The Arrival of the Impure World Tsuchikage

On the second day after the war began, the Allied Forces' defensive line was already on the verge of collapse.

The undead resurrected through Impure World Reincarnation—most of them jonin and chunin who had died in past shinobi wars—inflicted losses on the Allied Forces far beyond expectations. The Sealing Squad's scrolls were being used up much faster than anticipated, while the psychological defenses of the frontline shinobi crumbled inch by inch before the familiar faces of the dead. Reports of units being scattered and positions breached kept pouring into headquarters. The Raikage had already punched a third hole into the conference table.

By the third day, the situation had become even worse.

It was not that the number of ordinary undead had increased, but that their "quality" had undergone a fundamental change.

The anomaly was first discovered along the western defensive line. A mixed Iwagakure-Sunagakure unit was surrounding three Impure World Reincarnation Kirigakure jonin. The two sides had been deadlocked for nearly four hours, and the Sealing Squad had their technique prepared—they only needed another thirty seconds. Then, the air at the center of the battlefield suddenly grew heavy, as though something invisible had emerged from beneath the earth and pressed down upon everyone's chests. An elderly Iwagakure jonin suddenly went pale, the kunai in his hand dropping to the ground. Not out of fear, but because he recognized the figure approaching in the distance—or rather, not "approaching," but "floating."

The figure hovered in midair, wrapped in bandages from head to toe. A white mask covered his face, leaving only his eyes and nose exposed, while his arms were crossed over his chest. He did not move at all, merely floating there in silence, yet the temperature across the battlefield seemed to drop several degrees. He was Mū, the Second