At that moment, there was no more wearing each other down from afar, no more maneuvering through space. Only the ultimate clash of attack and defense remained, with life and death decided in an instant.
The cyan Tachi gripped by Susanoo came crashing down!
That strike carried the destructive essence of Yin–Yang Release, the divine amplification of Takamimusubi, and every ounce of killing power Madara Uchiha had amassed in his lifetime. The blade's path through the void erased light and shadow, severing even the laws that governed the flow of space.
The brilliant blue-cyan blade light spanned hundreds of meters. Condensed to the extreme, without a trace of wasted chakra, it was pure, violent, and overwhelming. It went straight for Imu's head—a slash meant to kill anything in its path.
Faced with a terrifying blow that could split mountains and tear apart the sea, Imu neither dodged nor retreated.
His slender figure stood amid the trembling void. He raised his hand faster than the eye could follow, gathering the full force of his dark authority into one palm and forming a smooth, mirrorlike barrier of condensed darkness.
There was no elaborate technique, no earthshaking display. It was the simplest of blocks, yet it bore the supreme power of a ruler who had dominated the world for eight hundred years.
Clang—!!!
An unbearably shrill metallic resonance burst across the sky, sharper than any clash before it.
The blue-cyan blade light slammed into the dark barrier. The two extreme forces locked against each other, and the space where they met visibly collapsed and shattered. Fine black fractures spread across the entire battlefield in the sky, only to vanish rapidly beneath the crushing energy.
A terrifying force traveled back along the blade. Susanoo's thousand-meter body sank half an inch, and the entire sky