The Divine Tree did not stop growing the instant Sen lowered his hand.
That dark brown root, as massive as a small mountain.
High above Konoha.
Still, with utterly brutal, savage force.
Furiously.
Extended and spread outward.
Crack... crack!
Great swaths of green roof tiles.
Under the merciless pressure of those enormous ridges of wood.
Let out piercing, agonizing cracks before being ground into vast clouds of chalk-white lime dust.
It drifted down in showers, turning the muddy ground below the building white.
The enormous crown was like a vast umbrella that blotted out the sky and sun.
It spread furiously toward the outskirts of the village.
Ten thousand meters.
Fifty thousand meters.
A hundred thousand meters.
In less than three minutes, that green canopy had covered half of Konoha.
Inside the village.
Along the streets and alleys.
The Konoha ANBU and the infiltrating Sound Ninja and Sand Ninja assassins, who had been fighting until their heads bled.
At that instant.
All seemed to have been forcibly frozen by some invisible law.
They mechanically stopped what they were doing.
Blankly.
They gazed up at the sky.
Up at that miracle spreading its branches and leaves in midair, like the World Tree of legend.
The once-clear sky went completely dark, plunging the village into a suffocating, warm shadow.
At the edge of the stands.
Kakashi held Icha Icha Paradise, the cold sweat on his palm soaking a corner of the book a greasy yellow.
But he could no longer spare it a glance.
His scarlet Sharingan was simply wide open.
He stared dumbly.
At the green leaf overhead, as enormous as a house.
"Th-this... is this the World Tree?"
Meanwhile, on the roof of the ruined Hokage Building.
Within this domain completely enclosed by the Divine Tree's roots.
Pure natural energy