Squeak! Itachi suddenly felt that the ground beneath his feet had changed. It was still ice and snow, but the instant he stepped onto it, he sensed that something beneath his feet was different.
The wind and snow around them seemed to stop in an instant. Itachi's mouth fell open, as though he could hardly believe it. "The wind stopped?"
Li coughed and turned to look behind them. On the ground they had crossed, the wind was still howling furiously. It had not stopped; they had simply left the most dangerous area.
Li would not tell them that, even for the strongest shinobi—even beings on the level of the Sage of Six Paths—it would have been difficult to endure even half a day in that environment. An ordinary Kage-level shinobi would likely perish within a quarter of an hour.
Suddenly, a loud yet incredibly low roar rang out!
The roar carried incomparable majesty. Itachi's expression turned extremely grim as he felt his heart pounding wildly. What kind of monster had made that sound?
Soon, dozens of black dots descended from the sky toward the ground. Itachi took a deep breath. They were monsters capable of flight; there was absolutely no escaping them. They could only face them head-on!
Just as he was about to draw a Kunai, he could already make out what those rapidly descending figures were.
They were people—yes, they really were people. That was, if one ignored the wings on their backs and their towering bodies. There were nine of them. Eight stood around seven and a half to eight feet tall, while the leader was nearly ten feet tall.
Each of them had a pair of enormous wings behind their backs. Li twitched his nose. Birdmen? He had even assumed those things were some kind of