The rain of ice spears falling from the sky struck the Root members around Hanzo with terrifying precision under Sage Mode's sensory perception.
They pierced through their bodies.
Drove into their joints.
In the blink of an eye, they stripped them of their ability to move.
Then Rei Kaguya formed a seal with his hands. Using the ice spears embedded in the enemies' bodies as cores, he spread a wave of freezing air outward, rapidly sealing them inside ice crystals.
From the outside, they looked like crystal-clear coffins forged from ice, beautiful and transparent, yet overflowing with bone-piercing cold.
Hanzo watched the Root members around him get removed from the battlefield in an instant. He saw the vivid confusion and incomprehension frozen on the faces beneath their shattered masks.
His heart slowly sank.
Then it turned cold.
It was as if the ones Rei had sealed away with a single attack were not Root's elites.
But Hanzo himself.
"Now, no one will be tactless enough to interrupt our battle."
Rei clapped his hands and began walking down toward Hanzo below.
With every step he took, the moisture in the air condensed beneath his feet, forming a thin platform of ice crystals. As he slowly descended, he created a dreamlike transparent staircase between the sea in the sky and the gradually drying earth.
It was clearly a composed and effortless posture.
But in the eyes of Hanzo, who had already confirmed Rei as his enemy, it was so troublesome.
So oppressive.
So suffocating.
After receiving contact from "Sora," or rather, White Zetsu's intelligence scroll, Hanzo had acted with caution. He had used every channel he had in the shinobi world to seriously gather information on Rei Kaguya.
A monster-like physique.
The Dead Bone Pulse developed to its limit, along with outstanding supporting taijutsu.
A chakra reserve vast enough to rival a Tailed Beast.
And that mysterious, unfathomable Sage Mode.
Together, those formed Rei Kaguya's main combat system.
Beyond that, there was genjutsu, which he had basically never displayed, and an ordinary ninjutsu system centered on Water Release, supplemented by Wind Release and Earth Release.
The reason his ninjutsu level had been judged as conventional was mainly because the techniques he often used were common, unspecialized jutsu. He relied entirely on his absurd chakra reserves to make those conventional jutsu produce unparalleled effects.
To put it bluntly, Rei Kaguya was the most typical representative of the ninjutsu concept of overwhelming everything through sheer force.
But now, Rei had not only used the geographical advantage of the Land of Rain to forcibly create a sea in the sky capable of destroying a large hidden village in one blow, but he could also maintain that sea while using Ice Release, a completely new power he should have been absolutely incapable of using before.
"Are you… a mixed-blood descendant of the Yuki clan and the Kaguya clan?"
Hanzo looked at the frost staircase behind Rei that refused to fade.
His voice was hoarse.
His tone was dry.
"If Kirigakure's bloodline clans were open-minded to that extent, why would I need to stop the war and accumulate a foundation capable of maintaining and executing my personal will in Kirigakure?"
Rei drew a bone blade of suitable length from his left palm.
Then, with frost and cold air swirling around it, he pointed it at Hanzo, whose hands were trembling faintly, and answered unhurriedly.
"Ice Release, when you get down to it, is only a new power produced by applying a special nature transformation to Wind and Water chakra. It can be passed down through bloodline, but it can also be learned through personal talent and effort…"
"Not only Ice Release. Lava Release, Boil Release, Scorch Release, Magnet Release, Storm Release… all Kekkei Genkai that possess special nature transformations but do not cause corresponding changes to the body's organs are powers that can be mastered through independent learning."
"Impossible… Absolutely impossible…"
Hanzo took two steps back.
It was as if his entire worldview had suffered an immense impact. With an expression that could not accept reality, he muttered to himself.
"How could a Kekkei Genkai be such an easily stolen and mastered power? Even the Uchiha clan, who are best at copying ninjutsu from others, have never been able to copy Kekkei Genkai…"
"Iwagakure's Particle Release is a Kekkei Tota more powerful and more complex than a Kekkei Genkai, you know? But even after the Second Tsuchikage, Mu, developed Particle Release, he still taught it to the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki of Both Scales, who had no blood relation to him…"
Rei reversed his grip on his bone blade, stepped off the ice crystal stair beneath his feet, and charged toward Hanzo, whose state of mind had already fallen into chaos.
"If you are unwilling to accept even the facts placed right before your eyes, then the stage of the new era truly has no place for an old fool like you, Hanzo."
Rei's speed was not particularly fast.
It barely remained at a level where a shinobi of Hanzo's caliber could react in time.
Even so, Hanzo's reaction was still half a beat too slow.
When he swung the kusarigama in his hand and tried to use an Iaido slash to block Rei's attack, the bone blade carrying cold air easily knocked aside the edge of the kusarigama and mercilessly stabbed into Hanzo's shoulder.
"Water Body Flicker Technique!"
"Fire Release: Exploding Flame Formation!"
"Poison Mist Spray!"
The Hanzo who had been struck first turned into a puddle of water, freezing into ice under the cold air attached to the bone blade.
Then a string of explosive tags rapidly burst from beneath the ground, wrapping around Rei's legs and releasing a hissing burning sound. Together with the black salamander spraying out large amounts of poisonous mist from the side, it created an explosive scene filled with dense poison.
Got him—
Hanzo had just used the Water Body Flicker Technique to move several dozen meters away.
Before he could even rejoice that the trap he had set had activated successfully, he saw an unpleasant mocking smile appear at the corner of Rei's mouth.
A cold flash.
Rei's figure vanished from between the flames of the explosion and the surging poison mist.
Then he walked out unharmed from an ice mirror that had just condensed beside Hanzo and stabbed him through from behind, piercing into the wound in his abdomen where the salamander's poison sac had been implanted.
"Guh… Why would you…"
"Ice Release: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals… Although there is still some gap compared to the Yuki clan's original version, and I am not exactly proficient with it, it is still somewhat useful for dealing with your self-righteous trap."
Rei looked at Hanzo, whose body was quickly showing poisoning symptoms such as paralysis and dizziness after the poison sac inside him ruptured.
Then he calmly raised his hand toward him.
"You have lost, demigod of the old era."
"Sage Art: Eternal White Coffin."
The water of the sea in the sky poured down.
It transformed into a waterfall falling straight from the nine heavens, crashing directly onto Hanzo, who could no longer move.
Then, as Rei's hands shifted through a few simple seals, the rushing water turned into eternal ice.
The falling silver river became a colossal pale ice coffin, firmly sealing Hanzo inside, his face full of unwillingness and despair.
"So… it's over?"
Nagato, descending in spirals while riding the Yatagarasu, looked at the massive ice coffin towering before him, reaching from earth toward sky.
His face was full of shock as he murmured to himself.
"The hero of Amegakure, Hanzo, the man called a demigod… lost just like that?"
"What else did you expect?"
Rei rolled his eyes and asked somewhat speechlessly.
"Did you think that, against an old man already past his prime, whose physique and chakra reserves had begun to decline, who had also lost his original heart as a shinobi and devoted himself entirely to preserving his position, I would need to probe back and forth, fight a long bitter battle, and only win after ending up in a sorry state?"
"But he is Hanzo. The Hanzo who once gave Jiraiya-sensei and the others the title of the Three Sannin…"
Nagato still found it somewhat hard to accept.
Or rather, what he could not accept was that Rei Kaguya, who had once been willing to calmly lay out facts and reason with him after seeing his Rinnegan, had grown in such a short time to the point where he could easily defeat the man Nagato had respected since childhood.
"This is what happens when a super Kage-level shinobi crushes a Kage-level shinobi. Get used to it. In the future, you will see more Kage-level experts who cling to the old ways and refuse to accept new things lose like helpless children before us super Kage-level shinobi who have stepped into a higher realm."
As Rei calculated in his heart how much time remained before the Reverse Summoning Technique he had arranged with Ichikishimahime activated, he looked at Jiraiya, who was approaching with Yahiko, Konan, and the others.
His expression was relaxed as he spoke.
Join my Patreon to read public release chapters and get 1 chapter ahead for free. Paid members can read more advanced chapters.
Continue reading here
patreon.com/Inkveil_