Click!
Killer Queen pressed the detonation switch.
At this moment, whether it was Ryosuke and Obito at the scene, Kakashi and Rasa a little further away, or even in the Land of the Wind's capital city, Warsaw, hundreds of kilometers away,
Everyone living in this desert land felt a tremor that came from the depths of their hearts.
Obito's eyes widened. In his ears was an inexplicable violent ringing, the outside world sounded distant and vague, and all he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat pounding too fast, 'Am I… afraid?'
'But what am I afraid of?'
The thought flashed by. The next second, the chain explosion a thousand meters underground... had begun.
This was no longer an ordinary explosion. Taking Ryosuke as the starting point, the broken Dragon Vein in an instant erupted with all the energy it still held.
Roars, flames, high pressure, scorching heat, and endless earthquakes spread outward rapidly.
"What happened!"
Still fighting with Hiruko, Rasa cried out in shock.
Hiruko kicked away Takeshi, who was charging in with the giant sword, then turned his head toward the core battlefield.
A pillar of purple flame shot up from underground, climbing upward through the void like creeping ivy, stretching and stretching until it burned to a hundred meters high before finally stopping.
BOOOM!
The ground beneath their feet cracked open, revealing bottomless fissures. In an instant, those fissures turned into an even more terrifying abyss, and from the depths, raging earthfire burned.
The earthquake kept spreading outward.
Hiruko leapt high into the air. As far as his sight reached, all the way to the horizon, the desert trembled. Along the path of the Dragon Vein, abyss-like chasms tore through the land like hell's fissures, stretching endlessly into the distance.
Sand dunes, mountains, the ruins of Roran, everything along the path was swallowed into those cracks, falling into the earthfire, burned to ash.
One hundred kilometers… two hundred kilometers… three hundred kilometers…
No one knew how far this earthquake ultimately spread. Perhaps the only thing to be thankful for was that the ancient Roran ruins lay in the far south of the Land of the Wind.
Ever since the Dragon Vein disaster more than a decade ago, hundreds of kilometers around it had already become harsh, deserted wasteland where no one lived.
Hiruko stared blankly at the cracks in the earth, unable to imagine this was something humans could create. His shock couldn't be put into words.
"This is clearly… a natural disaster! This is Ryosuke's power?"
He only felt his decision to join the Akatsuki was absolutely correct. If he'd really gotten hot-headed and fought Ryosuke to the death, right now his corpse would already be lying under Ryosuke's blade.
Hiruko turned his gaze toward the explosion's core.
"So, that pretentious brat... did he die?"
Obito didn't die.
Explosion or earthquake, it didn't matter. Once he activated phasing, he existed independently from the outside world.
At this moment, Obito stood inside burning earthfire, letting the flames scorch him, quietly staring at Ryosuke only a few steps away. Suddenly, he sneered, "I thought you actually had some trump card."
"That's it?"
"I'll admit, you tried hard. The earthquake and these inexplicable flames did make it a little troublesome for me to sink underground."
"But that's just a small problem. The earth is deep and vast, you can't possibly ignite every piece of soil."
The more Obito spoke, the more delighted he became.
He was about to mock further, when suddenly he saw Ryosuke's movements, and the words froze at his lips.
At Ryosuke's fingertips appeared a golden flame. He scooped it from the burning earthfire of the Dragon Vein, fused it with the golden blaze, and it became a mass of chaotic fire.
Then… Ryosuke tossed that chaotic flame into his mouth.
Obito looked at Ryosuke's mouth, then at the earth scorched by fire and melting into magma, and unconsciously swallowed a mouthful of saliva. He opened his mouth to say, "Ryosuke, I'm telling you..."
"Don't tell."
Ryosuke cut him off.
He glanced at his not-yet-repaired giant broken blade, then tossed it back into the ghost room. Clenching his fists, Star Platinum appeared behind him, mimicking the same motion.
Ryosuke and Star Platinum raised their heads together, their cold gaze locking on Obito.
Obito said, "You..."
"Don't speak either."
Ryosuke said, "From now on, you bomb your bombs, I throw my punches. Whoever can't hold out first, dies."
"What?"
Obito didn't get to finish his second sentence before Ryosuke and Star Platinum's fists rained down like a storm.
The faster they punched, the more clay bombs exploded. Large wounds bloomed across Ryosuke's body, blood splattering, chunks of flesh blasted away, but,
The burning earthfire surged upward, drawn into Ryosuke's body by the Dragon-Serpent Bead.
Within the earth lay vast, infinite natural energy. The Dragon Vein was a massive concentration of chakra naturally transformed from that energy.
Now Ryosuke had detonated the Dragon Vein. The immense chakra released by the explosion once more converted into rich, pure, highly compressed natural energy.
Under the Dragon-Serpent Bead's pull, in this moment, Ryosuke in the truest sense possessed infinite natural energy, with unlimited output capacity.
This natural energy, combined with Ryosuke's Ripple, gave him endless vitality.
Every drop of flying blood turned into a bird in midair.
Every piece of blasted flesh, once it fell to the ground, became a squirrel.
They moved with far greater speed than ordinary animals, re-entering Ryosuke's body, repairing all the wounds caused by the explosions.
Obito quickly realized, the damage his clay bombs inflicted was slower than Ryosuke's healing.
'What the… this… how is this possible!'
Obito couldn't believe his eyes.
Wasn't the legendary undying Snake Sage no more than this?
Could it be, back in the Dragon Cave battle, the real Ryosuke had already died, and it was the Snake Sage who had taken over this man's body?
The sight before him was so far beyond common sense that Obito's mind went chaotic, producing absurd thoughts.
With things as they stood, all his tactics were useless.
What awaited him was failure, or even… Death.
At that moment, Obito's gaze caught Ryosuke's right leg.
Ryosuke's right leg was covered in a large swath of gray petrification. The areas covered by gray had grown stiff, movements rigid, as if turning into stone.
"Ah-ha!"
Obito roared in excitement, "I knew it! Such terrifying regeneration couldn't come without a price."
Though just moments ago he'd thought Ryosuke was possessed by the Snake Sage, Obito now shouted "I knew it" without the slightest hesitation.
In any case, he felt the threat of death had been swept away.
His mind instantly grew clear.
The earthquake and earthfire couldn't harm him. Ryosuke's only reliance was this demonic regeneration from absorbing earthfire.
But that regeneration had two limits.
Obito calculated in his mind, 'First is time. As long as he uses this power, Ryosuke will petrify.'
'Second is range. As long as I leave the earthfire's area, he can't keep using this terrifying power.'
Based on these two points, Obito immediately decided... dive.
Keep diving, to depths where even earthfire couldn't burn.
If one kilometer wasn't enough, then two. If two wasn't enough, then three.
His logic wasn't wrong. The Dragon Vein's power was frightening, but it was only in the thousand-meter-deep underground. The earth was vast and unfathomable. A thousand meters was merely its "skin."
His deductions were accurate too.
Obito may have been a beast, but his combat intellect was real.
Ryosuke's petrification appeared because the natural energy was too immense.
Before, his use of natural energy relied on Ripple's "four ounces to move a thousand pounds."
But now he'd absorbed far too much, unable to perfectly balance it, unless…
Ryosuke could use some other means to amplify his Ripple power several times over to resist the erosion.
For example, the Philosopher's Stone.
But petrification was petrification.
Ryosuke wanted to see, would he turn to stone first, or would Obito be reduced to flesh paste first?
Obito gave up resisting. Borrowing the cover of the explosions, his body merged into the earth and began sinking deeper underground.
Ryosuke chased tightly from behind. One man and one Stand, four fists wildly swinging, forcefully sticking close to Obito's back, not giving him any chance to escape.
One thousand meters… one thousand five hundred meters…
Obito was about to go insane. He unleashed all restraints, descending at the fastest speed in his intangible state.
But the Ryosuke in front of him clung to him like a vengeful ghost, refusing to let go.
Observing the speed at which Ryosuke was turning to stone, Obito confirmed one thing.
His intangibility would end first.
Before Ryosuke turned into a stone man, he would be beaten into minced meat by Ryosuke and Star Platinum's fists.
"Ahhhhhh! Get away from me, Ryosuke!" Obito roared in desperation.
Bang!
Ryosuke's punching speed stalled for half a second. The rock shattered, fragments flying.
The rock layer.
They had reached the underground region filled with rock.
Obito felt his gloomy life brighten once more.
With Ryosuke and Star Platinum's strength, breaking the rock layer was only a matter of minutes, but the speed would not be as quick as smashing through soil.
Ryosuke switched Stands, transforming into Killer Queen.
He planted bombs and detonated them. The area five meters below turned into a hollow space. But...
"Didn't expect that, did you, Ryosuke? My escape speed is still faster!"
Obito shouted proudly, vanishing from Ryosuke's sight.
Ryosuke couldn't see Obito. In his intangible state, Obito couldn't see Ryosuke either. As if his entire body was covered by earth and rock, it was equivalent to his whole being entering the Kamui space.
Hearing still worked. Obito could clearly hear the tremors coming from above his head, which meant Ryosuke was still chasing. He had to dive even deeper.
"Ryosuke is more troublesome than I imagined. Deidara, do we still have enough clay bombs?"
A dull response sounded in his ear.
"Enough."
The voice was Deidara's, but the tone was not.
In the Kamui space, Deidara's expression was wooden, sluggish, as if caught in Obito's genjutsu.
Makes sense. With Obito's cautious and crafty nature, even if Deidara was his teammate, how could he possibly feel assured leaving him conscious and alone in Kamui space?
Deidara was a mad artist to begin with. What if he took a liking to Ryosuke's "art of explosions" and betrayed him mid-battle, joining forces with Ryosuke from within and without?
Obito would never leave such a huge hidden danger.
'Even after my intangibility time restores, I can't go back up immediately. I'll wait until the earthfire burns out, then return to the surface to fight. Let's see what other tricks Ryosuke has.'
Obito thought for a moment.
'Or maybe, just abandon this operation and wait until Ryosuke reaches Warsaw City to strike?'
The tactics he and Deidara had prepared had indeed negated Ryosuke's melee advantage.
The only thing they hadn't expected was the Dragon Vein.
Besides, Dragon Veins weren't everywhere. Even if there really was one beneath Warsaw City, with Ryosuke's personality, would he really dare to cause earthfire and earthquakes in a city of hundreds of thousands?
If he really did that, Pain would show up the very next day to swear brotherhood with Ryosuke, and never again dare call himself 'Pain,' willingly handing that nickname over to Ryosuke.
The more Obito thought about it, the more he felt retreating for now was the most suitable plan.
No more sound of Ryosuke's fists above. Obito felt almost safe, let out a breath of relief, and released his intangibility, "Star Platinum: The World!"
Star Platinum tore open the rock, seized Obito's head, and flung him upward with force.
"Ora ora ora ora!"
"Ora ora ora ora!"
Nine point nine seconds. Not half a second wasted. Every punch landed squarely on Obito's body.
Time stop ended.
Obito's whole body spurted blood, his limbs spread out, like a bird flying toward the narrow strip of sky.
Yet Ryosuke did not relax at all. He placed his hands on the ground, activating Earth Perception.
With Obito's sly nature, he definitely carried another Sharingan to activate Izanagi.
So, the first death was just to force out Izanagi.
As Obito's body in the air disappeared, his figure reappeared more than ten meters away.
Meeting Ryosuke's gaze, Obito instinctively wanted to sink into the ground again.
But just as he took a step, he stopped.
Obito looked at the burning earthfire, the torn underground abyss, and overhead, though narrow, a strip of sky still visible.
Judging by his earlier descent, he should have sunk about three thousand meters underground.
But now…
It was clearly only around one thousand five hundred meters.
'What ability is this?!'
'Ryosuke is manipulating the earth, moving me upward?!'
The fear born of the unknown far surpassed the power of the Dragon Vein explosion. Obito felt that even the earth that instinctively protected him was no longer safe.
After devouring the Dragon Vein, the deeper Ryosuke went underground, the more he could sense and manipulate the earth's power.
Even so, it was impossible for him to directly move an intangible Obito, one who couldn't even be touched, back upward.
Ryosuke had only done one thing, he adjusted the direction of gravity, with Obito as the center.
When Ryosuke was on the surface, he could already manipulate sand and stones to float free from gravity. Now, deep underground at a depth of a thousand meters, manipulating gravity within a two-meter diameter space wasn't too difficult.
When Obito's entire body was covered by soil and rock, losing his vision, his so-called "falling" relied entirely on his sense of gravity.
Faced with Ryosuke's deliberate manipulation of gravity's direction, Obito had just been circling in a small range, never once leaving Ryosuke's attack radius.
It wasn't only Obito who could play with explosions. He wasn't the only one who could play tricks.
Obito's intangibility was already at its limit.
Izanagi, according to the intel gathered from Konoha, each person's chakra reserves, physique, and Sharingan adaptability differed, and thus the duration of immortality varied.
After the series of battles before, Obito's chakra had also been greatly consumed.
'Let's assume three minutes, at most.'
Ryosuke's right leg was now completely petrified. He didn't care at all. He stretched out his hand, and Star Platinum grabbed his arm, hurling him violently toward Obito.
Seeing Ryosuke charging like a demon, Obito was scared out of his wits. His soul almost flew out of his body, and he could no longer muster even a shred of fighting intent against this man before him.
'If I'd known, I should have let Pain handle this.'
But now it was too late for regret. Obito turned and fled, dying and reviving again and again, rushing back toward the surface, glancing around.
On the left was Sasori. On the right was Hiruko.
Obito hesitated for a moment, then ran toward the nearer Hiruko.
'Good thing I still have reliable teammates.'
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