Wood Style's Deterrence!

Konoha.

Senju Compound.

"You're too noisy."

Just when everyone thought Chiba was certainly doomed.

Chiba finally raised his eyelids.

His exceedingly impatient voice rang clearly across the entire scene.

Boom!

In the span of a single breath.

Centered on Chiba.

A visible mass of blue Chakra erupted into the sky like a volcanic explosion!

The violent airwaves instantly became a hurricane-force gale.

The Root ninja charging at the front were like people slamming into an invisible wall of steel.

Crack!

The dense sound of shattering bones rang out, sending chills down everyone's spine.

Dozens of Root elites.

Were flung backward at ten times the speed they had charged in!

Blood sprayed wildly through the air.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Their bodies smashed through the broken walls and rubble behind them like rag sacks.

The next moment.

The storm spread outward indiscriminately.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was forced to raise an arm before his face.

Danzo swayed precariously in the gale, nearly toppling headfirst to the ground.

The clan heads standing atop the trees around the perimeter were also forced to sway beneath the current of air.

Fugaku Uchiha abruptly steadied himself, his Three-Tomoe Sharingan spinning frantically.

That was impossible!

He had instantly defeated dozens of Root elites through Chakra release alone?

What kind of monstrous Chakra reserves were those?!

Hiashi covered his right eye, and a drop of blood seeped through his fingers.

In that instant just now.

Within the Byakugan's field of vision, the Chakra inside Chiba's body had been like a miniature sun suddenly exploding!

It had been too dazzling!

The glare caused agonizing pain in the meridians around his eyes, making it impossible for him to look directly at Chiba!

At the center of the ruins.

Chiba remained where he stood.

He could not be bothered to look at those Root rats, dead or alive.

He interlocked his fingers.

Then brought his hands together.

Clap!

The exceptionally crisp clap of his hands was particularly startling at that moment.

"Since it has all collapsed."

"Then I'll build it again."

The Chakra within Chiba's body surged madly underground like floodwaters bursting through a dam.

Wood Style: Wood Human Technique!

Rumble—

The ground began shaking wildly.

As if a magnitude-ten earthquake had suddenly struck.

The ground throughout Konoha trembled without end.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was the closest, and he had to stagger back several steps before steadying himself.

"That Chakra..."

"That hand-clasping gesture!"

Seeing Chiba's hand sign.

A memory buried for decades abruptly exploded in Sarutobi Hiruzen's mind.

Impossible!

This was absolutely impossible!

Crack! Crack!

The ground at the Senju Ruins instantly split apart into countless enormous chasms.

Trees of unimaginable thickness burst from the earth with a roar.

Like furious dragons, they entwined, coiled around one another, and fused together.

Growing ever taller.

Growing ever larger.

Ten meters.

Fifty meters.

One hundred meters.

Several hundred meters!

A wooden giant that blotted out the sky rose from the ground!

An incomparably savage Wood Dragon was coiled around the giant's body.

An utterly terrifying pressure descended upon everyone's heads like a tangible mountain.

The oxygen in the surrounding air seemed to have been completely sucked away in that instant.

Everyone involuntarily raised their heads, their mouths hanging wide open.

What was that thing?

A giant as big as a mountain!

Shikaku's legs went limp, and he collapsed onto the ground.

Cold sweat rolled down his forehead like rain.

"Wood... Wood Style?"

Fugaku trembled all over.

Before this wooden giant.

His Susanoo was nothing more than a laughable toy!

This was true power!

This was the absolute violence capable of suppressing the entire Ninja World!

Danzo's lone eye was wide open, nearly bulging from its socket.

The fingers gripping his cane had turned deathly pale from the force he exerted.

The First Hokage's power!

This was the power the First Hokage had used to pacify the chaotic age!

Not only did Chiba possess the Senju Clan's bloodline.

He had actually awakened Wood Style of this level!

Greed!

An utterly frenzied greed instantly consumed Danzo's reason.

If he could obtain that body.

He, Danzo, would become the new god of the Ninja World!

The Wood Golem's enormous body did not merely intimidate everyone present.

At the same time.

Even from far away.

Konoha's civilians and ordinary ninja all saw that terrifying monster!

Screams.

Cries.

Piercing alarm bells.

The entire Konoha instantly fell into unprecedented panic.

"Enemy attack!"

"Run! The village is going to be destroyed!"

"What kind of monster is that?!"

Chaos spread through the streets like a plague.

Senju Compound.

Chiba stood atop the Wood Golem's head.

His eyes were ice-cold as he looked down at the ant-like crowd below.

"Go."

At a thought from Chiba.

The several-hundred-meter-tall Wood Golem moved.

It raised its enormous foot, aimed it at the ruined buildings below, and stomped down fiercely.

Boom!

The earth shook and the mountains quaked.

A vast stretch of ruins was crushed directly into powder beneath that foot.

Immediately afterward.

The Wood Golem bent down.

It swung its mountain-sized palm and swept fiercely across the ground.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Broken walls and rubble.

Weeds and trees.

Before absolute violence, nothing could offer even the slightest resistance.

Whole swathes of ruins were uprooted, and massive chunks of stone shot into the sky.

The terrifying shockwave became a tangible gale and swept madly in every direction.

"Fall back!"

"Everyone, fall back!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen roared himself hoarse.

He desperately circulated the Chakra within his body, anchoring his feet firmly to the ground.

Yet even so.

The gale still shoved him backward, making him slide more than ten meters.

The Anbu and Root ninja were in even worse shape.

Quite a few were directly hurled away by the airwaves and slammed heavily into distant tree trunks.

No one dared step forward!

Who would dare stop it?

Even if they merely grazed the edge of it.

They would instantly be turned into a puddle of flesh!

The two high-ranking officials, Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu, had completely lost their usual dignity.

They clung tightly to each other, trembling.

This was not power that ninja could contend against!

This was a divine miracle!

In just a few minutes.

The vast Senju Ruins had been reduced to nothing but a stretch of uneven yellow earth.

This place had been completely leveled.

Chiba dispelled the technique.

The enormous Wood Golem dissolved into countless specks of green light.

But it was not over yet.

Before everyone's eyes.

Chiba extended his right hand and formed a hand seal with one hand.

Earth Style: Earth Core.

As massive Chakra poured into the ground.

The land within several kilometers was kneaded at will like soft dough.

Those uneven craters were swiftly filled in.

The raised mounds of earth instantly sank.

In the blink of an eye.

The ground throughout the Senju Compound became flat as a mirror.

Fugaku Uchiha watched it all numbly.

A one-handed seal?

An Earth Style covering several kilometers?

How immense and precise would his Chakra control have to be?

Was this really something a human could accomplish?

Then.

Chiba clasped his hands together again.

"Wood Style: Consecutive Pillars House Technique!"

Rumble!

This time, no terrifying monsters burst from the ground.

Instead, exquisitely crafted wooden buildings rose up one after another.

A vast and imposing main residence.

Quiet, elegant courtyards.

Tall, sturdy walls.

A broad, level Training Ground.

In just over ten seconds.

A brand-new estate, sprawling and magnificent, appeared before everyone's eyes!

The entire scene fell silent.

Even the wind seemed to have stopped.

Not a single person spoke.

The heads of the Major Clans had completely changed their gazes at Chiba.

Shock.

Awe.

And profound fear.

Tsunade's disciple?

To hell with that disciple nonsense!

He was clearly the most legitimate heir of the Senju Clan!

Only someone of the Senju Clan's direct bloodline could wield such mythical Wood Style!

That old fox Sarutobi Hiruzen.

He had known everything from the very beginning!

He wanted to use the Major Clans as weapons to probe this monster's true capabilities!

The clan heads simultaneously felt anger at having been used, along with deep wariness toward Chiba.

Chiba brushed the wood shavings from his hands as though he had merely finished some trivial task.

He turned and looked at the disheveled Konoha High Command.

"I was just coming home."

"And renovating my family home while I was at it."

"What?"

"Does Lord Hokage have a problem with that?"

"..."