"He caught my Dust Release with just one hand?!"
"That's impossible!"
Onoki, flying in from afar, looked utterly astonished. He'd never seen anyone catch Dust Release with their bare hands, let alone dispel it completely. Even Hashirama Senju or Madara Uchiha couldn't withstand Dust Release head-on; they always had to counter it with other ninjutsu.
"That's the Rinnegan!"
Approaching the battlefield, Onoki finally saw Menma's eyes and froze. "The eyes of the legendary Sage of Six Paths! No wonder he's this strong."
We can't fight him head-on, he thought, panic creeping into his voice. Hidden Stone can't be the first to get wiped out. It's better to send Konoha, Hidden Cloud, and the users of Impure World Reincarnation to test his waters first!
With that in mind, the Tsuchikage bypassed Menma and Minato on the ground, landing swiftly in front of his own forces.
"Lord Tsuchikage!"
Seeing Onoki return, the Hidden Stone ninja finally relaxed, though their anxiety remained. The Jōnin, including Bungata, looked grim. They knew the Tsuchikage alone couldn't salvage this, and they stepped forward to whisper a report.
"Lord Tsuchikage, the Second Tsuchikage's reanimated body was sealed by this enemy. He was defeated in one or two moves; he didn't even manage a proper resistance."
The meaning was clear: they wanted Onoki to lead a retreat.
"I don't need you to teach me how to handle a crisis!" Onoki snapped. If the situation weren't so dire, he would have punished them then and there to assert his authority.
Instead, he looked up at Menma in the distance and called out, keeping his tone neutral. "You must be the Kage of Four-Star Village, correct?"
"Hidden Stone admits defeat. We'll send someone to discuss compensation with you later. So, how about we call it quits for today?"
As he spoke, Onoki subtly glanced toward Konoha's main gate. "I remember there are Hidden Stone forces and a large number of reanimated dead over there. Perhaps the battle there is more urgent than here. Every moment we waste increases the danger over there."
Onoki had no real intention of paying compensation or retreating. He was feigning surrender to observe the situation from the sidelines and reap the benefits if an opportunity arose. The manipulators behind the scenes attacked Four-Star Village; they surely had a plan to deal with the Rinnegan. If they failed and Four-Star Village suffered only minor losses, Onoki could offer compensation, avoid further damage, and preserve his strength.
Thinking of his clever maneuver, the Tsuchikage unconsciously smiled.
With a Kage like him—intelligent and courageous—Hidden Stone could be revitalized.
Hearing Onoki's shout, the Rinnegan in Menma's eyes faded. Seeing this, the Tsuchikage immediately assumed he had agreed. Just as he prepared to offer some flattery and order a withdrawal, Menma's eyes turned a familiar blood-red.
"This time, it's the Sharingan?"
"No," Onoki muttered, his eyes narrowing. "This is the Mangekyō Sharingan... the kind with patterns as intricate as Madara Uchiha's."
Onoki didn't know about the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, but he had been brutally beaten by Madara before. He was extremely sensitive to Sharingan with mysterious patterns.
"You certainly know a lot," Menma said, his lips curling slightly. "Seeing that no one else has appeared after you've been talking for so long, it seems this is pretty much the entirety of Hidden Stone's territory."
Menma's voice wasn't loud, but it carried across the entire area. The coldness and indifference contained within it gave every Hidden Stone member a feeling of impending doom, a chill running down their spines.
"What are you doing?" Onoki felt the same shadow of death enveloping him.
As he shouted, his hands quickly condensed Dust Release cones of light in front of his chest.
"What am I doing?" Menma smiled disdainfully, raising his right hand high. "Of course, I'm inviting all of you overconfident trash to die!"
The moment the word "die" left his lips, the entire world plunged into darkness. A fierce, howling wind swept through, and dark clouds, like a black cloth, blanketed the sky. Then, jet-black eye power, golden-red chakra, and blue-black Sage energy—like three dragons—surged forth from Menma's body.
Swirling and intertwining, they rapidly coalesced on his right hand. In the blink of an eye, a massive sword, hundreds of meters long with a black blade and golden back, covered in jet-black patterns, materialized from Menma's right hand.
Reaching for the heavens and the earth, it stood like an ancient pillar connecting the sky and ground.
"Is that Uchiha Madara's Susanoo?"
"No, there's also Tailed Beast chakra and some terrifying unknown power!"
"We can't fight this! We have to retreat immediately!"
Onoki, his white beard billowing in the gusts of wind, felt the terrifying power before him—something he couldn't possibly withstand. His expression changed drastically.
Ignoring the wind rushing into his mouth and his wounds reopening, he roared at the Hidden Stone ninja behind him. "Retreat! Everyone retreat! Now!"
As he shouted, Onoki's face turned deathly pale, devoid of any color. His body hunched over. The transparent Dust Release cones between his palms subtly transformed into transparent Dust Release cubes.
Hearing Onoki's shout, the Hidden Stone ninja behind him showed expressions of joy. Without hesitation, they turned and fled at their fastest speed.
Sensing the Hidden Stone ninja fleeing, Onoki swiftly released the Dust Release from his palms toward Menma, attempting to interrupt or block the terrifying hundred-meter-long sword.
"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!"
"A futile struggle."
Watching the rapidly expanding Dust Release barrier threaten to engulf him, Menma gently lowered his raised right hand.
Whoosh—!!!
The pitch-black sky suddenly brightened. The hundred-meter-long sword, piercing the sky, fell instantly.
In an instant, a hurricane surged, and the earth shattered. Dust and smoke stretched for kilometers. The massive, square, transparent Dust Release barrier shattered into dust upon contact with the greatsword, like a blizzard encountering a raging fire.
Onoki, behind the transparent Dust Release barrier, and the Hidden Stone ninja who hadn't even run a hundred meters were directly enveloped by the greatsword. Before even a scream could be uttered, they vanished in a burst of golden-red-black light, leaving no trace of their bodies.
As silent as a pencil drawing erased by an eraser.
A single sword strike annihilated thousands of ninjas.
With the enemy wiped out, the hundreds-of-meters-long sword dissolved with a deafening roar. The released, immense chakra created a whirlwind, dispersing the surrounding dust and smoke. A massive, chasm-like rift appeared in the earth.
At the edge of the rift, Menma, its body shrouded in golden-red-black markings, stood facing the wind, its right hand still in a downward chopping motion. Brightened by a beam of sunlight piercing through the clouds, it resembled a god descending to earth.
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