The arena's sandy floor had been ravaged beyond recognition.
Every sweep of the Nine-Tails Celestial Fox's phantom tails plowed deep furrows through the ground.
Every punch Tsunade threw detonated a transparent shock wave in the air.
The fifty thousand soldiers' breathing had long since grown ragged, their hearts pounding with every collision in the arena. This was the strongest duel they had witnessed in their lives-Peak Kage-level Quake Release against the Mythical Zoan Nine-Tails Celestial Fox.
At the highest point of the stands, Toyotomi Yinglang remained seated in his stone chair, his moon-white Kariginu spotless, a faint smile on his lips.
His gaze pierced the dust and settled on the figure transforming at the center of the sand.
The Nine-Tails Celestial Fox phantom suddenly contracted. It did not dissipate; it collapsed inward. As though seized by an invisible giant hand, the elemental phantom, over ten meters tall, was pressed back into Kushina's body little by little. Nine colors of light flowed, intertwined, and merged around her, finally becoming a thin, nearly transparent nine-colored membrane that clung tightly to her skin.
Kushina's body began to change as well. Her three-meter-tall full beast form slowly shrank, finally settling at around two meters. Her build was more humanoid than in her full beast form, but retained the Nine-Tails Celestial Fox's distinctive features-nine tails still swayed behind her, only shortened to about a meter; her golden slit pupils remained sharp, but two pale golden fox markings now extended from the corners of her eyes; her hands still had a human shape, but her nails had become sharp fox claws, their surfaces shimmering faintly with nine colors; her red hair still fell to her waist, nine-colored foxfire still dancing among its strands. An extremely faint nine-colored halo covered her skin, as though she wore an