The moment everyone in the Akatsuki organization saw the four Tailed Beasts appear, they immediately understood that Uchiha Ryun was getting serious.
"Tailed Beasts. I have them too."
Nagato bit his thumb and quickly formed hand signs. The next moment, the Gedo Statue was immediately summoned.
Forcing Ryun to use Tailed Beasts was a good thing in Nagato's view. After all, revealing one's trump card proved there was significant pressure, meaning the gap between the two sides wasn't too large.
Previously, the Six Paths of Pain had fought Uchiha Ryun, and he had defeated all the Pains without using much of his ability. That situation was actually what Nagato feared the most.
The moment the Gedo Statue appeared, it let out an earth-shattering roar. In terms of sheer oppressive presence, the Gedo Statue definitely ranked above the four Tailed Beasts.
As Nagato formed a few hand signs, the Gedo Statue's mouth suddenly opened wide. The One-Tail, Six-Tails, Seven-Tails, and Eight-Tails were vomited out one after another.
Apart from the initial absorption being troublesome, it became very simple afterwards to either vomit them out or reabsorb them into the Gedo Statue. As seen in the original story, Obito managed this during the Fourth Great Ninja War.
With one Gedo Statue plus four Tailed Beasts, it seemed Nagato's side had a greater chance of winning.
Nagato leaped up onto the head of the Gedo Statue. The Deva Path Pain jumped onto the head of the One-Tail, Shukaku.
"Konan, Deidara, you go on the Seven-Tails. Kakuzu and Sasori, go to the Six-Tails. Itachi and Zetsu, you assist the Eight-Tails."
As Nagato's words fell, the members of the Akatsuki organization instinctively followed his command.
Even though some within the Akatsuki didn't know Nagato, those Rinnegan eyes provided the answer. This emaciated red-haired youth might be the true leader of the Akatsuki.
After making these deployments, Nagato looked towards Hidan's headless corpse and the severely injured Kisame Hoshigaki.
"Kisame, retreat further away on your own. Don't die."
"I understand." Kisame Hoshigaki covered his wound and gave a bitter smile. He had been slashed by Ryun and also kicked, his clothes now stained red with blood, clearly already in a severely injured state.
Thump. Thump.
With two dull thudding sounds, Nagato proactively cut off the chakra supply to the Asura Path Pain and the Animal Path Pain.
He now needed to control the Gedo Statue, the Deva Path Pain, and the four Tailed Beasts. His mental energy was clearly insufficient and he could no longer sustain the other two Pains.
The Uchiha Ryun on the other side could simultaneously control four Tailed Beasts using only his Mangekyō Sharingan. The ocular power of those eyes was equally terrifying, clearly not much weaker than his Rinnegan.
Nagato controlled the Tailed Beasts using the black rod receptors and his Rinnegan. Ryun controlled them using sealing techniques and the Mangekyō Sharingan. Their methods were completely different, yet they achieved a stalemate at this moment.
"Ryun-kun, it still seems our side has the greater chance of winning." Nagato said with a smile curling at his lips. The Gedo Statue, being the tallest and largest entity on the field, gave him the qualification to look down upon Ryun from a superior position.
"Is that so? I don't see it."
Ryun stood on the head of the Two-Tails, his gaze cold. As his words fell, everyone saw a series of astonishing changes suddenly occur on the Two-Tails.
Layers of black armor plates instantly spread out from under Ryun's feet. Within a few breaths, the Two-Tails' body was covered in a thick layer of Susanoo armor. The originally blazing blue demon flames quietly turned into black flames.
The Two-Tails, whose aura had been relatively weak before, underwent a dramatic transformation with the aid of the Susanoo, suddenly leaping to become the most terrifying fierce beast on the battlefield.
"Roar."
The Two-Tails let out a skyward roar that reverberated throughout the entire battlefield. Its terrifying, overwhelming aura even shook the very earth beneath their feet, causing it to tremble incessantly.
"He can actually clad the Tailed Beast with the Susanoo." Uchiha Itachi couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.
Ryun's move was truly unexpected and too shocking.
"Itachi, you have the Susanoo too, right? Can you do the same?" Black Zetsu next to him hurriedly asked.
"..."
Uchiha Itachi neither said yes nor no. At this moment, he looked at the distant Armored Susanoo, his expression shifting uncertainly. Internally, he actually wasn't confident about being able to clad the Eight-Tails with Susanoo.
First, he had just made contact with the Eight-Tails and hadn't attempted it beforehand. Second, not only was the difficulty very high, but the Mangekyō ocular power consumed would likely be extremely terrifying. His eyes might not be able to handle such ocular power output.
'Why? Our eyes are both Mangekyō Sharingan, why can he squander ocular power so recklessly?' This question inevitably arose in Uchiha Itachi's heart.
Over the years, he had used his Mangekyō ocular techniques a few times on the battlefield, and his eyesight had noticeably declined with each use. But Uchiha Ryun had been using his eyes since over a decade ago, and had definitely experienced far more major battles than he had. So why had the other party shown no signs of blindness or declining eyesight until now?
'And the masked man as well. It feels like the ocular power of his eyes is far superior to mine too. Why is there such a gap between their Mangekyō and mine?'
Once he started pondering these questions, the doubts in Uchiha Itachi's heart only grew larger.
It was a pity they were currently on the battlefield, and Ryun clearly wasn't willing to give him time to think.
On Ryun's side, the white Susanoo Divine Weapon, the Ame-no-Murakumo Sword, suddenly appeared and was grasped in the Two-Tails' hand.
Seeing the situation on Ryun's side take a turn for the worse, Nagato immediately controlled the four Tailed Beasts and the Gedo Statue to launch a preemptive attack.
Terrible chakra quietly gathered in the mouths of the Tailed Beasts. Even the tree stump-like protrusions on the Gedo Statue's back shoulders were condensing terrifying chakra.
Facing the Tailed Beasts poised to attack, on Ryun's side, aside from the Susanoo-clad Two-Tails raising the Ame-no-Murakumo Sword, the other three Tailed Beasts crouched low and decisively began gathering power, intending to create even more powerful Tailed Beast Balls.
The charged attacks from both sides' Tailed Beasts were different. Just as the Tailed Beast Balls on Ryun's side were halfway formed, the Void Dog Cannons from Nagato's side were fired first.
Five brilliant white beams shot out. The devastating chakra energy cannons struck directly at Ryun, located on the forehead of the Susanoo-clad Two-Tails.
Facing the terrifying attack, not a trace of fear could be seen in Ryun's eyes. Under the control of his ocular power, the Ame-no-Murakumo Sword held high by the Two-Tails instantly swept out.
"Ame-no-Murakumo, Slash."
Whoosh.
As the Ame-no-Murakumo Sword swept through, the space in front of it suddenly emitted an extremely sharp, piercing spatial anomaly sound. It sounded as if space itself was being cut open.
A sword light far more brilliant than the Void Dog Cannons suddenly appeared. The sky-rending sword energy clashed violently with the incoming chakra energy cannons in the blink of an eye.
Boom rumble rumble.
An extremely terrifying chain of great explosions instantly occurred at the center of Sunset Valley. What was even more horrifying was that the sky-rending sword energy gained the upper hand in this collision. The residual sword energy broke through the confinement of the great explosion in an instant. The members of the Akatsuki suddenly felt a fatal crisis from that brilliant white light.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📖 Like the story? Read 120 chapters ahead!
🔗 patreon.com/atomelectron
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━