From the center of his vision, the brilliant yellow point of light expanded—larger, larger, and larger!
The fan-shaped spread of the light cannon instantly solidified into a massive beam five meters in diameter, surging forward with a roar! The crimson shark, which had just finished devouring the blood dragons, collided with it head-on.
In the next moment, the Great Shark Bullet Technique lost all its arrogance. Deprived of the ability to absorb the incoming energy, it was reduced to nothing more than a highly condensed ball of water. Before this Sage Art beam, the crimson shark was like wet tissue paper; a gaping hole was blasted through it from head to tail in an instant!
The beam's momentum remained undiminished as it tore toward Kisame Hoshigaki, who was suspended in mid-air!
"Not good!"
Kisame, gripping Samehada but trapped as a sitting duck in the sky, felt his heart skip a beat.
This isn't chakra... what is this?!
He had never seen a ninjutsu that could completely ignore the unique properties of the Great Shark Bullet. Cold sweat poured down his shark-like face. His complexion turned ashen, and his small, bead-like eyes went wide with terror as the light reflected in them.
In this moment of crisis, he could only grip Samehada with both hands and swing the door-sized blade in front of him, hoping to use the weapon as a shield to weather the impact.
"It's useless!"
A cold light flashed in Ren Uchiha's eyes. His Multiple Lotus Non-Self Connected Cannons were composed purely of Sage Chakra.
Since it was unavoidable, neither Kisame's technique nor Samehada could absorb it. To face a move like this, one needed a ninjutsu with physical mass and shape transformation to strike it back. But while Kisame possessed four chakra natures, he lacked the specific high-level elemental mastery for defensive constructs; he was a specialist in Water Style above all else.
—BOOM!!
The beam swallowed Kisame instantly, and a massive explosion of white steam erupted in the sky!
However, Ren's brow furrowed. He raised a palm, catching a small object falling from the mist—it was a crystalline fragment that felt like a shard of frost.
"This is... ice?"
He looked up. Beyond the wreckage of the Lightning Boat, a pillar of water had surged from the sea to the sky, rapidly freezing into a column of solid ice.
High above, a man with long, grayish-white hair adorned with blue beads stood atop the pillar. His eyes were habitually closed, and his right hand was extended. In front of his palm sat a shattered, frost-radiating shield of "Polar Ice."
It was this seemingly thin shield of ice that had successfully blocked Ren's Sage Art cannon!
The man on the ice pillar now held the Great Sword Samehada. He looked down, his closed eyes cracking open just enough to reveal a pair of eyes as blue as the deep ocean. He looked at Ren on the broken deck with utter indifference.
"..."
Without a single wasted word, the Third Mizukage, Byaran—who had already decided to kill everyone present except for Kisame—spoke two simple words:
"Dragon, come!"
As that emotionless voice rang out, Ren realized with a shock that the sea surrounding the boat had already frozen solid.
"ROAR!!"
Four dragons made of pure ice burst through the frozen surface. Their claws tore through the wooden deck as they lunged upward, their massive heads converging on Ren!
There were no hand signs. No outward movement. It was as if he were commanding the laws of the world itself. The speed was suffocating.
Ren's intuition flared, sensing the danger a split second before the collision. He performed a side flip, firing a kunai attached to Earth Grudge Fear threads into a railing and swinging himself clear.
However—
"Ice Style: Polar Ice Prison Technique!"
It was as if Byaran had perfectly predicted Ren's trajectory. His blue eyes locked onto Ren's landing point. With a single glance, the ice surrounding the boat surged upward, constructing a titanic cage of ice that swallowed Ren whole!
What the hell? Does this guy not need hand signs for his jutsu?!
Ren's heart hammered against his ribs as he saw the walls of ice surging to lock him in. He instinctively sensed that touching these walls would be catastrophic.
He threw two more shuriken, using the wires to arrest his momentum mid-air and backflip onto the frozen surface of the sea. The shuriken that had struck the ice wall were covered in frost instantly.
Crack!
The high-quality shuriken—salvaged from Orochimaru's lab—snapped in two. One half fell to the ground, while the other remained fused into the ice wall, the break looking unnaturally jagged and brittle.
"This is..."
"Hehehe, brat~"
A sneer drifted from nearby. Still inside the ice prison and shivering from the cold, Kisame Hoshigaki displayed a mocking grin.
"This is the true power of a Kage!"
"The Third Lord's Ice Style creates 'Polar Ice'—it is said to reach Absolute Zero!"
"Anything that touches it has its kinetic energy frozen at the molecular level. You're left with only potential energy before being turned into a frozen corpse."
"Furthermore, Lord Third does not need hand signs! The moment his eyes open is the moment the sinner's death sentence is carried out!"
Ren's frown deepened.
Great. Another information black hole.
The Third Mizukage, who had never truly shown his hand in the original series, was standing before him with a terrifyingly bizarre ability. No hand signs, blindingly fast execution, and a version of Ice Style that could reach Absolute Zero.
In the original story, Haku was a "mechanics monster" even without a teacher. This man, however, was a relic from the era of Hashirama and Madara—an old-school bloodline master who had lived since the Warring States period.
How strong could his Ice Style possibly be?
Creeeeak!
The ceiling of the ice prison opened a three-meter hole. Through this "skylight," Ren could see the night sky and Byaran standing atop a gargantuan ice dragon. Even with his eyes closed, the man seemed to see everything.
"Kisame, do not be careless. Together with me—"
"Kill him!"
Following the cold command, Byaran tossed Samehada down. The blade slammed into the ice at Kisame's feet.
"Hehe~ As you wish, my Lord Mizukage!"
A cruel smile split Kisame's shark-like face. He wrenched Samehada from the ice and pointed it at Ren.
"Uchiha brat, I forgot to tell you. The longer this lasts, the weaker you will get. But I—"
"I will only get stronger!"
Under Ren's gaze, Kisame's expression turned fierce. He squeezed the handle of Samehada hard, letting its spikes pierce his palms. As his blood flowed into the blade, he activated the technique:
Samehada Fusion!
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