"Now it's your turn to tuck your tail between your legs and crawl like a beaten dog."
Byakuren stared at Garp, whose face was about to meet his fist. Ecstasy, excitement, and unrestrained delight surged wildly in his eyes.
He was so exhilarated that he failed to notice how, ever since his loud roar, the expressions of Orochimaru, Tsunade, Fugaku, and the others nearby had gradually turned strange, faint traces of pity flickering across their faces.
"You want to clash fists with me? You think you're Hashirama? You're just a weak Mizukage."
Garp chuckled inwardly. His fingers tightened, and his right fist shot forward like a meteor tearing through the sky, slamming straight into Byakuren's punch.
The moment their fists collided, a deafening boom roared across the entire battlefield at terrifying speed.
At the same time, an overwhelming surge of force crashed into one another.
The violent confrontation whipped up a storm-like shockwave, sweeping across a hundred meters like a typhoon.
When two legendary shinobi of the Warring States era clashed, even the aftermath of a mere punch was enough to rip up almost ten meters of the ground beneath their feet, carving out a massive crater.
Just as everyone was still stunned by the impact of their clash, Byakuren, the one punching against Garp, let out a muffled grunt.
His body shot backward like a fired cannon shell, dragging his heels across the earth and leaving two trenches over fifty meters long before he finally managed to steady himself.
"His fists are still as terrifying as ever…
Good thing I'm no longer the same Byakuren I used to be.
Otherwise, even after being resurrected, I would've lost all over again!"
Byakuren shot Garp a deep glance. Though he was shaken by Garp's strength, he smirked instead of showing fear.
….
Garp glanced at his right fist. Not only was cold air rising from it, but layers of ice were forming across it as well.
In an instant, half of his arm was completely frozen. Even worse, the ice showed no signs of stopping, spreading relentlessly toward his shoulder and chest.
"Ice Release!"
"He can use it without weaving hand seals?"
"It's very similar to the taijutsu techniques of the Cloud!"
Tsunade, Kushina, and the others watching immediately noticed Garp's frozen arm.
Crack..
Before they could even begin to worry, Garp lifted his right arm. With a faint tremor, the entire layer of ice shattered into glittering shards.
"This is what you call being stronger than before?"
Garp stared straight at Byakuren, his eyes filled with disbelief.
"Ice Style: Black Dragon Blizzard!"
"Storm Release!"
Byakuren's face darkened. Without a word, he raised his hands and began forming seals.
His left and right hands weaved different hand signs at lightning speed.
In an instant, a bone-piercing chill and a violent, ground-tearing tornado erupted simultaneously across the battlefield.
A heartbeat later, three massive ice dragons, each a hundred meters long, shot into the sky, surrounded by the raging tornado.
"Ice Release and Storm Release?"
"He has two Kekkei Genkai?"
"As expected of a founding Mizukage… he can even perform two Kekkei Genkai at once with one-handed seals…"
As the shinobi of Konoha and Kirigakure gasped in awe at Byakuren's overwhelming power, Byakuren suddenly spread both arms wide:
"Swift Release: Shadowless Flight!"
The storm raging across the battlefield and the ice dragons soaring through the sky suddenly accelerated, by several times.
Even Fugaku and Shisui, both bearing the Mangekyo Sharingan, only saw a blur.
In the blink of an eye, the tornado, formed of countless razor-sharp wind blades, completely swallowed Garp's body.
Immediately after, the three enormous ice dragons descended from above, crashing into him with overwhelming force.
By the time they regained their senses, Garp's figure had vanished entirely, replaced by a towering ice mountain hundreds of meters tall, shrouded in white mist.
"Hss… that's three Kekkei Genkai…"
"So the rumors were true, the First Mizukage really was the only one in Kirigakure's history with three Kekkei Genkai…"
"To found a hidden village during the Warring States era… they really were monsters…"
Witnessing a battle of legends firsthand, even the prideful Uchiha, the Mist shinobi who resented the First Mizukage's brutality, and prodigies like Orochimaru and Kushina could only stand frozen in awe.
The combat of top-tier warriors from the old era was on a completely different level, far beyond that of any Kage of the shinobi village era.
Forget anything else, just casually manipulating three Kekkei Genkai, each overwhelmingly powerful on its own.
And even merging them into compound techniques… no one in the modern shinobi world could hope to do the same.
"…Garp, it seems age really has caught up to you. Your slow reactions now are nothing like your prime.
Even though everything is unfolding exactly as I planned… killing you as you are now still feels utterly unsatisfying…"
Seeing Garp first torn apart by the tornado, then swallowed by the ice dragons and frozen into a mountain, Byakuren's face lit up with an uncontrollable smile.
After losing miserably in the past and being forced to establish Kirigakure in the Land of Water, he gradually came to accept a brutal truth.
Defeating Garp in his prime was impossible.
The only force in the world capable of defeating the strongest man of the Warring States era… was time itself.
If he couldn't defeat Garp at his peak, then he would defeat him in old age.
With this realization, Byakuren sealed his chakra and soul into the Seven Ninja Swords before he died, and also prepared a forbidden technique.
Just like Duy had mentioned before, a forbidden jutsu that forcefully destroys the Eight Gates within the bodies of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen.
All of it… was to live one more life.
.........
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