Inside the Tsuchikage Building, the dead silence was ripped apart by the deafening crash of splintering hardwood.
"Impossible!!" Ōnoki's diminutive body hovered above the wreckage of his desk. His dark beard and hair stood on end with fury, while the report reeking of frontline bloodshed trembled in his hand.
The thin pages weighed a thousand pounds, every word a red-hot brand searing his heart—"Konoha ANBU Commander Neji, at Thundercloud Canyon, led Konoha's forces and defeated the Cloud Village main force personally commanded by the Third Raikage, A, head-on! The Eight-Tails jinchuriki's Tailed Beast Ball was redirected by his bizarre senjutsu, backfiring upon the Cloud Shinobi formation and causing more than four thousand casualties! Thundercloud Fortress has changed hands and been renamed the 'Mystic Crystal Bastion'!"
"Mystic Crystal Bastion..." An Iwagakure elder repeated the name under his breath, his voice as dry as sandpaper. "That place... they really turned it into an ironclad fortress? Even a Tailed Beast Ball..."
"More than an ironclad fortress!" Kitsuchi, the Intelligence Division jonin and Ōnoki's eldest son, pointed with an ashen face at the enormous map of the Ninja World spread open before them. His fingertip jabbed heavily at that narrow strategic pass in eastern Land of Lightning. "The latest intelligence! Neji's Crystal Release is no ordinary bloodline limit anymore! He crystallized the entire Thundercloud Fortress, along with the mountainsides on both flanks! Its hardness rivals diamond! He even harnessed the earth veins and celestial phenomena to establish the 'Thunder Prison Spirit-Leading Formation,' covering the entire canyon! Thundercloud Canyon is now... Neji's absolute domain!"
"Domain Manifestation..." Another elder sucked in a sharp breath, terror filling his eyes. "The last person capable of reaching such a level... was the God of Shinobi, Hashirama Senju! His Advent of a World of Trees..."
"Hashirama?!" Ōnoki suddenly roared. The