Chapter 358: Sword Sweeps the Tenshu Peak, the Final Battleground!
The bombardment raged on for an unknown length of time, until the barrels glowed red, like they'd just been pulled from a smelting furnace.
Smoke and gunpowder billowed high from beneath the city walls, rising straight into the sky, obscuring everything from view.
In the occasional gaps, a glimpse revealed a devastated landscape below—a land riddled with craters, scarred from relentless shelling.
Golden skies, crimson earth, burning branches, and countless shredded corpses littered the battlefield.
"Is he dead?"
"There's no movement. If you ask me, the first shell probably blasted him into dust!"
"That brat… is he finally dead?"
Atop the wall, countless Hidden Cloud shinobi stared grimly downward from between the battlements.
Killer Bee, his face flushed red with anxiety, forced his chakra-exhausted body to the front, shoving past several comrades to peer down from the parapet.
"In exchange for over two thousand Hidden Cloud lives, we launched a full saturation assault on Uchiha Ci…"
"Even my big brother, clad in his strongest Lightning Release Armor, couldn't possibly survive an attack like that!"
Clenching his fists, Killer Bee slammed them against the wall. His eyes burned hot with emotion as he growled with certainty:
"That brat—there's no way he could still be alive!"
But then—
The dense smoke suddenly quivered.
"Wait… Look! Over there!"
"What the hell is that!?" one of the Hidden Cloud shinobi shouted in horror, pointing into the distance.
All eyes turned. About 500 meters from the wall, a beam of light pierced through the smoke!
It was searing, blazing, almost illusory—like a fire lotus blooming skyward.
It tore through the shroud of smoke, and a sudden surge of wind cleared their vision in an instant.
Then they saw it.
Within the blazing column of light, a boy stood, raising a radiant orb of swirling, five-colored energy in his hand!
The earth trembled beneath his feet.
In the next instant, a massive hand formed entirely of flame erupted from behind him, bursting forth from the ground.
It grasped the boy and the light in his hand.
The skeletal fist clenched—
And with a mighty upward swing—
A seventy-meter-tall Susanoo burst from the earth!
It shredded the flowing sands, cracked the ground, and tore through all restraint.
Towering before the fifty-meter-high wall, its eye sockets blazed with cold, raging fire as it gazed down upon the world!
"This…"
"This…"
The glorious giant of light reappeared—a scene so unforgettable that the stunned Hidden Cloud shinobi were left speechless, as if struck by lightning, frozen with mouths agape.
"Impossible!"
"How could he be completely unharmed?!"
"This entire operation, all of it, was planned specifically to eliminate him!"
Killer Bee stared blankly at the scene before him, his heart sinking like it had been filled with cold lead.
"Lord Bee! Lord Bee!"
"Look! That giant—look at its right hand!"
One of the shinobi beside him went berserk, shaking Bee's shoulder and pointing at the Susanoo's right fist in panic.
"He's going to attack!"
Snapping back to reality, Killer Bee followed his line of sight.
There, atop the Susanoo's right fist, bolts of lightning were leaping and crackling!
From the lightning, a five-colored colossal sword—over a hundred meters long—materialized and extended outward!
And then—
The Susanoo bent its knees, leapt into the air with a thunderous quake, and in a motion completely beyond anything one would think possible from Susanoo—it spun a full 720 degrees mid-air, wielding the giant sword in a spiraling motion that pushed its initial speed past the sound barrier, shattering the air and slicing through the clouds.
Then—it hurled the sword directly toward the section of wall where Killer Bee stood!
"Fsssssshhhhh!!!"
A piercing sonic boom exploded across the battlefield, assaulting every eardrum on site.
The five-colored greatsword shot forth like a blinding beam of light!
Staring at the incoming attack, bathed in its radiant glow, Killer Bee's face contorted, his expression turning deathly pale from the sheer pressure in his chest.
"Too strong… Too strong! Too strong!!"
"Why?! Why is this brat this strong!?"
"Why!!!"
Within the depths of his mind, the Eight-Tails roared in panic:
"Bee—RUN!!"
"That's not a technique you can withstand!"
"Run—run as far as you possibly can!!"
"Run?" Killer Bee bit his lip, face white, body trembling, tears finally streaming down like broken pearls.
He—Killer Bee—had been driven to tears by Uchiha Ci.
"Where can I run!?"
He suddenly pointed behind himself—toward the towering rock pillar just five kilometers away.
Atop it stood the Tenshu Pavilion.
Uchiha Ci's sword hadn't even been aimed at the wall.
It was meant for the Tenshu Pavilion five kilometers away!
Killer Bee could vaguely sense the power of this strike.
It far surpassed even his earlier Yasaka Magatama.
If this sword hit its mark, that place would be obliterated.
Everyone there would fall six hundred meters from the shattered heights—
And then—
Be vaporized at the center of the explosion.
If the goal was only to break through the fifty-meter outer wall, this newly summoned Susanoo could have simply walked through it.
"…"
Hearing Killer Bee's anguished cry, the Eight-Tails let out a sorrowful sigh. Something had become clear to it.
Compressing endless thoughts into the space of a single second, the mental world fell into stillness.
After a long pause—
Man and beast both raised their heads at the same time, as if sensing that their time together had reached its end.
The Eight-Tails extended a massive fist.
From its round, white eyes fell a single tear.
Heavy with emotion, it spoke:
"Bee… go."
Killer Bee gave a bitter smile, raised his fist, and met the bump.
In the real world—
"Aghk—A'ba!!!"
Killer Bee's face twisted fiercely, cold light shooting from his eyes, his expression a mask of rage and sorrow!
Then—
He pressed his palms together and roared with all his might:
"HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
In the next instant—a seventy-meter-tall beast burst from the ground atop the city wall!
It slammed its colossal foot down, bent its legs, and with all eight octopus-like tails layered before it, it lunged directly toward the incoming five-colored beam!
The light-sword obliterated the Eight-Tails' tails upon contact—grinding them to dust with devastating force!
Then—the sword crashed directly into the Eight-Tails' full-body form, driving it into the wall—
BOOM!!
The wall collapsed in an instant!
The second defensive perimeter was annihilated!
But the force of the five-colored sword didn't stop there. It kept pushing the Eight-Tails' body backward, tearing a two-kilometer-long trench into the ground!
Finally—
The elemental forces within the sword core's spiral surge activated—
BOOM!!!
The earth was swallowed whole, mountains and forests disintegrated into nothingness!
A giant mushroom cloud engulfed the Eight-Tails' full-body form.
A massive ring-shaped shockwave burst outward from the explosion's epicenter, sweeping across nearly three kilometers!
The entire Tenshu Pavilion quaked from the impact of this blow—a single sword intercepted by a Jinchūriki staking his life to protect it!
Heaven and earth fell silent.
And in that light-drenched silence—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The Susanoo giant charged forward across the scorched earth, using its shoulders to batter the breach in the wall!
CLANG!!
The giant broke through in one unstoppable push—
Uchiha Ci had finally set foot on the ultimate battlefield!