Hum—
In a moment that felt both fleeting and eternal, the rhythmic chugging of a train seemed to echo in Ren's ears. His thoughts raced so fast that his life began to flash before his eyes in a series of vivid, fleeting frames.
Every battle he had fought until now flickered past him. Ren Uchiha understood—this was the omen of power spiraling out of control.
It was the sign that the Sage Art: Super Big Ball Dark Tailed Beast Bomb Expansion Rasengan in his hand was about to detonate, reducing him, and everything around him, to nothing but ash.
After all, this was not a power meant for a human to wield.
To take a technique inspired by Tailed Beasts, drive it with the power of a Tailed Beast, and then amplify it with Sage Art... such power far exceeded his physical limits. In the distant future, a technique of this caliber would be known as:
Sage Art: Super Tailed Beast Rasenshuriken!
That was an ultimate ninjutsu used by the protagonist, Naruto, against Kaguya Otsutsuki during the Fourth Great Ninja War. In this era, it was a terrifying anomaly that broke all common sense of power scaling.
Right now, Ren could only hold onto it because it hadn't fully expanded. Based on the visceral sense of crisis screaming in his gut, he estimated that if it continued to swell for even two more seconds, the sphere would take the two incoming Tailed Beast Bombs, himself, the Konoha camp, and everything within a one-kilometer radius straight to the afterlife.
Fortunately, the Zero-Tails inside Ren was somewhat pathetic; it couldn't actually afford the chakra for a full Tailed Beast Bomb. Combined with the supreme physical control granted by Level Two of the Heaven Cursed Seal, Ren managed to keep the technique teetering exactly on the edge of the threshold.
Perhaps there were deeper reasons, but he didn't have the luxury to think. Ren abandoned all thought. Right now, he could only succeed.
Lift the palm. Press down. Thrust forward!
"HRAAAAAAAAH!!!"
Ren's eyes bulged. Everything in his field of vision was swallowed by the pitch-black Rasengan, which had now expanded to thirty meters in diameter. He relied entirely on the trajectory recorded by his Sharingan, pushing the black sphere with one hand until it reached the critical point of impact.
Then, he hooked his fingers and twisted his wrist!
—BOOM!!
The darkness turned into a blinding white void in an instant! An unparalleled beam of light surged forward!
The two Tailed Beast Bombs were instantly crushed and detonated by this overwhelming force. The kinetic energy of their explosion was caught in the wake of Ren's attack and pushed outward. The setting sun sank completely into the Valley of Hell. The night that should have descended was instead replaced by a brilliance that outshone the midsummer sun!
CRASH!
The thirty-meter-wide white beam tore through the Valley of Hell, creating a localized shockwave that shredded and launched everything within a hundred-meter radius. It didn't stop there; the beam bored through five separate mountain peaks at the border of the Land of Hot Springs and the Land of Frost, eventually flying into the horizon like a distant, blazing meteor.
At that moment, whether it was the Kumogakure army outside the valley or the Konoha shinobi within the camp, everyone involuntarily looked up at the sky-piercing white pillar of light.
"Heads up!" Motoi shouted in shock from the front lines of the Kumo army. "Something was just fired at us!"
Beside him, Mabui stared upward, subconsciously swallowing hard. "Don't bother. That guy... he already hit us."
"This... what kind of power is this? It's even more terrifying than the Third Tsuchikage's Particle Style! And is that kid really only twelve?!"
As the beam vanished, the shockwaves finally rippled through the land. Billowing dust, shattered stones, and uprooted trees were hurled into the air. A massive wall of white smoke blanketed the area.
North of the Valley of Hell.
Yugito Nii, struggling to maintain her Tailed Beast transformation, swallowed hard as she looked at the carnage. Her body trembled slightly.
"Did... did I do that?" she whispered, dazed.
Due to her perspective, she hadn't seen Ren leaping up like a flea behind the Tailed Beast Bombs. She had only felt a sudden gale scream past her ear, followed by a flash of white light. Then, everything in front of her was reduced to a mangled mess shrouded in smoke.
But why was everything behind her destroyed too? Was it B-senpai? Or was this the so-called recoil?
"Yugito, are you okay?!"
Killer B's voice, layered with the deep resonance of the Eight-Tails, rang in her ears. His voice carried a tremor—the kind born from witnessing something truly horrific.
Only B, standing to the side, had seen it clearly: that Uchiha brat leaping into the sky, wielding a thirty-meter-wide pitch-black sphere of destruction as a human, and clashing head-on with their Tailed Beast Bombs. He had literally twisted and crushed their attacks with one hand. The resulting white beam had grazed Yugito's ear; if it had hit her directly, even in her full transformation, she would have been taken out of the fight instantly.
Both the Eight-Tails and B felt a cold sweat running down their backs.
"I'm fine," Yugito replied, shaking her head. "I can feel Matatabi resisting me; it doesn't want to cooperate. I can probably only fire one more Tailed Beast Bomb!"
Her gaze hardened as she looked toward the Eight-Tails. "B-senpai, let's continue the mission as planned!"
B immediately shook his head. "The plan has changed! Yugito, we split up now!"
"We circle around to the flanks and fire from two directions. He's just one person; he can't block both sides at once! Mabui must have seen what happened; she'll use the Heavenly Transfer to send the Amber Purifying Pot. With that artifact and our power, we can suppress that kid!"
"He? Who is 'he'?" Yugito was confused. But hearing B's tactical command, she quickly composed herself. A pincer attack to destroy the remaining resistance—it made sense.
"I understand, B-senpai!"
Yugito acted immediately, sprinting toward the east while B moved west.
BOOM! BOOM!
Their massive bodies covered dozens of meters with every step, crushing the earth and causing the hot springs to erupt. As they ran, Yugito opened her mouth, beginning to condense another massive Tailed Beast Bomb.
However, just as she took her second step—
Suddenly, a violent gale erupted!
Through the massive wall of dust and ash, a gaping hole was torn open. A battered young man, wielding a colossal sword of radiant flame, tore through the smoke and shattered the air with a burst of sword-qi!
Ren Uchiha's face was a mask of savage fury. His voice, raspy and raw, roared out:
"What do you understand? You brute!"
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