Naka River Shrine, the center of the formation.
There was no smoke here, no explosions, but the battle here was just as brutal.
Three hundred Uchiha clansmen sat cross-legged, every one of them holding the same hand seal.
Their faces were as pale as paper, and sweat had long since soaked through their clothes, gathering beneath them in puddles. The air was thick with the heavy stench of blood, the smell of capillaries bursting from excessive chakra depletion.
"Pfft!"
A young chunin suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, his body collapsing limply.
"Reserve! Hurry!"
The elder in charge of logistics shouted hoarsely.
An old man with only genin-level strength immediately rushed up and took the young man's place.
"Don't worry about me... I can still hold on..."
The fallen young man struggled to get up, but his chakra pathways had already been severely damaged. He could not even move a finger.
This was the price of maintaining "Susanoo: Resonance Body."
The divine giant slaughtering all before it on the front line consumed a staggering amount of chakra every single second. All of that chakra came from the flesh-and-blood bodies of these three hundred clansmen.
At the formation core.
Two streams of black blood had already run from Uchiha Fugaku's eyes.
Because his Mangekyō Sharingan had been running under a heavy load for too long, his vision was rapidly declining. The world before his eyes had already become a blur of bloodred.
But he remained nailed firmly in place.
Like an unyielding rock.
"It can't break..."
Fugaku gritted his teeth so hard his gums bled.
"Xuan Shi is on the front line... He's fighting for us... We absolutely can't hold him back!"
To his left, Uncle Uchiha Teyaki—the fat, kindly uncle who usually only made rice crackers—had thinned down