"What kind of power is this?"
Orochimaru stood atop a stretch of ruins, staring into the distance with a faintly dazed expression.
Throughout his career as a ninja, it was not as though he had never witnessed destruction on this scale. In war, the effects of a group of ninja casting a technique together were beyond imagining.
Even he himself would have had little difficulty causing large-scale destruction if he wanted to.
But he had never imagined he would actually witness destruction like today's, produced simply by a battle between two people. Not even once!
Even when they had started with nothing but clashes of taijutsu, those clashes had already surpassed ninjutsu entirely.
And now, their clashes of techniques were even fiercer, making the breath of death feel closer still.
"That fellow with the Rinnegan is in a terrifying state now, too. I'd better keep my distance."
Watching and sensing everything in the distance, Orochimaru decided he had better get farther away from this place at once.
He might not have worried about what would happen next, since his own ability to survive was formidable, but the boy beside him could not withstand it.
"Hmm?"
But the next moment, a vast power erupted!
It collided head-on with Xia Yan's Wood Release. In an instant, heaven and earth changed color, and an indescribable shock wave spread wildly in every direction.
The impact defied description, and the destruction surpassed imagination. At the speed that destructive power was spreading, even Orochimaru's position might not be spared!
"Those two..."
Sasori watched from the woods in another direction, his expression exceedingly grim.
The instant those two had begun fighting, he had realized that the destructive power they produced was beyond his reach.
As a result, he had never had any intention of approaching them. He