On the shore, the Uzumaki survivors who had just been pulled back from despair seemed frozen as well.
The Grand Elder clutched his chest, his aged eyes wide as he stared at the rapidly spreading pool of dark red blood on the flagship's deck. His lips trembled, but he could not utter a single word.
Several Uzumaki women holding children tightly covered the children's eyes, while they themselves shook uncontrollably.
Neji's figure slowly emerged completely from the spatial ripples beside the Mizukage's corpse, standing atop the mast of the Hidden Mist flagship.
His white robes fluttered slightly in the blood-tinged sea breeze, spotless and untouched by dust.
His eyes, like ice that had endured for ten thousand years, swept coldly over the deathly silent Hidden Mist fleet below and the Hidden Mist ninja standing there like clay statues.
"Hidden Mist's pride..."
Neji's voice was not loud, yet it pierced every Hidden Mist ninja's eardrums like an icy blade and carved itself into their souls. "From this day onward, I, Hyuga Neji... have torn it down with my own hands."
He paused, a merciless, nearly cruel curve rising at the corner of his lips.
"And crushed it beneath my feet."
"Avenge Lord Mizukage—!!!"
A howl filled with endless humiliation and fury, like a spark igniting dry tinder, instantly detonated the emotions thousands of Hidden Mist ninja had suppressed to the limit!
Fear?
Before the towering rage of seeing their Kage publicly slain and their dignity utterly trampled, it had long since vanished without a trace!
How would the history of the Ninja World record this day?
Kirigakure would become a joke without equal in all eternity!
That thought gnawed at their hearts like venomous snakes, burning away the last trace of reason.
"Kill him!!!"
"Tear him apart!!!"
Thousands of roars drenched