Uchiha Yoru scattered with the wind.
In only a second, even the wind itself vanished.
At that moment, Blue B's whole body trembled, and he regained clarity. But under the effect of the mild drug, he had no memory of his brief lapse.
He did feel some soreness in his left lower back, like he had been pricked by a needle. But after checking carefully, he found nothing.
Just as he was about to continue examining it, the Eight-Tails' voice sounded in his heart.
"I thought it was the Nine-Tails, but it turned out to only be a scroll sealing its chakra."
Blue B's curiosity was stirred.
"Oh? That scroll sealed the Nine-Tails' chakra? Gyūki, did you figure out what it was for?"
"No idea at all. A baffling scroll. It felt like it simply collected and released the Nine-Tails' chakra."
"Impossible. The Cold Lord Orochimaru is an extremely cunning man, and also a very powerful ninjutsu expert. He must have done something. We just couldn't see it."
"Maybe. Konoha shinobi are always very cunning… hmph, you Kumogakure shinobi are the same."
"We Kumogakure are still a little better, right?"
"Hmph. Your Third Raikage isn't bad. He can wrestle with me. Your disciple is the best. The songs he sings are interesting."
"Ah? That brat's humming is… singing?"
"Mm. Quite interesting."
"As a human, I completely cannot agree…"
"That's only how you feel. Many shinobi in your Kumogakure like it too."
"…This world is too strange."
As the conversation continued, Blue B forgot that tiny doubt.
Everything was naturally buried.
Without leaving a trace.
…
Ryō's beautiful face held no expression.
Calm as still water, he sent ice cones and ice blades sweeping across the battlefield, maintaining steady output against the giant ninja snake.
It looked as if everything was within his grasp.
In reality, his heart was extremely panicked.
Because Orochimaru simply stood on the snake's head, smiling sinisterly, without the slightest intention of making a move.
No.
He had actually made a move.
He had taken out a strange scroll and released a powerful chakra.
That chakra was quite terrifying. It made one's hair stand on end, but it had no actual killing effect.
But this was Orochimaru.
Poison, sealing techniques, ninjutsu, forbidden techniques—he knew them all.
Cruel, tyrannical, sinister, venomous Orochimaru.
Would he do something useless?
Because Ryō could not guess Orochimaru's purpose, his heart was suspended in uncertainty, unable to settle.
But he didn't dare flee.
Behind him were Yuki clan shinobi and affiliated shinobi—a force of over a thousand people.
If he couldn't hold back Orochimaru for long enough and allowed the other party to chase them down and slaughter freely, heaven knew how many casualties he would cause.
Suddenly, Ryō's chakra boiled.
His hands formed seals as quickly as blooming flowers, and he suddenly unleashed his ultimate secret technique.
Ice Release: Great Crimson Lotus Hell.
A speck of blue starlight appeared at his fingertip.
But in the very next instant, it appeared in front of Manda's snake mouth.
Before Manda could react, blue radiance erupted with powerful light, making everyone on the battlefield feel their vision turn pale white.
Fortunately, the loss of sight lasted only an instant.
But after their vision recovered, the shinobi were shocked to discover—
It was snowing across the battlefield.
The closer one was to Ryō, the denser the snow became.
But at the center where the snowfall was thickest, Manda had already been frozen into an ice sculpture.
Including Orochimaru on his head.
He too was completely frozen.
Behind them were countless ice spikes of all sizes, extending backward in a radial pattern from where the blue light had erupted.
"O-Orochimaru-sama?"
The Konoha shinobi were stunned.
They stared helplessly at Orochimaru sealed in ice.
The Kirigakure shinobi they had intercepted were also stunned, to the point that they even forgot to flee while the enemy was distracted.
Even someone like the Third Raikage inevitably lost focus.
He had Kaguya Ren under his foot, yet stared blankly at the enormous ice sculpture on the sea, silently estimating whether he would also be frozen like Orochimaru if he took that technique.
After thinking back and forth, the Third Raikage felt he truly wasn't confident.
The cold probably couldn't take his life.
But freezing him solid like Orochimaru seemed unavoidable.
A thought could not help arising.
Should he go kill this Ice Release shinobi now?
Perfect timing. He looked extremely weak.
Ryō was indeed very weak.
Great Crimson Lotus Hell was an immature technique. Under normal use, it required seventy-eight hand seals.
Forming seventy-eight seals in front of Orochimaru—
That was courting death.
Fortunately, he had developed a special casting method.
He could exchange all his chakra for activation with four seals.
Sure enough, he had successfully frozen Orochimaru.
But abruptly using all his chakra placed a huge burden on his body.
And a shinobi's stamina was deeply bound to chakra.
Once chakra was completely exhausted, physical strength would also be drained away.
After panting for quite a while, Ryō squeezed out another thread of chakra from his cells, condensed an ice spike at his index finger, and launched it toward Manda's upright body.
As the ice spike struck Manda, it produced a clear ding.
Then came countless cracking sounds of ice.
That became the shattering of glass.
And finally, it turned into the thunderous collapse of an iceberg.
Most of Manda's body had originally been hidden beneath the sea surface.
As the upper part collapsed, the underwater portion rushed out of the sea and shattered along with it.
More and more of the body emerged.
Collisions, falling water, shattering—
Countless ice fragments sprayed outward, forming an icy mist in the air that completely enveloped Manda's body and hid the scene of collapse.
But Ryō's expression turned ashen.
Before the collapse happened, he had heard a muffled explosion and seen a cloud of white smoke erupt inside the ice.
That was a sign that the summoning technique had been released.
Orochimaru was not dead.
Nor had he been frozen.
He had released his summoning beast's summoned state in time and sent it back to Ryūchi Cave.
Within the ice mist filling the sky, Orochimaru's hoarse voice sounded.
"Truly impressive Ice Release. You almost killed me."
"Really."
"Just a tiny bit away."
Ninja Art: Formation of Ten Thousand Snakes.
Ryō, whose limbs were weak and sore, sensed the abnormal change beneath his feet.
But he had no strength to dodge.
A poisonous snake suddenly emerged and bit his ankle.
Then came countless snakes coiling upward, drowning this delicate shinobi beneath slippery scales.
Very soon, he vanished together with the disappearing snakes.
No one knew whether he had been devoured by Orochimaru's snakes, or poisoned into becoming Orochimaru's experimental material.
Probably—
The latter was more likely.
But regardless, Ryō the Ice Release user no longer existed in the shinobi world.
The Third Raikage laughed loudly.
Excellent.
He had just become worried, and Orochimaru had dealt with that shinobi for him.
That saved a great deal of trouble.
Then this half-old man with knotted muscles looked down at his feet and grinned.
"That snake-skin boy is quite capable. I can't fall behind."
"Die, bone brat!"
Kaguya Ren suddenly felt the sea surface beneath his back become incomparably hard.
The pressure of the foot on his chest also abruptly increased.
The bone armor inside his body creaked.
Death was close at hand.
Facing death, Kaguya Ren no longer cared about Shikotsumyaku's backlash.
He erupted with all his strength.
Shikotsumyaku: Dance of the Dandelion.
Although it used such a light and drifting name, this was one of the Kaguya clan's highest secret techniques.
A powerful technique comparable to Dance of the Seedling Fern.
Its power was absolutely not inferior.
Countless white bone buds pierced through Kaguya Ren's skin and clothes.
Like true life, they grew wildly, savagely strangling everything they touched.
Although the bone buds could not pierce the Third Raikage's skin, they wrapped around his foot, preventing him from continuing to press downward.
Then, centered on the Third Raikage, the bone buds rapidly grew into a bone sphere that enclosed him.
From the bone sphere, even thicker stems developed, growing into an enormous bone dandelion.
When the dandelion was blown by the wind, countless seeds scattered like snowflakes.
They drifted everywhere.
Any human or fish touched by them was cut by the sharp dandelion seeds.
But what was truly terrifying was this—
After cutting someone, stimulated by the blood they touched, the dandelion seeds took root and sprouted, repeating the original dandelion's growth process.
Fortunately, the shinobi had seen how the Third Raikage was trapped.
Each of them fled like monkeys.
Only the heavily wounded Kirigakure shinobi could not move. They could only watch helplessly as bone dandelions grew, screaming as they were wrapped into bone spheres.
Unlike the Third Raikage, after they were wrapped in bone spheres, their screams became even sharper.
The stems growing from the bone spheres were blood-red.
Anyone could tell that the bone dandelions were absorbing the unlucky shinobi's blood.
When red dandelions grew red seeds, the screams disappeared completely.
At that moment, dense lightning exploded across the bone sphere trapping the Third Raikage.
The Third Raikage's voice also rang out.
He roared,
"Hell Stab: Four-Finger Nukite!"
A hand wrapped in blue lightning pierced through the bone sphere.
Then the entire Third Raikage rushed out.
As he broke free, the first bone dandelion collapsed because its foundation had been destroyed.
Unexpectedly, the other red dandelions that had developed also suddenly turned white or gray, then collapsed one after another.
This technique that seemed capable of expanding without limit and reproducing forever—
Ended.
The Third Raikage restrained the lightning around his body and turned to look at the bone sphere floating on the sea.
A hand with skin stretched over bone gripped the hole the Third Raikage had punched through.
Kaguya Ren slowly walked out.
But at this moment, no one could recognize him anymore.
His body had become nothing but skin and bones.
His hair was white and sparse.
His skin sagged.
His teeth had fallen out.
Even his eyes had become cloudy, as though he had lost his vision.
But what was most shocking was his abdomen.
There was a huge hole.
A completely pierced hole.
The organs, flesh, and blood of his abdomen had been hollowed out.
Even his spine was broken.
If one observed carefully, they would discover that his body was actually supported by the bone armor on the left and right sides of his waist.
The aged Kaguya Ren asked unwillingly,
"Raikage… how did you find me?"
"How did you pierce through forty layers of bone walls and hit my body?"
The Third Raikage praised,
"Not bad defense. You actually forced me to use the strongest spear. That alone makes you rather impressive."
"The strongest spear?"
"You… your title is the strongest shield, but you also possess the strongest spear?"
"Bastard… if I had known earlier… I wouldn't have let you succeed…"
Having received the answer, Kaguya Ren lost his obsession.
His head and body slowly bent downward.
His voice also grew lower and lower.
Before he could finish the final sentence, his body folded and compressed his lungs, releasing one long sigh.
Then he died.
At that moment, the last battlefield also erupted with intense chakra fluctuations.
Kumogakure's AB Combination finally knocked Hōzuki Sakuzuki to the ground, forcing him to use Hydrification Technique once more.
Of course, whether the immature AB Combination truly managed it, or Hōzuki Sakuzuki panicked after seeing his two opponents and comrades killed one after another and tried to escape—
That was hard to say.
But in front of Kumogakure's top Lightning Release shinobi, for a Hōzuki clan member to use Hydrification Technique and attempt to merge into the sea to flee—
That was somewhat looking down on people.
Yes.
The Hōzuki clan's Hydrification Technique had special resistance configurations against Lightning Release.
But Kumogakure's AB Combination were not ordinary Lightning Release users either.
Seeing the enemy use Hydrification Technique, A and B did not hesitate at all.
With perfect tacit understanding, they began synchronized movement.
Lightning Release chakra gathered across their entire bodies, turning their bodies into indestructible, terrifying weapons.
With explosive acceleration, they rushed toward the position where the enemy had turned into water.
Their tacit understanding allowed the two to complete a positional shift to stand opposite one another without any communication.
At the same time, they used their strongest combined ninjutsu.
Lightning Release: Double Lariat.
Both used Lariat at once, placing the enemy at the center of the line connecting their positions.
Each could receive the other's lightning attraction, producing doubled speed amplification.
Under such relative accelerated assault, no matter what defense it was, it would be crushed instantly by Lightning Release.
Even if it was for the sake of escape, Hōzuki Sakuzuki should not have been this careless.
He remained indifferent to being caught directly between them, even daring to turn into a puddle of clear water in front of them.
As a result, before the human-shaped clear water fully landed, it was struck by two lightning-wrapped Lariats.
The powerful impact shattered the clear water.
The lightning-avoidance water film covering its surface vanished with it.
Immediately afterward, Hōzuki Sakuzuki was beaten out of Hydrification state and back into human form amid encircling lightning.
In the next instant, Hōzuki Sakuzuki raised both hands.
His index fingers aimed respectively at the back of A and B's heads.
His chakra boiled at extreme speed.
Water Release: Iron Water Gun Technique was already prepared.
This was one of the strongest Water Release ninjutsu.
Similar in type to the Second Hokage's Water Release: Water Severing Wave, it was also a ninjutsu standing at the peak of attack power and destructive force.
And in the hands of Hōzuki clan shinobi, Iron Water Gun had an advantage others could not possess.
They did not need to spend time and chakra shaping an indestructible water bullet.
They could replace it with their Hydrification body, gaining additional power.
So when Hōzuki Sakuzuki pointed his fingers at A and B, his ninjutsu preparation was complete.
With just one thought, he could activate the technique and kill the Third Raikage's son.
Unfortunately, he had no chance to complete this final step.
From the moment he mistakenly used Hydrification Technique, the Third Raikage had judged that this was a trap.
Under the encirclement of the AB Combination, although Hōzuki Sakuzuki could use B's immaturity to easily suppress the two powerful shinobi, he also found it difficult to find a chance to escape.
After seeing Ryō and Kaguya Ren fail one after another, he knew that if he continued staying, death was inevitable.
So he used himself as bait.
At the cost of severe injury, he exchanged for an opportunity to instantly kill the AB Combination.
The problem was that after Hōzuki Sakuzuki finalized his plan, all his attention focused on the AB Combination.
After all, his strategy was extremely dangerous.
One careless moment would mean dying directly at their hands.
He had no choice but to concentrate completely.
Therefore, when the Third Raikage activated Lightning Release to enhance his body and rushed over at full speed, he actually failed to notice that grand momentum and crackling thunder.
The Third Raikage gritted his teeth.
Before Hōzuki Sakuzuki could activate Iron Water Gun, he cut off his head, saving his son and the next generation's B.
When A turned around and saw his father, the headless enemy, and that extremely dangerous posture—
He understood that he and his younger brother had brushed past the god of death just now.
The one who saved his life was his own father.
The Third Raikage.
[Oh no!]
The thought had only just arisen when the Third Raikage's sandbag-sized fist smashed into A's face.
The force attached to the punch was unbelievable.
A could not even scream before he was sent flying more than ten meters, skipping across the sea surface like a stone.
But before he could stop naturally, the Third Raikage grabbed B by the neck and appeared in front of A in an instant.
He stepped on A, stopping him.
A consciously held his head with both hands and curled into a ball, waiting for the storm to follow.
Seeing his son react like this, the Third Raikage did not hold back.
His large foot kicked down.
As he kicked, he scolded,
"Idiot! Fool! You were bringing B with you, and you still dared to be careless?"
"That was a Kage-level shinobi from Kirigakure, a top-level killing shinobi who crawled out of the Bloody Mist!"
"Against Kirigakure shinobi, unless you cut off their heads, you absolutely cannot drop your guard!"
"Absolutely not!"
"You yourself have thick skin and tough flesh. Taking two Iron Water Guns would only fracture your skull at most, hurting for three to five days."
"But what about B?"
"Can the back of his head withstand one Iron Water Gun?"
"Trash!"
"You can't even take care of your younger brother. What qualification do you have to become the Fourth Raikage?"
"Do you want to become A without B?"
The Third Raikage roared while kicking fiercely.
A curled up on the sea surface, not daring to move, much less talk back.
B stood to the side, trembling like the last leaf in a blizzard.
While the Third Raikage taught his son, the battle had basically reached its end.
With all three Kirigakure Kage-level shinobi wiped out, Kirigakure's final ability to resist collapsed.
A group of jonin chasing enemies was truly like sweeping through an army.
Their killing speed was so fast that even they themselves were shocked.
While everyone was busy with their own matters—
Uchiha Yoru once again set his sights on Kaguya Ren's corpse.
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