The dawn skyline was forcibly torn apart by a glaring dark-red streak.
Madara Uchiha hovered ten meters above the ground, his toned upper body bare. His wild mane of hair danced freely within the chakra storm. The face belonging to Hashirama Senju on his chest had completely fused with his flesh, even giving off an eerie jade-like sheen.
No hand seals, no formation—he simply floated there in silence. Yet the earth below could not bear the terrifying weight of his presence. The hard bedrock let out a piercing wail as cracks half a meter wide spread wildly in every direction like a spiderweb.
Within the ranks of the hundred-thousand-strong Allied Shinobi Forces, even the sound of breathing ceased.
Ōnoki gripped his cane tightly, his aged body trembling uncontrollably. The Fourth Raikage, A, wiped the bloody water from his face. Veins bulged across his muscular arms, yet he did not dare take a single step forward.
"Too noisy." Madara lowered his gaze slightly, his scarlet Rinnegan sweeping over the Ten-Tails Splinter Monsters below that were still howling at the sky and rampaging everywhere.
He casually raised his right hand and abruptly clenched his fingers.
Invisible gravitational force erupted from his palm. The thousands of Splinter Monsters that had been crushing the Allied Shinobi Forces beneath them only seconds ago suddenly froze in place. Then, like rotten mud drained of all moisture, their bodies rapidly collapsed and dissolved, transforming into torrents of pure white chakra that rushed back into the surviving roots of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path beneath the earth.
With a mere lift of his hand, he had completely cleared the battlefield of its fodder.
"The nuisances have been dealt with." Madara rolled his neck, his joints cracking like popping beans.
Beside a distant pile of rubble, Kakashi