Li Yu had collected quite a few White Zetsu. He placed them in the sealing array inside the Kamui Dimension, then set off for the Land of Earth, thoroughly satisfied.
As for the missing White Zetsu, Uchiha Madara and Black Zetsu would notice something was wrong. Something had happened, but there was no evidence and they had no idea who was responsible. Even if they eventually traced it back to him, that would take a long time.
He was confident that by then, he would have already gotten what he wanted from Uchiha Madara. A few missing White Zetsu wouldn't matter.
After half a day of travel,
Li Yu stood high on a mountaintop, looking down at the distant horizon. A vast, dark mass was moving in his direction.
They were more than ten miles away, with two small hills between them. Li Yu couldn't make out the details, so he found a spot with a better view and sat down.
"Looks like that must be the Iwagakure force of ten thousand ninjas."
"From this far away, they really look like a swarm of ants."
Li Yu activated the Mangekyō Sharingan in his left eye, pulled a bottle of water from the Kamui Dimension, and took a sip to calm his nerves.
He formed Hand Seals.
"Multi Shadow Clone!"
He created five clones. As the space around Li Yu's left eye twisted, all five Shadow Clones entered the Kamui Dimension, sat cross-legged, and closed their eyes.
Li Yu formed Hand Seals again. Four figures in black robes appeared beside him, each wearing a mask marked with green patterns.
With four Wood Release Clones guarding him, Li Yu sat cross-legged as well, closed his eyes, and absorbed Natural Energy from the air while waiting for the ten thousand Stone Ninjas to draw near.
As Li Yu absorbed Natural Energy, he began to grow drowsy. One of the clones beside him cleared his throat a few times.
"Are they here yet? Have the Stone Ninjas arrived?"
Li Yu perked up, immediately got to his feet, and looked down from the mountaintop.
"Whoa, would you look at that? So many ninjas wearing Forehead Protectors!"
"I've been waiting so long, I thought my flowers would wither!"
With that, Li Yu led the way, leaping straight off the mountaintop. The clones beside him stared in shock.
"This place is more than three hundred meters high! If you jump from here, you'll be smashed into a meat patty!"
"Then let him die."
"His own fault."
"Exactly."
Each of Li Yu's four Wood Release Clones voiced his opinion, striking a different pose.
"Whoosh!"
Li Yu used Flying Thunder God to appear behind the four Wood Release Clones. He gave them a mischievous grin.
"What are you standing around chattering for? If I die, none of you are getting away!"
"Go, go, go!"
He took off running, then launched himself into the air with a stylish 720-degree spin, diving toward the ground below. His hands were already forming Hand Seals.
"Ultraman Tiga—no, wait, damn it!"
"Wood Release: Wood Golem Technique!"
A Wood Man appeared beneath Li Yu. Starting with its head, its limbs and body rapidly grew outward, and a colossal wooden figure took shape in midair.
"Rumble!"
It looked as if the mountain itself were collapsing. The ground shook violently with a deafening crash as the hundred-meter-tall Wood Man landed in a crouch. The impact sent out a massive wave and whipped up a gale, sweeping trees and rocks through the air and blasting everything around it.
"What was that?"
"Was that an earthquake?"
"It must be a typhoon!"
"A volcanic eruption!"
The ten thousand Iwagakure Ninja were thrown into turmoil by the thunderous crash. Their guesses were all over the place.
Many less-skilled ninjas lost their footing when the ground suddenly jolted beneath them as they marched. Some landed hard on their backsides, some crashed into one another, some went sprawling face-first, and others slammed their heads into trees. The whole formation descended into chaos.
Plenty of ninjas managed to keep their balance by finely controlling their chakra, but they still looked terribly unsteady.
After the gale and dust blew past, the hundred-meter-tall Wood Man came into view.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"
The four Wood Release Clones appeared behind Li Yu. After nodding to one another, they quickly left the Wood Man and headed off in four different directions.
Li Yu watched the ten thousand Iwagakure Ninja reel from the sudden quake, stumbling about in a most undignified fashion. A smug smile spread across his face.
"This really feels like watching one of those disaster blockbusters from America. No matter how skilled you are, you can't handle a sudden disaster."
It was just like those disaster movies and alien-invasion blockbusters set in America. Whenever a major event happened, cars always piled up in massive crashes. The scene was remarkably similar.
When the gale and dust finally cleared, the Stone Ninjas saw the hundred-meter-tall Wood Man. Their voices rose in a jumble—some cried out in amazement, others in terror or dread—and they took several steps back.
"W-what is that thing?"
"It's huge!"
"Is it an enemy?"
"Did the Land of Lightning send an enemy?"
Some of the Stone Ninjas who had taken part in the operation to surround and kill Li Yu in the Land of Birds recognized the technique.
"No, that's a Konoha Anbu ninja! He's a Konoha Ninja! It's him!"
"That's right, it's him! Why is he here?"
Seeing that the effect was about right and the display had achieved its intended purpose, Li Yu stopped waiting. He bent the Wood Man's knees, leaned forward, and braced himself to spring.
"Water Release: Water Travel Wave!"
"Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves!"
"Water Release: Water Severing Wave!"
Two Water Release techniques and one Wind Release technique suddenly appeared from three directions, striking the Stone Ninjas gathered along the perimeter.
"Argh!"
"Argh!"
Screams immediately rang out through the Stone Ninja ranks. The Water Severing Wave swept back and forth like a high-pressure water jet, sending more than a dozen heads flying and slicing clean through trees and rocks. The Stone Ninjas nearby fled in a panic.
On one side, Vacuum Serial Waves—the technique Danzo was best known for—was unleashed by Li Yu's Wood Release Clone. With vast amounts of chakra and precise control behind it, its density and lethality were greatly increased. Limbs flew through the air. Many Stone Ninjas had crowded together, and some even crashed into one another as they tried to escape. Leaving blood and severed limbs scattered across the ground, they retreated.
The other side was relatively peaceful. A huge torrent from Water Travel Wave surged into the Stone Ninja ranks like a dam bursting. Many ninjas were knocked unconscious by the impact or passed out after swallowing water.
Unnoticed by the Stone Ninjas, Li Yu herded them in one direction. The retreating ninjas bunched up in the middle of their formation, battered and disorganized, as they warily scanned their surroundings for more enemies.
"Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!"
A black-robed Li Yu burst out of the ground. He brought his hands together at the center of the scattered Stone Ninjas and shouted.
With the Wood Release Clone at its center, trees and vines erupted all around them, growing wildly as they reached out to bind the surrounding Stone Ninjas. The trees absorbed chakra from those they caught, growing even faster.
"Damn it, that's Wood Release!"
"They just keep coming no matter how many we cut down! There are so many—no!"
"No!"
Before long, the area within a hundred meters had become a dense forest, with gaunt-looking Stone Ninjas bound to the trees.
Some Stone Ninjas on the outskirts managed to escape Deep Forest Emergence. Still shaken, they stared at the man-eating forest in fear. Even after rejoining the Stone Ninja ranks, they couldn't calm down. Every one of them looked like a spooked bird, glancing around in every direction.
Standing atop the Wood Man, Li Yu looked on with satisfaction at the performance of his four Wood Release Clones and nodded approvingly. He had made such a huge spectacle to draw attention and keep the Iwagakure Ninja focused on the hundred-meter-tall Wood Man. The Wood Release Clones had launched surprise attacks with their techniques, inflicting casualties while deliberately driving the Cloud Ninjas toward one location.
Finally, he had used Deep Forest Emergence, a large-scale technique that could also absorb the enemy's chakra, to take out a large number of opponents. With this well-executed strategy, Li Yu had successfully eliminated more than a thousand ninjas.
Li Yu looked down at the dense mass of ninjas and realized that ten thousand opponents would not be easy to handle. It was a shame he didn't have the Rinnegan. If he could use Super Shinra Tensei, he might be able to take out even more of them with greater ease. Chakra wasn't a problem for Li Yu.