Ruri continuously converted the natural energy around him into Sage Chakra. All the natural energy Seimei had gathered became an aid to him. If the natural energy here had not been so dense, he might not have entered Sage Mode so easily.
The sword in Ruri's hand had long since vanished. He extended his palm and unleashed Sage Chakra in the form of a Rasengan. Natural energy gradually gathered, forming a sphere!
Moreover, the natural energy around him did not harm Ruri in the slightest. Instead, it became the source of power for his Sage Mode. Like obedient servants, all of the natural energy was refined into Sage Chakra!
"How is that possible?!" Seimei's face was full of disbelief. At this point, he could no longer remain calm! That was power he had spent decades mastering through a specially crafted ninja tool, yet his opponent had effortlessly made it his own?!
"No, I have to stop him!" Seimei instinctively sensed the danger of the ninjutsu in Ruri's hand. He waved his sleeve, and the three-bladed sword extending from his back transformed into a Chakra Dragon that roared forward with traces of natural energy!
It was useless!
The moment the Chakra Dragon approached Ruri, it was destroyed by the rapidly spinning Sage Chakra. All the natural energy Seimei had painstakingly gathered became part of Ruri's Sage Mode!
Ruri stepped forward and raised his left hand high. Under the guidance of the Sage Chakra in his hand, the natural energy filling the sky gathered and gradually formed the shape of a tachi!
"Sage Art: Iaijutsu!" Using natural energy to perform Kenjutsu, merging Sage Art with sword intent, he slashed once. The lake exploded with a thunderous boom, and the blade aura, like a white dragon, carried countless strands of natural energy wrapped in Sage Chakra as it shot toward Seimei!
Mitsunosuke and Fujiwara Shizume, who had been silently watching the battle, could only stare in amazement. They saw a blade aura over a hundred meters long, stretching across the lake! The entire lake was split down the middle by the sharp blade aura, forcibly divided into two halves!
Seimei's ability amounted to barely sensing natural energy, then relying on ninja tools to cleverly borrow it. Ruri, on the other hand, could transform natural energy into Sage Chakra and even use Sage Art. The gap between them was absolute!
"Still!" Seimei slightly raised both hands, his face showing unprecedented gravity. He poured all his Chakra into the armor on his body. His robes billowed, his white hair fluttered, and natural energy was drawn into the armor!
Then, the armor spewed streams of white vapor. The turbulent lake, already split in two, actually calmed beneath the vapor and rapidly froze into ice! An artificial refrigerator? Ruri could not help feeling envious at the sight!
"Crack... crackle..."
Cracks appeared across the ice, and several Ice Walls rose like city ramparts. It turned out Seimei had frozen not merely the lake's surface, but the entire lake!
As deep as the lake was, that was how thick those Ice Walls were. Where the walls had risen, the muddy lakebed was clearly visible!
Yet before Ruri's Sage Chakra-infused slash, more than a dozen Ice Walls shattered at once!
Still, those Ice Walls had served to weaken it. The blade aura had faded slightly, but it still appeared unstoppable!
"Shrike!" Taking advantage of the opening created by the Ice Walls, Seimei flew toward his four subordinates by the lakeside, who had been completely drained of Chakra. Fujiwara Shizume and Mitsunosuke, standing nearby, hurriedly dodged. Fortunately, Seimei had no time to notice them.
The armor on Seimei's body transformed into a cage and enveloped the four men. The next instant, the cage opened, and the four had vanished without a trace. The blood-stained iron cage became a sphere, spreading a net before Seimei to resist the blade aura. He had actually sacrificed the four men's lives to strengthen his ninja tool!
Would it work?
The sword aura struck the net with a series of metallic clangs. No wonder Seimei had called it the strongest ninja tool. Ordinary steel, even Thousand-Refined Steel, probably could not withstand such a slash!
Unfortunately, this sword aura was not merely pure sword intent; it also contained a massive amount of Sage Chakra! Empowered by Sage Chakra, the terror of this strike had broken through all limits! The ninja tool Seimei had spent decades forging, comparable to absolute defense and further enhanced by the blood sacrifice of four lives, had reached an unimaginable level of durability. Even if Susanoo struck it once, it would probably leave no mark!
But what did it matter if it was the strongest ninja tool? Even the strongest ninja, Senju Hashirama, would not be able to stop it! Beneath that unstoppable blade aura, it was sliced into fragments that scattered across the sky!
The blade aura was weakened once again, but it had already reached Seimei!
"Wind Style: Vacuum Great Sphere!" Seimei spat out dozens of baseball-sized, high-density wind-pressure bullets at the sword aura. During the earlier battle, he had relied on ninja tools, so he had barely consumed any Chakra. Before this, he had even absorbed his subordinates' Chakra!
The Wind Style had condensed into tangible form, with visible cyclones churning through the air! Unexpectedly, boosted by the ninja tools, Seimei's ninjutsu prowess was not weak at all. It had at least reached the level of an Elite Jonin!
If it had been ordinary Wind Style, that slash would have torn through it. But after being repeatedly weakened, the blade aura lacked momentum and was forcibly stopped!
"Bang! Bang!"
The collision of Wind Style and blade aura actually produced the sound of metal striking metal! Both had condensed to such an extreme degree!
Five meters. Of the dozens of wind-pressure bullets, thirty remained!
Three meters. Only a dozen or so remained!
One meter. Even the last one was shattered!
The blade aura ultimately broke through the layers of obstruction from the Vacuum Great Sphere and flew toward Seimei!
Seimei grabbed with one hand. The glove on his hand was also a ninja tool. With that grab, without using even a trace of Chakra, he dispersed the blade aura with his bare hand!
"Do you understand now, Tobirama? There is an obvious difference between strong and weak tools." Seimei regained his composure, once more wearing an expressionless face.
"Yes, the difference is very obvious." When he heard the name Tobirama, Ruri had nearly burst out laughing. He forced himself to look calm as Sage Chakra continuously gathered in his left hand. With a thunderous roar, the frozen lake surged into the sky and shattered into countless ice fragments, mixed with mud, fish, and shrimp!
"Sage Art: Secret Technique: Iaijutsu!" The natural energy here was incomparably abundant. During this short time, Ruri had already become fully familiar with the use of Sage Mode and Sage Art. With this slash, the blade aura spanned the heavens!
Fujiwara Shizume and Mitsunosuke both turned pale. Was this still ninjutsu?! It was an unprecedented battle, dazzling beyond compare! It was said that Tobirama was far inferior to his older brother, Senju Hashirama. Could ninjas truly become this terrifying?!
Before the battle at the Valley of the End had even begun, Ruri and Seimei's clash was likely the largest one-on-one battle in the Shinobi World! Aside from the lake being frozen solid and split in half, fewer than one in ten living creatures in the surrounding area had survived!
"You are nothing more than a tool of the ninja tool in your hand!" Sage Chakra resonated with the natural energy, and blade aura swept across a radius of a hundred meters!
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