Rip!
Clothing and flesh tore at once.
Before the blood could spray, Lie Yang forcibly twisted his waist.
The third arrow passed along his left flank, carving a wound deep enough to expose bone.
The fourth followed close behind, aimed straight at his heart!
Lie Yang stepped forward again with his right foot.
But his thigh muscles had already reached their limit.
Large swaths of muscle fibers tore apart.
Before his foot could settle firmly, his body tilted slightly.
That tiny deviation brought the arrowhead within half an inch of his heart!
"No!"
Kakashi's Mangekyō Sharingan caught the scene clearly.
He wanted to activate Kamui.
But Lie Yang and the arrow were almost touching.
At such a short distance, the arrowhead would pierce his heart before space could finish warping!
Kurenai Yuhi clenched both hands tightly.
"He can't dodge it!"
Might Guy's pupils contracted.
He understood Lie Yang's current condition better than anyone.
This was a gap no amount of technique could bridge.
His body had lost its strength.
No matter how powerful his combat instincts were, they could not restore torn muscles out of thin air!
The arrowhead reached his chest.
The shock of impending death crashed into his consciousness!
Every muscle in Lie Yang's body contracted at that instant.
This was no normal exertion.
He completely disregarded his body's protective limits, forcing his already torn flesh to erupt with power again!
Crack!
A sharp crack came from the bones in his right leg.
The wounds on his thigh and waist burst open together.
Blood gushed out.
Yet with that force beyond his body's normal limits, Lie Yang wrenched himself half an inch to the left!
Shhk!
The arrow skimmed across his chest.
It stripped away a large patch of flesh, even exposing the stark white ribs beneath.
But it missed his heart!
"He dodged it?"
Kurenai Yuhi's voice trembled.
"At that distance, he could still avoid a fatal wound?"
Kakashi did not answer.
His Mangekyō Sharingan had already spotted more arrows.
The first volley was only the beginning.
Dozens more arrows were arriving at once!
Before Lie Yang could regain his footing, three more arrows shot in from his left on intersecting paths.
He raised his right arm.
His hand could no longer exert any strength, so he could only slam his forearm against the side of one arrow.
Bang!
His flesh burst open.
The arrow's trajectory shifted slightly, sending it past his waist.
The second arrow sliced along his abdomen, shearing away a large chunk of flesh.
The third swept across the outside of his right leg, tearing through muscle before driving into the ground in a spray of blood!
Lie Yang's body swayed violently.
He did not fall.
His Mangekyō Sharingan kept spinning.
One arrow.
Three arrows.
Seven arrows!
Every arrow missed by the narrowest margin.
Every dodge tore his muscles further.
Dozens of ghastly wounds rapidly appeared across his shoulders, chest, waist, abdomen, and legs. His clothes were soaked through with blood, great chunks of flesh fell to the ground, and the nearby soil turned red in moments.
Yet not a single arrow pierced a vital spot!
Standing inside his battered Susanoo, Shisui could no longer make out Lie Yang's movements.
He could only keep squeezing out what little ocular power he had left to maintain the barrage.
"It's not over yet!"
The final batch of arrows fired all at once.
There were no gaps left in front of Lie Yang.
He abruptly curled his body inward, tearing the muscles across his shoulders and back as he forced himself between two arrows.
Rip!
Flesh was stripped from his left shoulder.
Another arrow struck his right leg.
The green arrowhead scraped his bone, leaving a long, narrow fracture in it.
Lie Yang's leg buckled, and he dropped to one knee.
The last arrow swept over his head and shot into the distance.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
The arrows struck the ground one after another.
The earth shook violently.
Dozens of enormous craters appeared across the plain in an instant, and green chakra surged into the sky amid clouds of dust.
Kakashi raised an arm to shield himself from the gale.
"Is it over?"
Might Guy stared at the center of the arrow barrage, his breathing all but stopped.
Kurenai Yuhi could not see what was happening inside at all.
"No one could still be standing after an attack like that..."
Before she finished speaking, a rapidly swelling surge of wind-nature chakra erupted from the dust!
The Wind Release: Rasenshuriken went completely out of control.
Boom!
The wind release chakra, compressed to its absolute limit, exploded!
An enormous white sphere swallowed the battered Susanoo.
Countless fine needles of wind sprayed outward faster than the naked eye could follow, each vibrating at high frequency, each cut accompanied by a piercing shriek.
Susanoo's abdomen shattered first.
Its green muscles were ripped apart in an instant.
Its ribs, spine, and shoulders followed.
Dense cracks spread wildly.
Before Shisui could even repair it, the massive Susanoo disintegrated layer by layer under the needles of wind release chakra!
Rumble!
The unrelenting blasts shook the ground into rolling waves.
Nearby rock pillars were severed at their middles.
Before the thick stone pillars could fall, a second wave of wind needles sliced them into countless fragments.
Kakashi and the other two retreated again and again.
All Kurenai Yuhi could hear was a continuous ringing.
Might Guy stood in front of her, but the shock waves still carved several bloody cuts into his exposed skin.
"With a range like this..."
"Lie Yang is still in there!"
Kakashi held his Mangekyō Sharingan wide open.
Chaotic chakra filled his vision.
He could barely make out a single figure.
The instant the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken exploded, its savage shock wave struck Lie Yang head-on and hurled him away!
Bang!
His body smashed through the first rock pillar.
He tumbled several times through the air, then slammed hard into a second stone pillar.
The rock shattered on impact.
Lie Yang flew dozens of meters farther before finally crashing into a field of rubble.
Bleurgh!
He spat out a mouthful of blood.
Tiny fragments of internal organs were mixed into it.
His hands hung limply.
He had no feeling in any of his fingers.
His chakra was completely depleted.
His right arm had suffered the backlash from the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken, while arrows had torn his shoulders, back, chest, abdomen, and legs into bloody ruin. There was barely a patch of intact skin anywhere on his body.
Yet Lie Yang smiled.
At first, he chuckled quietly.
Then his laughter grew louder and louder.
"What a rush!"
Speed pushed to the limit.
Strength pushed to the limit.
When the arrow grazed his heart, death had been right before his eyes.
After the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken exploded, it felt as though all his internal organs had been shattered.
That feeling of hovering between life and death set every inch of his flesh boiling!
On the other side, the green Susanoo abruptly regressed.
The muscles and fascia covering its bones rapidly dissipated.
The complete skeleton kept shrinking as well, until only a few ribs remained to protect Shisui.
Shisui dropped to one knee.
He braced both hands against the ground.
Blood dripped from the corners of his eyes.
He could no longer maintain Susanoo.
Both sides had exhausted their strength at the same time.
At that very moment, the fortune balance deep within Lie Yang's consciousness tipped violently for the third time!
The pan representing Shisui plunged downward.
A brand-new weight materialized out of thin air.
Silver hair.
A mask.
A left eye hidden beneath a forehead protector.
Kakashi's phantom image emerged clearly!
Lie Yang had pushed Kakashi into awakening his Mangekyō Sharingan ahead of time, then forced him to use Kamui during this clash. His original course of destiny had been completely diverted, and Kakashi's fortune had become a new weight!
The balance trembled without end.
The outline of the second genetic shackle became clearer than ever before.
The opportunity for a breakthrough had fully ripened!
Whoosh!
A figure suddenly darted out from behind the rubble.
Kakashi gave Lie Yang no chance to recover.
"Gate of Opening, open!"
The first of the Eight Gates burst open!
The restrictions binding his brain were forcibly removed.
Every last bit of strength in Kakashi's body erupted. His left Mangekyō Sharingan locked firmly onto Lie Yang, while the lightning in his right hand compressed to its absolute limit.
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