The awakened Tremor Fruit…
Ren had known it would be strong.
But only now—watching the aftershocks ripple through Ryūchi Cave—did he realize just how outrageous it had become.
He hadn't even gone all-out.
He'd simply let the power breathe for a moment… and the snakes that had been knocked unconscious were reduced to blood and fragments in an instant.
Clean. Efficient.
Terrifying.
"Fifth Hokage…"
The White Snake Sage stared at the carnage, and for the first time, something like genuine collapse surfaced in its eyes.
Yes—those snakes were tools to it. Disposable pawns.
But that didn't mean anyone else had the right to slaughter them at will.
That was its territory.
Its authority.
Its pride.
The rage hit the ceiling.
"DIE!"
The moment it stopped holding back, its form swelled and warped—orange hair-like frills, yellow pupils, white-scaled body surging larger as dense sage chakra erupted like a storm.
"Senpō: Hakugeki no Jutsu!"
A shrill sound tore through the air.
In front of Ren, a small crimson serpent—clutching a strange pearl—appeared and began spinning unnaturally fast.
Then—
A blast of blinding white light and piercing sonic vibration detonated outward, ripping through senses and balance all at once.
Most shinobi would be helpless.
Their ears would rupture.
Their vision would fail.
Their body would lock up like a puppet whose strings were cut.
But Ren didn't even flinch.
He simply closed his eyes.
His Armament Haki spread across his body like armor.
And beneath it, the dense, newly-forged sage chakra layered over everything—steady, heavy, absolute.
He moved anyway.
The White Snake Sage's pupils contracted.
Impossible.
It could clearly see it—Ren was advancing, straight through White Rage as if the technique didn't exist.
Not just enduring it.
Ignoring it.
In the next instant, Ren's presence filled its entire field of view.
Too close.
Too fast.
His fist tightened.
Sage chakra.
Armament.
Awakened tremor force—compressed into a single point.
Ren threw the punch.
The air cracked—not metaphorically.
It shattered with a crisp, glass-like snap.
The White Snake Sage lunged with its maw wide open, trying to bite him apart at point-blank range—
And then—
BOOM.
Its body froze.
Then exploded.
Not "blown back." Not "injured."
Exploded.
Its head, torso, scales—everything—burst into debris and mist as if the world itself had rejected its existence.
A ruptured hiss tore through the cave.
But the White Snake Sage was still the White Snake Sage.
Its scattered fragments immediately began to crawl toward each other, writhing like living worms, knitting together at unnatural speed.
In seconds, it re-formed.
Whole again.
Breathing again.
Standing again.
But weaker.
Noticeably weaker.
Its gaze—once arrogant—now held a deep, involuntary dread.
Because it finally understood something:
Ren's attacks weren't just destructive.
They left behind a foreign force—an invasive residue—clinging to its body like a curse.
Inside the White Snake Sage, multiple powers began to clash.
Its own sage chakra.
And buried within it—
Ren's tremor force…
and the pressure of Armament Haki.
They rejected each other like oil and fire.
The White Snake Sage tried to push them out with brute chakra control—
And failed.
They stuck.
They gnawed.
They stayed.
Ren smiled, showing no warmth.
"Hurts?" he asked lightly.
"Good."
"If you kneel and submit, I'll spare your life."
"If not…"
He raised his fist again.
"…you'll learn what 'self-inflicted' really means."
The White Snake Sage's eyes flickered—humiliation and hatred twisting together.
It gave a cold snort.
Then, to Ren's surprise—
Its body convulsed.
Scales split.
Skin peeled away in a grotesque, practiced motion.
It shed an entire layer—discarding the tainted outer flesh along with the tremor residue, like ripping off a poisoned coat.
The discarded skin dropped to the ground, twitching once before going still.
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly.
"So that's your trick."
He exhaled once, amused.
"Snakes really are annoyingly hard to kill."
The White Snake Sage didn't answer.
It didn't waste breath on words anymore.
Instinct screamed one thing:
Run. Buy time. Regenerate. Survive.
Because it had already realized the truth:
It wasn't fighting Ren.
It was trying not to be erased by him.
Ren stepped forward.
The pressure surged.
The White Snake Sage shot backward, sage chakra roaring through its coils, trying to create distance—
Ren followed.
And then the cave became a battlefield of continuous destruction.
BOOM—!
The White Snake Sage shattered.
BOOM—!
It re-formed.
BOOM—!
It burst again.
Over and over.
Not a duel.
Not "evenly matched."
A one-sided execution—repeated until the victim ran out of lives.
One minute.
Ten minutes.
Thirty minutes.
An hour passed.
Ryūchi Cave was no longer a sacred land.
It was a ruin.
Natural energy churned like a storm tide, rolling through broken tunnels and shattered stone. The air trembled with leftover tremor force, as if the cave itself had developed trauma.
Then—
BOOM!
Ren's fist landed again.
The White Snake Sage exploded for what felt like the hundredth time.
It re-formed a few seconds later, but this time its body wavered.
Its aura was thin.
Its sage chakra unstable.
Its regeneration had slowed—like something inside it had been worn down repeatedly, hammered into exhaustion.
It stared at Ren with the eyes of a creature finally cornered.
And Ren—calm, steady, relentless—took one more step forward.
"You're running out," he said.
Quietly.
Cruelly.
"Keep going."
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