Shihōin Naraku had just dodged the blade light unleashed by Momoshiki Otsutsuki when he saw countless monsters with dragon heads and serpentine bodies roaring as they lunged at him.
At the same time, the giant flaming bird in the sky beat its wings, aimed at his position, and swooped down.
It was incredibly fast!
All of this happened within a single breath.
"Quite the spectacle!"
Naraku swung Kurikara, slashing at the monsters rushing toward him.
The first monster to reach him was instantly cleaved straight down the middle by his blade, splitting into two halves from its head to the tip of its tail, the cut surfaces perfectly smooth.
Then came the second, the third, the fourth...
Naraku took several steps through the swarm of monsters. With each step, another monster's body was neatly sliced apart, its heavy carcass falling onto the rubble with a dull thud.
However, these monsters had all been created with Earth Release Ninjutsu, so even when hacked apart, they merely turned into rubble.
But while Naraku casually destroyed the dragon-headed, serpent-bodied monsters, the giant flaming bird descended.
The instant searing light erupted above Naraku's head, the entire basin was illuminated as brightly as blinding daylight.
The remaining bodies of dozens of monsters, the heaps of rubble, the billowing dust-everything was swept into the blazing surge of heat.
The shock wave spread outward, stripping another layer off the already devastated ground. Rubble and chunks of rock were hurled high into the air as though tossed by an invisible giant hand, only to be blasted into finer powder by the subsequent waves of heat as they fell.
A massive mushroom cloud rose from the center of the explosion, grayish-white smoke mingling with dark red flames as it spread in every direction.
The shock wave drove the dust