Shu Shiraishi withdrew his hand.
"Coordinates are clear."
He turned his head and looked at the Anbu in charge of fire control next to Orochimaru.
The Anbu was wearing a cat-face mask. Sweat dripped from the edge of the mask onto his forehead.
It smashed onto the metal workbench and shattered into several pieces.
"Target: East Blue of the Land of Fire."
Shu Shiraishi's voice was torn apart by the mountain wind, but every word was enunciated clearly.
"An uninhabited island two hundred nautical miles away."
"Emission."
The fire control officer in the Anbu swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty.
He raised both hands, his left hand covering the back of his right.
My palms were covered in slippery, cold sweat. I rubbed them against the hard plastic buttons.
Without hesitation, he aimed at the palm-sized red launch button in the center of the control panel.
It slammed down hard.
"Bang."
Press the button all the way down. The mechanical lock at the bottom will engage.
A high-pitched, piercing shriek, sharp enough to make your teeth ache, exploded with a deafening roar from the bottom of the railgun.
On the thick, pure copper rail, a dark blue high-voltage arc suddenly surged.
It went from being as thin as a hair to as thick as a thigh.
The electric light made the night even more blinding than at midday.
On the base of the cannon barrel.
The red blood steam churned wildly around Might Duy's body.
His feet were embedded in the steel plate like nails. The heat-insulating tiles beneath his feet melted directly into orange-red lava.
The rubber sole instantly vaporized, releasing a pungent, burnt smell.
The soles of his feet were pressed firmly against the scorching hot iron plate.
"Ah--!"
Dai let out a furious roar that seemed to tear his vocal cords apart.
The blood mist transformed into a solid red shield, firmly pressing against the weak point on the outside of the launch hatch.
The locking plate in the breech emitted a dull thud.
The electromagnetic thrust, capable of reaching 50,000 tons, was detonated in a sealed compartment.
"Boom--!!!"
A deafening roar that defies description.
This is not thunder.
This is the lament of space being brutally torn apart.
A blindingly bright, deep blue light erupted from the mouth of a massive, hundred-meter-long cannon.
That black nuclear bomb, as tall as a three-story building.
In that instant, they were completely freed from Earth's gravity.
It was violently hurled into the night sky by a terrifying electromagnetic thrust.
Speed. Ten times the speed of sound.
The air in front of the warhead is compressed into a solid wall.
Then it was shattered by the most violent kinetic energy.
Sharp sonic booms exploded in the air, creating concentric rings and white shockwaves.
The massive nuclear bomb transformed into a streak of pale blue meteor.
It trailed a long, white condensation contrail.
Like a knife slicing through the night, it whistles mournfully through the air, pointing straight towards the distant East China Sea.
The deafening roar of the launch traveled through the earth's crust and into Konoha simultaneously.
There was no time for them to cover their ears.
"Splash!"
East end of the village. Steel Plant No. 1.
The factory's glass windows, stretching for hundreds of meters, collapsed completely the moment the sound waves struck.
Broken glass shards, like sharp hailstones, poured into the workshop.
Several fat men from Akimichi who were working the Akimichi quickly lay on the ground, covering their heads with their hands. The backs of their hands were cut in several places by flying glass.
Konoha Commercial Street.
The ramen shop's signboard was so violently shaken that the iron nails snapped off and it smashed into two pieces on the bluestone slab.
All the shop windows along the street were shattered.
The noodle bowl bounced up on the wooden table, spilling soup all over the floor.
The shop owner behind the counter was so frightened that he crawled under the table and closed his eyes tightly.
The Hyuga Clan's ancestral home.
Several wooden sliding doors were blown off their tracks by the blast wave and fell directly onto the muddy ground in the yard.
Several branch family ninjas who were on night duty on the rooftop with their Byakugan activated had two tubes of blood flowing from their nostrils.
That was the backlash caused by the Chakra being instantly dispersed by the loud noise.
Their legs buckled, and they knelt on the roof tiles, their bodies trembling so badly they could barely stand.
Within a radius of ten miles.
Konoha, plus the surrounding forest.
Not a single piece of glass could be found intact; it was all shattered into pieces on the ground.
Even the dirty puddles on the street were shaken into dense ripples.
After the loud bang, there was a deathly silence.
The stray dogs on the street stopped barking. They huddled in the corner, shivering, their tails tucked tightly between their legs.
The civilians and ninjas slowly got up from the ground.
My ears were filled with a sharp, buzzing sound. I couldn't hear anything else.
They raised their hands and covered their ears tightly.
Hold your breath and tilt your head back.
The night sky was split in two.
A thick, white contrail stretched across the entire sky.
It lingered for a long time.
It's as if someone took a knife and slashed an indelible white mark in the black sky.
Hokage Building, third basement level, main control room.
Several large screens on the wall were lit up.
Yamanaka Fūshin slumped on a backless wooden stool.
The large metal headphones on his head had slipped down to his neck from the loud noise.
He was pressing his hands firmly against the copper antenna of the headphones.
In the control room, more than a hundred Yamanaka tribesmen all stopped what they were doing.
No one spoke. They stared intently at the largest screen in the center.
The screen is divided into left and right halves.
On the left is an optical image transmitted back by an unmanned ocean-going probe in the East China Sea.
The right side shows the energy fluctuation curve of the mental radar.
The Shinobi World at this time.
Land of Earth. Iwagakure. Tsuchikage's Office.
Ōnoki sat in a large chair.
The testing crystal on the table, used to monitor high-frequency Chakra, emitted a crisp sound.
A long, thin crack appeared.
The red light inside the crystal flickered wildly, so bright it was blinding.
The rough porcelain teacup in Ōnoki's hand fell to the ground and shattered.
The scalding tea splashed onto his cloth shoes. He didn't even notice the burn.
This level of energy fluctuation, thousands of kilometers away, struck the minds of the Iwagakure Perception Class like a heavy hammer.
Ōnoki's teeth chattered.
He stood up, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. His lower back cracked dryly.
" Konoha..."
He stared at the cracked crystal.
"What kind of monster did they release into the East China Sea?!"
Land of Lightning. Kumogakure.
Dai Raikage Dodai, wearing a coat, stood by the window in the corridor.
In the darkness, he vaguely sensed that the eastern sky had lit up abnormally for a moment.
The captain of the perception unit knelt behind him.
Blood flowed from his nose all over the floor, staining his chin.
"On behalf of Lord Raikage..."
The captain's voice was filled with despair; his throat felt like it had swallowed sand.
"That energy level... can't be measured!"
"All the base's pointers have been broken!"
Behind Konoha Mountain. Railgun Command Post.
The mountain wind howled.
Orochimaru half his body lying on the metal control panel.
The hem of the white coat fluttered wildly in the wind.
He ignored it, his two yellowish eyes fixed on the palm-sized portable screen in front of him.
The screen showed a signal from the main control room.
Shu Shiraishi stood by the railing.
His left hand rested on a rusty iron pipe. Rust stained his black leather glove.
He looked down at the screen in Orochimaru's hand.
Left side of the screen.
That's two hundred nautical miles east of the Land of Fire.
Under the cover of night, the waves roll.
A lush, green island lies quietly on the sea.
The island is covered with towering trees that take several people to encircle.
The night vision camera of the unmanned ocean probe perfectly captured the outline of the island.
A dozen seconds passed.
The waves continued to pound against the black rocks by the island, splashing up white Utakata.
It was so quiet it was as if nothing had happened.
Orochimaru swallowed hard.
" Lord Shu..." he managed to squeeze out a few words, his throat parched.
I was just about to speak.
The mental radar energy curve on the right side of the screen.
Suddenly, without warning.
From a gentle green line, it rises abruptly at a ninety-degree angle.
It violently shattered the highest mark at the top of the screen. The entire interface flashed a blinding red light.
The drone footage is shown on the left side of the screen.
Suddenly it lit up.
Several tens of seconds later.
The images transmitted back to the large screen via the Yamanaka Clan's spiritual radar and ocean probes were fully formed.
Yamanaka Fūshin sat in the underground control room, mouth agape, forgetting to breathe.
The Ōnoki, Iwagakure.
The Dodai Kumogakure.
The shadows, who overheard the earth-shattering energy fluctuations through the monitoring network, were among those who could hear them.
And Orochimaru staring at the screen from the command post.
Everyone.
At this moment, watching the footage being transmitted back.
My heart skipped a beat.