—BOOM!
The endless sea of fire spread and linked together, igniting everything in its path. The entire mountain peak was enveloped in thick black smoke. Two disheveled, soot-covered figures stumbled out—the A-B brothers, supporting each other.
Young A leaned on Killer Bee, staring blankly at the scene before him.
Across a hundred thousand square meters of land, countless Cloud ninjas were scurrying like headless flies under the influence of that impossibly vast Genjutsu. They were trampling over one another; the "Iron Wall" defense they had placed so much hope in had collapsed across the entire line in an instant.
Beneath the oppressive sky, everyone who dared to look up saw it—the pair of massive, crimson, indifferent Three-Tomoe Sharingan eyes rising in the heavens, gazing down upon all living things.
"We haven't even properly met him, and we've already collapsed like this..."
"Does numbers truly mean anything in front of that guy?"
"Can we... truly defeat him?"
Killer Bee, supporting A, stared at the same scene. His gaze grew long and hollow, his pupils trembling slightly.
Every time. Every single time they met, that brat Ren Uchiha brought out some brand-new method that left them utterly helpless. Moreover, in the gaps between their encounters—intervals of less than half a month—the brat's strength shot up like a rocket!
From their first even match where Bee held a slight advantage, to the second where he was paralyzed by Kirin, to the third where he was torn apart by hand in less than half a minute... a Perfect Jinchuriki had been reduced to a mere background character.
And now? He hadn't even seen the boy's face before being blown apart by a few "ordinary" magatama thrown from kilometers away.
Bee's psyche was approaching a breaking point. Consecutive defeats had stripped him of the confidence to face Ren. Even the thought of the boy's face made his hands shake.
"There's a way!" Young A snapped back to reality, gritting his teeth. He stared at the base of the first defensive wall, his voice a low, determined growl. "This is a Genjutsu released through a barrier. Theoretically, as long as you don't look at the sky, you should be immune. So... before he breaks through the two lines to the Pavilion, we have one last chance to gamble!"
"Now, we need to find that Hyuga brat! His eyes will be of great use to us!"
However, at that moment, a mist so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face rose around them!
"You... you... who are you! Get away! GET AWAY AGHHH!!!"
A blood-curdling scream of agony erupted from the distance. Within the fog, the surprised voice of a Mist ninja rang out: "This eye wasn't destroyed by the Caged Bird... Is this guy from the Hyuga Main House?"
A's face shifted violently. He recognized the scream—it was Hyuga Shōta.
"Damn it, it's the Akatsuki! They've used Ren's Genjutsu as cover to breach the second line? Did Rasa not move!?"
He tried to lunge toward the sound—at the very least, he had to salvage the remaining eye! But then, a steady set of footsteps echoed through the white mist.
A red-haired youth in the Akatsuki robes stepped out, blocking their path. The mist, thick enough to drip water, seemed to have no effect on him. A pair of eyes with strange, rippling patterns looked at the A-B duo with cold indifference.
He took a deep breath, raised a palm, and snapped his eyes open:
"Shinra Tensei!"
Meanwhile, on the other side.
After the first round of attacks on Ren Uchiha, the Stone ninjas on the wall had followed the plan, using Earth Style: Hiding Like a Mole to dive underground.
Their leader was a Stone Jonin named Mahiru. Skilled in kenjutsu, earth style, and scouting, he was a trusted subordinate of Onoki, the Third Tsuchikage.
"Strange. Why hasn't the Cloud's signal come yet?" Mahiru frowned, staring at the rock ceiling. They were currently directly beneath the first wall.
A fierce-looking ninja named Taiseki leaped out of a side tunnel, his face pale with fear. "Captain, the Cloud has been routed! Ren Uchiha used some kind of... sorcery to disperse an army of ten thousand. The Akatsuki have breached the first and second lines; they're almost at the Tenshu Pavilion!"
"What? Defeated already!?" Mahiru was stunned. He knew they would lose—Lord Tsuchikage had planned for it—but he didn't expect it to happen within ten minutes.
"Where is Ren Uchiha now?"
Taiseki licked his dry lips, his eyes glazed with fear as he instinctively looked upward. Mahiru wove the 'Sheep' seal to sense the surroundings. His face went ghastly pale.
"That cold chakra... he's right above our heads?"
"Yes, Captain. What do we do?" Taiseki asked. "Do we proceed? The Cloud won't have the strength to stop us now."
Mahiru pondered. Their mission from Onoki was ostensibly to aid the Cloud. But in reality, when the Cloud elites tried to trap Ren, they had walked into a cage themselves. Mahiru's true job was to seal that cage—trapping 8,000 Cloud elites so they couldn't reinforce other fronts.
This was a premeditated strike against the Cloud, code-named by Onoki as—
The Rock's Plan to Topple a Nation!
They intended to wash the Cloud off the map of the Third Great Ninja War in one stroke.
"Proceed with the plan!" Mahiru snarled. "Ren Uchiha and the Third Raikage both need to be eliminated. If the Cloud wants us to weaken Ren, we'll do it. Let them kill each other. Besides, we have a second trump card in the Pavilion. Move!"
"Coordinated Ninja Art: Earth Style—Great Mole Strike!!"
Combining the Hiding Like a Mole technique with the massive hollows created by the Moving Earth Core, they intended to shatter the foundations and let millions of tons of rock bury their enemies alive!
Atop the wall, Ren Uchiha stood within his Susanoo. Though he appeared still, he was frantically channeling natural energy through the barrier to maintain the Genjutsu.
Hypnotizing ten thousand people required an astronomical amount of energy. He couldn't stay here as a permanent battery. Once he had pumped enough energy into the barrier to sustain the illusion for three more minutes, he cut the supply.
Three minutes. Without the Chakra Cannon, that was enough to reach the Pavilion.
Ren took a deep breath, looking toward the Tenshu Pavilion kilometers away. He closed his eyes. In the darkness of his mind, the five-day training on Turtle Island finally bore fruit.
[Bloodline Selection Evolution Complete!]
[Ketsuryūgan consumed; Sharingan Ascended!]
[You can now perform high-tier Blood Release with your Three-Tomoe Sharingan and summon a stronger Susanoo.]
[New Masteries: Human Boulder, Blood Dragon Technique, Blood Manipulation Genjutsu, Eye Art: Blood Dragon Nine Seal.]
[Susanoo (Phase 3): Flesh Susanoo. Skeletal frame with legs and musculature generated by Blood Manipulation. By replenishing blood, it maintains defense without consuming ocular power. The War God of the Earth!]
Ren snapped his eyes open, revealing crimson snake-pupil Sharingan!
"The warm-up is over. Now... the war begins!"
At the center of the battlefield, before the Tenshu Pavilion.
Mabui, the young secretary of the Cloud, ran toward the gates in despair. "Lord Raikage! Please! Come out and take command! The A-B brothers... they can't hold on! That man used one jutsu and our lines collapsed! Lord Third!"
Five days ago, the Third Raikage had returned and locked himself in the Pavilion, leaving everything to young A.
Technically, there was no third line of defense. The third line... was the Third Raikage himself.
Now, A's tactics were a joke in the face of Ren's eyes. The elites on the fifty-meter wall couldn't even cast a jutsu because their senses were warped.
"Sigh..."
A heavy sigh echoed from behind the gates. "My child, you still do not understand my arrangement. You could have used this pressure to reach a higher level... but alas."
"The fate of the Cloud must be decided by the Cloud! Outsiders cannot be trusted!"
BANG!
The heavy, three-meter doors burst open. A fierce figure drenched in blood and covered in jagged wounds stepped out. His white hair and beard billowed. Within his ferocious eyes, two psychic figures seemed to be clashing until one was defeated.
An aura of blood-red chakra condensed into a coat around the old man.
A, the Third Raikage, finally appeared!
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