A Showdown!

"Hahahaha! See that? This is my power!"

Hiruko laughed wildly.

The dark clouds overhead continued to spread, and the thunder dragon, flickering in and out of view within them, grew several times larger.

"How is this possible?!" After a pause, Yakumo suddenly felt her mouth go dry. "His Storm Release wasn't this powerful the last time we fought!"

As a Miko, Shion had an instinctive intuition for Chakra, so she immediately said, "Could it be because he just absorbed the One-Tail?"

Everyone was startled by her words.

There was no doubt that Shion's guess was correct.

Hiruko had used Nether Release's Demon Seed to extract the One-Tail from Gaara's body and temporarily seal it inside himself. He wasn't a Jinchuriki yet, but the Demon Seed's unusual properties let him borrow some of the One-Tail's Chakra.

After completing the Bloodline Fusion Ritual, Hiruko already possessed an enormous amount of Chakra. Now, with a large amount of Tailed Beast Chakra supporting him, the Storm Release technique he unleashed was naturally terrifying.

Taking in the fear on everyone's faces, Hiruko laughed in triumph.

As the clouds above him gathered thicker and thicker, they gradually blanketed the entire Forest of Death, plunging the sky into a gloom as dark as night.

By now, it wasn't just the enormous thunder dragon coiling within the clouds that was horrifying. Even the ordinary bolts of lightning constantly raining down from the clouds had become terrifying enough to make one's heart quake.

Rumble!

Each bolt of lightning struck with a dazzling flash and a deafening roar!

When one hit open ground, it blasted a crater several meters across. When one struck a tree, the entire tree quickly burst into flames. Even a Giant Tree that took several people to wrap their arms around was no exception.

In mere