Crushing Hanzo of the Salamander! The "Demigod" Falls, Ending the Hidden Rain Village's Old Era!

Raindrops pounded against everyone's hearts.

Hanzo of the Salamander stared fixedly at the ominous ball of chakra in Kamizuki Yu's palm, then at his young yet indifferent face.

Submit? He, Hanzo of the Salamander, the demigod of the ninja world, submit to some nobody?

How absurd! How humiliating!

Rage exploded in his chest, mixed with a trace of fear he refused to acknowledge.

"Brat... who do you think you are?!" Hanzo's voice was hoarse, every word seemingly forced through clenched teeth.

He abruptly adjusted the breathing mask on his face, a ruthless glint flashing through his eyes.

The answer was obvious.

The chakra ball in Kamizuki Yu's hand slowly dispersed. It was not because his attack had run out, but more like a wordless display of contempt.

"Looks like you chose the path of death."

Before his words had faded, Hanzo's figure suddenly blurred.

[Body Flicker Technique]!

He chose close combat, relying on the poison he took such pride in. It was the tactic that had turned defeat into victory for him countless times.

Poisonous mist silently spread with his movements. It was toxic vapor naturally emitted by his body after years of being steeped in poison.

"Too slow."

A calm voice, yet it sounded like Death's whisper, rang out behind Hanzo's ear.

How was that possible?!

Hanzo had already completed his Body Flicker Technique, yet his target was nowhere to be seen.

A hand lightly settled on his right shoulder.

That hand was fair and slender, looking utterly harmless, yet every hair on Hanzo's body stood on end in an instant.

What came from his shoulder was not overwhelming force, but a chill that plunged him into an icy abyss.

The poisonous mist he was so proud of dispersed on its own the moment it touched the thin layer of chakra covering the other man's body. It was as though it had encountered its natural bane and could not penetrate even an inch.

"Your poison is ineffective against me." Kamizuki Yu simply stated a fact.

Hanzo's heart churned violently. What kind of monster was this guy?!

Refusing to accept it, he swung his poison-coated short blade around like lightning with his left hand, stabbing behind him.

[Clang!]

Kamizuki Yu did not even turn around. He casually raised his left hand and precisely caught the blade's edge between two fingers again.

Just as easily as he had caught Nagato's kunai earlier.

Hanzo's wrist jolted violently, and the short blade nearly flew from his hand.

He tried to pull it back, only to find that it was trapped between the other man's two fingers, utterly unmoving.

Kamizuki Yu applied the slightest bit of force with his fingertips.

[Crack!]

The short blade, forged from fine steel, snapped in response.

The broken blade spun through the air and, with a [Puff], embedded itself deeply into a nearby rock.

Hanzo swiftly retreated, widening the distance. When he looked at Kamizuki Yu again, his gaze was finally filled with unprecedented gravity and horror.

Taijutsu, speed, strength... even the poison he had trusted most had all been effortlessly neutralized.

"Impossible... how could there be someone in this world completely immune to my poison..." Hanzo muttered, his convictions crumbling bit by bit.

Kamizuki Yu took a step forward.

Hanzo faced him as if confronting a great enemy, his hands rapidly forming seals.

"Old man, your tricks are like the antics of a three-year-old child to me." Kamizuki Yu felt no ripples in his heart. He even felt a little like yawning.

These so-called powerful figures were truly not worth looking at before him.

"It's not over yet!" Hanzo roared, forcibly suppressing the fear in his heart as he slammed both hands onto the ground.

[Summoning Technique!]

[Boom!]

A massive cloud of smoke erupted, and a huge dark-red salamander appeared. It was his summoned beast, Ibuse the Salamander!

"Ibuse! Use poison mist!" Hanzo howled. This was one of his final trump cards.

Ibuse the Salamander opened its enormous jaws, spewing dense purple poison mist like a tidal wave that instantly covered the entire cliff.

Visibility dropped to nearly zero in an instant.

Yahiko, Nagato, Konan, and the others all tensed. They had long heard of Hanzo's poison. It was terrifying beyond measure.

"Lord Kamizuki Yu..." Konan could not help crying out.

Within the poison mist, Kamizuki Yu's figure flickered in and out of view.

At some point, his eyes had turned into crimson Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, their sinister patterns slowly rotating.

This concentration of poison mist was no different from ordinary air before those eyes.

He could not even be bothered to dodge.

"Wind Release: Gale Palm."

A casual sentence.

No hand seals. He merely waved a hand.

A violent hurricane rose from the ground, bursting outward in all directions with him at its center.

The dense poison mist, enough to instantly kill hundreds, was easily torn apart and blown away like thin paper before that hurricane. In moments, it vanished without a trace.

Clarity returned to the cliff.

Only Ibuse the Salamander's massive body remained, along with the undisguised terror in its eyes.

In that instant, it had felt a trembling from the depths of its soul emanating from Kamizuki Yu.

That presence was more terrifying than anything it had ever encountered, as though he was the predator of all predators.

Its enormous body froze in place. It could not even obey Hanzo's orders, trembling uncontrollably.

"Even... even Ibuse..." Hanzo was completely shaken.

His final support, the companion that had built half his lifetime of prestige, now resembled a frightened rabbit.

All his methods—Fire Release, Body Flicker, deadly poison, summoned beast... before this man, they had all become a joke.

This person had surpassed Hanzo's understanding of the very word "powerful."

"The game should be over." Kamizuki Yu's voice rang out, still calm.

He took another step forward.

Yet that step seemed to shatter the last line of defense in Hanzo's heart.

Hanzo instinctively took a defensive stance, but his body was trembling slightly.

He knew that no matter what he did, he could not change the outcome.

Kamizuki Yu's figure moved so quickly that Hanzo could barely track it.

He did not use any ninjutsu.

It was nothing but pure taijutsu.

A seemingly ordinary straight punch shot toward Hanzo's face.

Hanzo roared and crossed his arms, channeling all the chakra in his body to block it.

He could not simply wait for death!

[Boom!]

The fist collided with his arms with a muffled, thunderous impact.

Hanzo felt as though his arms had been struck head-on by a battering ram. Excruciating pain surged through him, and he could clearly hear the sound of his bones shattering.

His final defensive stance was effortlessly broken by that single punch.

That terrifying force did not stop there. It pierced through his arms and slammed heavily into his chest.

"Puh—"

Like a kite with its string cut, Hanzo flew backward, blood spraying wildly from his mouth along with fragments of internal organs.

His body crashed heavily into the rock wall behind him with a deafening impact, then slid limply to the ground.

A human-shaped indentation remained in the rock wall, with spiderweb-like cracks spreading in every direction.

The rain was still cold.

It fell onto Hanzo's face, mixing with blood and blurring his vision.

He struggled to raise his head and looked at the young figure walking slowly toward him.

It was still that calm face, as if he had merely done something insignificant.

"Wh... why..." Hanzo's voice was weak, filled with unwillingness and confusion.

He had dominated the ninja world for decades and been hailed as a "demigod." How could he ever have imagined ending in such a miserable way?

All his pride, all his glory, had been utterly crushed in this moment.

Kamizuki Yu stopped before him and looked down at him.

"Your era should have ended long ago."

There was no pity, no mockery. Only a statement.

Hanzo opened his mouth, as if he still wanted to say something, but more blood poured from it and choked off his words.

The light in his eyes rapidly faded.

The Hidden Rain Village's former leader, the demigod of the ninja world, Hanzo of the Salamander, was dead.

Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan stared blankly at the scene.

The legendary demigod had simply... died?

Crushed by that man in such an overwhelming manner.

The purple ripples in Nagato's Rinnegan trembled slightly. From Kamizuki Yu, he sensed a power similar to his own Rinnegan, yet far more profound and unfathomable.

Konan covered her mouth as tears welled up again. This time, they were tears of shock, relief, and a trace of confusion and... hope for the future.

Yahiko clenched his fists as he looked at Kamizuki Yu's back. That figure was now no different from a god in his eyes.

Kamizuki Yu paid no attention to their complicated emotions. He merely stood there calmly.

The rain seemed to be growing heavier.