"Buzz."
The instant the fissure opened.
Several extremely faint chakra signatures, on the verge of dissipating, swept along chaotic fragments of memory and burrowed directly into Aokawa's mind through the crack.
Broken scenes flashed past like a slideshow.
The Shadow Clone's final image was of its chakra being completely drained away.
Aokawa's heart sank completely.
As expected.
The Shadow Clone outside had been forcibly dispelled after exhausting all its chakra.
The battle had deteriorated to an outrageous extent.
He had to get out immediately!
Konoha's little bit of top-tier combat power would never last long in that meat grinder of a battle between monsters.
But...
Aokawa closed his eyes in despair.
Deep within his mindscape, that ancient and mysterious Stone Gate still stood tall.
The chains formed from his mental power were tightly strangling the two channels connecting the Stone Gate to the Nine-Tails' chakra source.
Dark blue light flickered madly across the channels' surfaces.
That unreasonable siphoning force was like a crazed beast, desperately tugging at Aokawa's mental chains.
Inside the sealing space.
The Nine-Tails' enormous body lay limply sprawled across the water.
Its once vivid, almost tangible orange-red fur had now gone dull and lifeless, and its body had shrunk by a great deal. It was so weak that it could not even lift its eyelids, only letting out low, pained whimpers.
Aokawa did not dare move at all.
The moment he dispersed the mental chains or forcibly severed this deadlocked tug-of-war.
The Stone Gate would absolutely suck the defenseless Nine-Tails dry into a shriveled fox pelt within a tenth of a second!
He could not leave.
If he left, the Nine-Tails would surely die!
"Damn it! How the hell am I supposed to feed this monster?!"
Aokawa roared frantically in the depths of his heart.
His gaze