After quickly finding a river to wash the blood off his body, Akashō transformed into Bertholdt Hoover and caught up with the Hidden Stone Village troops, who had fled some distance and were now resting in place.
At this moment, the several thousand of them were scattered about, slumped on the ground in disarray, heads lowered in a daze. A small portion of them were tending to their wounds.
Akashō pulled up Kokushibo's template and glanced at the reputation value at the bottom. Compared to before he arrived in the Land of Lightning, it had increased by a full 800,000. Combined with what he gained on the Earth-Fire battlefield, it was already enough to unlock an S-rank Villain Template.
But it still wasn't enough.
Akashō's third template was planned to be unlocked with 2.2 million reputation points—the strongest S-rank template. Only then would his chances of successfully going back to find the Third Raikage be much higher.
"Still a little over a hundred thousand short. Five thousand Hidden Stone Village ninja should be about enough."
Akashō scratched his head. It was partly his own fault for getting too carried away earlier. According to his original plan, out of those ten thousand ninja, at most only around two thousand should have died. But it couldn't entirely be blamed on him—after all, these hyena-like fighters were much harder than other ninja to instill fear in.
"Then I'll kill one to two thousand in the first phase, gather enough reputation to unlock the third template, and then harvest the remaining three thousand or so for reputation."
Akashō mentally divided the plan into two stages and curled his lips into a faint smile.
Perfect.
With his decision made, Akashō walked straight toward the resting Hidden Stone Village forces.
"Hm?"
Only when he approached the main group did anyone notice his presence—a man who looked like an ordinary civilian.
"Where did this civilian come from?"
"Seeing so many ninja and still daring to approach—does he have a death wish?"
These ninja were already filled with frustration from their defeat, and quite a few of them immediately released killing intent upon seeing Akashō.
A Hidden Stone Village ninja stood up and walked over to him, speaking coldly,
"What business do you have coming here, kid?"
Though his tone was icy, he didn't show too much hostility.
The reason was simple—caution.
Why would an ordinary person, seemingly unrelated to ninja, actively approach a group of ruthless ninja soldiers? Either he had backing, was a fool, or had some unavoidable reason. As a wandering ninja who had drifted outside for years, he had to assume the worst in every situation.
Akashō ignored the Hidden Stone Village ninja entirely. He simply swept his gaze across the army behind him. Only after confirming that many people had noticed him did he finally look at the ninja, whose expression had already grown displeased.
"You've all… already seen Kokushibo, haven't you?"
Kokushibo!?
Hearing that name, the surrounding Hidden Stone Village ninja immediately turned pale. The man in front of Akashō instinctively stepped back a few paces and pulled out a kunai.
"Who the hell are you!?"
Seeing the entire Hidden Stone Village army instantly tense up, Akashō revealed an extremely strange smile.
"Me? My name is Bertholdt Hoover."
"Bertholdt Hoover?"
Hearing the name he gave, confusion appeared on the faces of many of the ninja.
"Ah, never heard of it? That's fine—I also have another title."
Akashō stuck his thumb into his mouth, the coldness in his eyes causing several nearby ninja to shudder involuntarily.
"God of Destruction. You should've heard of that, right?"
The moment his voice fell, golden lightning appeared. With a thunderous boom from the sky, a bolt of golden lightning descended and struck his body.
This time, however, Akashō didn't trigger the transformation explosion. After all, his goal was to harvest reputation points, not to kill as many people as possible. Enough of this "crop" had already been cut down—he couldn't afford to waste more.
The golden lightning brought with it immense wind pressure, instantly blowing away all the Hidden Stone Village ninja within dozens of meters around him. Massive bones began appearing out of thin air, rapidly forming a gigantic ribcage as muscle fibers spread between them.
In just a few breaths, a 60-meter-tall Colossal Titan had fully taken shape.
Towering into the clouds, with exposed red muscles lacking any skin, and faint, irreversible steam rising from its surface.
The morning sunlight was completely blocked by the Colossal Titan. Thousands of Hidden Stone Village ninja were engulfed in shadow. They raised their heads blankly, staring at the enormous being larger than a tailed beast. With the light behind it, they couldn't clearly see its true form.
Their mouths hung open like idiots, as if they wanted to say something or scream—but not a single person could make a sound.
The scene before them made the Colossal Titan seem like a god descending out of nowhere, bringing hope to the Hidden Stone Village army. But in reality, they all knew this was no benevolent deity come to save them—it was the God of Destruction, here to claim their lives.
The God of Destruction, Bertholdt Hoover, seemed to be an ally of the Moon Sword Demon Kokushibo. Its first recorded appearance was on the Earth-Fire battlefield, where it single-handedly fought half of ten thousand ninja from two major village factions—including the Five-Tails Jinchūriki Han, who possessed Kage-level strength; Orochimaru of the Sannin; the Four-Tails Jinchūriki Rōshi, who had near-Kage strength; and the Ino–Shika–Chō trio from the Hidden Leaf Village, who could rival near-Kage-level fighters.
And the final result was—
The God of Destruction… achieved a complete victory!!