The operational guidelines of the Summoning Beasts were still playing out.
But by this point in the battle, the only beast still capable of moving was the Splitting Hound. Comparatively speaking, this was the most powerful of his summons. Its very constitution was bizarre; its constant splitting and reforming left the Hidden Stone ninjas completely baffled.
Coupled with the fact that, despite its massive size, it was unusually fast and agile, and possessed terrifying vitality... it hadn't been pinned down just yet.
But it would be soon. Summoning beasts weren't Tailed Beasts; no matter how strong they were, they couldn't handle this sheer number of enemies.
As for the other two, their fates were rather miserable. By now, they had been completely bogged down in an Earth Style: Earth Flow River.
Standing on high ground, his visibility was excellent. Keeping an eye on the entire battlefield, he naturally saw their predicament. Not wanting them to actually drown in mud, he had no choice but to dispel the jutsu and send them back to the summoning realm.
As for his own situation... it wasn't looking great either. There were simply too many enemies to deal with at once. Two fists really were no match for four hands.
Without the Third Raikage's absurd defense, he truly couldn't pull off the same kind of stunt.
Right now, his arms hung low, blood dripping from his fingertips... He was getting jumped by an entire army, so getting injured was inevitable.
All the Stone ninjas standing on the water were his enemies.
The even larger number of ninjas surrounding the lake were also his enemies.
Fortunately, none of his vital organs had been hit so far. The blood loss was within a controllable range, and the pain was tolerable, so his mobility hadn't been compromised.
He had stopped casting Fire Style. By now, dark clouds hung low in the sky... The geography had done him a huge favor; they weren't far from the sea, so the humidity was perfect.
"Did you know?"
"It's about to rain."
His tone was completely flat. Half of his mask had shattered, exposing his left eye and a section of his forehead protector.
So, Kitsuchi, who had been fighting on the absolute front lines, could clearly see the dead-serious look in his eyes... Kitsuchi had no idea why this guy was suddenly doing a weather forecast, or why he was so serious about it. So what if it rained?
But he had a very bad feeling about this. The boy's combat style had been baffling. He had constantly spammed Fire Style attacks. Not only had he stopped using the terrifying jutsu that killed the Raikage, he hadn't even used any standard Lightning Style.
Was there some kind of plan at play here?
Just as Kitsuchi had this thought, the rain began to fall. A moment later, it turned into a torrential downpour.
The reason he hadn't just blasted Kitsuchi with a railgun earlier was that initially, he didn't actually want the man to die. During their exchange, he had confirmed that this guy was the supreme battlefield commander of the Hidden Stone. Since their army still needed to march on the Hidden Cloud, losing their commander was obviously a bad thing.
Konoha needed the Hidden Stone to effectively leverage their combat power.
But right now, he couldn't afford to care about that anymore. The enemy was hounding him far too relentlessly. If Kitsuchi didn't die, he would.
He had already burned through way too much chakra in the previous fights.
But at that exact moment, as if receiving a synchronized signal, four Hidden Stone ninjas—including Kitsuchi—lunged at him simultaneously.
To their surprise, he violently launched himself backward, retreating at maximum speed to the edge of the bathtub-like lake before leaping straight over the edge!
Curling his tongue, he let out a piercing whistle.
One of the Splitting Hounds closest to him instantly spotted his falling figure!
It completely abandoned the enemies it was fighting and sprinted madly toward his location.
Its four clawed paws rapidly scaled the jutsu-created rock wall in a spiral pattern, catching him perfectly on its back!
Halting his descent, he commanded the hound to charge upward.
Reaching the lip of the rock wall, the Splitting Hound carried him tens of meters into the air with a massive leap. Then, using the hound's back as a springboard, he executed a double jump.
The Chidori Current around his body flared violently.
High above in the clouds, natural lightning flashed in response.
And then came the resonance.
The torrential rain poured down from the low-hanging clouds. Suspended in midair, he looked incredibly small.
But massive, thick bolts of lightning began converging toward his location.
Seeing this sequence of actions and recalling the boy's earlier words, Kitsuchi finally realized what he was trying to do!
"Move! Get off the water, now! The enemy is preparing a suicide attack!"
Without waiting to see if his subordinates understood, Kitsuchi grabbed a nearby ninja and hurled him out of the lake area like a shot put.
But it was already too late for him to escape!
The Yaksha guided a dragon of lightning down from the heavens.
He pierced the water's surface like an arrow, followed immediately by the Lightning Style: Kirin.
Lightning violently bridged the gap between the sky and the lake.
The dazzling electrical current expanded outward in concentric rings, following the ripples he created when he dove into the water... It created a deceptive optical illusion of slowness, but in reality, the high-voltage current saturated the entire lake in a microsecond.
He hadn't deliberately aimed for a flashy move, but certain techniques were just inherently spectacular. The entire lake lit up so brightly it looked like... a glowing dish from a cooking anime!
After the flash came absolute silence.
A few minutes later, he floated up from beneath the surface.
Lightning Style: Kirin truly lived up to its S-rank area-of-effect classification. After that strike, there wasn't a single person left standing on the water. Roughly estimated, over fifty enemy ninjas had been killed instantly.
Wait, someone was still alive. From within a massive, half-destroyed earthen dome, Kitsuchi's figure was revealed.
He was alive, but he looked absolutely miserable... To put it mildly, anyone who saw him would feel obligated to ask if he was still breathing.
Running critically low on chakra, he ignored the half-dead Kitsuchi and began weaving signs again.
He un-summoned the Splitting Hound and summoned the Yatagarasu.
Ultimate move deployed; it was time to run.
The Yatagarasu let out a piercing cry. He hopped onto its back, planning to escape via the sky!
The giant bird skimmed low over the water, its single leg leaving a wake on the surface.
But after putting some distance between himself and the lake, he suddenly turned around and casually tossed a C-rank Fire Style jutsu backward.
And then...
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The entire lake instantly caught fire!
No, it was a series of massive chain explosions! The water level of the entire lake dropped several inches in an instant!
Or perhaps, massive volumes of water had just been flash-vaporized!
The shockwave nearly flipped the Yatagarasu out of the sky!
This was exactly what he had anticipated. Although he hadn't deliberately controlled it, blasting a massive body of water with that much high-voltage electricity was bound to trigger a massive electrolysis reaction, separating the water into highly combustible hydrogen and oxygen gas.
Turning back for one last look, it seemed like something was still burning on the water's surface after the explosion.
If Kitsuchi managed to survive that, then he deserved to live. There was nothing more to be done.
He patted the Yatagarasu's back. Time to focus entirely on escaping. If he got surrounded again, he really was going to die.
However, could he actually escape?
The dark clouds seemed to part, and a blindingly intense light pierced down, stinging his eyes.
Squinting, he looked up, and his eyes instantly widened.
A meteorite, trailing a massive shockwave, pierced through the clouds and plummeted from the sky!
A colossal meteorite capable of crushing both him and his bird into paste.
---------------------------------------------
Stones are appreciated if you can spare any.
Read 50 advanced chapters
P(a)treon.com/GoatMama