"What?!"
That utterly calm voice, brimming with endless mockery, swept away all the joy and fervor on Konoha's side like a freezing wind from the depths of the underworld.
The smile on Hiruzen Sarutobi's face abruptly froze.
His clouded old eyes went wide, fixed on the center of destruction below, shrouded in smoke and dust.
Impossible.
This was absolutely impossible.
That had been his strongest strike, one he had staked everything on and exhausted eighty percent of his chakra to unleash.
Even a tailed beast could not possibly have taken that head-on and emerged unscathed.
How could he still be alive?
"An illusion! It has to be an illusion!"
A Konoha jonin screamed hysterically, seemingly trying to dispel the fear within him this way.
But reality was cruel.
Whoosh.
A breeze blew past, slowly dispersing the smoke and dust hanging over the enormous crater.
A figure in white gradually appeared before everyone's eyes.
Uchiha Gen'yō.
He still stood at the very center of that enormous crater.
He still wore that same calm, unruffled air, his hands clasped behind his back.
Not only was his white robe undamaged, it did not even have a speck of dust on it.
It was as though that earth-shattering explosion had been nothing but an illusion that had nothing to do with him.
Unscathed.
Truly, utterly unscathed.
Hiss.
Sharp intakes of breath rose one after another.
The entire battlefield once again fell into deathly silence.
Every Konoha ninja's face was filled with utter terror and disbelief, as though they had seen a ghost.
The Hokage they took such pride in, the invincible "Shinobi Hero" in their hearts, had staked everything on his strongest strike, only to fail to touch even the hem of his opponent's clothes.
This was no longer a battle. This was a god toying with mortals.
"No, impossible! What is going on?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi's body shook violently in midair.
His convictions, his pride, everything he possessed as the "Shinobi Hero"-the incomprehensible sight before him shattered it all at that moment.
He could not understand.
He could not understand at all.
What kind of defense could ignore an energy impact of that magnitude?
"You really want to know why, don't you?"
Uchiha Gen'yō raised his head and looked at Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had completely lost his composure and looked deranged. His smile brimmed with cruel mockery.
"Then I'll let you die knowing."
He slowly extended his right hand and lightly closed it toward a massive rock weighing several tons in the distance.
"Kamui."
Hum.
The space in front of the massive rock distorted.
The rock actually vanished into thin air.
Immediately afterward, space distorted again on the other side of the enormous crater.
The massive rock reappeared out of thin air.
Space-Time Ninjutsu!
At the sight, Hiruzen Sarutobi's pupils abruptly shrank to pinpoints.
"The Flying Thunder God Technique? No, that's not it!"
"This feels like that Masked Man's dōjutsu!"
He finally realized it.
Uchiha Gen'yō actually possessed the same bizarre dōjutsu as that mysterious Masked Man.
"Half right."
Uchiha Gen'yō snapped his fingers.
"That scurrying rat and I do have similar abilities, but they're also completely different."
"His ability transfers his body, or objects he touches, into another time-space."
"But I..."
The corners of Gen'yō's mouth curved into a godlike smile.
"I can place myself in a special state between 'existence' and 'nonexistence.'"
"In this state, any physical attack, any ninjutsu, is ineffective against me, because none of them can hit me in the first place."
"They'll only pass through my body."
"Like this."
As he spoke, Gen'yō's figure actually grew somewhat illusory and transparent.
He slowly walked toward a broken rock wall nearby, then passed straight through it before everyone's horrified eyes.
It was as though he had no physical form at all.
"In... intangibility."
Watching this, Ōnoki struggled to force the word from his throat.
His back was already completely drenched in cold sweat.
Intangibility that ignored every attack, and attacks that forcibly distorted space.
With both abilities in one person, how could they fight him?
He was simply invincible.
"Do you understand now, Hiruzen Sarutobi?"
Uchiha Gen'yō's figure became solid again.
He looked at the utterly stupefied Hiruzen Sarutobi as though he were looking at garbage.
"Your era ended long ago."
"Those Five Basic Nature Transformations you take such pride in aren't even fit to give me a tickle."
"From the moment you decided to make enemies of us Uchiha, your fate was already sealed."
With that, Gen'yō paid no further attention to the old man, whose fighting spirit was completely gone.
His gaze turned toward the Konoha ninja, who had already been scared out of their wits.
Killing intent a hundred times more terrifying than Hiruzen Sarutobi's oppressive presence erupted from his body.
"All right, the warm-up is over."
"Next, it's time to take out the trash."
Gen'yō slowly raised both hands.
Behind him, an enormous, hideous skeleton made of pure purple chakra slowly began to emerge.
Ribs, spine, arms.
It was only the upper half of a skeleton, yet its towering, overwhelming presence made everyone on the battlefield tremble from the depths of their souls.
Susanoo!
"No, don't..."
"Run!"
"We're no match for him! Run!"
The Konoha ninja's last psychological defenses crumbled completely at the sight of that demon-god-like purple giant.
Screaming and crying, they scattered like birds and beasts, fleeing desperately in every direction.
"Only thinking of running now?"
"Too late."
Uchiha Gen'yō's voice was like the final verdict of the god of death.
The purple Susanoo slowly raised its enormous, mountain-sized arm.
Vast quantities of chakra began gathering wildly in its hand, but what formed was not the all-piercing Totsuka Blade. Instead, it was an enormous, ornate Fūma Shuriken over a hundred meters in diameter, with spatial rifts flickering along its edges.
"The game's over."
Uchiha Gen'yō's voice echoed between heaven and earth.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi, use your life and the lives of these subordinates of yours to bring this farce you started with your own hands to a perfect close."
"How many of Konoha's pursuit force do you think will be left after this shuriken strikes?"