Chapter 396: The Destruction of Konoha Once More
In an instant, the entire world fell silent. In the distance, Tsunade—still running—froze midstep as she turned her head.
The giant bird flying just a hundred meters from Li Yao suddenly stopped flapping its wings. Its tiny pupils locked in wide-eyed shock, frozen in place.
Jiraiya, the closest to Li Yao, widened his eyes in horror—his expression frozen as well.
Dust. Pebbles.
Falling clouds and lightning.
Everything… seemed to stop.
Crack.
Only the sound of a single fracture rang out—right at the point where Li Yao's fist and Might Guy's foot met.
A sharp, white crack extended outward from the point of contact—splitting space in all directions, up, down, left, right. Like a young sprout growing into a towering tree, countless razor-sharp white cracks spread out rapidly, webbing across the surrounding space like a spiderweb. Only the ground beneath the two remained untouched.
Crack crack crack...
The sound of the air shattering filled the space.
Invisible shockwaves radiated from the spreading cracks. Wherever they passed, space compressed like it was under the pressure of the ocean's deepest trenches—crushing everything in its path.
Jiraiya, being closest, disintegrated like a sheet of paper sinking into the ground.
Crackkkk… Time, which had seemingly stopped, suddenly surged forward as the air's cracks violently expanded.
Then—
BOOM!
The hundred-meter radius around Li Yao and Might Guy collapsed as if a giant pressure dome made of reinforced glass had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. The immense compression finally shattered space itself.
In that instant, it was as though the pressure of the deepest ocean exploded outward—an energy shockwave akin to a nuclear blast.
A blinding white light filled the world, consuming everything.
A kilometer away, Tsunade and the others were blinded by the flash. Their vision went completely white.
On the ground, a white sphere with a hundred-meter diameter swelled and then detonated.
The terrifying shockwave surged outward like a thousand-meter tsunami, consuming everything in its path.
The land beneath it collapsed like an inverted tidal wave—dropping dozens of meters in an instant.
"Wha… did Konoha just get destroyed by a falling boulder?!"
On a distant mountain, several kilometers from Konoha, a three-man team from Kumogakure—sent to gather intel on Sasuke—stared in disbelief. A silver-haired, dark-skinned ninja sucking on a lollipop looked at the scene blankly.
He had just passed gas, and imagined it might blow a rock down the mountain. Then he wondered—what if that rock caused a landslide and destroyed Konoha?
That had only been his imagination.
But now… Konoha was really gone.
"Idiot, that was obviously not a rock!"
His red-haired female teammate smacked the lollipop ninja upside the head, glaring as she scolded him.
Then her expression turned serious.
"But… you're right. Konoha really was destroyed."
From their vantage point on a mountain ten kilometers away, they had a clear view.
The once-stable terrain around Konoha now looked like a lake that had been struck by a falling mountain—an unstoppable tidal wave obliterating everything.
And that terrifying shockwave—pure white and expanding—was coming toward them, fast and seemingly undiminished.
"Earth Style: Earth Wall!"
The team's leader—a blonde, fair-skinned kunoichi with massive assets and an icy demeanor—instantly formed hand seals and summoned a massive stone wall in front of them.
BOOM!
WHAM!
The moment the wall rose, the shockwave hit like a sledgehammer.
Behind the wall, the three instinctively turned away. Around them, giant trees bowed from the pressure—many snapping like twigs.
Even behind the wall, they could hear it cracking and groaning from the force.
"What kind of attack hit Konoha just now?!"
"Was it the Nine-Tails going berserk?!"
They were ten kilometers away. Yet the shockwave, even after traveling that far, could still break trees and batter stone walls.
Such devastation… Only a Tailed Beast Bomb could compare.
They were all stunned.
"…"
"…"
"…"
As the shockwave passed, the three emerged from behind the wall and were once again shocked.
Shrapnel embedded into the mountain. The trees that hadn't fallen were now stripped bare. Every last Yuzu was gone.
The path leading toward Konoha was a wasteland.
Broken stone, shattered branches, charred remains—all strewn across a scarred and uneven battlefield.
"What kind of terrifying power is this?!"
"Good thing we took so many detours on the way here. If we'd arrived earlier…"
The silver-haired ninja with the toothpick looked pale, shaken by how close they had come to death.
"Let's go."
"Huh? What?!"
The silver-haired ninja suddenly turned when he heard the voice of their leader—Samui, the fair-skinned ice queen. She was already walking ahead.
"Hey, hey, Samui! We're going to Konoha right now?!"
Samui, personal aide to the Fourth Raikage, was elegant and deadly. She looked calm on the surface, but deep down she was a caring big sister type.
Now, standing in front of her younger subordinates, she looked annoyed—but her face remained cold and serious.
"Yes. Move out."
Few words. Absolute certainty.
She stepped past them, those long white legs carrying her toward the foot of the mountain.
"Samui, didn't you see that?!"
As she walked, Omoi and their other teammate, the red-haired Karui, ran after her.
Omoi made frantic hand gestures, mimicking the size of the explosion.
"That kind of power—if it hits again, we're dead!"
"Yeah, completely dead, Samui!"
Karui echoed, her face full of dread.
"We should wait. Let's make sure there won't be another explosion before we go into Konoha!"
Karui nodded frantically. "Mhm! Mhm!"
Neither wanted to risk being caught in that cataclysm.
"Idiots."
Samui couldn't take it anymore. She cursed under her breath.
Then she explained:
"Exactly because the last attack was so powerful, we must move immediately and collect intel. If something like that hits the village, and we don't know anything about it, how do we protect our comrades? Our civilians? Are you suggesting we gamble with their lives just because we're scared?"
(END CHAPTER)
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