In the next second, a white toad and a black wolf dog appeared in response, standing solemnly before Locke after a series of formations. Their backs were straight, their breath condensed, like guards standing in formation, their ordinary postures filled with an awe-inspiring cursed energy.
The shadow behind him suddenly rose, forming a massive white cocoon from nothingness. The cocoon's walls glowed with a faint pearlescent light, as if it had been lifted from the depths of shadow, silently suspended in the air.
Countless sharp silk threads, transparent as ice crystals, stretched from the cracks in the cocoon around the giant pupa. One end tightly wrapped the cocoon, while the other disappeared into the void between heaven and earth, as if firmly connected to the surrounding cursed energy veins and all phenomena of the sky and earth, as if they were the life force of the entire space. A gentle breeze blew, the silk threads trembled slightly, but the tension remained unshaken.
After a moment, the white cocoon trembled slightly. The cocoon wall rippled, and within, something seemed to awaken and struggle—a giant. Even the silk threads around it suddenly tightened, as if they would tear the cocoon open in the next second, allowing the monster from another world to burst through.
"Eight-Handled Sword, Divergent Sila Divine General, Mahoraga!"
Locke's voice was deep as iron, exploding in the dead silence.
Before the words faded, the transparent silk threads entangling the giant cocoon suddenly snapped inch by inch. The fine silky fluff became like frost, flying across the sky, scattering and drifting with the strong wind.
The white cocoon disintegrated in response, and Mahoraga burst free from its chrysalis, raising its head and spreading its limbs and wings above. The moment the bone wings stretched, the grotesque body covered in a pale exoskeleton was fully revealed. The tyrannical pressure of the strongest shikigami instantly swept across all directions.
The strongest shikigami from another world, Mahoraga, stood on the soil of the ninja world.
With Mahoraga fully manifested, Locke didn't hesitate. He slipped into Mahoraga's shadow, deciding to leave the battlefield to the Raikage and Mahoraga.
Several hundred meters away, Akimichi Choza gasped for air like a drowning man, greedily inhaling the sweet air.
One second, he had been cursing; the next, he was swept into a world of absolute darkness without air.
Until a familiar voice came from behind.
"Uncle Choza, are you alright?"
A shadow clone, condensed from black mist, appeared behind Akimichi Choza. The strange appearance startled him, making him immediately leap several meters away.
"You! Are you human or a ghost?!"
Faced with the question, the shadow clone spoke:
"I'm Locke, Uncle Choza. Don't you recognize my voice?"
"You, you, you! Weren't you dead? Why are you like this? Locke, are you really not human?"
For the first time, Locke saw an expression of fear on Choza's square, round face. For a moment, he didn't know how to explain it.
After all, the ritual of amplitude adjustment was too complicated to explain. And now that his cursed energy and chakra were too intermingled, he wasn't sure if his shadow clone would attract Mahoraga's attention.
At least for now, it seemed the Raikage had been successfully drawn into the amplitude adjustment ritual.
"Uncle Choza, that was a decoy. I'm not dead. But right now, I can't fully control my bloodline. So hurry up and run, or you might get hurt by accident."
As a disciple of the Second Hokage, Choza had seen strong winds and rough waves. He didn't go mad like those young Kumogakure ninja earlier. He quickly calmed down, confirming that the black mist shadow clone before him was Locke.
"Locke? Your bloodline shikigami? What shikigami? Have you really awakened a bloodline? What else are you hiding from me?!"
Too lazy to explain, Locke pushed Choza, ready to shoo him away. After all, he still didn't know how to explain it.
"Just think of it as an innate psychic beast. I've hidden a lot from you. Don't stay here. If you get killed in a while, I'm not sure I can bring you back. Go!"
"You're telling me a psychic beast—that thing you said was your ultimate technique—can handle a Kage?"
With three parts disbelief in his voice, Choza looked at Mahoraga several hundred meters away and realized it was terrifyingly strong just from its stance. But in the end, it was standing before a Kage—one of the strongest beings in the ninja world.
"Can it really handle the Raikage? No, you can come with me, or I'll help you hold him off. No matter what, I'm from the Akimichi clan. I'm tough—that's not for nothing."
After all, as a war orphan, he had relied on clinging to Choza's coattails to eat meat every day.
Locke, standing aside, sat down cross-legged and said:
"Forget it. If you won't leave, then let's watch the fight together. After all, I'm also curious—who's stronger, Mahoraga or a Kage."
As Locke withdrew to the edge of the battlefield, the lightning around the Third Raikage crackled and coiled. The hissing electricity exploded across his body. His eyes blazed with fury, their cold light like knives, fixed on Mahoraga.
This was the first time—who knew how many times today—he had seen something new from this Nara Locke kid. It was really too much for an old veteran who was still in the ninja world's "beta version."
After all, as the Third Raikage, he was still dealing with numbers. Now he was being forced to play with a three-bodied monster from another world, fighting without any intelligence at all.
A, having been formed by Locke, didn't dare act rashly at the moment. He preferred to wait for the other side to move. And Mahoraga, feeling somewhat uncomfortable with this world's chakra, decided to adapt on the spot.
In the long deadlock, the air compressed like heavy iron. Both sides remained calm, neither moving first, until a sudden cool wind swept between them, breaking the balance of the dead silence.
The wheel of dharma above Mahoraga's head finally made its first turn.
Click!
As the sharp sound of metal biting through the air rang out, a bead of cold sweat suddenly appeared on the Third Raikage A's forehead. Before that sweat could fall to the ground, Mahoraga's figure had already appeared before him from nowhere. The demon-sealing sword bound to its wrist was raised high, wrapped in a thousand pounds of falling force, and slammed down on him!
"Bam!!"
The moment it exploded with a thunderous crash, a crack erupted from beneath A's feet, spreading like a spiderweb across a three-hundred-meter radius. Massive rectangular chunks of earth were lifted with immense force, soaring into the air. Century-old giant trees rooted around them were uprooted, torn up, and hurled into the sky.
The Raikage A, who had taken the blow directly, was driven deep into the ground, the edges of the crater still collapsing.
His eyes were wide open. A sudden sweetness flooded his throat, blood spraying from his mouth. His eyes blazed with shock and disbelief.
On a tree trunk several hundred meters away, Choza, who had witnessed the scene, nearly popped his eyes out. He grabbed Locke's shadow clone by the nonexistent collar, pointing at Mahoraga and shouting:
"That—that's a psychic beast?!"