Naruto: The Chosen Undead-Chapter 140 - no.139 Dark Souls

The Moonlight Butterfly's body erupted into white flame. The holy fire consumed it, not in destruction but in transfiguration. Its wings, once delicate sheets of green and blue light, now flared with celestial fire. The air around it shimmered with waves of energy, distorting the sky like heat over a desert.

Above, an aurora unfurled.

Brilliant arcs of white, emerald, and deep sapphire danced across the heavens, spiraling together in divine turbulence. It wasn't just color. It was presence, a curtain of divine judgment. The sky itself looked like a swirling ocean of flame-frosted glass, churning and bending reality with each pulse.

Beatrice's voice took on a solemn tone. "The divine fire now rages within it. The magic it conjures is no longer bound to the interaction of the soul upon the physical world. It is born of belief... raw, unwavering faith."

As if to punctuate her words, the aurora condensed. Above them, the swirling storm of color flattened and transformed. Thousands of glowing lances coalesced, spears of divine light hanging suspended like blades waiting to fall.

Then they did.

The sky screamed as the spears descended.

Naruto didn't panic. He inhaled sharply, clearing his thoughts. He had learned long ago—fear gets you killed.

A plan formed instantly.

Without hesitation, he spun, grabbed Beatrice, and hoisted her over his shoulder. She let out a soft grunt of surprise, but to her credit, didn't resist. She merely adjusted her weight to balance herself, her arms wrapping securely around his neck.

"Go faster," she said calmly into his ear. "I know you can. If you're worried about the cloak, just use it. I'll adapt."

Naruto nodded once.

Wind chakra surged into his armor, wrapping his body in the translucent slipstream of the Wind Cloak. As his feet touched the ground, he felt the resistance vanish—his movements turned liquid, flowing faster than thought. And then, to his surprise, Beatrice's form shimmered. Her own cloak of wind formed around her as the currents extended to her body. Her magic had synchronized with his chakra, riding the stream.

They flickered.

Together, they weaved through the falling rain of spears—white-hot rods of divine energy crashing into the forest around them like wrathful meteors. Every tree, every rock, every hilltop was obliterated upon contact. Fire blossomed in the shadows.

Naruto darted from cover to cover, but it wasn't enough. The forest was being erased. The Moonlight Butterfly, still burning high above, had turned the entire woodland into an arena of annihilation. "We need to vanish," he muttered.

And vanish they did.

As Naruto touched down, he formed a one-handed seal. Transformation Jutsu. He and Beatrice disappeared into the brush, reduced to a mossy stump and fallen leaves. It worked... for a moment. But then the Butterfly descended. It brought judgment with it. Energy bombs the size of boulders dropped from its wings like divine artillery. They cratered the landscape. Any illusion was instantly vaporized. The forest was no longer a battlefield—it was a burial ground.

Naruto knew they couldn't hide. Not anymore. Thankfully, he had a plan already formed.

The boy channeled chakra into his sensory organs. Eyes, ears, skin, nose. He enhanced everything.

Way of Focality, the technique that helped him maintain a soft hum of spatial awareness, now bloomed into a full network of perception. He felt the air pressure shift as every spear formed. He tasted the energy in his mouth, felt its pull across the bridge of his nose, the heat of it brushing his cheekbones like a fever dream.

It was like seeing with the back of his head.

And then he moved.

The divine spears fired again, but Naruto had already stepped to the left before they were released. He wasn't reacting—he was flowing, like a leaf in the wind. Each motion became a flicker, a burst, a rending gale. Afterimages danced across the battlefield. Three, five, then seven Narutos moved in every direction. The spears struck where he might have been, but never where he was. The ground shattered with every miss. One image sprinted up a tree, another dived through a broken pillar, one leapt skyward but none were real.

Only one Naruto existed, and he was already behind the next volley.

He twisted in midair, landing low on his hands and vaulting backward into a handstand flip that carried him over a collapsing ridge. Another spear struck down just behind him, blowing the ground into a crater that sucked wind and light into its depth.

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While Naruto dodged through a storm of radiant spears, Beatrice clung to his back with her eyes closed, muttering incantations under her breath. Her fingers traced the air as if drawing invisible glyphs, weaving magic not from a scroll, but from observation and sheer intellect.

She had no scripture. No tale passed down through ages.

But that did not matter.

She had seen the miracle—the temporal distortion used by the stone knights—and with her unparalleled mind, she recreated it. Ironically, the Moonlight Butterfly recreated magic through faith, and Beatrice recreated miracle through intelligence.

Her staff surged with power, blue light melting upward into the air as the spell took shape. In the same instant, time bent.

The Moonlight Butterfly, mid-flight, froze.

Its movements slowed to a crawl, wings moving as though submerged in honeyed light. The divine spears it had summoned hovered mid-air. The entire battlefield breathed in silence.

Naruto skidded to a stop, eyes wide. He looked over his shoulder. "You did that?"

Beatrice nodded, her voice tinged with humility. "I did not have the exact miracle story to reference... I had to improvise."

Naruto gave a breathless chuckle. "Glad you're on my side, Bea."

Beatrice blushed at the nickname. "Do not try to woo me, you reckless brute. Attack that creature."

With that, she vaulted off his back, landing gracefully as her staff glowed with building energy once more.

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Naruto smirked, already forming hand signs. "Do not have to tell me twice."

He slapped an explosive tag onto his chest. Twelve clones popped into existence around him, each flickering into a sprint. Without hesitation, one clone grabbed another and hurled it like a human missile. The clone soared through the air and detonated just as it neared the Moonlight Butterfly, the explosion engulfing the beast in smoke and blinding light.

And yet from the heart of that haze, a shape emerged. Like the full moon breaking free from thunderclouds, the creature hovered aloft, its wings forming a radiant circle. The divine energy it drew in now condensed into a perfect sphere—dense, pulsing, and terrifyingly massive.

A moon of pure annihilation.

It began to descend.

Naruto's instincts screamed. That was not an attack. That was divine judgment incarnate. He moved to grab Beatrice, but she met his gaze with calm resolve and said, "Hold out your blade."

Naruto froze. There was a light in her eyes that did not waver—not fear, not desperation, just certainty. He obeyed, holding out the Zweihander as the massive blade trembled in his grip.

Beatrice stepped forward, her staff shimmering as she whispered an incantation under her breath. She waved it over the sword, and something awoke. Blue light poured from the staff, dancing along the hilt and sinking into the steel. But it did not stop there. The magic twisted and responded, resonating with Naruto's chakra.

"I analyzed your power," Beatrice murmured. "It is not magic... but it resonates with it. Now pour everything you have into it. All of it."

Naruto nodded. With a grunt of effort, he pushed his remaining chakra into the sword.

And then it happened.

From the crossguard of the Zweihander, a blade of ethereal energy erupted—massive, towering, impossible. A pillar of luminous blue extended ten feet past the actual steel, thrumming with power, twisting with interwoven strands of chakra and magic. The blade looked like moonlight forged into form—shimmering, translucent, humming with resonance. The weight of it bore down on the air itself, the pressure flattening the grass and shivering the trees in a wide radius.

Naruto raised it overhead.

The sky fell.

The moon spell, a radiant sphere of burning faith, descended toward them like a dying god's wrath.

And Naruto swung.

The ethereal sword screamed as it tore through the sky. The air split open in a thunderous shockwave, the arc of the blade cleaving through the descending sphere and cutting it in two.

The divine moon shattered, light breaking apart into a thousand crystal shards that rained harmlessly across the battlefield.

The same stroke continued, cleaving upward into the Moonlight Butterfly. The creature did not even have time to scream. A vertical rift split its body from chest to wingtip, and then the glow inside it burned out.

The butterfly froze midair, its body fracturing along the line of the strike. It did not fall—it crumbled, dissolving into ashes and drifting upward like burnt petals carried by the wind.

The aurora in the sky faded. The holy fire guttered out.

The air went still.

Naruto dropped to his knees, his entire body trembling as the weight of what he had done and the cost crashed into him. His chakra was nearly gone. His vision blurred. He pulled off his helmet with a weary sigh and gazed upward.

The sky was dark again. Quiet. Peaceful. Beatrice stepped beside him, her cloak fluttering. She looked up at the sky where embers still danced like stars.

[Victory Achieved]

[15,000 Souls]

[Blue Titanite Slab]

[Humanity]

[Homeward Bone ]

[Soul of the Moonlight Butterfly]

Naruto took a long sip from his Estus Flask, the warmth spreading through his chest. He passed it wordlessly to Beatrice, who sat cross-legged on the mossy forest floor, her chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. Both of them were silent, letting the aftermath settle around them.

"So," Naruto said, catching his breath, "the Moonlight Butterfly gave me fifteen thousand souls. How do you want to split it?"

Beatrice drank slowly, then wiped her lips and leaned back against a cracked boulder. "Five thousand for me. The rest is yours. Based on how much each of us contributed."

"Alright. That sounds fair." He stood, stretching his legs. "I'm gonna check out the tower. I need to see if the Divine Blacksmith is alive."

Beatrice nodded without opening her eyes. "Be careful. The divine and the dead often live side by side in Lordran."

Naruto said nothing more. He stepped lightly across the broken terrain, hopping onto the fractured remnants of the bridge. As he moved, his gaze flicked to the corner of his vision at his inventory.

[Item Acquired: Soul of the Moonlight Butterfly]

[Description: Soul of the mystical Moonlight Butterfly, which flitters in the Darkroot Garden. Special beings have special souls. The Butterfly's soul is a creation of Seath the Scaleless. Use to acquire a huge amount of souls, or to create a unique weapon.]

Naruto reread the description, eyes narrowing at one particular line: Special beings have special souls.

The words burrowed into him.

His mind flickered back to the soul of Shisui Uchiha—the fleeting glimpse of a proud, broken man who had granted Naruto a fraction of his speed and resolve. A part of him now wondered if he had squandered something greater. Could Shisui's soul have been used to forge a unique weapon too? The question gnawed at him, the way most regrets do; quietly, but with sharp edges. He shook his head.

"Too late to cry over spilled milk," he muttered aloud, voice low, almost ashamed. But then another thought emerged, more hopeful. "I still have Hanaōgi's soul... maybe Andre can do something with it."

He closed the inventory as the path ahead darkened. He approached the tower, its jagged silhouette reaching toward the moon, cracked walls choked by vines and time. Inside, the spiral staircase curled upward into darkness, stone steps worn smooth by the passage of generations. Naruto's movements slowed. He had learned quickly that Lordran's silences were rarely kind.

At the top, the chamber opened to the night. The ceiling was gone, peeled away long ago by some forgotten force. Moonlight spilled across the floor like silver blood. It illuminated the broken remains of a workshop—an eerie echo of Andre's forge.

Smashed tools littered the ground. Rusted hammers, split pliers, shattered bellows. The anvil remained in the center, scarred and blackened by heat and use. The smell of burnt metal still lingered. And there, slumped over the anvil, was a body.

Charred.

Still.

The blacksmith's arms were wrapped around something glowing white and sacred—its light faint, pulsing, like a heartbeat trying to remember itself. On the anvil beside the body rested a rusted key.

[Item Acquired: Watchtower Basement Key]

He picked it up slowly, thumb running across the flaking iron, then looked back at the blacksmith's remains. "What happened to you?" he asked softly, almost to himself.

Had the Moonlight Butterfly killed him? Or had the blacksmith given himself to the Divine Fire willingly, to protect it from falling into the wrong hands?

Naruto's eyes drifted to the ember. The glow was not normal fire. It was cold and pure, humming with sacred resonance. A different kind of warmth pulsed from it; faith, not flame.

A Divine Ember.

He reached for a nearby metal tray to lift it gently. But the moment he touched the blacksmith's shoulder, the body crumbled into ash. Not like brittle bone, but like something long ready to be released.

Dust scattered across the chamber like the last page of a forgotten tale being turned by wind.

Only the ember remained.

[Item Acquired: Divine Ember]

[Description: Ember required for weapon ascension. Divine embers are property of the church and intended for divine blacksmiths. Ascends plus five standard weapons to divine weapons (which can be reinforced to plus five). Divine weapons are for Undead hunting—effective against Undead and the pawns of necromancers.]

"...Thank you," Naruto whispered. "I hope you died doing what you loved."

A cold gust swept through the ruined tower, lifting the last motes of ash into the air.

Naruto did not move.

He just watched, letting the silence linger, letting the moment be what it was.

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Author Note

Damn, that was crazy, right? Let's get into it.

1 – Can Faith Be Used to Cast Magic? Can Intelligence Cast Miracles?

Yes. One hundred percent yes. Dark Souls lore backs this up.

Let us look at the evidence:

Velka's Talisman

"Medium for casting miracles of the Gods. This black tuft of hair that serves as a talisman belongs to Velka, Goddess of Sin. It casts miracles not by drawing upon faith, but intelligence."

That is right. Intelligence-based miracle casting.

Tin Darkmoon Catalyst

"Catalyst born from the soul of the Dark Sun Gwyndolin, Darkmoon deity who watches over the abandoned city of Gods, Anor Londo. Gwyndolin is Gwyn's last born and a legitimate god, but he is also a Moon sorcerer, and this wand is boosted by faith, not intelligence."

Magic boosted by faith.

So yes, it is absolutely canon to mix and match.

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2 – Why Did I Have the Moonlight Butterfly Use Faith-Based Magic?

This was a design choice.

In the base game, the Moonlight Butterfly is elegant, eerie, and... easy. It becomes a common enemy later on. That means it needed something special to distinguish it from the others. A second phase felt cheap. A borrowed strength? That felt right.

So I imagined: what if this Moonlight Butterfly absorbed the Divine Ember?

Plus, if you listen to the Moonlight Butterfly's boss OST and Dark Sun Gwyndolin's OST, they are the same. That is no accident. That butterfly is not just an anomaly. It is a remnant of Anor Londo, perhaps even blessed by Gwyndolin.

So yes. This one casts faith-based spells.

If you want visuals:

– The terrifying moon attack Naruto faced was inspired by Rennala's Full Moon spell from Elden Ring.

– Naruto and Beatrice's combo attack? That is Ash of War: Carian Greatsword. But think larger. Think cinematic.

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That's it for now!

As always, I appreciate you all taking the time to read, comment, and just come along for the ride. Thank you all for your support—you make writing this story such an incredible journey! As always, thanks for reading.

—Adam

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[ Personal Note: First off, thanks a ton to all of you for sticking with this story. Seriously, you guys are awesome. Now, if you're interested in supporting me on P@treon, let me just say that over there, I post these massive 5k-word Chapters. But heads up, if you're jumping to P@treon, you'll need to start from Chapter 66, since that's where this Chapter lines up with the content there.

To everyone here just reading along, please don't forget to leave a comment! Honestly, your comments make my day, and they let me know you're as invested in this story as I am. So yeah, thanks again, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day!