The tunnel looked like the esophagus of a dead giant snake, black and fishy.
Golden Tank The crisp sound of crushing weathered stone slabs echoed in the enclosed space, sounding like chewing brittle bones.
The further you go, the thicker the air becomes, like spoiled glue sticking to your skin.
Purple-black mist seeped out from the gaps in the floor tiles and from the eyes of the totems on the walls. They were not stationary, but slowly squirming, like conscious tentacles, greedily licking the body temperature of every intruder.
Hiruzen Sarutobi tightened his collar and knitted his brows into a tight knot.
Something is wrong.
The mist gave him the feeling that it was not like a natural phenomenon, but rather like some kind of living malice, blowing cool air on the back of his neck.
"Stop." Hiruzen shouted lowly and raised his right hand.
Years of fighting intuition made the hairs on his back stand up as if electrified. He quickly Hand Seals, chakra condensed on his fingertips, ready to use "Telescope Technique" to explore the path.
"Yin-si-wei..."
Printed.
However, the expected chakra fluctuation did not appear.
The moment the chakra left the body, the lazy purple mist around him suddenly rushed forward like sharks that smelled the smell of blood.
"Zizzizi--"
There was a tooth-dropping corrosive sound, like acid being poured on raw meat.
Hiruzen was horrified to find that the chakra he had condensed was completely dissolved in an instant.
Not only that, the mist also followed the connection of chakra, trying to reversely erode the meridians in his body, draining him of all his roots!
"Cut off the chakra! Quick!"
Hiruzen turned pale, quickly dismissed the technique, and staggered back two steps, as if he had touched a hot soldering iron with his bare hands.
"What's going on?" Gaara noticed something strange about Hiruzen.
"Don't use ninjutsu!" Hiruzen gasped, staring at the increasingly thick purple mist around him, "This damn thing... eats chakra! It's alive!"
Gaara's eyes narrowed.
As Kazekage, his fighting instinct made him subconsciously want to build a defense. The gourd stopper behind his back popped open with a "wave", and the gravel that he usually used like an arm surged out.
But the next second, Gaara froze.
The sand came out, but it didn't float.
The sand that was supposed to be flying in the air and was as hard as iron, had its soul sucked away the moment it came into contact with the purple mist.
They become heavy and wet, like cotton soaked with dirty water.
"Crack."
A large pile of sand hit the stone floor lifelessly and turned into a puddle of mud.
Gaara stood there blankly, his fingers trembling slightly. This was the first time since he was born that he couldn't feel the connection between himself and the sand.
That sense of complete control was abruptly cut off by this strange mist, as if the network cable had been unplugged.
Before everyone could recover from the shock, a series of dull crashes suddenly came from behind.
"My Chakra Threads!"
"It's broken! It's all broken!"
Sunagakure The puppet army that everyone praised was instantly turned into a mess.
Several elite puppet masters screamed in horror as the Chakra Threads connected to the puppets on their fingers collapsed in the purple mist.
After losing their traction, the dozens of black-robed puppets floating in the air were instantly paralyzed, and they fell heavily to the ground like a pile of scrap metal.
"Clang!"
The mechanism fell apart and the poison blades were scattered on the ground, looking extremely miserable.
"Keep the formation! Don't panic!" Hiruzen shouted loudly.
But his voice seemed extremely dull in the thick fog, as if it had been swallowed up by something, and dissipated within less than ten meters.
Panic began to spread like a plague.
With trembling hands, Konoha Sealing Team's squad leader pressed the radio communicator next to his ear - it was the latest ninjutsu communication device issued by Konoha, which relied on chakra wave frequency to transmit signals.
"Call headquarters! Call headquarters! This is..."
What came from the earphones was not a response, but a piercing scream, mixed with some kind of electric noise like a beast chewing bones.
"Ah!"
The squad leader screamed, ripped off the headphones and threw them on the ground.
Black liquid oozed out of the earphones and was still sizzling and smoking.
"Communications are completely cut off! The perception barrier cannot be opened!" The monitor's face was ashen, and his eyes were full of despair when he looked at Hiruzen, "Lord Hokage... We have become blind and deaf!"
A deathly silence enveloped the team.
There was only the sound of heavy breathing and the subtle sound of purple mist flowing.
At this moment, the elites standing at the top of Shinobi World suddenly discovered that after stripping away the chakra cheat, they were not much stronger than ordinary people, and were even more fragile.
Even though the industrial technology brought by Naruto has developed very well now, they subconsciously want to maintain their dignity as ninjas.
It is a purely industrial product. I always think that I can use it without using it. If I use it, it is also linked to chakra.
"There's something... there's something in the fog!"
A Sunagakure Chunin with a weak psychological defense suddenly couldn't hold on anymore. He pulled out Kunai and waved it wildly at the empty mist, his eyeballs popped out. "Don't come here! Don't eat my chakra! Get away!"
Ziwu seemed to be able to sense fear. As he screamed, the surrounding fog became thicker and even transformed into distorted human faces, whispering.
"Calm down!"
Hiruzen stepped over and slashed the back of Chunin's neck with a hand knife, knocking him unconscious.
But the team's formation has completely broken up.
Lost power, lost vision, lost communication. Despair fermented in the darkness, and even the air became thin.
Just then.
"Thud, tug, tug, tug, tug, tug, tug, tug, tug, tug—"
A burst of extremely uncoordinated, even extremely unpleasant mechanical noise unreasonably tore into pieces the dead silence.
That's the sound of a diesel engine running.
Rough, violent, and without any sense of beauty, but at this moment, it is more beautiful than any fairy music.
Two bright beams of light suddenly pierced the thick fog.
That is the Golden Tank car searchlight.
The light and heat generated purely by tungsten wire and electricity completely ignored the barrier of the purple mist, like two holy swords of physics, forcibly cutting a path through Chaos.
"Zizzi... hello? Sound test, sound test."
After a burst of electric current, that annoying broken gong voice blasted clearly in every ninja's ears through the high-power car loudspeaker.
"Why did the ones at the back stop? Are they all offline? A bunch of rubbish!"
There was a strong sense of impatience in Colonel Ka's voice, as well as an unconcealed sense of joking that it was not too big a deal to watch the excitement.
Everyone looked up in shock.
I saw the wealthy gold tank parked twenty meters ahead, its exhaust pipe spitting black smoke rhythmically. The smell was choking, but it made people feel extremely at ease.
Colonel Ka leaned half out of the turret, holding a dark plastic brick without any chakra fluctuations in his hand - it was the old analog walkie-talkie sold to him by Naruto.
Specifically provided for people who don't know Chakra.
"Dongyao Dongyao, this is Dongguai. How is the road ahead?" Colonel Ka yelled into the walkie-talkie, like an old man shouting at a vegetable market.
A few seconds later, a clear response came from the walkie-talkie from the bikini bodyguard who was scouting the road ahead. The signal was full. "Colonel, the road conditions are good. Although the fog is chilly, it does not affect driving. The visibility is fifty meters."
"Received, completed."
Colonel Ka put down the walkie-talkie and looked condescendingly at the embarrassed group of Kage Level strong men, with a look of mockery on his face.
"What's wrong? You can't walk without chakra?"
He shook the cheap plastic brick in his hand, as if displaying some rare artifact.
"Look at my rig! Diesel power! Analog signals! Pure mechanical transmission!"
Colonel Ka grinned, revealing his big gold teeth, and smiled unscrupulously, "This is called the gold content of industry! Do you understand? In a ghost place like this, all your fancy ninjutsu are not as effective as this plastic brick in my hand!"
"This is called physical transcendence! All fear comes from lack of firepower!"
Hiruzen looked at the fat man showing off his power on the tank and opened his mouth, but found that he could not refute.
In this death place where chakra is banned, this ugly, black-smoking steel monster has become the only beacon.
The laws of physics have defeated the occult.
"Why are you still standing there?" Colonel Ka patted the turret and made a clanging sound, "If you want to survive, just follow my exhaust! If you fall behind, I won't be responsible for collecting the corpses!"
After saying that, he got back into the turret and slammed the hatch.
"Chu tu tu tu tu--"
The tank started up again, its tracks picked up gravel, and crushed it toward the depths of darkness.
Hiruzen and Gaara looked at each other.
In the eyes of the two Shinobi World peak experts, there was a trace of deep helplessness and humiliation, as well as a sense of confusion after the collapse of the worldview.
"... Put away the ninja tool."
Hiruzen took a big breath and issued this order that made him feel toothache.
"Rely on physical strength to keep up with the car."
The team moved again.
Only this time, it was no longer ninjas escorting civilians, but the proud ninjas, who had to stumble like a group of refugees behind a tank emitting black smoke, praying that the two car lights would not go out.