Yet Shinichi simply hovered in the sky while using this pure, direct method of overwhelming force to exchange a barrage of Ninjutsus with hundreds of enemy ninja without resorting to any tricks or retreating an inch.
Those who witnessed this scene were not limited to the Village Hidden in the Mist alone.
Within the distant forest, the Konoha force rushing toward the battlefield at full speed did not stop or slow down, but the pupils of each of them contracted sharply for a moment.
Leading the charge at the very front was Koharu Utatane.
In the minds of most people in Konoha, this elder advisor had always been known for her rigid, strict, and unsmiling demeanor.
However, few people remember that in her youth, she was precisely the most fiery-tempered and sharp-tongued of the six students under the second Hokage.
When Shinichi proposed that nearly insane plan during the meeting, Koharu Utatane not only approved it on the spot, but was now personally leading the army at the very front.
From this action alone, one could clearly see her style of conduct and the degree of trust she placed in that young man.
Because if anything went wrong with Shinichi's operation and it failed to achieve the expected results, then she, as an advisor and commander of the southeastern legion who had personally led troops in assaulting the enemy headquarters, would very likely be surrounded and annihilated here by Kirigakure forces rushing in from all directions.
And the situation on Konoha and the Village Hidden in the Mist front would instantly be reversed!
"He actually really did it..."
Ten steps behind Koharu Utatane, a middle-aged man with white hair and the head of the Tsuchigumo Clan, En no Gyoja, was rushing by at high speed.
His eyes were fixed on the young boy in the sky, single-handedly confronting hundreds of Kirigakure ninja, then swept across the Rinkai City below, which had already become completely ruined; his eyes were filled with disbelief and shock.
The Tsuchigumo Clan was an ancient ninja clan from the southeastern coastal region of the Land of Fire.
In this war against the Village Hidden in the Mist's invasion, they had likewise answered Konoha's summons and joined the southeastern legion's campaign against the mist.
As for En no Gyoja himself, he had only been informed of the specific operation shortly before departure.
And the moment he heard the plan, the first thought that came to his mind was that the leaders had completely lost their minds.
Just because of Shinichi Higashino's deduction and guarantee, they actually dared to wager the lives of several thousand ninjas, the commander's life, and the outcome of the entire front line?
Even if it was Shinichi Higashino, this was simply too insane.
But the scene before him, that city reduced to ruins, that figure beneath the thunderclouds exchanging direct bombardments with hundreds of enemy ninja through golden light, was telling him most directly and violently possible: The young man whom Konoha had wagered everything on had succeeded.
"The Fury Jutsu... Can it achieve this level?"
As he sprinted forward at high speed, this thought quietly passed through En no Gyoja's mind.
The Fury Jutsu was the secret forbidden art passed down through generations of the Tsuchigumo Clan.
Many years ago, the ancestors of the Tsuchigumo Clan had accidentally discovered an extremely powerful and extremely dangerous mysterious energy existing between heaven and earth.
It was everywhere, yet impossible to grasp, but under the amplification of this energy, the power of Ninjutsu would receive an explosive increase.
At first, the ancestors of the Tsuchigumo Clan attempted to further incorporate this energy into the human body and make it their own.
However, perhaps because they had not found the correct method, or perhaps because this energy simply could not act upon the human body, over all these years, no matter how they tried, every clansman throughout history who introduced this energy into their body died in various horrific and miserable ways, causing later generations to still shudder whenever they read the clan's records.
After that, the Tsuchigumo Clan completely abandoned the path of bodily absorption and instead focused entirely on how to use this energy to amplify Ninjutsu power.
That was the origin of the Fury Jutsu!
The mysterious external energy and one's own chakra were forcibly compressed and condensed together through a method that was both extremely crude and extremely ingenious.
The longer it was compressed and the denser it became, the greater the power upon release, just like a spring; the lower it was compressed, the higher it rebounded.
Namely: drawing in energy, storing energy, and releasing the energy.
The longer the storage period, the larger the destructive range.
En no Gyoja was the Clan Head who had mastered the Fury Jutsu more thoroughly than any previous Tsuchigumo leader.
He had once secretly calculated that if he stored energy with full effort regardless of cost, at most, he could destroy a medium-sized town.
As for a major city like Rinkai City, he truly had never even dared to imagine it. (Note: In the anime, this guy's Fury Jutsu destroys an area spanning hundreds of kilometers, but that's too ridiculous. This novel doesn't adopt that.)
"Increase the speed! We must support Shinichi immediately!"
Ahead, Koharu Utatane's voice suddenly rang out, forcefully pulling En no Gyoja back from his chaotic thoughts.
"Stop them!"
Sensing the situation and being the first to rush back in support, the Kirigakure force, led by Kaede Yuki, looked toward Yagura's direction, then toward the Konoha ninja charging fiercely from afar.
After a brief thought, she decided to intercept the Konoha forces first.
Boom!
The distance between the two sides rapidly shrank as they rushed toward one another.
In the next instant, all kinds of Ninjutsu exploded simultaneously from both armies.
Water tornadoes and wind blades collided violently at the front line.
Fireballs turned into endless white mist beneath the torrential rain.
The cold gleam of shuriken and kunai intertwined into a deadly net beneath the darkened sky.
For a time, the roar of Ninjutsu, the clash of blades, and the explosions of explosive tags mixed together, instantly dragging this ruined city once more into frenzied slaughter.
Shinichi stood suspended high in the air.
The sword seal formed by his right hand never stopped, while the fingers of his left hand spread slightly, controlling streams of invisible airflow that pushed successive golden lightning swords downward.
Sweat had already appeared on his forehead, and his complexion was becoming increasingly pale.
Maintaining an offensive of this scale continuously was by no means easy even for him.
Especially since drawing upon the typhoon's power earlier had already imposed a tremendous burden upon him.
But he is very strong now. With the right timing, location, and support, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call him the number one ninja in the world today!
After all, there simply wasn't anyone in today's Shinobi World capable of destroying a city and shattering mountains in a single strike while leaving nearly two thousand ninjas dead or missing.
The third Raikage couldn't do it.
The third Hokage couldn't do it.
Onoki couldn't do it either.
This level of large-scale attack, in the past, could only be achieved by Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha.
In the future, only techniques represented by Deva Path's Shinra Tensei could be compared, but in the current Shinobi World, no such thing exists.
Even a Tailed Beast Bomb fired by a Jinchuriki might not be capable of achieving this level of area attack.
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