"This is absolutely beyond comprehension," White Zetsu whispered in shock as he stared at the colossal giant that the First Hokage had suddenly manifested in the distance.
The enormous figure was also constructed entirely from Wood Release techniques, sitting in a meditative cross-legged position on the devastated battlefield. What made this creation truly awe-inspiring was the countless arms that extended from its back—easily over a thousand individual limbs, each one capable of independent movement and devastating attack power.
The original wooden man that the First Hokage had summoned earlier now appeared almost insignificant as it sat cross-legged atop the head of this thousand-armed titan, serving as little more than a throne for its creator.
The sheer scale and complexity of this technique demonstrated just how extraordinarily powerful the First Hokage truly was. This level of jutsu transcended normal ninja capabilities entirely and entered the realm of divine intervention—a manifestation of power that could reshape landscapes and challenge the very forces of nature.
"Can Lord Madara really hope to defeat such an overwhelming opponent?" White Zetsu asked, his voice carrying genuine uncertainty.
Even someone with his absolute confidence in Madara's abilities found himself questioning whether any individual could stand against such a display of raw power. After all, even Madara's perfect Susanoo appeared minuscule when compared to this thousand-armed colossus.
It was only when faced with this incredible manifestation of power that Madara's expression finally became genuinely serious. The casual confidence he had maintained throughout their battle was replaced by the focused intensity of someone who recognized that he was facing a truly formidable challenge.
At the summit of his Thousand-Armed Buddha statue, the First Hokage's expression had grown cold and determined. There was no longer any trace of the gentle, paternal figure who had once dreamed of peace—only the steely resolve of a warrior prepared to use any means necessary to stop his former friend's apocalyptic plans.
Without hesitation, he directed several of the massive hands extending from the Buddha's back to stretch forward and descend toward Susanoo's position with crushing force.
"Tengai Shinsei!" Madara called out as the First Hokage's attack began its descent, his right Rinnegan eye focusing with deadly intent.
Boom! Boom!
The clouds in the sky above the Thousand-Armed Buddha were suddenly torn apart by an incredible force, and a massive meteorite began plummeting toward the battlefield from the heavens above. The technique demonstrated Madara's ability to manipulate gravity on a cosmic scale, literally pulling celestial objects from space to serve as weapons.
The First Hokage immediately noticed this new threat and turned his attention upward, his analytical mind quickly assessing the tactical situation. He formed rapid hand seals and directed additional arms from his Buddha statue to extend toward the falling meteorite.
With his attention momentarily divided between multiple threats, Madara's perfect Susanoo took advantage of the opportunity to retreat to a more favorable position while simultaneously swinging its colossal blade to intercept the wooden arms that were still targeting its position.
Rumble!
The Buddha's wooden hands struck the descending meteorite repeatedly, their continuous impacts gradually breaking apart the massive stone projectile. Each collision sent shockwaves through the air and fragments raining down across the battlefield, but the First Hokage's technique systematically reduced the threat until the remaining pieces were no longer large enough to pose a significant danger.
Once the meteorite had been neutralized, the First Hokage immediately refocused all of his attention and energy on Madara's position, understanding that his opponent would not give him another opportunity to respond to such diversionary tactics.
At that crucial moment, Madara suddenly abandoned his Susanoo entirely, leaping clear of the protective construct just as multiple wooden hands crashed down upon it. The perfect Susanoo was completely destroyed by the overwhelming force, its ethereal form shattered into dispersing chakra.
"You cannot escape from me!" the First Hokage declared, his eyes narrowing with determination.
Even when Madara had controlled both the Nine-Tailed Fox and his Susanoo simultaneously during their previous battles, he had been no match for the overwhelming power of the Thousand-Armed Buddha. Although Madara's ocular abilities had clearly grown stronger since their last encounter, he did not appear to have developed any techniques that surpassed his previous Susanoo capabilities.
"Hehe," Madara chuckled softly as he observed the wooden hands pursuing his airborne form, his expression showing no trace of concern despite his apparently desperate situation.
He opened his tightly clenched palm to reveal a small black sphere, no larger than his fist, which began slowly rising into the air above the battlefield. The dark orb seemed to absorb all light in its immediate vicinity, creating a zone of absolute darkness that hurt to look at directly.
"Chibaku Tensei!" Madara announced as the black sphere continued its ascent.
He suddenly pressed his palms together with decisive force, activating the technique's full potential.
Buzz!
An invisible but absolutely terrible gravitational force suddenly descended upon the entire region, affecting everything within a radius of dozens of kilometers. The power was so immense that it seemed to distort space itself.
"Get out of here immediately!" Black Zetsu warned urgently, diving directly into the ground without waiting for a response.
White Zetsu immediately followed his friend's example and burrowed underground as quickly as possible. Just after they disappeared beneath the surface, the mountain they had been using as an observation post began to disintegrate almost instantly, breaking apart into countless massive boulders that were inexorably drawn upward into the sky.
In the air above, the wooden hands that had been descending toward Madara's position were suddenly pulled off course by the overwhelming gravitational influence. Their carefully aimed attacks went wide as the technique's power disrupted their trajectories completely.
The massive gravitational force affected everything within its range, and even the First Hokage's incredible Thousand-Armed Buddha found its movements constrained and limited by the cosmic-level technique.
"So this is the true power of the Rinnegan," the First Hokage murmured with a mixture of awe and growing concern.
The mountains surrounding his Buddha statue began collapsing one after another, their ancient stone foundations unable to resist the supernatural forces at work. Under this level of gravitational pressure, even the wood release techniques that constituted the Buddha itself began developing stress fractures and cracks.
The First Hokage had secured himself to his wooden creation using additional wood release bindings around his legs, understanding that without such precautions, his body would be pulled into the air by the irresistible gravitational force.
"It seems that if we are caught by this technique and pulled upward, it will be virtually impossible to break free," he observed grimly.
Above them, a small planetoid was already beginning to take shape in the sky as countless tons of matter were drawn upward and compressed together. As far as the eye could see, even the most distant mountains and sections of landscape were cracking apart and rising into the air to feed the growing celestial body.
"We can only give this our absolute best effort!" the First Hokage declared, his expression shifting to one of desperate determination.
The thousand-armed Buddha that had been sitting in meditative pose slowly rose to its full standing height, its movements causing minor earthquakes despite the ongoing gravitational disturbance. Rather than continuing to resist the upward pull, the First Hokage made a tactical decision that would determine the outcome of their battle.
Bang!
The colossal figure's massive body tensed like a spring, and then it deliberately launched itself into the sky, using the gravitational force to assist rather than hinder its movement.
"The energy field around that construct is completely chaotic," the First Hokage observed as he stared at the growing planetoid above them.
Like Minato, he possessed exceptional sensitivity to natural energy fluctuations, allowing him to perceive the distorted chakra patterns surrounding Madara's technique. Through this analysis, he determined that the only way to destroy the jutsu was to eliminate its source—the black sphere that was creating the gravitational distortion.
As his Buddha ascended toward the artificial planet, the First Hokage cast a quick glance at Madara, who remained suspended in mid-air without any apparent difficulty. Somehow, the Uchiha seemed to be completely unaffected by the very gravitational forces he had created.
When the Buddha reached the optimal altitude for his attack, the First Hokage released a focused battle cry that echoed across the heavens.
"Sage Art Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands!" he roared, activating his ultimate offensive technique.
Every single wooden hand extending from the Thousand-Armed Buddha's back suddenly launched forward simultaneously, creating a storm of attacks that filled the entire sky. Under the influence of the gravitational field, precise aiming was unnecessary—every strike was naturally drawn toward the planetoid with devastating accuracy.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The continuous thunderous impacts spread outward through the air in expanding shockwaves that could be felt for hundreds of kilometers. The scale of destruction was so immense that every ninja nation would undoubtedly detect the battle, just as they had when Minato had fought at this level of intensity years earlier.
Under the relentless barrage of attacks, the artificial planetoid began to gradually break apart. Massive chunks of compressed stone and earth were blasted away from the main body, creating a rain of debris that streaked across the sky like a meteor shower.
Finally, when the entire celestial construct collapsed completely, the gravitational force that had descended upon the land also dissipated, allowing normal physics to reassert control over the battlefield.
Within a radius of dozens of kilometers, countless mountains had been completely destroyed, fundamentally altering the geography of the entire region. The landscape bore permanent scars from their battle that would remain visible for generations to come.
High in the sky, the Thousand-Armed Buddha—whose wooden hands had been completely expended in the previous assault—began falling heavily toward the earth below. Without its primary weapons, the colossal construct was essentially defenseless.
Huff... huff...
The First Hokage was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling with the exertion of maintaining such incredible techniques. Even though his current body was a reanimation that should theoretically possess unlimited stamina, the sheer scale of chakra consumption involved in this battle had pushed him beyond normal limits.
Recovery from such massive expenditure would be impossible in any reasonable timeframe, leaving him vulnerable to whatever Madara planned to do next.
However, despite his exhaustion, the First Hokage did not allow himself to relax his vigilance. His eyes remained fixed on Madara, who was now floating directly in front of him at eye level, and he noted with growing concern that his opponent's chakra fluctuations remained completely stable.
There were no signs of over-consumption or fatigue visible in Madara's posture or energy signature, suggesting that he had been holding back significant power throughout their entire confrontation.
At this critical moment, Madara began forming hand seals once again, his movements deliberate and confident.
Bang!
An enormous cloud of summoning smoke erupted behind him, and from within it emerged a creature that dwarfed even the Thousand-Armed Buddha in terms of raw menace and power. The Outer Path Demon Statue materialized on the battlefield, its grotesque form radiating malevolent energy that seemed to corrupt the very air around it.
Madara descended slowly to land atop the demon statue's head, looking down at the still-impressive Wood Release colossus that faced him. His eyelids drooped slightly as he spoke with the quiet confidence of someone who had finally decided to end a prolonged game.
"It is time to bring this battle to its conclusion," he murmured, his voice carrying across the devastated landscape with supernatural clarity.
Buzz!
As his words faded, the demon statue opened its massive maw and began gathering dense chakra light within its throat. The energy concentration was so intense that it created visible distortions in the air around the creature's mouth.
The First Hokage's pupils contracted with shock and recognition as he identified the technique being prepared. "A Tailed Beast Ball?" he asked in disbelief.
However, he knew virtually nothing about the monstrous entity that Madara had suddenly summoned to the battlefield. While his Wood Release colossus had not yet disappeared completely, it possessed very little remaining energy for sustained combat.
As the chakra fluctuations grew stronger and more concentrated, the First Hokage's enhanced senses began detecting specific energy signatures that filled him with growing horror.
"This chakra... it belongs to the Two-Tails, Three-Tails, Four-Tails, Five-Tails, and Seven-Tails!" he exclaimed, his voice carrying both amazement and revulsion.
"Madara, you actually..."
The recognition hit him like a physical blow. Madara had somehow captured and absorbed the chakra of five different Tailed Beasts, combining their power into a single devastating weapon that far exceeded anything the First Hokage had ever encountered.
The chakra from the five captured bijuu gathered and condensed into a gigantic Tailed Beast Ball that was equivalent in size to the demon statue itself. The sphere of destruction contained enough concentrated power to obliterate entire mountain ranges.
"I told you before, Hashirama," Madara said with a cold sneer, "you cannot hope to stop me!"
The massive Tailed Beast Ball launched forward with tremendous velocity, its passage through the air destroying all debris and obstacles in its path. The very atmosphere seemed to burn away from the concentrated energy as it descended toward the First Hokage's position.
BOOM!