The First Appearance of the Eight Trigrams: Killing Formation and the Despair of the Missing-nin in the Black Market

It was a starting stance never seen before.

It was not the traditional Gentle Fist stance passed down through the Hyuga Clan for nearly a thousand years, emphasizing transitions between offense and defense as one.

It was a...pure killing stance that had completely abandoned all defense and blocking, twisting every muscle and every thread of Chakra in the body into a single force, all for the sake of extreme penetration and destruction!

"Not good!"

Kisame's battle-hardened instincts shrieked wildly. A premonition of death coiled around his heart like an icy venomous snake. He forcibly interrupted the Water Release hand seals that were nearly complete, his muscles tensing as he tried to dodge sideways as quickly as possible.

However, it was too late.

At the exact instant he reacted, the Hyuga Clan's attack had already arrived.

It was not Gentle Fist.

The first thing to tear through the silence of the Forest of Death was dozens of specially made kunai bound with Explosive Tags!

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!

Sharp sounds of slicing air rang out simultaneously from all directions. The kunai did not shoot directly at the three men. Instead, they flew at extremely tricky angles and precisely pinned themselves into the ground beneath their feet, in front of them, and along every possible escape route, forming an impenetrable encirclement.

"It's a trap!" Shattered Bone roared. He stomped both feet, Earth Release Chakra surging wildly as he tried to raise an Earth Wall for defense.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

They gave him no chance at all!

The Explosive Tags detonated at the same time!

Amid the violent explosions, flames soared into the sky. The raging shock waves, mixed with earth and shattered stone, swept toward the three men at the center like a tsunami. This was not meant to cause damage, but to—seal