Mamoru pressed his advantage, not letting go. He raised Kimimaro high again, about to slam him down onto the hard ground.
At the moment Kimimaro was about to make intimate contact with the ground, Mamoru's hand suddenly felt light.
Kimimaro had unhesitatingly detached the bone spur Mamoru was holding. He used the force to backflip, and upon landing, his feet stayed close to the ground, sliding back several meters with a "shhh" sound before he managed to steady himself.
"Of all things to play with, you choose your own bones."
Mamoru glanced at the pale bone in his hand and tossed it away like trash, wiping his hands on his pants with a look of disgust. "No wonder you're a short-lived ghost."
On the other side, Kabuto struggled to get up but couldn't support himself for more than a moment before sinking to one knee. Even though he had avoided his vitals at the last second, Kimimaro's impact had left several gurgling, bloody holes in his body.
He didn't dare delay, enduring the severe pain as his hands quickly gathered green Medical Chakra, pressing them onto the wounds for emergency treatment.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
Just as Kimimaro steadied himself, he suddenly broke into a fit of heart-wrenching coughing. He quickly covered his mouth with his hand, but dark red blood continued to overflow from between his fingers, dripping onto the ground.
"Is it... almost at the limit?" His voice was terrifyingly calm, as if stating something unrelated to himself, showing no fear of his impending death. "This is probably... my final scene."
Before he finished speaking, the Cursed Seal on his body began to undergo a rapid change.
The darkness, as if alive, spread and stained wildly from his chest, quickly covering his entire skin. However, a tooth-aching "creak" of bone friction came from inside his body.
His fingernails became sharp as claws, and the six bone spurs originally on both sides of his back appeared even more menacing. Along his spine, a row of thick, short bones broke through his skin. Even more shocking was that a thick, dinosaur-like tail extended from his tailbone.
Within a few seconds, he completed the second stage of the Cursed Seal transformation.
At this moment, Kimimaro's image had completely deviated from human form, looking more like a humanoid raptor filled with the aura of death.
Mamoru witnessed the entire horrifying transformation process, his brows furrowed deeply.
What puzzled him even more was that, in his perception, Kimimaro's life force was already so weak it was almost undetectable, like a candle in the wind. Yet even so, he still stood, still fought.
Kimimaro raised his right arm. The next moment, high-density bones crazily tunneled out from under the skin of his right arm. Accompanied by the scalp-numbing sound of bone friction, layers of pale bones quickly wrapped around his entire right arm, finally forming a giant spiral white bone drill.
Mamoru clearly felt his death-defying will to burn everything. He no longer hesitated, raising his right hand with his thumb and index finger extended in a pistol gesture, aiming at the transformed Kimimaro. A point of blue light rapidly condensed at his fingertip, emitting a devouring energy fluctuation.
"This is bone hardened to its strongest degree." Kimimaro's emotionless voice came with a hollow echo.
"Along with that troublesome defense of yours, I will pierce through you in one blow."
The moment the words sounded, Kimimaro kicked off the ground with both feet. He launched a full-power charge toward Mamoru with an indomitable, tragic momentum.
"Boastful talk!" Mamoru sneered, and the Blue condensed at his fingertip shot straight out.
Swoosh...
Boom!
Blue hit the charging Kimimaro head-on. A powerful gravitational force erupted instantly, the ground cracked, and mud and stones were wildly swirled up. However, Kimimaro's charging momentum only stalled for a moment.
In the intense confrontation between the spiral bone drill in his hand and the energy of Blue, countless cracks and fragments exploded on its surface. Yet, he actually endured that terrifying compressive force, his speed increasing again as he continued to rush toward Mamoru.
"Holy crap!"
Seeing his tried-and-true Blue being forcibly resisted in such a crude manner, Mamoru couldn't help but curse.
His pupils constricted slightly, and a hint of disbelief flashed across his face. Without any hesitation, he quickly took half a step back, and a pale blue orb of light condensed at his fingertip once more.
A second Blue shot through the air.
Swoosh! Bang!
The azure orb and the bone drill collided violently again. This time, the cracks on the drill were even denser, and large shards of bone peeled off and flew. The skin on Kimimaro's arm holding the drill split open, revealing the porcelain-like bone layer beneath.
But he gritted his teeth, the final obsession burning in his eyes, as he once again broke through the restraint of Blue.
Swoosh! Bang!
A third Blue followed immediately. This time, the white bone drill finally couldn't withstand the continuous high-intensity tearing and crumbled inch by inch with a piercing sound of shattering.
The bone layer under Kimimaro's skin cracked, and blood gushed out, spinning rapidly in the compressive vortex, forming a tragic bloody spiral.
"Aaaaaargh!!!"
In the final moment of his life, Kimimaro let out a deafening roar. He endured the terrifying power that tore everything apart. His entire body was a bloody mess, with pale bones exposed in many places. His dimmed eyes had long since lost focus, yet they remained locked on Mamoru's direction.
Maintaining his forward-charging posture, he broke through that blue air vortex without looking back.
When his steps finally came to a halt, his broken body still held the charging posture, finally arriving in front of Mamoru. But those once bright eyes had completely lost their luster and would never reflect any image again.
He succeeded, but at the moment of success, he fell into eternal silence.
Mamoru finished coldly and turned his gaze toward Kabuto. But the moment he turned his head, a sudden change occurred.
"Dance of the Seedling Fern."
The voice was as light as a wind about to dissipate, yet it clearly reached the ears of everyone inside the barrier. With this whisper, the atmosphere inside the entire barrier suddenly froze.
Poof... Poof...
Hundreds of pale white bone spurs burst out from the ground without warning, growing crazily like frantic bamboo shoots.
The sharp bone spurs tore through the earth with a tooth-aching sound of shattering.