The Rear Mountain Exploded! Orochimaru, the Fall Guy!

"Hankuang, that was a bit too nasty, wasn't it?" Morino Ibiki said incredulously.

He had originally wanted to mooch a bowl of ramen from Team 9, but not only had he failed to get any noodles, he had also been driven out.

"Enough nonsense. Hurry up and disappear!" Hankuang waved his hand, looking impatient.

Morino Ibiki had only just left.

When Team 9 hurried back into the ramen shop.

Chapter 38: The Rear Mountain Exploded! Orochimaru, the Fall Guy!

After their meal at the ramen shop, Team 9 disbanded.

Normally, Hankuang would have gone home and lazed around, but not this time.

He wandered all the way to the rear mountain of the village, then circled around to the shaded side again.

"Danzo won't come again this time, right?"

To be safe, he made another circuit, but found no one else.

Tap!

Stopping in front of a stone wall, Hankuang extended his palm.

"Gravity Sphere, it's time to test you."

This was an unknown Ninjutsu evolved from Rasengan, and Hankuang had never tested its power.

The Chakra in his body surged as he unleashed Gravity Sphere.

Hummm...

A pure-white Chakra sphere condensed in his palm. It looked no different from the Rasengan he had used before.

But the next moment—

A sudden change occurred.

"My Chakra?"

Hankuang discovered in surprise that the Chakra in his body was madly pouring into the Gravity Sphere in his palm.

It seemed completely beyond his control!

In just a brief moment, Gravity Sphere had already absorbed one-tenth of his Chakra.

"My Chakra reserves are at Kage Level, or even beyond—"

His heart jolted. Hankuang immediately tossed the Gravity Sphere in his palm into the air.

Hummm!!!

The sphere rose into the sky, instantly generating an utterly terrifying gravitational force.

Crack, crack.

The stone wall shattered into countless fragments, all of them sucked into the sphere.

The ground trembled as cracks spread across it.

"What is this?"

Hankuang's pupils suddenly contracted.

He saw a terrifying scene.

The sphere in midair was still the same sphere, but the masses of earth and rock dragged up by gravity vanished completely the moment they touched it.

Where had the stones gone?

"Did they enter the inside of the sphere?"

What made it even more unbelievable was that although Gravity Sphere had already been thrown away, he still seemed to maintain some kind of connection with it.

"My Chakra is still being sent into the sphere. Is it being transmitted through the air?"

"No! It should be gravity!"

Hankuang guessed that he and the sphere maintained their connection through gravity, and that the Chakra was likewise transmitted through gravity.

It was an exceedingly strange scene.

Hankuang stood on the ground.

The rocks and soil around him cracked apart and rose into the air, merging into the sphere overhead.

Yet he himself remained completely unharmed!

"I can't let this continue. I need to cut off the Chakra supply."

Looking up at the pure-white Gravity Sphere, Hankuang abruptly retreated.

Boom!!!

Deprived of its Chakra supply, Gravity Sphere exploded outright.

A tremendous explosion rang out, deafening to the ears.

The dazzling radiance was like a miniature sun, bright enough to blind him.

The earth shook and broke apart.

Hankuang bolted, his scalp tingling.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Chunks of stone wrapped in the shockwave flew over his head, moving so fast that even he could not see them clearly.

No!

He had not looked at all.

He was afraid the light would blind him.

"This Ninjutsu is seriously ridiculous. Luckily, I chose the rear mountain."

Hankuang sped along, still shaken.

If he had been even a little slower, he would definitely have suffered.

As for how much damage the explosion of Gravity Sphere had caused, he did not look back to check.

"Phew!"

After running home, Hankuang immediately collapsed into a wooden chair.

"I was lying down the whole time. It has nothing to do with me."

The rear mountain of the village had exploded!

The moment the explosion occurred, the Third Hokage led a large number of ANBU to the site.

Danzo arrived shortly afterward under the protection of several Root shinobi.

Aside from the two men in power, members of the various clans also arrived.

From the village's perspective, the rear mountain was still there. But if one went around to the shaded side, they would find that the place had been reduced to ruins, with even the mountaintop collapsed.

Hiruzen Sarutobi frowned deeply as he surveyed the scene.

"Someone just tested some kind of forbidden technique here!" Danzo walked over and gave his assessment.

"I know that! The question is, who was it?"

Anyone possessing such a forbidden technique had to be an extremely powerful shinobi.

But the question was, did the village even have a shinobi like that?

The names of one shinobi after another flashed through Hiruzen Sarutobi's mind as he tried to identify the person who had secretly tested the forbidden technique.

Unfortunately.

He went through all the village's jōnin in his mind, but found no answer.

Looking at the collapsed mountaintop and the devastated ground, Hiruzen Sarutobi suddenly felt a trace of relief.

If that person had chosen another side to conduct the test instead of here, the village would definitely have been affected.

"Hokage-sama, we found nothing in the surrounding area!" Suddenly, an ANBU appeared in a blur and reported.

"Keep searching. If there's nothing around here, search through the rubble." Hiruzen Sarutobi spoke in a deep voice.

He did not believe that the tester had left no traces behind.

The rear mountain was so large that there should have been some clues left behind, more or less.

A dozen or so minutes later.

The clue was found.

Amid the chaotic rubble, the ANBU uncovered a concealed passage.

"This..."