?" he muttered.

However, there was no time for hesitation now. From the distant gray-green fluid plains, Jiraiya saw a monster's head begin to emerge. First, there was one, then two, then three…

Eventually, hundreds and thousands of monsters began to walk out of the gray-green plain. Their figures flickered and wavered within the mysterious mist, but one thing was clear—they were getting closer to him.

"One of these things was bad enough, but this... this is an army from hell itself," he said as he assessed the threat.

Although his body was on the same plane as this world, the monsters still had to walk toward him. It seemed the monsters themselves didn't fully conform to the rules of this world. This was likely due to their unique nature, allowing them to freely traverse between dimensions.

However, Jiraiya didn't have such abilities. Stripped of his forward and backward movement, his actions were extremely limited, preventing him from forming complex hand signs.

Without complex hand signs, he couldn't perform powerful ninjutsu. And without ninjutsu, he had no chance of defeating these hundreds of monsters.

No ninjutsu, limited movement... I'm like a genin all over again, but worse.

He couldn't even physically hit these creatures. Theoretically, he couldn't even extend his hand to touch the monsters standing right in front of him.

And escaping wasn't an option either. This world was a flat plane, and no matter how he fled, he couldn't escape the monsters' pursuit within this dimension. The only solution was to leave this space and return to his original dimension.

But how could he do that?

Though his expression remained serious, not yet panicked, Jiraiya knew this was the greatest crisis he had faced since his battle with Hanzo the Salamander. In fact, this crisis was several times more dangerous, because during that battle, he had the support of two comrades, and their cooperation had helped them survive.

No backup this time. It's all on me. What would Tsunade and Orochimaru do in this situation?

As he contemplated a solution, the monsters continued to approach. They staggered drunkenly and their hooked claws dragged along the ground, producing a low, grating sound.

One such noise was bearable, but when combined with the hundreds and thousands, it became unbearable—like nails on a chalkboard.

Any ordinary person hearing it would instantly lose their sanity.

Focus on the goal. Tune out the noise. Just like peeping on women in onsen.

But Jiraiya was no ordinary person. Even in this situation, his mind remained calm, working through a solution.

If this wasn't an illusion, and this was a real dimension, then the monsters had essentially transported him from one dimension to another. His goal, therefore, was to return to his original dimension. The only jutsu capable of such dimensional travel was a space-time ninjutsu.

"Space-time ninjutsu...," Jiraiya said.

His eyes suddenly widened. Maybe this could work!