The blazing sun still stood proudly in the sky, gray light enveloping the vast Death Paradise.
"Neji, what exactly is that?"
"It looks like the same gray light that covered Konoha before!"
Lee and Tenten's faces were covered in a layer of dead gray, worry filling their eyes. Neji looked up at the sky, but the second half of his sentence stuck in his throat.
That gray color, seemingly brighter than flame, had been seen by all of Konoha three days ago.
And he had seen it five years ago, in that Death Forest.
That was Konome's color.
Boom!
A violent rumble came with terrifying tremors. Neji and the others looked around in panic, only to discover that the entire Bone Hell seemed to be shaking.
Was this an earthquake?
At the edge of the Bone Hell, Jugo gathered chakra into his feet, forcibly stabilizing himself on the violently shaking ground.
Kimimaro drew a bone blade and gasped for breath, stabbing the blade into the earth to steady himself.
After exchanging two moves and witnessing the enemy's strength, Gaara's expression changed slightly. He brought Temari and Kankuro into the air at once.
"This is…"
"The land plates are moving!"
Kankuro and Temari's faces filled with horror. Beneath their feet, the entire earth seemed to come alive, changing shape madly.
Countless orderly, deep cracks appeared across the white-boned land. It sank, flipped, and shifted with shocking speed. Strange mountains rose from nothing like swollen pustules squeezed out of the ground.
Gullies lifted from the veins of the earth, like the muscle lines of a human body.
The Bone Hell completely split apart. Swamp terrain from unknown locations shifted over and stitched itself into place. Reddish-brown stone pillars suddenly appeared among the bones.
They could even see many genin running in terror across the moving land plates, like ants fleeing a sudden natural disaster.
Temari and Kankuro immediately thought of the scene outside Konoha that night, and terror covered their faces.
Compared to this apocalyptic sight, the deadly Chunin Exam they had been taking felt like nothing more than a children's game.
Gaara touched the seal on his stomach and finally understood what Shukaku feared.
It was not only Shukaku who was afraid. Even he had begun to tremble.
Even if he exhausted all his chakra, he could at most create a desert a thousand meters wide. It was difficult to imagine how much chakra was needed to treat Death Paradise like a puzzle board.
The difference in scale between them could no longer be calculated.
Thinking of the masked woman standing in the night sky, Gaara's instincts told him that the one behind all this had to be connected to her.
Neji, Gaara's team, Kurotsuchi, Akatsuchi, Karin near the giant bowl's mouth, Naruto, Sasuke, and the others were all struggling to survive within the ever-changing Death Paradise.
Every transformation of heaven and earth was a catastrophe for the ninja inside.
The shifting environment affected every battlefield and every person in this place.
Compared with these unlucky people caught in the disaster, Orochimaru, who was personally experiencing the power of Takamagahara, felt as if his brain were smoking.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
The python Orochimaru had become fled madly through the swamp. The scenery around her kept shifting backward. She no longer knew how long she had been running.
But…
Why could she not get out?
She suddenly stopped sliding and looked around.
Hundreds of reddish-brown stone pillars stood in the swamp. On the yellow-green marshland bubbling with swamp gas, a long frozen trail covered in ice shards appeared before her.
"I've been here before!"
The purple eye shadow at Orochimaru's eyes deepened.
She had actually gotten lost here!
She possessed a snake's infrared perception. Even in Hidden Mist Jutsu filled with chakra, her sense of direction could not be confused. Yet in this straight-line advance, she had still somehow lost her way.
The mud swamp churned constantly, making sounds like ocean waves. The faint tremors of the earth vanished around her, and even the water cannons bombarding from the sky seemed to disappear without explanation.
Orochimaru looked up at the sky.
The dead-gray sun still hung high above.
Her heart jolted. Her thumbs overlapped, with the left thumb on top, forming the Boar seal.
"Summoning…"
Her golden vertical pupils contracted in shock.
The dead-gray sun grew larger and larger in her vision. A gauntleted hand wrapped in wind and lightning completely filled her sight.
Boom!
The thick mud was blasted into a deep crater by the impact. Orochimaru's vision went black, and the surrounding space began spinning wildly. Her whole body felt as if it had been torn apart.
Boom!
Countless sharp stone pillars were smashed apart by the figure wrapped in wind and lightning. The hard rock was more fragile before her than small breakfast crackers.
Sharp wings swept past at extreme speed. An armored monster clad in battle armor, like a god and a demon, smashed through mountains and swamp, charging all the way out of the Swamp Hell and into the bone-covered land.
Gray light filled the eyes behind its face armor. It pressed the head of a massive python to the ground and dragged it forward like a bulldozer, carving a trench through the white-boned earth.
"Mmph…"
Orochimaru, whose face was being gripped, twisted wildly, but she could not utter a single word. Her snake body was dragged against the ground, leaving behind a bloody, horrifying trail.
Her body had already been erased by the friction. Only the head gripped in the gauntlet remained.
Konome lifted Orochimaru's head from the ground. The power of wind and lightning had already peeled open the flesh of the white snake.
Gray flames burned in Konome's eyes. The vast power of crustal movement created by Takamagahara overlapped with the speed provided by the Wind-Thunder Armor.
Her muscles and cells were torn apart by the mad force, then reborn under the injection of endless vitality. Her body had already begun to possess the traits of immortality, which allowed her to fuse these two explosive powers into one.
At this moment, she was almost omnipotent.
Crack!
The five fingers of the gauntlet sank deep into Orochimaru's skull. The hard bone was like a lump of rubber mud in her hand. She had to carefully control the force inside her body to ensure Orochimaru stayed alive.
Rip!
Unable to break free from the mountain-like pressure on her face, Orochimaru used substitution again. Her huge mouth tore open, and a beautiful, gentle-looking woman crawled out from within.
She was soaked from head to toe. Her face was graceful and warm. Only those golden snake pupils still revealed the old Orochimaru.
Konome had seen this face before.
It was Haku, the girl who had boarded the Hope with Zabuza Momochi.
Back then, she had wondered why the Sound Four and even Kimimaro had come to participate, yet Haku, who was also under Orochimaru, had not appeared.
The moment she saw Orochimaru use Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, she understood.
Haku had already been devoured completely by Orochimaru's Living Corpse Reincarnation.
"Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals!"
With her true appearance revealed, Orochimaru no longer disguised her voice. She formed a one-handed seal and instantly merged into an ice crystal.
Light shifted.
Oro-Haku's illusory reflection appeared inside another mirror in the sky. The ice mirror tilted slightly, and she attempted to repeat the same trick to escape Konome's grasp.
She no longer wanted to fight Konome.
She only wanted to escape.
If she was careless and got hit by the kekkei mora, All-Killing Ash Bones, ten lives would not be enough.
The instant the ice mirror shifted…
Zzt!
Violent lightning and sharp Wind Release tore through space. Konome, clad in armor, seemed to traverse space itself and suddenly appeared between the two ice mirrors.
Light traveled in straight lines.
The cold, armored figure completely occupied the surface of the ice mirror, preventing it from reflecting Orochimaru's pale face.
Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals required mirror reflections to transfer.
Large-scale continuous movement required the mirror surface to shift. Normally, this shift took less than one-tenth of a second. Forget intercepting it, a normal person would not even be able to react. It could hardly be called a weakness.
But the Second and Fourth Hokage, who practiced the Flying Thunder God, were both dead.
And what Orochimaru had encountered now was the fastest speed in the ninja world: War God Armor, Wind-Thunder Mode!
Looking at Orochimaru's increasingly pale face, Konome slowly turned her head. Her right fist drew an afterimage through the air.
"Bang!"
The hard ice that even the Wind-Water Floating Cannons could not break shattered instantly. The frantic Wind-Thunder chakra sliced the broken ice crystals into powder.
Orochimaru, hidden inside the mirror, only reacted now. She tried to counterattack, but in an instant, the fist pierced through her chest.
"Ice Release: Termination!"
Allowing her body to crumble under the wind and lightning, Orochimaru quickly formed seals. Chakra equivalent to five Kakashi units vanished, transforming into ultimate cold.
Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals was a technique developed by Haku. After acquiring Ice Release, she had also developed an S-rank Ice Release secret technique of her own.
The nature of Ice Release was cold.
Termination meant abandoning all shape transformation and raising the chilling nature of chakra to its limit. As long as there was enough chakra, even the thermal motion between molecules could be frozen in an instant. It could even create an effect similar to stopping time.
A terrifying chill spread outward. All moisture in the air instantly turned into ice shards.
Crack, crack, crack…
Time seemed to fall still. Icicles covered Konome's arm and spread rapidly toward the rest of her body.
The violent wind and lightning abruptly stopped. One could even see the flowing details of the gathered electricity. In the blink of an eye, armored Konome, clad in wind and lightning, was completely frozen.
Crack!
The smile had only just appeared at the corner of Orochimaru's mouth when horrifying cracks spread across the frost, causing her expression to stiffen once again.
Creak… creak…
The icicles covering Konome's body shattered. She rolled her neck, and her slightly stiff body turned scorching hot in an instant. The sea-like chakra within her body surged, and the once-silent Wind-Thunder Armor let out another piercing scream.
Ice Release was indeed terrifying.
Even the vast, boundless universe would one day fall into heat death. No matter how strong her body was, it could not oppose ultimate cold.
But the same principle still applied.
No matter how powerful a mechanism was, it still needed numbers to support it. Talking only about mechanism and not output was like discussing poison without mentioning dosage. It was pure nonsense.
If Hashirama Senju in Sage Mode used Ice Release: Termination, she would have to take it seriously to avoid an accident. But the so-called massive chakra Orochimaru had consumed was nothing more than a small lake compared to the chakra in her own body.
Freezing a lake into a block of ice and throwing it into the sea could not freeze the ocean. The only effect would be to raise the sea level a little.
Even putting aside the difference in chakra, judging from the release range of the ninjutsu, Orochimaru had only frozen a region a few hundred meters wide.
On the surface, it had completely frozen her body, but in truth, it had only frozen an area the size of a fingernail on her real body.
Her true body was Takamagahara, an area measured in hectares.
Their numbers were too far apart.
The Wind-Thunder Armor wrapped around her arm shredded Orochimaru apart. Watching the other party shed her skin and revive again, Konome had already grown bored.
Even the enhanced version of Orochimaru who had obtained Ice Release could not dance before her.
Other than the three members of the Otsutsuki family, the entire ninja world was her toy.
"I'll ask one last time. Do you want to die, or do you want to live?"
The girl's voice sounded muffled and hoarse beneath the armor. Dead-gray smoke filled with the scent of decay rose from the Wind-Thunder Armor, and the two gray lights on the cold face armor did not belong to any human.
Orochimaru suddenly felt that compared to Konome's current appearance, she and Danzo were like two rookie thugs. This girl was the one who looked like the true villain about to attack Konoha.
Even the Rinnegan-wielding Pain who called himself a god seemed like a minor character before her.
"I never thought the newly born God of Shinobi would be a twelve-year-old girl. I admit defeat."
Orochimaru stood atop an ice mirror, her arms hanging at her sides. She had completely lost the will to resist.
She and Konome were not ninjas on the same level. Struggling further would likely not let her escape. It was better to be sensible and avoid a beating.
Although she could shed her skin to recover from injuries, the pain of being cut and pierced by wind and lightning was absolutely real. She truly did not want to make an enemy of this girl anymore.
Even the Konoha Crush plan in her mind had already been thrown beyond the clouds.
"I already ate Haku. I want to live, but I'm afraid I can't agree to your request."
"I only want Ice Release. Whether Haku lives or dies has nothing to do with me."
Konome shook her head coldly. The Wind-Thunder Armor on her face naturally faded away, and even the rising gray smoke quickly dissipated.
Orochimaru's eyes flashed rapidly.
The ninja Konome wanted were extremely targeted.
Haku for Ice Release, Pakura for Scorch Release, Gari for Explosion Release, and Mu for Dust Release.
Combined with what she had mentioned about fusing seven natures into kekkei mora…
Her true goal was already obvious.
"You want to use the microscopic chakra structures of kekkei genkai and kekkei tota to find a way to fuse kekkei mora?"
"Smart."
Looking at the second greatest scientist in the ninja world before her, appreciation appeared in Konome's eyes.
The theory of reversing the Eight Gates, yang giving birth to yin, and using yin to control yang, had first been proposed by Orochimaru. Orochimaru's brain was absolutely first-rate.
Her theory of fusing five kekkei genkai into kekkei mora was currently still only a hypothesis. There was no way to verify whether it was true or false. Like the early version of the Reverse Eight Gates, it likely still had flaws in the details.
This person might be able to provide her with some useful ideas.
Orochimaru's gaze also turned burning hot.
Her lifelong goal had always been the ultimate truth of ninjutsu. The seven-nature kekkei mora proposed by Konome was likely the very thing she had pursued but never obtained.
"How should I help you?"
Orochimaru's attitude changed extremely quickly. Her desire for ninjutsu knowledge was written all over her face.
Seeing this, Konome revealed a satisfied smile.
Orochimaru was good at tempting ignorant youths who needed power. Konome could also tempt Orochimaru into serving her with the knowledge of kekkei mora.
"I need the synthetic structure of Ice Release chakra."
"The fusion method of Ice Release is to add Yin Release into Wind and Water as the key connecting node."
Since she had decided to use Konome to glimpse the mysteries of kekkei mora, Orochimaru held nothing back.
She directly condensed Wind and Water-natured chakra in her left and right hands, then fused them bit by bit into chilling Ice Release.
As if afraid Konome could not see clearly enough, she made the process extremely slow.
The Ice Release she had sought for so long was now before her eyes. Konome did not hold back.
Gray light bloomed in her eyes. The Ice Release chakra in Orochimaru's hands was magnified almost without limit. Its innermost microscopic structure was carved inch by inch into her mind.
Wind Release and Yin Release combined with each other, creating a cold air nucleus from nothing. Immediately afterward, flowing Water Release began crystallizing along the edge of the nucleus. The farther outward it went, the longer and thinner the crystal became, with sharp tips on both ends like needles. Finally, it formed a hexagonal flake.
The microscopic structure of Ice Release chakra was like a sharp six-sided snowflake!