Madara Uchiha escaped a life-or-death crisis by using the Flying Thunder God Scroll. When news spread that he had been severely injured by the Golden Crow in the Falling Rock Plain, the winds of the northern region carried a deathly aura, and the morale of the Iwa ninja plummeted.
Thirty million ghost soldiers crossed the border again at this time. Most of them wore tattered armor, some were missing arms and legs, some had their heads tilted to the side, and their feet did not touch the ground when they walked, like wisps of floating gray mist. Wherever they passed, the wild grass withered at a visible speed, thick black water seeped from the dark brown soil, and even the stones were eroded with honeycomb-like holes.
"Stop them!" The Iwagakure commander roared, swinging his sword, but the Kunai pierced the ghost's body as if it were smoke, not even causing a ripple.
Instead, the ghost clenched its fist, making a loose grasp on the guard's chest. The guard suddenly let out a shrill scream, Chakra in his body surged out like water being drained, flowing out from the ghost's fingertips, finally turning into a ghostly blue phosphorescent flame that drifted into the ghost's broken armor. The guard himself instantly withered like a corpse that had been dried for ten years, and fell straight down.
"How the hell are we supposed to fight this?" A young ninja's legs went weak with fear, and his ninja tools fell to the ground. "Swords are ineffective, and Ninjutsu can't hit us..."
Before the words were finished, a woman's soft laughter came from afar. Lady Youtan, the regent of the Land of Ghosts, stood atop the makeshift Tower of Ten Thousand Spirits, her ghostly face beneath her hood facing the northern border, countless fine, hair-like threads of the underworld coiled around her fingertips. "Netherworld Escape - Night Cry of a Hundred Ghosts," she murmured.
Suddenly, wails erupted from all directions—not the cries of humans, but the howls of countless wronged souls. The sound waves transformed into invisible blades, sweeping across the Iwagakure's fortifications—the hard rock walls, as if weathered for millennia, crumbled and fell away with a "rustling" sound, eventually shattering into dust. The ninjas hiding behind were slashed and wounded by the sonic blades, their screams echoing throughout the area.
The cities in the North are as flimsy as paper.
On the first day, the three cities fell. Ghosts passed through the walls, draining the Chakra of the living inside and turning them into new ghosts.
The next day, seven more walls were lost. The Earth Release walls built by the defenders were eroded by the black water as soon as they were erected, leaving no trace of their remains.
On the third day, the last seven cities also fell. The defenders detonated their last Explosive Tag, intending to perish with the ghosts, but only a few bubbles were created in the black water.
Three million ghosts spread across the North, like a moving swamp of death; for eight hundred miles, there was no living creature left.
Meanwhile, the main force of the Land of Birds had advanced to the central plains of the Land of Earth.
Millions of warriors clad in black armor stood in formation, each with twisted runes drawn in blood ink on their foreheads, their eye sockets black and hollow, and black mist constantly billowing from their mouths. They were warriors cursed by Onmyoji, condemned prisoners of the Land of Birds in life, now turned into painless killing machines.
"Kill!" The leading Onmyoji raised his staff high, and blood-ink runes lit up in mid-air.
The cursed samurai suddenly let out beast-like roars, their black mist surging, their speed and strength multiplying several times over. A samurai with a severed arm was still wielding his sword, his intestines spilling out of his stomach and dragging on the ground, but he seemed oblivious to it, cleaving the head of Iwagakure Ninja in two with a single blow.
" Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!" A Jonin, Hand Seals and summoned a muddy expanse. Thousands of cursed warriors sank in, the black mud reaching their chests, rendering them immobile.
Before the Jonin could even Jonin his breath, the samurai stuck in the mud suddenly raised their heads in unison, their dark eyes fixed on him, and then they hurled their spears. The Jonin to dodge, but more than a dozen spears pierced his throat simultaneously, spraying blood into the Swamp of the Underworld and turning the black mud dark red.
The battle on the plains lasted for three days and three nights.
The Iwagakure ninjas fell in droves, their Earth Release corroded by the black mist, and their Ninjutsu devoured by the curse. A young female ninja was surrounded by three cursed samurai. She detonated the Explosive Tag on her body, shattering two of them, but the last samurai, with half his body severed, still dragged his mutilated body over and bit through her throat.
The blood mist, like a dirty rag, hung over the plain for three days without dissipating. The once fertile land was soaked in blood, turning into a bubbling red swamp; stepping on it, you could hear the "crack" of bones breaking.
The messenger stumbled and crawled into the commander's tent.
His armor was half-shattered, one leg was twisted unnaturally, and his face was covered in blood and mud. The moment he saw Tian Uguisu, he knelt down with a thud, his voice hoarse as if it had been sanded. " Lady Tian Uguisu... Western Front... Star Ninja has breached the Three Gates... Northern Front... Ghostly Corrosion stretches for eight hundred miles... Central Front... Cursed Samurai... are less than eighty miles from Iwagakure!"
Tian Uguisu stood before the sand table, a small wooden stick in her hand, its tip pointing towards the Rock-Wall Chasm. There, the stone golem army of Moryo continued to emerge, like an endless swarm of cockroaches. Her black and gold feather robe was covered in dust, and even had several cuts from stone chips, but in her Rinnegan, a ghostly green flame burned brighter than ever before.
"Okay." She tossed the small stick onto the sand tray, making a soft "snap" sound.
The elder of Ryūchi Cave couldn't help but speak up, "My lord, on this side of the Rock-Wall Chasm... the puppet army of the Moryo is advancing slowly, but their numbers are too great. If we retreat..."
"What can we do if we don't retreat?" Tian Uguisu turned around, her gaze sweeping over the generals in the tent. "Ban is seriously injured on the western front, and we can't hold the cities we've recaptured in the north and central front. If Iwagakure is gone, what's the point of us staying here to hold off the puppet army?"
She walked to the tent entrance, gazing towards the distant Iwagakure, where the faint mist of blood drifting from the center line could already be seen. "That reptile (referring to the Moryo ) likes to hide in the back; it can't cause any trouble for now," Tian Uguisu's voice was as cold as ice. "But the Three Nations Allied Forces is different; they want to uproot the Land of Earth."
Silence fell over the tent. Everyone knew what abandoning the Rock-Wall Chasm meant—the puppet army of the Moryo would seize the opportunity to counterattack, leaving the Land of Earth vulnerable on both sides. But now, they had no other choice.
Tian Uguisu suddenly raised her voice, her command echoing throughout the camp, "All Ryūchi Cave disciples, assemble!"
Soon, a dense swarm of snakes and disciples clad in rune armor gathered outside the tent, with the Eight-Headed Orochi coiled at the front, its eyes gleaming with ferocity.
"Leave the defenses of the Rock-Wall Chasm to the White Zetsu and the remnants," Tian Uguisu leaped onto the back of the Eight-Headed Orochi, her black and gold feathers unfurling in the wind. "Let's go and meet that Immortal Golden Crow."
She glanced down at the messenger lying on the ground, her voice carrying an undeniable authority. "Tell the brothers guarding various locations to hold on. Once I've killed that hairy beast, I'll go back to help them."
The Eight-Headed Orochi let out a deafening hiss and turned to fly westward. The swarm of snakes followed closely behind, casting moving Yin Shadow across the land.
From the direction of the Rock-Wall Chasm, the faint rumble of the stone golems could be heard. Tian Uguisu did not turn around; she knew that from this moment on, the life and death of the Land of Earth depended on this battle.