"Time to clear away these eyesore chunks of ice."
Shengu Xuan's voice was quiet.
But it echoed through the enclosed ice formation, carrying a spine-chilling pressure.
Haku stood inside an ice mirror, his body trembling slightly beyond his control.
He stared fixedly at Shengu Xuan's eyes, which had begun to glow dark red.
A sense of danger unlike anything he had ever felt surged deep within him.
That red glow... was neither the Sharingan nor any known ocular technique.
It was a pure, violent aura of destruction, as though it would burn the entire world to ashes!
"No... I can't let him attack!"
Haku bit the tip of his tongue, forcibly suppressing his fear.
He knew that if he held anything back now, both he and Mr. Zabuza would die here today!
"Secret technique: Thousand Flying Water Needles of Death!"
Haku formed hand seals at incredible speed, even leaving afterimages in the air.
He squeezed out every last bit of chakra remaining in his body, holding nothing back.
The surrounding temperature plunged wildly again, and even the scant moisture in the air was instantly drained away!
Crack, crack, crack, crack!
All twenty-one ice mirrors in the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals formation erupted with dazzling cold light at once.
Thousands of ice senbon, thicker and sharper than before,
condensed in dense masses from the ice mirrors on every side.
These senbon were no longer ordinary ice.
They were absolute-zero ice infused with Haku's high-density chakra!
Even the slightest scratch would let that extreme cold instantly freeze the enemy's blood and heart!
"Die, you monster!"
Haku let out a hysterical roar and violently swept both hands forward.
Boom!
Thousands of ice senbon swept forth like a raging storm, their shrill whistles tearing through the air.
They formed a metal storm with no blind spots.
And hurtled toward Shengu Xuan and Sasuke, shredding everything in their path!
The sheer force made Sasuke's expression change again, though he had only just recovered.
He could feel that this attack was more than ten times as powerful as the move that had defeated him!
"Shengu Xuan! Dodge!"
Sasuke shouted reflexively, his body instinctively trying to retreat.
Yet Shengu Xuan remained rooted to the spot like a nail, utterly motionless.
He watched the overwhelming rain of ice shoot toward him, the mockery on his face growing ever more pronounced.
"Dodge? For these lousy ice chips?"
Shengu Xuan tilted his head slightly upward.
His hands rested casually in his pockets; he did not even take them out.
"You know nothing about true power."
The instant his words fell, the dark red light in Shengu Xuan's eyes finally reached its peak!
A savage wild boar totem exploded deep within his pupils!
The Pig Talisman!
Lightning Divine Authority, fully unleashed!
Bzzzz-hummm!!!
No hand seals.
No fluctuations of chakra.
No windup whatsoever.
Two arm-thick, pure dark red, high-energy laser beams
blasted from Shengu Xuan's eyes at the speed of light!
The two beams made no sound.
Yet they carried terrifying heat capable of distorting space itself!
This was no longer flame, nor was it lightning.
These were pure, highly concentrated rays of thermal energy capable of melting everything in the world!
Hiss!!!
The next second, a scalp-prickling sound of vaporization rang across the entire bridge.
Those thousands of ice senbon carrying absolute-zero cold,
the instant they touched the dark red laser beams,
did not hold out for even a millisecond. They simply... vaporized!
They neither shattered nor melted into water.
Instead, they skipped the liquid state entirely, turning straight from solid ice into scalding white steam!
Wherever the beams passed, they were like red-hot blades cutting through butter.
Every attack was effortlessly erased, without even a speck left behind!
"What?!"
Behind his mask, Haku's eyes instantly widened as far as they could, blood vessels covering his eyeballs.
The killing blow he took such pride in
had actually been vaporized in an instant by beams shot from his opponent's eyes?!
What kind of monster was this?!
Yet Shengu Xuan's attack had only just begun.
He turned his neck slightly.
Those two terrifying dark red laser beams were like a pair of light swords that could cut through anything.
Following his gaze, they began sweeping across the entire Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals formation!
Hiss! Rumble!!!
The first ice mirror was sliced straight across the middle the instant the beams touched it.
The cut took on a half-melted, glassy appearance before the mirror exploded with a crash, turning into steam that filled the air!
The second, the third, the fourth...
Wherever Shengu Xuan looked,
those sturdy ice mirrors, formed from the Yuki Clan's kekkei genkai and impervious to even Sasuke's Great Fireball,
were effortlessly sliced apart, melted, and vaporized as though they were made of paper!
The temperature across the entire bridge skyrocketed in that instant!
The thick mist that lingered year-round was instantly dispersed by the terrifying heat!
The air warped severely under the tremendous heat, making everything look blurry.
"Aaaaah!"
Haku, hidden inside an ice mirror, let out an agonized scream.
Although the beams had not struck him directly,
the terrifying heat, enough to cook someone even from over ten meters away, instantly ignited his clothes and burned his skin!
He could no longer maintain his ninjutsu.
He plummeted awkwardly from midair.
With a thud, he slammed heavily onto the scorching bridge deck.
Crack...
The Kirigakure Pursuit Squad mask on his face could not withstand the searing heat.
A crack opened down its center before it split into two halves and fell to the ground.
It revealed an exceptionally delicate, handsome face, now covered in red burn marks and filled with boundless despair.
"Whew..."
Shengu Xuan stopped moving.
The dark red glow in his eyes gradually faded, restoring their deep black color.
The Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals formation around him had vanished completely.
In its place
was a terrifying crater over thirty meters across, its surface scorched over a vast area, with even the concrete melted into magma in some places!
The air was filled with an acrid burnt smell and scalding steam.
Standing behind Shengu Xuan, Sasuke was utterly dumbfounded.
He stared blankly at the devastated bridge deck.
Feeling the lingering heat in the air that threatened to dry him out, his brain had lost the ability to think.
What just happened?
Shengu Xuan... used his eyes... to stare that kekkei genkai formation, the one I couldn't do anything against... out of existence?!
Was he even fucking human?!
The Sharingan Sasuke took such pride in felt like a ridiculous toy at that moment.
The Sharingan could see through genjutsu and copy ninjutsu.
But could it shoot beams that melted everything?!
"Control... is this what ultimate control means...?"
Sasuke muttered to himself.
He realized that the theory he had dreamed up earlier, before the divine-punishment-like power Shengu Xuan had displayed,
was laughably childish.
This was not control over the body.
This was trampling on the rules! This was the merciless crushing of this world's common sense!
"Decent power. Just a little hard on the eyes."
Shengu Xuan rubbed the slightly sore corners of his eyes.
His tone was as casual as though he were commenting that today's breakfast had not quite suited his taste.
He turned to look a short distance away.
There, Zabuza, who had been fighting Kakashi, had stopped moving entirely.
Zabuza stood rigidly in place, frozen in the posture of swinging his blade.
His murderous eyes were now fixed on the destroyed ice formation.
And on Haku, lying at the crater's edge, his fate unknown.
The ninjutsu he took such pride in had been instantly defeated by his opponent's Fire Release without any hand seals.
His most trusted tool, Haku, who possessed a kekkei genkai, had been instantly crushed by beams shot from his opponent's eyes.
Zabuza Momochi, the demon who had once unleashed bloodshed throughout Kirigakure,
finally experienced, at that moment, what it meant to feel...
true despair.
Before you continue