Ten Thousand Immortals Formation! Arise!

Countless White Zetsu crawled out of the deep pit, densely packed, numbering at least tens of thousands.

Torikaze was far above them, and from that distance, they looked like maggots, making him feel utterly sick.

By now, Torikaze could roughly guess what these White Zetsu were here for. Otsutsuki Chenxiang wanted to split the moon and save his mother.

And finding another Eternal Mangekyo in this world was practically harder than reaching the heavens, so they had no choice but to take the risk.

"I told you, changing the plot wouldn't be that easy."

Torikaze muttered to himself. With such an enormous number of White Zetsu here to hold him back, Madara Uchiha had surely already been taken away by Black Zetsu.

There was nothing he could do. He could only hope this little detour would not affect his KPI.

Once the White Zetsu reached a certain number, they stopped crawling out. This was probably already the limit of what Black Zetsu could afford to sacrifice.

After all, he still needed the rest to put on a show when dragging accomplices into the split-the-mountain-and-save-mother group chat.

Look, brother! I have so many White Zetsu soldiers, all at your command!

You'll definitely accomplish something great!

After all, Black Zetsu was a strange creature that had lived for so long. Wasn't fooling a bunch of youngsters second nature to him?

Obito Uchiha, Madara Uchiha—had they not all ultimately become Black Zetsu's stepping stones? Nothing more than chess pieces.

Hashirama, who was watching from a nearby mountaintop, had no idea what these white people were.

They all looked exactly alike, so they certainly were not normal humans.

Hashirama was somewhat worried. If these white freaks were allowed to roam freely, it would be no small blow to the entire Land of Fire!

But if he acted now, he might anger the one in the sky. Hashirama was caught in a dilemma for a moment.

Before long, however, there was movement in the sky.

Torikaze, floating in the air, slowly rose into the clouds and disappeared.

Just as Hashirama thought the great Buddha had finally left and was preparing to kill these white freaks, another change occurred!

All the clouds in the sky began spinning and gathering in one direction. Clouds for hundreds of miles around were affected, converging toward a central point.

When all the clouds had gathered together, nearly condensing into a tiny white dot in the sky—

They suddenly exploded! In an instant, the gathered clouds surged wildly outward, spreading in every direction with Torikaze at the center.

At the same time, vast amounts of cloud continued rising, forming nine layers of cloud rings!

"Ten Thousand Immortals Formation! Return!"

As soon as the words fell, the nine cloud rings instantly became nine heavenly palaces! Every level held pavilions and towers; Cranes flew amid the clouds, while rare beasts stood upon the cloudbanks and looked down upon the earth!

Then countless pillars of light lit up across every heavenly layer, each one releasing an incomparably powerful pressure that swept across the ground!

As the pillars of light faded, figures appeared above the clouds. Some were fat, some thin; some male, some female, all different in appearance. Yet without exception, every one of them wore a Jade Crown, dressed in white robes, and carried a sharp sword!

All possessed the bearing of immortals.

Under that pressure, the tens of thousands of White Zetsu could not even stand. Hashirama was already dumbfounded, having completely forgotten to wonder why he himself was unaffected.

He had never seen or even heard of such a magnificent heavenly palace, let alone the thousands of people upon every layer of cloud!

Each and every one of them was countless times stronger than him!

Everything that had happened tonight was reshaping his understanding of the world. Hashirama was not arrogant, but he had to admit that he was already the strongest ninja in the Shinobi World.

Yet at least ten thousand people in the sky were stronger than him! And they all seemed to obey the man standing in the heavens.

"Everything is for the common people."

"Ten Thousand Immortals Formation! Arise!"

Torikaze formed hand seals, and countless Cloud Swords rained down in a torrential downpour, wildly harvesting the lives of the White Zetsu!

At the same time, all the immortals atop the nine heavenly palaces formed hand seals together. Lightning, storms, blazing fire, extreme ice, metal and stone, and rainwater all crazily attacked the White Zetsu on the ground!

If the giant sword before had possessed the power to destroy the world, then Hashirama could no longer find words to describe this attack.

Lightning and shards of extreme ice struck the White Zetsu's heads with the precision of divine punishment. A single strike could take dozens of White Zetsu lives!

Then blazing flames burned all the corpses to ashes, while metal, stone, and rainwater continuously filled the cracks in the earth and extinguished the spreading fires!

Under the heaven-destroying assault of the Ten Thousand Immortals Formation, the earth's "wounds" instead gradually began to heal.

Other than the scorched ground caused by lightning and fire, the deep pits and cracks from before had all been smoothed over and vanished.

All that remained was to plant a few trees, and it would be exactly as it had been before.

After the unceasing "cleansing," not a single White Zetsu remained on the ground. In the end, using such a technique against a mere few tens of thousands of White Zetsu was truly overkill.

But for Torikaze, he had saved up for an entire year just to enjoy this one day! And you were going to stop him? Were you even human?

And through his Ancestor's techniques, Torikaze could now completely confirm that his Ancestor was not from this world!

That was because none of the techniques Torikaze used required hand seals at all, and the energy they used was not Chakra.

As for what kind of energy it was, even Torikaze himself could not explain it. After all, he knew absolutely nothing about how his Ancestor cultivated.

"Ten Thousand Immortals Formation, depart."

With those words, the nine heavenly palaces, along with the Cranes and rare beasts, dissolved into mist. The myriad immortals rode the rosy clouds away and disappeared.

Only then did Hashirama come back to his senses. It seemed the battle was over, but now it should be his turn.

Hashirama felt somewhat uneasy. From the bearing of the person in the sky, he seemed more like a friend than an enemy.

Still, it was better to remain cautious.

Torikaze then transformed into a shooting star and, in a single instant, streaked to a spot not far in front of Hashirama.

The still-anxious Hashirama was startled badly. It took him quite a while to recover before he hurriedly bowed in greeting.

"This junior, Hashirama Senju, greets Senior. May I ask Senior's name?"

Torikaze stopped Hashirama and did not allow him to bow. No matter how many experience cards he used, he was still Windcloud Torikaze at heart.

If he accepted a bow from his Shishou, he might lose years off his life!

"No need for this. I know what you are thinking." Torikaze spoke calmly, his voice seeming to possess magic as Hashirama's emotions gradually settled.

In truth, Torikaze had merely added a Purifying Heart Mantra to his words. It seemed to have worked rather well.

"I am the ancestor of the Windcloud Clan, Cloud Incarnate Dust."

As expected! Hashirama had initially guessed that this man might be from the Windcloud Clan, but he had never expected him to be the Windcloud Clan's ancestor!

He had to be at least several hundred, perhaps even a thousand years old, right? So why did he look younger than Hashirama himself?

"Then I must thank Senior Windcloud for lending us a hand today."

Hashirama truly meant those words. Tonight, it could be said that he had done nothing, yet everything had been resolved.

Konoha had not suffered any damage. It was only a pity that Madara had died, but the two had long since wagered their lives. Hashirama had simply been a little luckier.

Torikaze waved a hand, pretending to be mature and seasoned. "No matter. That man disturbed the peace of this lonely soul, so this was merely punishment."

"Come to think of it, it seems I still have a descendant in this world?"

(The protagonist will not cultivate immortality! The protagonist will not cultivate immortality!)