With that thought, Hiruzen Sarutobi let go of his last trace of doubt and stopped probing. His expression turned serious as he asked, "Yunchuan, Tangdong and the others said that before leaving, you used Byakugan and saw what happened afterward, correct?"
"I want to know what you encountered, who you met, and what exactly happened in the end." The concern and testing were done. It was time to address the real matter.
As if recalling that terrifying scene again, fear appeared on Yunchuan Hyuga's face. "They're dead. All of them," he said, his voice trembling. "That thing, that Root member, wasn't human. That kind of power isn't something a human should have."
At the same time, on the border of the Land of Hot Water, four figures stood in silence under the night sky. "Whew…" Samui let out a long breath, as if exhaling the chill in her chest and steadying her lingering fear.
Standing there and looking around, the terrain of the area was clearly visible. It was like the cap of a mushroom, with their position at the highest point and the surrounding ground lower on all sides.
Aside from where they stood, the ground everywhere else was carved with savage trenches stretching all the way to the distant end a kilometer away. The devastation spoke plainly of the violence and terror that had passed through here. Just looking at those marks, one could almost feel a sharp edge.
Samui closed her eyes and pictured what had happened. A single person stood at the center, releasing a tornado-like Wind Release Ninjutsu that shredded everything ahead into dust, leaving behind a bare, desolate stretch of land.
Not only that, the person had even controlled the tornado to turn in a full circle, sweeping and destroying everything around like clearing trash. Such a force, enough to be called a natural disaster, was wielded as easily as moving an arm, while people and objects that tried to block it with flesh and bone were reduced to dust, their blood, flesh, and bones buried in the soil.
This kind of power was beyond ordinary measure.
"How could this kind of power exist?"
The more Samui imagined that scene, the paler her face became. It was no wonder Atsui and the others had mistaken this place, because the area was simply too vast, with nothing but flat desolation as far as the eye could see. From where they stood, it looked empty and lifeless.
But if one looked down from above, the entire region resembled the inside of a meat grinder. The ground was soaked in dark red stains, as if "livestock" had been crushed into pulp not long ago. The sight alone was enough to make one's stomach turn.
Everything within dozens of kilometers had been wiped away. The same stretch of land had turned into a barren waste where nothing could grow. Even the surface of the earth had been plowed into depressions several meters deep.
How could such power belong to a human? How could something like this be done by human hands? Samui could not imagine how anyone could achieve it.
She had seen scenes far more brutal and bloody in the past. Yet she had never encountered anything like this, where the lingering fear and stench of blood seemed to hang in the air and refuse to fade. It was as if she could smell the blood torn from bodies by the hurricane, and hear the screams and panic of those Kumogakure ninja just before they died.
This terrifying power that reshaped the terrain did not seem like something a human could possess. Even the Third Tsuchikage Onoki's Dust Release had never reached such a dreadful range. How could someone with such strength have been completely unknown before?
Samui looked toward a deep, pitch-black hollow in the distance, and a bold guess slowly formed in her mind. Unless that person had appeared suddenly, without warning. Only that could explain it.
"Sis, what should we do?"
Atsui asked beside her, his voice unsteady, while the other two chunin were just as lost. The three of them had found many Kumogakure Forehead Protectors, and even one or two Konoha Forehead Protectors. But there were no bodies at all.
There were no corpses, neither from Kumogakure ninja nor from Konoha ninja. Only an overwhelming, choking stench filled the air, impossible to disperse, and the soil beneath their feet was stained red. Faced with this, even fools would understand where the bodies had gone.
Samui stared at the bottomless hollow for a moment, then withdrew her gaze and let out a slow breath. "Do nothing unnecessary. Go back and report to the Raikage," she said calmly. Though her instincts told her the truth lay right there, she chose the most rational option.
If that "monster" with such power was still nearby, it was not something the four of them could provoke. Their figures soon vanished into the night, and even after they left, no living creature dared approach the area.
It was like a traveler in the forest coming across the remains of prey torn apart by a beast. Even if the predator had already eaten its fill and left, the violent aura lingering in the air was enough to drive away greedy wild dogs and wolves. The land itself seemed to warn them off.
Only when everything fell into complete silence did something shaped like a pitcher plant push halfway out of the blood-red soil. The huge plant slowly opened, revealing a half-black, half-white face. It was White Zetsu, with Black Zetsu attached to its body.
"What a terrifying human," White Zetsu said with a sigh. "Good thing I stopped you earlier and we did not rush out, or we would have become fertilizer too."
Black Zetsu said nothing, staring at the scene in front of him as he fell into silence. That person's appearance had truly exceeded his expectations. Even hiding deep underground with the Mayfly technique, he could still feel the dreadful presence of that attack.
That strike was probably still weaker than a super Shinra Tensei, but Black Zetsu could tell that the person had been in a weakened state. If he recovered to his peak, he might truly rival Madara in his prime. And those eyes were even more unsettling.
Recalling the distant glimpse of those blue eyes made Black Zetsu feel restless, even afraid. For a being like him, who lacked direct power and relied on schemes, the most frightening thing was the unexpected. In his millennia of memories, the Rinnegan should have been the pinnacle these inferior humans could reach.
Even Otsutsuki Hagoromo had only been so strong in life, and the stronger Rinne Sharingan had belonged solely to his mother, Kaguya Otsutsuki. So why had an unfamiliar eye, no weaker than the Rinnegan, appeared now? There seemed to be only one possibility.
"Someone from beyond the sky."
At this thought, ripples spread across Black Zetsu's body as it trembled with fear. In the Ninja World, had one of the "same kind" from his mother's memories truly appeared? An eye even his mother never possessed could only belong to such a being.
"No, this is the chance I waited a thousand years for. No one will stop me from freeing Mother," Black Zetsu narrowed his hollow eyes. "I must make Obito and Nagato begin collecting the tailed beasts immediately."
If this Rinnegan had not been the one he waited for all these centuries, Black Zetsu would have hidden away long ago. At the very least, he would have waited until the outsider's identity was confirmed. But now there was no choice, because this was the best and final opportunity.