A powerful repulsive force exploded outward with a deafening roar, blasting away the ceaseless rain and the soaked earth beneath it, sending mud and water crashing straight into the Iwagakure shinobi.
No one below chūnin level was able to react in time.
Only a few jōnin managed either to dodge or quickly cast ninjutsu, protecting themselves and the shinobi around them.
Of the more than three hundred Iwagakure shinobi, the vast majority were buried beneath the mud.
Fortunately, they were Iwagakure shinobi.
Earth Release was what they excelled at most.
Before long, they began struggling free from underground one after another.
But Nagato's opening attack had been far too overwhelming.
The Iwagakure shinobi were terrified.
Even having three hundred people together gave them no sense of security whatsoever.
Dense streams of rallying signal flares shot into the sky one after another.
The Iwagakure shinobi stationed in the other three directions immediately abandoned the encirclement and rapidly converged toward a single side, once again forming a force of roughly one thousand shinobi.
Numbers gave courage.
Iwagakure shinobi were also exceptionally skilled at group warfare.
Among the Five Great Shinobi Villages, Iwagakure possessed the strongest discipline.
When facing exceptionally powerful enemies, they had abundant combat experience.
The Iwagakure shinobi swiftly dissolved their original squads.
Based on the ninjutsu each person specialized in, they rapidly reorganized themselves into hundred-man formations.
Under the command of their jōnin, they prepared to unleash large-scale coordinated ninjutsu.
At this moment, none of the Iwagakure shinobi had heard Nagato mention the "Rinnegan."
In fact, no one had seriously examined Nagato's eyes at all.
They were completely focused on preparing for battle.
Every one of them believed that once their coordinated army ninjutsu displayed its true power, even Hanzō would have to avoid confronting it head-on.
As long as he did not shamelessly rely on poison, Hanzō was nothing special!
That was just how stubborn Iwagakure shinobi were.
Earth Release: Earth-and-Stone Dragon — Army Formation
Earth Release: Exploding Rock Projectile — Army Formation
Earth Release: Giant Rock Projectile — Army Formation
The Iwagakure shinobi selected the army ninjutsu most suitable for attacking an individual target.
Three different large-scale ninjutsu were activated.
An earth dragon covered in rocky armor roared.
Spherical boulders covered in cracks emitted a faint red glow.
Enormous reddish-brown stone projectiles looked dangerous at a glance.
More than a dozen massive ninjutsu constructs surged toward Nagato in unison.
The Amegakure shinobi inside the small village cried out in alarm.
They were all too young and had never witnessed Iwagakure's signature large-scale battle techniques.
The sheer scale of the ninjutsu left them stunned, and they could not help worrying about their leader.
It was not only the shinobi Konan had brought who cried out.
The hundred-plus shinobi Nagato had brought were among them as well.
As expected of young people.
When they saw the Iwagakure shinobi retreat, they had not considered remaining in place and waiting for orders.
Instead, they had taken the initiative to charge into the village and regroup with their companions.
Thus, they witnessed those unimaginably enormous ninjutsu.
Among the Amegakure shinobi, only Konan and Nagato remained completely calm, watching the enemy's ninjutsu without the slightest change in expression.
They had already witnessed things like this when they were barely ten years old, before they had even become shinobi.
Now, even Konan could respond to such attacks smoothly.
How much less reason was there to worry about Nagato, who stood in front of her?
So not only did Konan remain calm, she even stopped those impulsive subordinates who wanted to rush forward and support Nagato.
Their intentions were good.
But if they actually charged over, they would only make it harder for Nagato to fight freely.
Sensing that everyone behind him had been stopped by Konan, Nagato relaxed.
He closed his eyes slightly and gathered himself for a moment.
Then he used his technique.
Ninja Art: Shinra Tensei
Boom—
With Nagato at the center, the air was suddenly compressed with tremendous force.
The pressure forced the air to release a piercing, shrill roar.
Then a spherical shockwave exploded outward.
In a single instant, a vast section of the battlefield within a hundred meters violently trembled.
The pale shockwave formed by the powerful repulsive force swept across the entire battlefield.
The first things struck were the gigantic coordinated ninjutsu flying through the air.
The seemingly solid and overwhelming earth-armored dragon and glowing red stone projectiles had no ability whatsoever to resist the white shockwave.
The instant they made contact, the enormous ninjutsu constructs shattered into countless fragments that filled the sky.
Even army ninjutsu powerful enough to assault cities and fortresses collapsed in a single blow.
The shinobi caught directly in the shockwave fared even worse.
Their bodies seemed to be made of clay.
The shockwave crushed them effortlessly, tearing them apart into severed limbs and mangled pieces that scattered through the air.
Within the range swept by the repulsive force, the Iwagakure shinobi suffered horrific casualties.
Those who had no time to react naturally died without intact corpses.
Those who managed to respond by taking cover or using defensive ninjutsu did not fare much better.
Physically powerful shinobi let out muffled groans before collapsing unconscious.
Those with less robust bodies lacked sufficient protection from muscle and fat.
Their internal organs suffered fatal injuries.
Blood sprayed from their mouths, noses, eyes, and ears.
It was obvious they would not survive.
The repulsive force continued erupting.
Its range expanded farther and farther outward.
A pit ten meters across had already formed beneath Nagato's feet.
As the repulsive force continued blasting outward, layer after layer of soil was scraped away.
The pit kept growing deeper and wider.
The white shockwave finally seemed to reach its limit.
Several hundred meters away, it naturally dispersed.
The remaining force transformed into an earth-shaking explosion of sound.
Beyond the shockwave's direct range, the tremor instantly vaporized standing water and even moisture contained within the soil, creating a layer of white mist nearly half a person tall.
The Iwagakure shinobi within that mist-covered area also suffered considerable injuries.
Barely anyone remained standing.
Nagato's technique finally ended.
Because rain fell perpetually in the Land of Rain, even such an overwhelmingly powerful ninjutsu did not produce clouds of drifting dust.
The white mist rising from the ground also rapidly dispersed beneath the steady drizzle.
The devastated battlefield was revealed before everyone's eyes.
Neither side could speak.
Every shinobi stared dumbfounded at the terrain that had been transformed in an instant.
Even Konan, who had the greatest confidence in Nagato, was stunned speechless by the combat power of her closest friend.
There was even less need to mention everyone else.
Nagato himself remained unmoved.
He gently floated more than thirty meters forward, leaving the enormous crater he had torn open behind him before landing on solid ground.
Then he raised his hand.
Once again, he used a technique.
Ninja Art: Banshō Ten'in
Among the Iwagakure forces, the jōnin who were barely still standing suddenly felt their bodies tighten.
Against their will, they were pulled toward the terrifying Nagato.
As they watched the frightening enemy draw closer while their own bodies refused to move, they screamed in terror.
Once they came within a certain distance of Nagato, the Iwagakure jōnin suddenly felt their chakra pouring out of them uncontrollably.
It gathered into Nagato's hand.
More and more chakra accumulated.
Then...
Ninja Art: Shinra Tensei
The repulsive force generated using the chakra gathered from more than a dozen jōnin was clearly weaker than when Nagato used his own chakra.
But the dozen-plus jōnin dragged over by the attraction still could not escape death.
The shockwave crushed them apart on the spot.
Most shinobi were like this.
Even powerful jōnin did not possess bodies much tougher or more durable than those of genin.
As long as their ability to dodge was restricted, killing a jōnin became remarkably easy.
The Yellow Flash several years from now would be like this.
Nagato was the same now.
After the chain of three ninjutsu attacks, the thousand-strong Iwagakure force had already suffered more than fifty percent casualties.
Nearly half of their jōnin had also been killed.
The remaining jōnin and some of the more distant chūnin had already turned and fled at full speed.
Without the organization provided by jōnin and veteran chūnin, the only people left on the battlefield were newly promoted chūnin, genin, and several hundred wounded shinobi.
This shinobi force had collapsed.
Among the unluckiest were the Iwagakure shinobi squad dispatched to support the Land of Demons.
They had merely stayed to watch the battle out of curiosity.
Yet among the jōnin Nagato had pulled over and killed were precisely the two jōnin leading their squad.
Now the mission could no longer continue.
One man.
Three ninjutsu.
And a thousand-strong Iwagakure force had been routed.
After a brief period of stunned silence, the young Amegakure shinobi erupted into cheers.
Their desire for battle nearly pierced the heavens.
Seeing this, Nagato no longer bothered to personally continue fighting.
He waved his hand and gave the order to attack.
The Amegakure shinobi leaped excitedly into action.
Shouting cries of "Long live Lord Nagato!" they charged toward the shattered Iwagakure forces.
At this moment, Konan flew past Nagato.
Smiling, she said,
"Nagato, hurry up and rest. I'll keep an eye on everyone."
"Don't worry. I promise I won't let the Iwagakure shinobi turn around and bite us before they die."
Nagato smiled bitterly and shook his head.
"I'm really not tired."
After his body recovered, Nagato's burden was still heavy.
But his resistance and recovery ability had increased dramatically, allowing him to barely withstand that burden.
Because of this, he regained the ability to fight.
His body had even begun undergoing a second period of growth, and he had already grown slightly taller.
At the same time, after the Rinnegan received sufficient chakra nourishment, its maturation accelerated.
Nagato successfully developed quite a few of its unique dōjutsu.
However, he did not rely entirely on the still-immature Rinnegan.
Instead, he transformed those abilities into methods combining ninjutsu and dōjutsu.
On one hand, this reduced the difficulty of using the techniques.
On the other hand, it eased the burden on his eyes and made them feel much more comfortable.
With rapid progress in every area, Nagato naturally never considered researching anything like the Six Paths puppets.
No matter how good puppets were, they were still extensions of his body.
They still consumed his own power.
Overall, when Nagato's body was healthy, the Six Paths puppets actually expanded the range of Nagato's practical control at the cost of weakening his total combat strength.
The puppets could not increase his power.
Of course, things were different for the Nagato of the original timeline.
Because his body had been severely crippled, he possessed tremendous power but was incapable of properly displaying it.
Only then did he have no choice but to painstakingly create the Six Paths puppets.
Although some power was lost in the process, the puppets could still display part of his strength.
That was better than being unable to do anything at all.
Another possibility would be something similar to the Ōtsutsuki Clan on the moon, where the puppets' power was supplied by the giant Tenseigan while the user merely controlled them.
Naturally, that kind of arrangement truly could greatly increase overall combat power.
The battle ended quickly.
The morale of the Iwagakure shinobi had already collapsed.
Although the Amegakure shinobi were young and weak, they were still true shinobi.
They had more than enough ability to achieve an overwhelming victory during a pursuit.
A few individually powerful Iwagakure shinobi remained unwilling to accept defeat.
They tried to launch counterattacks through their individual strength.
But every one of them was suppressed by Konan in time.
Their resistance only earned them death on the spot.
In the end, the vast majority of Iwagakure shinobi were either killed or captured by Amegakure.
Only a small number were lucky enough to escape.
The news that Amegakure had annihilated more than a thousand Iwagakure shinobi quickly spread.
But all information regarding Nagato was dismissed as false intelligence.
Sunagakure Elite Jōnin Akasuna laughed mockingly.
"A young Amegakure shinobi casually used three ninjutsu and defeated more than a thousand Iwagakure shinobi?"
"What kind of joke is that?"
"Absolutely impossible!"
"If you ask me, those rock-brained idiots must have been poisoned by Hanzō's toxins until their heads stopped working and they started hallucinating."
Hearing this, Chiyo, who had hurried all the way from the southern front after hearing that Hanzō had reemerged, fell into thought for a long time.
At this moment, the Fourth Kazekage asked,
"Elder Chiyo, can Hanzō's poison actually produce effects like that?"
Chiyo nodded without hesitation.
"It can."
"During the previous war, Hanzō of the Salamander was already capable of adjusting the properties of his own poison."
"That caused me quite a bit of trouble at the time."
Chiyo continued explaining,
"After so many years, it is entirely possible that Hanzō has modified his poison to produce hallucinatory effects."
"At the very least, my own poison reserves contain no fewer than ten toxins capable of inducing hallucinations."
The Fourth Kazekage's expression became bitter.
"Haah... so Hanzō hasn't been wasting these years either."
"Elder Chiyo, I'll leave the matter of Hanzō's poison to you."
Chiyo naturally did not hesitate in the slightest.
She agreed readily.
"No problem."
"This old woman rushed all the way here from the southern front precisely to deal with Hanzō."
At this point, Chiyo suddenly revealed a mocking smile.
"What a pity."
"This time Konoha doesn't have that shameless woman."
"I would very much like to see how Konoha intends to deal with Hanzō's poison without her."
Hearing this, the Fourth Kazekage and the others burst into laughter.
During the previous war, Hanzō's sudden intervention had caused tremendous suffering for all three Great Shinobi Villages.
For a period of time, Hanzō, accompanied only by his summon, the salamander, had spread poison across the battlefield and driven the forces of all three Great Shinobi Villages completely out of the Land of Rain.
That was how he firmly established his title of "Demigod."
However, after Sunagakure's Chiyo and Konoha's Tsunade developed antidotes to his poisons, drastically reducing their effectiveness, Hanzō and Amegakure were ultimately defeated.
But Iwagakure had possessed no medical-nin of comparable ability.
From beginning to end, they could only endure the poison directly.
Their losses had been so severe that everyone involved still felt uneasy remembering them.
That was why, even today, Iwagakure remained the village most wary of Amegakure.
They had deliberately stationed large numbers of shinobi around the Land of Rain.
At the slightest disturbance, enormous numbers of Iwagakure shinobi would gather and suppress all movement from Amegakure with overwhelming force.
That was precisely what had led to yesterday's battle.
So when Chiyo pointed out that Konoha no longer had Tsunade, Sunagakure's leadership all laughed.
Based on Iwagakure's experience during the previous war, Konoha without Tsunade was clearly going to suffer terribly this time.
Meanwhile, Sunagakure would stand alone with an enormous advantage, profiting greatly from Hanzō's poison while four factions fought against one another.
After laughing for a while, the Fourth Kazekage asked,
"Elder Chiyo, have you prepared enough antidotes?"
Chiyo answered,
"I've prepared plenty."
"Enough for twelve thousand Sunagakure shinobi."
"In addition, I've prepared sufficient raw materials."
"If Hanzō's poison mutates, I can immediately research a targeted antidote and manufacture it in large quantities."
"Fourth, you can rest assured."
"Good!"
The Fourth Kazekage was overjoyed.
He slapped his thigh and praised,
"As expected of Elder Chiyo. Truly reassuring."
Afterward, the Fourth Kazekage looked around at Sunagakure's leadership.
"I've already received letters from Konoha's Homura Mitokado and Iwagakure's Akatsuchi."
"We have agreed to jointly send troops against Amegakure two days from now and force Hanzō, this unexpected factor, to withdraw from the war."
"Use that timing as the basis and make your preparations."
"Yes, Kazekage-sama!"
...
Once intelligence began spreading, leaks became unavoidable.
The information that the three Great Shinobi Villages intended to combine forces and pressure Amegakure reached Nagato on the second day after the battle ended.
Sunagakure: twelve thousand shinobi.
Iwagakure: fourteen thousand five hundred shinobi.
Konoha: seventeen thousand shinobi.
Together, they totaled a staggering forty-three thousand five hundred shinobi.
Never before in the history of the shinobi world had such an enormous shinobi army appeared.
After learning the news, the Amegakure shinobi were terrified.
They began asking everywhere about how the village intended to respond, hoping to gain confidence from someone else.
But their questions only spread panic even farther.
Eventually, they reached the group of shinobi who had participated in the previous battle.
Those shinobi showed no concern whatsoever when hearing numbers like forty thousand or even fifty thousand.
They all calmly answered,
"It's fine."
"We have Lord Nagato."
Someone asked Konan the same question.
Her answer was identical.
"With Nagato here, it doesn't matter what enemy comes."
Finally, the Amegakure shinobi met Nagato himself.
Unable to restrain themselves, someone asked,
"Lord Nagato, can Amegakure really withstand all three Great Shinobi Villages?"
"Forty-three thousand five hundred shinobi... is that really all right?"
Nagato smiled slightly.
His answer was filled with confidence.
"So what if there are forty thousand shinobi?"
"Seven or eight years ago, during the previous war, Hanzō relied on his own strength to defeat the shinobi of Konoha, Sunagakure, and Iwagakure."
"The total number of shinobi he faced back then was no fewer than thirty thousand."
"Didn't he defeat them anyway?"
The Amegakure shinobi hesitated before answering,
"Lord Nagato, I heard that this time is different from the previous war."
Nagato asked curiously,
"Oh?"
"Tell me. What's different?"
The Rain shinobi swallowed hard and gathered his courage.
"They say Hanzō's strongest weapon was poison."
"He relied on the poison of the salamander to defeat the three Great Shinobi Villages."
"And when Hanzō fought them, the three villages were enemies with one another."
"So each time, the number of enemies he actually defeated was fewer than ten thousand."
Nagato laughed.
"I don't know who told you that, but it actually sounds somewhat reasonable."
He looked at the Amegakure shinobi and said proudly,
"But reasoning like that is meaningless when applied to me."
"One strike from me can kill more than four hundred shinobi."
"What kind of poison do you think can compare to my ninjutsu?"
The Rain shinobi shook his head.
"Definitely none."
Nagato nodded.
"Poison is ultimately nothing more than an unorthodox trick."
"Once Konoha and Sunagakure developed antidotes, Hanzō was defeated."
"But my genuine ninjutsu can only be opposed by ninjutsu even more powerful than mine."
"Do the three Great Shinobi Villages possess any shinobi as powerful as I am?"
"Definitely not!"
"Lord Nagato is invincible under heaven!"
Nagato smiled.
"You're right."
"That is the most important reason."
"Hanzō was only a demigod."
"While I, Nagato, am a 'god.'"
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