Ascending into the heavens?
That was a privilege reserved for gods! Admittedly, the Shazhou Team possessed many bloodlines beyond imagination and had all kinds of advanced technology at their disposal, but they had made little headway in the skies. At present, only John the boxer, who had randomly acquired a spatial bombardment doppelganger, could briefly hover in the air thanks to his special ability.
The whole scene fell silent.
Everyone looked up, watching Fang Xiu being lifted by an invisible force, their hearts surging with shock.
They had said all there was to say. Now, only battle remained. Since the Main God had set them a trial... their only path was to pass it.
Death was not for the Uchiha!
"Is that the repulsive force of the Rinnegan?"
Emir, who had always thought of himself as someone playing catch-up, pushed down his admiration and casually analyzed the situation. "Maybe it has something to do with Earth Release—the Ultra-Light-Weight Rock Technique, I think it's called. It can greatly reduce the weight of an object and increase its speed. It can even lighten the user enough to fly freely in the sky."
"Mom!"
"Come see God..."
"No, that's an alien!!"
Meanwhile.
On the rooftop of a building in the distance, two children standing beside a telescope happened to witness the scene—Fang Xiu was right in front of the spot where the moon had been.
The timing of my arrival is pretty good. I like to strike first.
Ignoring everything around him, Fang Xiu murmured inwardly and casually formed a hand seal.
Genjutsu: Steaming Pavilion.
They said you should make the most of what the land offered. With the sea on his doorstep, why not take advantage of it? After all, late night to the early morning was when the air was thick with water vapor and sea fog formed. He could easily use it as a medium to create an enormous mirage.
And the Chakra cost was hardly alarming.
Of course, if he had a suitable Summoning Beast, fighting would be even easier...
Thump! Thump! Thump! Along with the unusual tremors coming from the coastline, thick fog began to form at a speed visible to the naked eye.
—Steaming Pavilion did more than create illusions by refracting and reflecting light to mimic physical phenomena. It also incorporated a large amount of Yin Release, the power to create form from nothing.
To be frank, even with the Rinnegan in one eye and a perspective from a higher level of bloodline power, replicating the Second Mizukage Gengetsu Hozuki's forbidden technique still took considerable effort.
This man, born into Kirigakure's Hozuki Clan, was a battle-hardened warrior at the pinnacle of the conventional shinobi hierarchy! His entire fighting style was defined by one thing: being a nightmare to deal with. He could buy a great deal of time—and even if he told his opponent how his techniques worked, he was still incredibly difficult to handle! The Hydrification Technique rendered physical attacks useless. If he encountered a Lightning Release expert, he could use Steaming Pavilion to confuse them, keeping them from hitting his real body and making them waste their stamina and energy.
Then, combined with Steaming Danger Tyranny, he could practically make his opponent endure one massive explosion after another without any risk. If one wasn't enough, he could do it again, and again, and again, blasting the same spot as many times as he wanted! How could anyone counter it?
They would need boundless power, enough to reshape the entire battlefield or destroy it outright.
If Clover could blow up the Atlantic and erase it from the planet in a literal sense, Fang Xiu would bow his head and accept defeat. This was beyond what the Shazhou Team could handle at their current level.
Or they would need extraordinary sensory abilities to detect the caster's carefully concealed Chakra, like the Mind's Eye of the Kagura...
But did Clover have that? Unless it had some absurdly powerful instinct. In the original timeline of the Naruto World, Gaara, the Kazekage and a physicist, had the home-field advantage in the desert. On top of that, Gengetsu Hozuki had revealed his own information. Only then had Gaara managed to catch the Summoning Beast, Giant Clam, and use the gold dust his father had left behind to counter the later technique—Steaming Danger Tyranny.
As his thoughts turned, the Rain Tiger at Will Technique fell in a fine drizzle, blending perfectly with the fog as it gathered more information and relayed it to Fang Xiu.
A wave surged into the sky.
A deformed giant hand emerged and swatted carelessly. Several ships moored along the shore sank one after another.
But even after doing that, it still seemed unsatisfied. It repeatedly swung its huge, powerful limbs at the air, like a mindless creature with no way to vent its frustration. Towering waves rose, the scene resembling a natural disaster.
Opening with Genjutsu to confuse the monster and gain more time to strike—that had been the plan from the start.
Now, far from Clover, Fang Xiu sensed that his plan was working and calmly continued forming hand seals.
Secret Technique: Infinite Explosion Ninjutsu—Steaming Danger Tyranny
A strangely shaped puppet appeared at once.
The seasoned veterans, each enhanced several times over, had excellent eyesight and could naturally make out plenty of details. It was clearly a chibi version of their captain, with a tiny Ninja Cat perched on its head! "Meow~"
Wearing a Forehead Protector, the adorable white cat called out before flying into the depths of the fog. The chibi captain followed close behind.
The two matching puppets were made of oil on the outside and water within. When they moved vigorously, the oil heated rapidly, causing the water inside to evaporate in large quantities and trigger a steam explosion! Then they cooled by turning into hailstones, shrinking in size and preparing for the next explosion, thus beginning an endless cycle.
And their weakness... of course they had one!
The technique had been developed by a human, after all. For a short time after each explosion, the real body would be relatively weak.
But Fang Xiu's body could handle it. The Hashirama Cells he had injected hadn't gone to waste, and the rare ingredients from different worlds that he had eaten had also turned into nourishment, strengthening his body.
At that moment, Clover's young body, briefly under the control of Genjutsu, took the attack head-on. Faced with the cat's paw, it counterattacked on instinct, though that was hardly a wise decision.
A tentacle shot out at high speed! Like a cannon firing at a mosquito, it narrowly missed Shiromaru's puppet. The puppet swelled rapidly, and a violent steam explosion erupted against the giant beast's ear-like gill. A gale swept across the entire sea...
Behind it.
The chibi Fang Xiu, who had briefly split off from the cat-shaped puppet, began to swell as well.
The spectacle was so immense that it briefly created a vacuum in the area covered by the fog and the Rain Tiger at Will Technique.
Unfortunately, there was no joy on Fang Xiu's face. He silently formed the hand seals for a second time and began another round of explosions.
Just as I thought! Tang Tian operated the intelligent system, cracking the internet blockade while secretly watching the captain's expression to assess the situation on the distant battlefield.
"Damn it, the Main God's meddling and ramping up the difficulty. Never mind a sci-fi monster—even the low-level zombies you see everywhere in Resident Evil could awaken some bizarre ability out of nowhere."
Bang! Bang! Bang! The explosions continued without pause, growing louder as their power accumulated. Even through countless high-rises, every member of the Shazhou Team began to hear the rumbling, like muffled thunder.
America's National Guard, stationed in the city, drove armored vehicles and tanks in neat formation toward the life-devouring fog.
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