On the battlefield, Menma felt the surging Black Nine-Tails' Chakra within him and the vast Ocular Power provided by the Giant Tenseigan. An unprecedented sense of power filled his entire body.
Since leaving the Limited Tsukuyomi world, this was the first time he had been forced to use this mode.
However, it should be enough to deal with Jigen's Kama - Stage Two.
As for the stronger [Nine-Tails Sage Mode] that requires combining Senjutsu Chakra, he hadn't trained in Senjutsu Chakra yet… As for the high-cost Baryon Mode, he hadn't fully researched it yet.
What he preferred was the future Six Paths Sage Mode, but before that, he must get his hands on the second Ten-Tails that Isshiki had hidden.
"Warm-up is over." Menma's low voice transmitted through the chakra cloak, carrying an oppressive feeling that came like a tide.
The next moment, he moved!
Menma's speed in the Black Nine-Tails Chakra Mode had increased by more than just several times!
Everyone only felt a blur before their eyes. That dark red figure had already appeared in front of Jigen as if teleporting!
A right foot covered in condensed Chakra, carrying an ear-splitting screech, fiercely kicked Jigen's abdomen!
"What?! Such speed!" Jigen only had time to exclaim in surprise before his entire body was sent flying backwards even faster than Menma had flown out earlier, as if hit by a high-speed train again!
However, this was just the beginning!
Menma's figure blurred again. Utilizing the extreme speed brought by the Black Nine-Tails Chakra Mode and the coordinates of the Flying Thunder God kunai, he appeared like a ghost on the path of Jigen's flight. Fists covered in dark red Chakra fell like rain!
Each punch contained the power to split mountains and crack stones, smashing hard onto Jigen's hastily blocking arms and torso!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The dull sound of impacts continued incessantly. Even Jigen in his second stage Kama was completely plunged into a passive state of being beaten!
He tried to counterattack, tried to use Sukunahikona to shrink and evade, but under Menma's absolute speed and power suppression and the Byakugan connected to the Giant Tenseigan that could see through all his actions, all struggles seemed futile!
After a few rounds, Jigen was already vomiting blood wildly. The gorgeous robe on his body became even more tattered. Even the curved horn on his forehead showed fine cracks!
He was beaten without any ability to fight back, like a sandbag being pummeled back and forth in the air above the battlefield by Menma!
This scene completely stunned everyone!
The Akatsuki's members, Jiraiya, and even Orochimaru were dumbfounded!
They could hardly capture Menma's movements. They could only see a dark red streak of light constantly flickering, while the mysterious man who was previously invincible and called himself a god was being thrown around in a wretched state under the repeated impacts of the light!
Only Deva Path with the Rinnegan and Obito with his Mangekyo Sharingan activated could barely keep up with the super high-speed combat rhythm. But the more they could see, the greater the shock in their hearts!
This power... had completely surpassed their understanding of 'Ninja'!
"Damn it!!!" The humiliation of being completely suppressed and the intense physical pain drove Jigen into a furious rage!
He hardened his heart, no longer worrying about consumption, and suddenly activated the backup plan he had previously laid out around the battlefield!
Hum-!!!
In an instant, centered on the area where Jigen and Menma were fighting, countless Chakra Rods that he had secretly scattered earlier, in their microscopic state, were instantly enlarged!
Thousands upon thousands of black rods, emitting an ominous aura, densely filled the entire sky and ground like a suddenly grown forest of death, shooting indiscriminately towards the central area!
"Be careful!" Konan exclaimed, her paper wings fluttering as she quickly flew backward.
Obito and Zetsu also immediately used their respective means to evade. Obito phased, Zetsu submerged underground.
Deva Path propped up a repulsive force field with Shinra Tensei, deflecting the rods shot at him, while flying to a higher position.
However, amidst this storm of countless rods, Menma, at the center of the storm, merely indifferently raised a single hand and gently pushed it towards the empty space in front of him.
"Shinra Tensei."
A terrifying repulsive force, so vast it was hard to imagine, erupted explosively with him as the center!
Different from Deva Path's repulsive force that required cooldown and had a limited range, the Shinra Tensei Menma executed seemed effortless, with a wider range and greater power!
Boom Boom Boom-!!!
All the Chakra Rods shooting towards him, before this irresistible repulsive force, seemed to hit an intangible, indestructible wall. They one after another shot back at even greater speeds, even colliding and breaking in mid-air!
For a moment, the sky was filled with broken, shattered rod fragments!
"What?!!" Deva Path's Rinnegan widened sharply, filled with disbelief and shock!
'This move...! Could he be... Shura?!' He would never forget the battle in the Land of Stars, where Shura used a kind of Chakra Remote Transmission, utilizing Shisui's body to perform an ability against him!
Obito's expression beneath the mask also changed drastically.
'First the Chakra Rods, then Shinra Tensei, this guy!'
Jigen, seeing even this final killing move easily countered by the opponent, finally flashed a trace of ruthlessness and desperation in his eyes.
He suddenly pressed his palms together and activated an even stronger power!
[Daikouten!]
The sky above twisted violently!
Dozens of enormous black cubes, with edges glowing with red lines, appeared out of thin air!
These cubes emitted a chaotic, heavy aura. Not only could they interfere with sensing, but they themselves contained terrifying destructive power!
They descended like falling meteors, carrying the momentum to destroy everything, smashing hard towards the area where Menma was!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The huge black cubes successively smashed onto the ground and the remaining structures, creating deafening roars!
The entire battlefield seemed to welcome doomsday. The earth cracked, dust soared into the sky, swallowing everything!
However, amidst the chaos and smoke created by this destructive attack, no one noticed that a dark red portal opened silently beside Menma.
A powerful suction force came, and Menma's figure was instantly sucked into it, disappearing.
Immediately after, the vortex rapidly closed.
The dust slowly dispersed. On the battlefield, only the widespread mess and Jigen, floating in the air and panting heavily, remained.
The Akatsuki's members vigilantly observed, only to find that the black-haired youth's aura had completely vanished.
…
A barren, dead world.
The sky was an eerie dark purple, without sun, moon, or stars, only an eternal, unchanging dim light.
The earth was dry and cracked, covered with huge craters like those from meteor impacts. There was no sign of life, not even the wind seemed to move.
Menma's figure emerged from the dark red portal, appearing at the bottom of a giant crater. He looked around, sensing the unique laws of this space and the natural energy so thin it was almost negligible.
'This should be the other dimension where Isshiki fought Naruto and Sasuke.' Menma thought to himself, confirming his location.
Just then, a familiar black-red vortex portal slowly opened in the dark purple sky above him.
Jigen's figure stepped out gracefully from it, floating in mid-air, looking down upon Menma at the bottom of the crater from his superior position.
His face had regained that arrogant expression of being in control.
"Even if your abilities are strong, in this other dimension completely under my control, you are just a turtle in a jar, a bird in a cage." Jigen's voice carried a cold echo, especially clear in this dead space.
"There is no food, no water, no Chakra replenishment here... even the flow of time is different from the outside world. I want to see how many days you, this slightly stronger insect, can struggle to survive here?"
He intended to use the characteristics of this other dimension, with its long time and endless solitude, to wear down and torment Menma, ultimately forcing him to submit or die exhausted.
However, facing Jigen's death sentence, Menma suddenly laughed.
The laughter carried a sense of relief, and also a hint of... the playfulness of a hunter finally waiting for his prey to fall into the trap.
"Jigen," Menma raised his head, the heterochromatic pupils flashing with sharp light: "I should thank you."
"Thank me?" Jigen frowned slightly.
"Yes," Menma cracked his neck slightly, making a soft clicking sound. "Outside, some trump cards and commotions are indeed not very convenient to use. After all, scaring the flowers and plants wouldn't be good."
"Come out and say hello, Kyu-chan!" Before his words faded, a dark red Chakra far more terrifying and vast than before in Amegakure, as if it wanted to burst this other dimension, erupted from beneath Menma's feet like an awakening ancient ferocious beast!
Boom!!!
A pillar of dark red Chakra shot into the sky!
Within this pillar, the shadow of a giant beast, large enough to rival mountains, rapidly solidified!
Its entire body showed an ominous dark red color, with a fox-like outline. But its eyes burned with flames of nothingness. Nine tails, completely constructed from dark red energy, danced behind it like pillars supporting heaven and earth, emitting a savage and destructive aura that made the entire other dimension tremble!
Roar!
The Black Nine-Tails roared!
Menma's figure stood steadily on the head of the Black Nine-Tails. The dark red Chakra Cloak fluttered fiercely under the agitation of the massive energy. The twin horns on his head and the white light of his right eye reflected each other, like a demon god descending upon this dead world!
Jigen, floating in mid-air, looked up at the giant beast completely different from all the Tailed Beasts he knew, emitting an alien Chakra that made his soul tremble.
The arrogance and composure on his face completely vanished, replaced by extreme shock, anger, and a trace of disbelief and bewilderment!
He perceived a Chakra aura on this Black Nine-Tails completely different from the Ten-Tails and the Nine Tailed Beasts, but he was absolutely certain, absolutely... absolutely not a Tailed Beast as he knew it!
Time and again, things beyond his understanding plunged Jigen into deep confusion. An unknown fear enveloped him. This was an unknown creature he had never encountered in his tens of millions of years of traveling the universe since his birth!
Jigen's cheek twitched, almost grinding his teeth, squeezing out the question from the depths of his throat:
"You... what exactly are you?!"