"This isn't even a fight against a shinobi…"
The killing intent and fury on the face of one Kirigakure shinobi had long vanished, replaced by bone-deep shock and uncontrollable fear.
He lifted his head, despairingly looking at the layers upon layers of trunks and branches that blocked out the sky and pressed down endlessly.
"The power of that Konohagakure shinobi… is like that of Gods. How could humans possibly be opponents of Gods…"
For such words, filled with despair and helplessness, to come from the mouth of a shinobi who had survived the brutal baptism of the Bloody Mist, it meant his will had already been completely crushed, driven to the extreme of despair.
Another Kirigakure shinobi, his face twisted, used every ounce of strength he had, gathering chakra into a rapidly spinning drill of water, and at last managed with great difficulty to blast apart another thick tree trunk.
But he, whose chakra was nearly exhausted and who was panting heavily… could only watch in despair as an even larger tree trunk, as though it had been waiting for this moment, suddenly thrust in from the shadows on one side, carrying irresistible force as it instantly sealed off and blocked the short-lived path of hope ahead.
He collapsed weakly to his knees, murmuring in a daze, his gaze empty: "How could it be like this? How… could the difference be this great?"
The next second, those tree trunks on his left and right, like giant arms, surged inward toward his position with the momentum of crushing everything!
[Splurt—!]
A muffled sound, like a water-filled bladder being instantly crushed.
In merely an instant, his entire body was squeezed apart exploded!
As easily as crushing a mosquito, scarlet blood mixed with bone fragments and flesh spattered across the rough trunks, painting a harsh and cruel crimson pattern.
He did not even have time to let out a proper scream before losing his life.
Becoming nourishment for this forest.
And while this large group of Kirigakure shinobi struggled bitterly and fell one after another in this jungle purgatory—
Uchiha Keizumi stood quietly atop the highest treetop of the Wood Release technique.
Here, over a hundred meters in the air, the airflow was slightly strong, stirring his robes.
From this vantage point, he could see nearly one-third of Kirigakure's village center.
The remaining lights flickered in the distance, forming a stark contrast with the deathly silent forest nearby.
He could also clearly see the small number of Kirigakure shinobi who, standing around the perimeter of the Wood Release's range, were too shocked to move forward and showed fear on their faces.
His gaze swept over the entirety of Kirigakure.
He noticed the buildings in the village—clearly more simple, more old, and even somewhat dilapidated compared to those in Konohagakure.
The atmosphere of the entire village, much like most towns in the Land of Water, was shrouded in an indescribable oppression and gloom, lacking vitality and hope.
If one ignored the continuous yet gradually thinning screams below, this dead silence would be even more apparent.
Endless sins had once sprouted and spread on this land.
The Blood Mist policy, like a malignant tumor, had corroded this village.
Uchiha Keizumi's gaze remained calm and without ripples.
"After tonight passes, although it may not immediately reach the level of prosperity and peace of Konohagakure, at the very least… it will be better than before. At minimum… some people who should have died yet still roam free, some who stubbornly cling to their rotten beliefs, whose hands are drenched in blood, will be judged by this absolute justice."
Uchiha Keizumi slowly raised one hand, his movements steady and unhurried.
As the five fingers of his hand gradually closed, forming a fist—
The ground began to emit an even more violent, deeper trembling, as if the earth veins themselves were wailing.
Within several hundred meters beneath his feet, those thick giant trees responded to his will, continuously twisting, intertwining, winding, and closing together with unprecedented power and speed!
The screams below seemed to grow more concentrated and more miserable due to the rapidly shrinking space.
Quite a bit of blood even seeped through the initial gaps between the trunks, slowly overflowing like a small stream and staining the ground red.
If one listened carefully, one could faintly hear the tooth-aching "crack, crack" sounds of things being crushed.
The sounds were dense and terrifying; it was unclear whether it was wood unable to withstand the immense pressure breaking, or human bones breaking.
The veins faintly visible on the back of Uchiha Keizumi's hand trembled slightly.
Below, because of the strong and forceful squeezing and entangling, each thick trunk had begun to show signs of splitting.
The sound of wood fibers snapping rang out endlessly like firecrackers.
And the screams mixed within, which had once been continuous, seemed to grow more and more sparse, more and more faint, until they were nearly inaudible.
The degree of contact between the trunks had grown so tight and seamless that not a single drop of blood could seep out.
All traces of life were sealed within.
And at this moment…
Countless thick trunks, streaked with blood and scorch marks, had twisted and coiled into an enormous, incredibly massive, complex spiral-shaped wooden sphere in the central region of Kirigakure!
This sphere had a diameter of several hundred meters, towering majestically!
The surface of the sphere was formed by the intertwining of three colors: the brown of tree bark, the crimson of spattered and solidified blood, and the tender green of newly sprouted leaves!
At this moment—
No screams rose from below anymore; aside from the occasional creaking of wood shifting under stress, all was dead silent.
The thick trunks no longer intertwined and closed together, as though all power and all objectives had already been fulfilled.
The faint veins that had surfaced on the back of Uchiha Keizumi's hand from exertion now faded away.
The hand he had raised slowly lowered.
The entire Kirigakure… along with the shinobi watching from afar, all fell into a deathlike, suffocating silence!
…
Terumi Mei had already been scared senseless, her mind blank, her delicate body trembling uncontrollably.
She could not imagine how so many elite shinobi of Kirigakure—including no small number of jōnin—had all been killed in such a short time as though they were stalks of grain being harvested.
Was it simply because the other party knew the First Hokage's Wood Release?
That reason now felt far too thin.
Or had Uchiha Keizumi, at the moment he stepped into Kirigakure, already let his chakra permeate the land and set up an ambush beneath the village…
So that the moment those "seekers of death" stepped into the range he had designated, they fell into his trap without any suspense?
Compared to the power Uchiha Keizumi had displayed, were the countless shinobi of Kirigakure truly this fragile and helpless?
Did traditional human-wave tactics truly have no effect at all against an existence of this level?
Back then, the Third Raikage—so strong that he was called the "Strongest Spear" and the "Strongest Shield"—had fought against tens of thousands of Iwagakure shinobi in successive assaults, battling fiercely for a long time before finally collapsing from exhaustion.
That had at least been a tragic and prolonged battle.
But now…
This was almost instant annihilation.
Could Uchiha Keizumi truly be stronger than the Third Raikage, who had been praised as the strongest Raikage in history?
Had he… really reached the level of the mythologized God of the Shinobi World, Senju Hashirama?
To be honest, Terumi Mei did not truly know how strong Senju Hashirama—the one once called the God of the Shinobi World—had been; that was, after all, a legend from more than half a century ago.
Within the limits of her imagination, she felt that the power of Senju Hashirama, who had suppressed the entire shinobi world through absolute strength and divided the Tailed Beasts, should be about the same as that of Uchiha Keizumi now.
After all, Uchiha Keizumi… had just suppressed the entirety of Kirigakure single-handedly, lightly and effortlessly!
Terumi Mei was even certain that even if all of them present—the ones who had chosen to stand aside and watch—were to rush forward together, the result would not be any different.
"…I can be sure now that he really was not sent by Konohagakure to invade our Kirigakure." Ao, next to her, spoke with a voice that still carried traces of uncontrollable trembling.
His complexion was pale, and cold sweat remained on his temple.
"I think that Third Hokage of Konohagakure simply could not command a monster like this. How could a powerhouse like him possibly obey a Hokage's orders?"