On the battlefield, that pillar did not disappear after delivering its world-shattering blow.
Boom!!!
The staff body suddenly contracted, and the two-hundred-meter behemoth reverted in the blink of an eye to that towering silver-white form, mighty as a mountain.
The Monkey King had descended in his true body!
Like a meteor, it came crashing down from dozens of meters in the air straight into the middle of the Sunagakure formation!
Boom!!!
Where it landed, the ground caved in and shattered stone blasted outward. Several Sunagakure shinobi who failed to dodge in time were hurled away by the shockwave, blood spraying wildly from their mouths.
The Monkey King gave the enemy no chance to catch their breath. Its golden eyes swept rapidly across the chaotic crowd around it, and that huge body, tall and massive, now resembled a gigantic war chariot gone out of control, rampaging through the Sunagakure ranks with utterly unstoppable force.
Bang!
With a single punch, a Sunagakure chūnin who had been trying to form hand seals exploded apart together with the earth wall behind him!
Boom!
With one stomp, the ground collapsed into a pit. Three Sunagakure shinobi lost their footing and were thrown straight to the ground, only to be trampled into bloody paste by the silver giant shadow that came right behind.
The indestructible body and terrifying strength the monkey clan took such pride in had, at this moment, become the purest kind of killing machine.
Kunai struck its body and snapped!
Blades hacked into it and chipped and curled!
All kinds of ninjutsu blasted against it, only leaving shallow traces across its silver-white fur, utterly unable to slow its advance in the slightest.
It was like a lion that had burst into a flock of sheep. Wherever it passed, flesh and blood flew, and screams rose without end.
Sunagakure's formation, already shattered and scattered by that heaven-splitting strike, was now plunging even deeper into chaos.
And just as Sunagakure's line fell into even greater disorder—
On Sunagakure's left flank, deep within the stretch of forest that had originally seemed relatively calm, a sudden upheaval erupted!
Boom!!!
The howl of furious, raging wind tore through the night sky, as though some giant beast that had lain dormant for ages had finally awakened and was now frantically churning the air, gathering the power of destruction.
In the next instant, the trees at the forest's edge were snapped off at the roots, and a towering azure hurricane shot into the sky!
At the front of the hurricane, the outline of a dragon's head rapidly took shape, layered with savage folds and ridges. That majestic, violent maw opened wide, as if it meant to devour everything in its path!
A colossal azure dragon, vast enough to blot out the sky and fierce beyond compare, burst violently from the depths of the forest and lunged straight at Sunagakure's chaotic flank!
And at the center of that azure dragon's head, a figure could be seen faintly.
Higashino Shinichi!
Or rather—Higashino Shinichi's true body!
So the "Shinichi" who had been wielding the Adamantine Staff against Sunagakure all this time—and who delivered that sky-cleaving blow in the end—was actually his clone, Isshin, from the very beginning.
And the one charging out from the forest now was the real Higashino Shinichi himself!
In the few brief seconds after Shinichi entered the tent, he had summoned the clone he had left far away in the Land of Iron and had it take on his appearance to replace him in the camp.
Because Isshin was, in essence, Shinichi himself, only fused with the Monkey King's bloodline traits, once he transformed into the appearance of Shinichi's real body—that identical source deep in his being, combined with Isshin's deliberate imitation of his original body's aura and chakra fluctuations, was enough to keep anyone from detecting anything amiss.
At the very least, the Byakugan could not detect it.
At most, one might only feel that Shinichi's physique and chakra seemed quite a bit stronger than before.
As for Shinichi's true body, he had taken advantage of the chaos to quietly slip into the dense forest near the camp and lie in wait.
Until now.
Faced with this sudden turn of events, the three jōnin on Sunagakure's left flank were the first to react amid the confusion.
"There's an ambush!"
"Stop it!"
The leading jōnin's pupils contracted sharply. His hands flew through seals so fast they left afterimages, and chakra surged wildly!
Earth Release: Earth Flow Great Wall!
Rumble!!!
The ground shook violently as a gigantic earthen wall, several meters thick and more than thirty meters high, erupted upward from below and stretched across the path of the azure dragon's charge!
At almost the exact same moment, the other two jōnin had finished their own jutsu as well!
Lightning Release: Lightning Strike Pillar!
Wind Release: Tornado!
Violent violet-white lightning and a green gale took shape almost simultaneously, and the two forces, completely different in nature, fused abruptly in midair!
Lightning coiled around the wind, and the wind wrapped around the lightning, forming a violet-white lightning tornado more than ten meters in diameter that met the plunging azure dragon head-on!
Wind–Lightning Combination Ninjutsu: Lightning Tornado!
This was the proud combined technique of those Sunagakure jōnin—using wind to empower lightning, and lightning to amplify wind. The two complemented each other perfectly, their power great enough to shred a small mountain to pieces in an instant!
Boom!!!
The azure dragon showed no fear whatsoever and charged straight into the Earth Flow Great Wall!
That seemingly indestructible massive earth wall failed to hold for even a single breath the moment it came into contact with the dragon's head!
Like a fragile biscuit, the wall was shredded inch by inch. Countless fragments exploded outward, shooting in all directions like bullets leaving the barrel, hammering the surrounding tree trunks with rapid thudding sounds. Amid the smoke, dust, and flying debris, the azure dragon did not slow in the slightest!
The very next second!
Rumble!!!
Under countless shocked gazes, the azure dragon and the Lightning Tornado collided head-on!
An energy shockwave, interwoven with azure and violet-white, instantly burst outward!
Centered on the point of impact, the ground was forcibly crushed into a circular ring of fractures dozens of meters wide. Every broken tree stump nearby was pulverized, and the flying chunks of wood and stone were shredded into powder midair by the violent energy!
That seemingly formidable Lightning Tornado began to collapse section by section under the crushing force of the azure dragon!
The violet-white lightning writhed wildly, trying to pierce through the dragon's defenses—but it was like an ant trying to shake a tree, leaving only a few fleeting scorch marks across the azure scales!
"Impossible!!!"
The two jōnin who had unleashed the wind–lightning combination widened their eyes, their faces filled with disbelief and horror.
Their combined ninjutsu—an ultimate technique capable of severely wounding or even killing a jōnin in an instant—was so utterly powerless before this azure dragon!
In the next instant, the dragon crushed the last remnants of the wind column and, carrying its remaining momentum, surged toward the three jōnin whose expressions had drastically changed—and swallowed them whole!
At the same time, it blasted away more than twenty Sunagakure shinobi behind them!
Those elite Sunagakure shinobi were flung about like straw caught in a hurricane. The sound of bones shattering mixed with their screams, sending chills down the spine.
Sunagakure's left flank collapsed completely into chaos under this single strike.
It might sound like a long sequence, but in truth, it all happened in the blink of an eye.
From the Monkey King rampaging through the formation, to the azure dragon bursting out of the forest, to the wind–lightning combination being crushed head-on and the entire left flank falling into disarray—everything had been completed within just a few breaths.
Back in the Konoha camp, the shinobi who had still been immersed in the shock of Shinichi's heaven-shattering strike and had yet to fully recover were left completely dumbfounded by this chain of sudden developments.
This brat!
He's actually this reckless!
Tsunade cursed that clueless brat inwardly, but curse or not, she instantly realized that this was the perfect opportunity to launch an attack!
"Konoha's comrades!"
Tsunade suddenly raised her voice, her shout echoing across the entire battlefield: "Follow me into battle!"
The moment her words fell, the ground beneath her feet exploded!
Her entire figure shot forward like a cannonball fired from its barrel, charging straight toward the utterly disordered Sunagakure formation!
"Wooo!!!"
"Kill!!!"
"Support Shinichi!"
"For Konoha!"
"Follow Tsunade-sama!"
The Konoha shinobi finally snapped out of their shock, their blood surging to their heads!
Whether it was the hundred combat personnel or the more than four hundred medical and logistics staff, the same fire burned in their eyes at this moment.
They followed closely behind that golden figure, like a flood breaking through a dam, surging violently toward Sunagakure!
...
"I originally thought Sarutobi Hiruzen's staffsmanship was already unmatched in the world—never did I expect that someone could be even more ferocious than that old monkey back in his day."
At the center of the Sunagakure forces, Ebizō first glanced at the Monkey King rampaging through the crowd on the right.
Then his gaze shifted to the center of the collapsing azure dragon on the left, landing on the figure who was slowly descending to the ground, and he asked: "Who is that?"
"Elder, that is Higashino Shinichi!" a Sunagakure jōnin beside him immediately replied.
"So that's Higashino Shinichi? Konoha's youngest Special Jōnin…"
Ebizō narrowed his eyes slightly, a dangerous glint appearing as he looked at the distant youth.
Ten years old!
He had personally witnessed the power of that heaven-shattering strike just now, and now this boy had somehow appeared from the flank, using that terrifying taijutsu to crush the entire left formation.
His talent was terrifying to the extreme.
If he lived, he would inevitably become a grave threat in the future.
A person like this cannot be allowed to live!
Ebizō was just about to personally lead a group over and strangle this Konoha prodigy in the cradle—
only to find that Konoha's forces were already surging forward like a tidal wave. At the very front were Tsunade and the thirty elite shinobi at her side, charging directly toward his position.
"Pass the order—prioritize killing that Higashino Shinichi!"
Seeing this, Ebizō could only issue that command to those beside him before turning to prepare to face Tsunade first.
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