The sky over the Land of Rain resembled a filthy rag soaked in despair. The ink-dark rain did not fall in drops; it poured down in torrents.
It carried a rotten, sickly-sweet stench—the smell of countless dead people's blood and chakra mixed together, repeatedly washed out of the scorched earth by the downpour.
The ground had long since lost its original color. The mud was mixed with shattered kunai, scorched scraps of cloth, and... unrecognizable pieces of severed limbs.
The black tide formed by White Zetsu was not an orderly army, but a boiling, viscous white flood. They made a scalp-crawling, wet squirming sound.
There were no battle cries, only an endless, silent advance. Wherever they passed, even the soil seemed contaminated by some alien force, turning dim and lifeless.
"Hiss—!"
A giant python as thick as a bowl had barely extended half its body from a summoning array when seven or eight White Zetsu pounced on it. They used no ninjutsu, only the most primitive and horrifying method—wrapping it tightly in their pale arms and tearing into it with twisted teeth!
The snake scales shattered, and foul-smelling blood sprayed everywhere. The giant python writhed in agony, only to be instantly drowned beneath even more White Zetsu. Like an insect dropped into an ant swarm, it was devoured within a few breaths, leaving behind only a stark white skeleton that was quickly swallowed by the muddy water.
Orochimaru stood some distance away, his golden vertical pupils narrowed to thin slits as icy rain slid down his pale cheeks.
Beneath his feet, the densely packed swarm of snakes was shrinking at a visible rate.
The fingers hidden in his sleeves trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the physical spasms brought on by near-total chakra depletion.
He tried to form seals