Chapter 364: What Is This So-Called "Beyond Kage"?
As a thick pillar of lightning shot up into the sky and tore through the clouds,
The skies within a ten-thousand-li radius turned from the hazy hue of dawn into an oppressive gray.
Heavy clouds spiraled around the ruptured gap, occasionally flashing with blue lightning.
The entire sky darkened, as if a torrential storm might pour down at any moment.
Enclosed by a fifty-meter-high wall stood a vast, barren plain.
From a god's-eye view,
This looked more like a coliseum.
At this moment,
Gale-force winds swept across the battlefield, toppling flora and splitting the earth. Dust mixed with scale powder rose into the air, painting the scene in a swirl of yellow sand.
In a deep pit gouged out by a strike from the giant Susanoo—
Uchiha Ci listened as Nagato relayed intel through the Phantom Projection Technique:
"The Daimyō of the Land of Lightning isn't here?"
"Iwagakure is leading ten thousand troops to attack Kumogakure?"
"And Hidan… is in Iwagakure's hands?"
Uchiha Ci furrowed his brows slightly.
He took a deep breath.
Though things now seemed far more tangled—
With Akatsuki, Konoha, Kumogakure, and Iwagakure each maneuvering for advantage in the chaos—
To Uchiha Ci, the solution wasn't complicated.
Everything revolved around a single core.
Akatsuki couldn't eliminate the Daimyō without dealing with the Third Raikage. Iwagakure couldn't strike Kumogakure without doing the same. And for Uchiha Ci to exact his revenge, he too had to face the Third Raikage head-on.
Therefore—
Now. Here. This very moment—was the final battlefield.
All he had to do—
Was pummel his opponent until death, leave him unable to stand again!
Make him rage, despair, feel helpless!
Drown him in endless regret!
To make him pay the proper price for murdering Uchiha Setsuna eight days ago!
Uchiha Ci slowly re-fastened the torn Akatsuki cloak around his waist. Planting his feet in a cross-step stance, he tilted his head slightly upward, staring darkly at the monstrous figure before him, its seven crimson tails swaying menacingly.
The killing intent long suppressed deep within since Hell Valley—
Now surged violently!
The flames of hatred behind Uchiha Ci's back erupted into a towering shadow nearly seventy meters high!
"Uchiha Ci… As expected, this brat is incredibly dangerous!"
"These eyes, that sinister chakra, this completely new power—so that's the Mangekyō Sharingan?"
The Third Raikage A let out a long breath, exhaling a plume of mist. His fists tightened as he stared at the giant forming behind the youth. His heart tensed.
His internal organs, rattled by the blows from the Final Shot of Earth Grudge Fear, quickly realigned under the power of the Tailed Beast.
Then—
His gaze turned cold, and he shouted:
"Mere Uchiha—
Since I now command this power—
Then right here, right now—I'll slaughter you and all your comrades!"
In the next instant,
The Third Raikage stepped back slightly.
His form instantly vanished into the dust laced with scale powder, transforming into a streak of lightning undetectable by the naked eye, amid a piercing static like a thousand birds screaming!
Behind him, the seven crimson tails split into three pairs and one trailing tail, swaying erratically.
This was the ability of the Seven-Tails: the Feathered Wings.
It allowed the user to transform the tails into three pairs of wings, granting incredible speed boosts and flight capabilities to the jinchūriki.
When combined with the Lightning Release Chakra Mode and the Hell Stab: One-Finger Assault's innate speed,
These three stacked together pushed the Third Raikage's speed far beyond his past limits—so fast, even the Mangekyō Sharingan struggled to track him.
Jiraiya's analysis was correct—
In this state and terrain, the Third Raikage was an assassin far more troublesome than even the White Fang of Konoha!
For a moment—
Uchiha Ci narrowed his eyes. Faced with such speed, all he could do was constantly shift his gaze left and right, trying to spot any trace of his enemy.
"Nothing on the left. Nothing on the right. Not behind either!"
"Then—it's above!"
A jolt of danger made Uchiha Ci snap his head upward—
There, above Susanoo's head, nearly a hundred meters in the air, a flash of lightning had already appeared.
But in the blink of an eye, the Third Raikage vanished once more from overhead!
Before Uchiha Ci could react—
The streak of lightning crashed to the ground even faster.
As the Third Raikage launched off the earth, the black lightning wrapping his body burst through the surface!
At a speed invisible to the naked eye, the black lightning pierced the earth, sending up massive rocks.
During this, A kicked at the stones with blinding speed, launching them like spears toward Uchiha Ci!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Three enormous rocks, wreathed in black lightning, smashed into Susanoo's surface!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Despite their ordinary appearance, the black lightning-tipped projectiles cracked Susanoo's outer shell. The crumbling debris and scale powder from the Seven-Tails exploded on impact.
Dust poured down—
Instantly obscuring Uchiha Ci's vision.
The yellow haze of toxic scale powder spread inward, numbing his body!
"You've been poisoned by the Seven-Tails. And now, attacked from four directions at once—let's see what your insect-like instincts can predict now!"
In the next instant, the Third Raikage appeared behind Susanoo!
Using Hell Stab: One-Finger Assault, he slashed open Susanoo's flesh-like armor and shot inside—
And with a single punch, he smashed into the unprepared Uchiha Ci's back!
Sending him flying out of Susanoo and into the sky!
Then—
The Third Raikage transformed into lightning once more, bursting free from Susanoo, soaring high with his tail-wings.
Since breaking through five layers of defense hadn't killed Uchiha Ci,
He'd now attempt a light-speed assassination—so fast that Ci wouldn't have time to raise a new defense!
At that moment—
A leapt over thirty meters into the air, lightning flashing across his face in rage. His hair stood on end, eyebrows bristling upward.
"Righteous Thunder—Furious Thunder Axe!"
With black lightning surging around his leg, he brought down a vicious axe kick aimed straight at Uchiha Ci's face!
"Die, brat!"
But just then—
The airborne Uchiha Ci twisted his neck 180 degrees, a chilling smile spreading across his face.
His scarlet eyes contracted into vertical slits!
"The one who's going to die… is you!"
In the next moment,
Ci suddenly opened his mouth—and from his throat erupted a white-scaled serpent over five meters long, lunging straight at the Third Raikage!
Seeing this, the memory of death surged back to A, sending chills down his spine.
He instantly recalled how Ci had once devastated him in Hell Valley with that snake-spits-snake-spits-sword technique!
Before the white serpent could open its jaws, A instinctively lashed out, grabbing the snake's head to stop it from biting, then thrusting his other hand into the side of its mouth!
But the expected spurt of blood never came.
Instead, his lightning-wrapped hand vanished into a nest of black wire-like blades—razor-sharp and hidden inside the serpent's mouth!
In that instant—
The earth erupted behind him!
A colossal Susanoo hand burst from the ground, seizing the midair, wing-flailing Third Raikage who had no foothold.
And at that moment, Uchiha Ci, now wearing a full Uchiha outfit, leapt up from underground—
Charging along Susanoo's giant arm with a few steps before launching himself skyward!
In his hand, the Kusanagi Sword spewed golden sword-light as he swung it down at the Raikage's head!
"So the one standing before me this whole time was a snake clone? He switched during the very first strike!?"
Eyes wide, A realized the truth—
His pupils contracted as the Susanoo hand crushed tighter, and Uchiha Ci descended with a cold gaze, sword poised to kill.
"Damn it!"
"I have no choice but to use it!"
The Third Raikage's expression darkened.
The Tailed Beast shroud surged violently, enveloping his head. He fully entered a half-Tailed Beast transformation.
A sharp, tentacle-like spike quietly formed atop his skull.
Then—he swung his head viciously!
The steel-like spike of the Seven-Tails sliced through Susanoo's giant thumb that held his head. Then, mouth wide open—
Surging Tailed Beast chakra condensed at his lips into a high-speed spinning sphere in a 2:8 Yin-Yang ratio.
"Insect-Eater Cannon!"
The half-beastified Third Raikage clung to Susanoo's hand as he devoured the Tailed Beast Bomb. His eyes locked with the descending Uchiha Ci—
Then roared skyward, firing toward the earth!
"BOOM!!"
The Seven-Tails' Insect-Eater Cannon, a beam of black and red light, blasted downward!
It instantly shattered Susanoo's arm, hurtling toward Uchiha Ci!
Seeing this, Ci's face shifted.
He quickly flung two kunai from his ninja pouch, anchoring them into the ground with wire attached, then twisted his descent—
The beam swept past his ear with a roar.
As he crashed back to the ground—
A massive shadow came hurtling after him!
It was the dead, discarded white serpent that A had just crushed and flung down!
Ci had no choice but to support himself on one hand and roll sideways to dodge—
But in the next instant—
That black lightning-wrapped, seven-tailed crimson shadow tore through the wall of debris!
With a Hell Stab: One-Fingered Assault, he lunged straight at Uchiha Ci's face!
Fast!
Unimaginably fast!
The Third Raikage's speed far exceeded Uchiha Ci's expectations.
Now wielding the power of the Seven-Tails, his speed wasn't just a simple additive—
It had reached a level that utterly eclipsed the current Kage.
In fact, with his solo combat ability, he was already a gatekeeper of the "Beyond Kage" class—
His attack power, defense, and speed approached the upper limits of what a mortal body could achieve!
And yet—
Faced with an incoming strike that could, in less than half a second, smash his skull into pulp, Uchiha Ci smiled.
At that moment, his face was twisted with mocking laughter, cruel laughter, scornful laughter—utter contempt.
In his eyes, the three pitch-black tomoe spun wildly, almost forming a straight line,
The Sharingan locked tightly onto the incoming strike—a finger that should have pierced his forehead dead-on, but was skewed enough to miss and instead aim toward his earlobe.
"Because the speed is too fast—so fast it exceeds the body's neurological reaction time—
You're unable to fully control this power."
"How pathetic."
"Raikage."
In that instant,
As if time itself had come to a standstill, Uchiha Ci shook his head in disappointment.
"If you could swap your neural reaction speed with your son's, you might have a shot at breaking into this realm."
"But if this is all you're capable of—"
His gaze settled indifferently on the fingertip slowly approaching the left side of his forehead.
A flicker of killing intent flashed in Uchiha Ci's eyes.
"Then—"
"I win."
At that very moment, the blood vessels around Uchiha Ci's eyes bulged violently!
The beat of his heart surged to more than double its previous rate!
An overwhelming torrent of natural energy stored in the Sage's Heart surged through his limbs and bones!
The crimson glow in his eyes vanished—replaced by a pair of sharp, golden-yellow serpent pupils!
Quantitative change gave rise to qualitative change,
Qualitative change gave rise to power,
And power—could rewrite reality itself!
To make a series of precise facial expressions and subtle actions—shaking his head, sneering with contempt, all within the span of half a second in a world that seemed to have frozen—was possible only because—
Uchiha Ci had activated Sage Mode!
And all of this—his expressions, his movements—fell squarely into the eyes of the Third Raikage, A.
In that instant, a flood of terror surged up from the depths of his soul and crashed into his skull, crackling like thunder in his brain!
To see Uchiha Ci make such movements in half a second—movements that should only be possible for someone who had surpassed godlike speed—
The implications, the level he had reached, was the very realm the Raikage had only just begun to step into—the realm of "Stasis."
When one's speed surpasses a certain threshold, a strange illusion of stagnation arises.
In the same span of time, if one can perform actions ten or even a hundred times faster than others, the sensory perception of time itself seems to slow down.
And yet, the Third Raikage knew—he was like a toddler babbling his first words, clumsily exploring this stretched-out dimension.
But Uchiha Ci—was like a seasoned driver, already cruising at full speed, completely in control.
That bone-deep chill—was far beyond what he'd felt upon first witnessing the terrifying Susanoo, or hearing about how Uchiha Ci had forcefully torn through two defensive lines and ripped two Tailed Beast jinchūriki apart with his bare hands.
Because those feats—he could imagine himself accomplishing, too.
But what Uchiha Ci had just done—was something he couldn't replicate, not even in the field he was most confident in!
As this realization dawned, the Third Raikage stared at Uchiha Ci in disbelief, words stuck in his throat.
"You—"
But Uchiha Ci simply looked back at him coldly.
"Then allow your ignorant, naïve self to witness this—
And die with that unattainable dream burned into your soul."
He revealed a villainous, almost amused grin, and mocked,
"Let me show you—"
"What it truly means... to surpass the Kage!"