Those Who Play Tactics Love Playing Mind Games!

"Crack... crackle crackle crackle... crackle..."

The rumbling explosions gradually subsided, and the gale created by the blast waves died away with them. Uprooted dead grass, wood chips, and charred matter seared black by the intense heat poured down like a torrential rain, pattering everywhere as they fell along the border between the grasslands and the primeval forest. Some struck the slowly straightening blades of grass, some hit the branches and leaves, and others fell into the billowing black smoke, punching small holes through it before the smoke rolling up from below closed them again.

"Crackle..."

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning pierced through one of the holes that was about to close. Amid the hiss of friction as it tore through the air, it illuminated patches of the surrounding grassland and the massive ancient trees.

"Crackle crackle... crackle crackle..."

Then came two, three, four... The lightning bolts pierced the black smoke with increasing frequency, continuously lighting up the surrounding grassland and ancient trees. As the shadows of the trees swayed, the smoke cloud was repeatedly punctured, and the holes closed more and more slowly. Eventually, it gradually faded, dispersed, and vanished, leaving behind only an explosion crater roughly one meter wide. The heated soil grains inside popped and cracked, sending wisps of white smoke curling upward.

"Crackle crackle... crackle crackle..."

The Third Raikage slowly opened his eyes. The Lightning Release Chakra Cloak radiating around his body crackled with sparks. The scorched earth beneath his feet had begun to crystallize, grain after grain fused together as heat occasionally rose from it.

Around him, within the explosion crater about a meter in diameter, the ground extending roughly half a meter outward in a circle from its center—where he stood—consisted of black, nearly crystallized soil grains fused together. Beyond that, the color gradually shifted