Chapter 28: The Wrath of a God
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Albert's fist was still pressed against Naruto's cheek.
The blond boy hadn't taken a single step backward. His head hadn't even turned from the impact, while his hair partially obscured his eyes.
For several seconds, nobody said a word.
Albert, breathing heavily, kept his fist raised, still convinced that he had just taught a lesson to the boy who had dared to defy him.
Behind him, his companions remained silent.
Some stared at Naruto in surprise, while others exchanged glances, waiting for the blond boy to react in some way.
After all, Albert wasn't someone who could be humiliated without consequences. Or, at least, that was what everyone had believed until that moment.
Naruto slowly raised his gaze. His face showed no particular expression. There were no shouts, no grimace of pain, not even a reaction that might offer some insight into what he was thinking.
However, his eyes told a different story.
His pupils began to narrow, taking on the shape of vertical slits. The change was subtle at first, but one look at them was enough to sense that something about him had changed.
Tiny electrical discharges flickered across his irises, appearing and disappearing like miniature lightning bolts.
Naruto didn't take his eyes off Albert.
His expression remained unchanged, although his jaw had tightened slightly. He didn't seem concerned about the blow he had received, but rather annoyed by the mere fact that someone had believed they had the right to hit him.
And then, something began to weigh down on everyone present.
It wasn't a force they could see, nor an invisible hand holding them in place. It was an overwhelming sensation that constricted their chests and made it difficult to breathe.
The air itself seemed to have grown heavier.
Albert's companions stopped moving.
One of them tried to take a step backward, but his legs barely responded. Another opened his mouth to say something, yet no sound managed to escape his throat.
Even Albert had frozen in place. His fist was still near Naruto's cheek, but his fingers had begun to tremble.
He couldn't understand what was happening.
Why couldn't he move?
Why did he feel that something terrible would happen if he dared to take even a single step?
The same pressure reached Mikasa.
The young woman had watched the confrontation from nearby, accustomed to the arrogance of someone like Albert. However, this was different.
She had witnessed dangerous situations before and knew what it meant to stand before an enemy capable of killing without hesitation. But she had never experienced anything like this.
Her body reacted before her thoughts could catch up.
Danger.
An instinctive warning flashed through her mind, forcing her to hold her breath.
Naruto was standing in front of her, only a few steps away. And yet, for the first time since she had met him, she felt that there was something about him she couldn't understand.
Something she should fear.
And despite that, her first concern wasn't to get away.
It was Naruto.
There was something strange about his gaze and the lightning bolts flickering through his eyes. He seemed to have stopped paying attention to everything around him.
Mikasa didn't know what he was about to do, but she was certain that she had to stop him before something irreversible happened.
Even so, she tried to move.
She wanted to get closer to him. She wanted to stop whatever was about to happen.
"Naruto..."
Her voice barely managed to leave her lips. She took a small step forward...
Then it happened.
Naruto moved.
There was no spectacular strike, no combat stance, not even a movement that could be interpreted as a conventional attack.
He simply pushed Albert.
It was a simple, almost casual gesture. Naruto barely extended his arm, as though he were trying to move something annoying out of his way.
But the result was terrifying.
Albert's body was sent flying as if he had been struck by a monstrous force. His feet left the ground and, before anyone present could react, he hurtled several meters through the air.
His back slammed into the wall of a nearby house.
CRAAACK!
The deafening crash echoed down the street, accompanied by the sickening sound of bones breaking.
A moment later, a spray of blood stained the wall before falling onto the rubble piled at its base.
"AAH...!"
Albert's scream broke off into a strangled sound. His body came to rest partially against the cracked wall. One of his legs bent at an unnatural angle, while one of his arms hung limply at his side.
The pain was indescribable.
He tried to breathe, but every movement of his chest brought unbearable agony. Blood filled his mouth, and his eyes, wide open, couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
The wall had stopped his flight. If it hadn't been there, he probably would have kept flying until he crashed into another building.
"H... hel..."
Nobody answered.
His companions remained frozen.
Some had grown so pale that they looked ready to faint. Others stared at Albert in horror, unable to reconcile the sight of the bloodied boy with the arrogant young man who, just moments earlier, had been boasting about his status.
One of them tried to approach, but stopped when he looked at Naruto.
He didn't know what was worse: leaving Albert there or drawing the attention of the person who had just thrown him against a wall with a simple movement of his hand.
Mikasa couldn't look away either.
She had seen Naruto push Albert.
That was all.
She hadn't witnessed an elaborate attack or a technique she could recognize. Just a movement of his hand.
And yet, the result had been devastating.
Her eyes shifted toward Naruto, who was still standing in the same place, showing no obvious emotion.
He didn't seem satisfied, surprised, or even interested in the condition of his victim. He simply watched Albert with the same annoyance he had displayed from the moment he had been struck.
As if the whole thing had been nothing more than a minor interruption.
Naruto tilted his head slightly.
"Why would you dare to hit me?"
His voice was calm.
"Who gave you permission?"
Albert tried to lift his head.
"You... bastard..."
He couldn't finish.
The pain forced him to close his eyes, and another thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Naruto watched him for another moment. Then, he lost interest in his words.
After all, he hadn't asked because he needed an answer.
Albert had done something he shouldn't have. To Naruto, the matter was that simple.
He didn't care about his surname, his money, or the position his family might hold. None of that gave him the right to hit him.
And Naruto saw no reason to tolerate such behavior.
He extended his hand as he retrieved something from his inventory.
Mjölnir.
However, when something appeared in his hand, he didn't feel the familiar, smooth handle of the war hammer he had expected, but an uneven, irregular one instead.
Looking down, he noticed that instead of Mjölnir, his other weapon had appeared: Stormbreaker.
Naruto stared at it for a few seconds.
"Huh?" he muttered, looking at it in confusion as he examined it for a moment. "This isn't the one I wanted."
He didn't seem particularly concerned about the mistake. After all, it was still his weapon.
And he could use it.
After reaching that brief conclusion, Naruto adjusted his grip on the handle and raised Stormbreaker above his head.
The sky responded.
The wind changed direction, and clouds began gathering over Ehrmich, rapidly darkening the sky. A gust swept through the streets, lifting dust and causing abandoned pieces of cloth to whip violently in the air.
Everyone present looked up.
A deep roar echoed overhead. It wasn't the sound of an ordinary thunderclap. It was as if an entire storm had suddenly awakened.
Small bolts of lightning appeared among the clouds, illuminating rooftops and building facades with flashes of white and blue.
Naruto remained motionless.
His blond hair began to flutter under the force of the wind. Then, a bolt of lightning formed directly above him.
The discharge descended with overwhelming force.
KRA-THOOOM!
The lightning struck the axe directly, unleashing such an intense flash of light that everyone present had to close their eyes.
Electricity surged through Stormbreaker and passed through Naruto's body, enveloping him completely. Lightning coiled around his arms and coursed through his torso without causing him any harm before flowing back into the weapon.
Naruto lowered his hand slightly, staring intently at his target.
And because of this, he failed to notice the change taking place in the war axe.
As the lightning's energy accumulated around Stormbreaker, several flashes of color began mixing with its radiance.
First, a faint red glow appeared.
Then, a blue one.
Green, yellow, purple, and orange joined the others, intertwining around the weapon in irregular patterns.
The six colors danced wildly, as if different forces were struggling to overpower one another.
Space itself seemed to tremble.
The small stones covering the ground began to vibrate. Some rose a few inches into the air before falling back down, while nearby cracks spread under the pressure of that energy.
But Naruto paid no attention to any of it. He didn't even realize that the Infinity Stones had begun to react.
His anger, combined with his connection to the Infinity Stones and the power of Thor coursing through Stormbreaker, had triggered a response he hadn't deliberately intended to provoke.
The Stones began to resonate with one another.
The Power Stone's energy spread through the weapon, while the forces of Space and Reality began distorting the surroundings. The other Stones reacted as well, contributing to an accumulation of energy that Naruto neither understood nor was attempting to control.
This wasn't simply an electrical discharge.
It was the convergence of forces capable of altering the world in ways the inhabitants of Ehrmich couldn't even begin to imagine.
And he didn't even know it was happening.
His eyes remained fixed on Albert.
The boy was still slumped against the wall, unable to get up. His breathing was weak and ragged, and his hands trembled as he tried to drag himself away from the blond boy.
For the first time in his life, Albert understood what it meant to be completely helpless.
His money couldn't save him.
His surname couldn't protect him.
And none of the people present seemed capable of helping him.
"N... no..."
Naruto didn't respond.
For a brief moment, time seemed to stand still. Then, Naruto threw the axe.
Stormbreaker left his hand and shot toward Albert, surrounded by a spiral of blue-white electricity and multicolored flashes.
The air exploded around it.
BOOOOM!
The shockwave swept through the streets, knocking everyone to the ground. The windows of nearby buildings shattered simultaneously, while the paving stones lifted into the air and were hurled in every direction.
The axe advanced at a speed impossible to follow with the naked eye.
Albert barely had time to raise his eyes.
Then, Stormbreaker struck him.
The impact was concealed by an explosion of light. For a fraction of a second, Albert's figure disappeared behind a blinding white and multicolored radiance.
Then, the energy accumulated within the weapon was released.
The deafening roar shook the foundations of nearby buildings. A shockwave swept down the street, ripping doors from their hinges and causing walls to crack from top to bottom.
And the axe didn't stop.
Instead of losing its force after the impact, Stormbreaker continued forward, propelled by an energy that far exceeded what Naruto had intended to unleash.
Ehrmich's district ceased to be a recognizable place.
The nearest buildings crumbled under the pressure. Walls split apart, rooftops were torn away, and the streets opened into deep fissures that spread along the weapon's path.
Electrical discharges raced through the remains of the houses, while distortions in space twisted the structures before they could finish collapsing.
At the same time, temporal energy manifested in brief anomalies.
Some stones seemed to move backward through time for a few moments, returning to their previous positions, only to disintegrate immediately afterward. In other places, the movement of debris suddenly accelerated, as if several seconds had passed in a single instant.
All of this was happening without Naruto understanding the magnitude of what he had caused.
As far as he was concerned, he had simply thrown an axe.
A weapon that should have hit Albert.
But Stormbreaker continued on its course, carving its way through streets and buildings. Every obstacle it encountered became another victim of its devastating trajectory.
Houses collapsed one after another. Carriages were reduced to fragments, and facades crumbled into the streets, leaving behind an enormous trail of destruction.
Screams began to mingle with the deafening roar.
Some residents ran without knowing where to go. Others were trapped beneath the remains of their homes, while those who had managed to escape desperately tried to help their family members.
A merchant, covered in dust, stood frozen in front of what had once been his shop. A few meters away, a woman screamed someone's name, but no answer came from the other side of a collapsed wall.
But nobody had time to understand what was happening.
The storm continued to roar overhead.
And the axe kept moving forward.
Finally, Stormbreaker reached the Wall.
The gigantic structure, which had protected humanity for more than a century, couldn't withstand the force of the impact.
The stone fractured with a deafening crash.
A massive breach opened in the Wall as fragments of its structure came crashing down on both sides. Cracks spread outward from the point of impact, and the shockwave finished destroying the nearby buildings that were still standing.
The ground shook beneath the feet of those who could still remain standing.
From the streets of Ehrmich, the opening looked like a gigantic wound in the barrier that had represented humanity's last line of defense for generations.
And now, it was broken.
Then, the energy began to dissipate.
The electrical discharges weakened. The multicolored flashes gradually disappeared, and the radiance surrounding Stormbreaker faded until only a few sparks remained.
The axe finally came to rest among the rubble after tearing through the district and smashing its way through the Wall.
The silence that followed was almost absolute.
For several seconds, the only sounds were the creaking of structures as they finished collapsing and the clatter of falling stones.
Then came the screams.
The survivors began calling for help, shouting the names of their family members, and desperately searching through the rubble.
Some knelt beside the wounded. Others tried to move the stones blocking the entrances to their homes. In the distance, a child's voice cried out while someone desperately called to them from the other side of the debris.
Nobody understood what had just happened.
Nobody knew what kind of force could cause such destruction in a matter of seconds.
Mikasa was one of the first to react.
Dust still clung to her clothes, and her body felt numb from the shockwave. She slowly got back to her feet, looking around as she tried to comprehend the scale of what had happened.
The buildings that had been standing moments earlier were now piles of stone and timber. The street had become unrecognizable, and beyond the ruins, an enormous breach cut through the Wall.
Her gaze shifted toward Naruto.
The blond boy stood motionless, staring at the trail of destruction stretching out before his eyes.
His expression remained unchanged.
The annoyance hadn't completely disappeared, but there was something else in his gaze now.
A hint of confusion.
He had wanted to hit Albert.
Why had everything ended up being destroyed?
Mikasa said nothing.
She wanted to approach Naruto, but the screams of the survivors made her turn toward the ruins. People were injured, and others were trapped. She couldn't just stand there and do nothing.
Before moving, she looked at the boy once more.
He was still Naruto.
The same Naruto who had walked beside her and taken an interest in things other people considered insignificant.
But he was also the one who had just caused this catastrophe.
Mikasa didn't know what to think. She wasn't even sure she understood what she had witnessed.
Finally, she headed toward the nearest survivors. For the moment, helping the wounded was the only thing she could do.
Meanwhile, Naruto remained motionless.
Black clouds still covered the sky above Ehrmich, while the wind swept dust across the ruins.
The enormous breach in the Wall remained open, like a wound that could never be concealed.
Around him, the survivors began looking at him.
Some watched him from behind the rubble. Others stood frozen, unable to take their eyes off the boy standing in the middle of all that destruction.
There was no admiration on their faces.
Only fear.
To them, Naruto wasn't a boy who had made a mistake. He was the one who had appeared in the middle of a storm and destroyed everything in his path.
A being whose strength surpassed anything they could comprehend.
Naruto didn't understand those looks.
Nor did he understand why nobody seemed willing to approach him.
He only knew that he had wanted to punish Albert and that, for some reason, his actions had ended up affecting many more people.
And somewhere among those ruins, the source of all that destruction remained the same.
A blond boy.
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