Deep in the Land of Lightning.
The dark-skinned man stood over two meters tall, with an afro and keen eyes beneath thick black brows.
He raised a broad, fan-sized hand to shade his eyes.
"I've been racing along ever since I came back to life. I must have crossed at least half the Land of Lightning by now, right? How come I haven't seen a single soul? Where the hell has everyone gone?"
"And isn't this tree ridiculously huge?"
Overhead, an enormous trunk threaded through the clouds, winding like a long dragon... Even after traveling all this way, he still could not see its entirety. He had, however, seen countless interwoven branches stretching throughout the clouds.
If all those branches spread from the trunk of a single tree... just how terrifying a tree would that be?
He rubbed his stubbled chin and muttered thoughtfully, "Could this mysterious tree have something to do with why I haven't seen anyone along the way?"
—"Earth Release: Rockfall Technique!!!"
An aged, resonant voice descended from above.
The man abruptly looked up, only to see a shadow rapidly swallowing the light before him. A rock was falling toward him, so enormous that even a Lightning Release Body Flicker Technique could not carry him clear!
And as the rock fell... he caught sight of the blurred lines across its surface.
"What rockfall? That's clearly an Ultra-Added-Weight Rockfall..."
Bang! The muscles of his right arm swelled, bursting his sleeve apart. Azure lightning release chakra condensed into a ring of light around the crook of his arm!
Then, at a terrifying speed, the ring gathered natural energy, converted it into lightning release chakra, and channeled it into his right fist and wrist!!!
—Lightning Release: Energy-Gathering Ring!!!
The man crouched, then shattered the hard granite beneath his feet as