The ground beneath their feet was cracking.
The dome of rock overhead was peeling away too, massive boulders smashing down.
Shinju steadied himself, eyes locked on the two figures ahead.
One of them was a giant forcibly fused together from the Moon's internal rock.
Its body was rough and heavy, yet its core gave off an eerie presence.
Above the giant's head hovered a tiny human figure, wrapped in green energy—Toneri.
The other was a wooden Buddha statue.
Ever since the old war between Hashirama and Madara, this move hadn't really been used much. Even for the "legends" present here, it was the first time seeing it.
The Buddha's body pierced through the dome and the abyss of this underground world. Just sitting there, it towered several heads above the stone demon Toneri controlled.
Behind it spread dense arms—thousands upon thousands.
Hashirama stood atop the Buddha's head, hands clasped together, eyes heavy-lidded.
In Shinju's mind, the system alarms screamed as data streamed like a waterfall.
[Warning: Detected super-standard life energy reaction!]
[Warning: Detected super-standard natural energy reaction!]
[Energy Level: Unable to estimate!]
[Threat Level: World-Ending!]
He ignored the noise and transmitted the key information as simply as possible.
"Hashirama-sama, the enemy's core is in the chest—energy concentration is highest there!"
"Received!"
Hashirama's reply echoed through the collapsing space.
Toneri looked down at the wooden Buddha below.
He couldn't understand what he was seeing.
A mere mortal—a native of some planet—how could he possess chakra this terrifying?
The quality and quantity of it made Toneri feel as if he were facing his ancestor, Hamura.
No… maybe even stronger.
"Impossible…" Toneri muttered. "A mortal can't have this kind of power!"
His pride and bloodline wouldn't allow him to admit defeat.
Toneri slammed both hands downward.
The giant stone golem roared, lifting a fist like a mountain and smashing it toward the wooden Buddha.
One blow—enough to shatter continents.
Facing that world-destroying strike, Hashirama's expression didn't change in the slightest.
He even threw his head back and laughed.
"Hahahaha! Otsutsuki brat!"
The laughter was bold, overflowing with absolute confidence.
"Then let me show you what true 'divine power' really is!"
The moment his words fell, his clasped hands separated.
"Senpō: Mokuton: Chōjō Kebutsu (Sage Art: Wood Style: True Several Thousand Hands)!"
The Buddha moved.
Those thousands upon thousands of arms behind it all swung out at the same time.
An overwhelming shadow crashed down.
Countless fist afterimages linked together into a curtain of punches—an unavoidable barrage.
Compared to that, the stone golem's fist was laughably small.
At the very first instant of contact—
The golem's right arm exploded, turning into countless fragments of stone spraying outward.
Then came the second punch, the third punch, the hundredth, the thousandth…
The roar of impacts fused into a single endless thunder.
Cracks like spiderwebs spread across the golem's huge body in an instant.
The fractures widened, deepened, and tore.
Before the Buddha's relentless combo, its strength looked pale and powerless.
The color drained from Toneri's face.
He watched his proud creation buckle under the assault.
Three seconds of fist-rain.
That was all it took for the once-invincible stone golem to be pulverized into dust, dispersing into the collapsing world.
Toneri had expected the enemy to be strong—but not this strong.
Not "can't even last three seconds" strong.
With his power shattered, Toneri was hit by backlash. His body dropped from the air.
But the battle didn't end there.
While unleashing that heaven-splitting attack, a few of the wooden Buddha's thousands of arms peeled off from the main barrage.
With a gentleness and precision utterly mismatched to their size, they bypassed the battlefield and reached toward the distant altar.
On the altar, Hanabi lay quietly.
The wooden arms carefully lifted her, steadily delivering her back to Shinju without the slightest harm.
Shinju caught Hanabi and immediately checked her condition.
Her eyes were injured, but it wasn't fatal—once Toneri was dealt with, they could be transplanted back.
Her vitals were stable. She was simply asleep.
Shinju's heart steadied slightly, and he looked back to the battlefield.
Hashirama's power—he'd seen it before, yet it still shook him every time.
The system chime sounded again.
[Target 'Toneri' data updated.]
[Tenseigan Chakra Mode analysis progress: 78%]
[Giant Stone Golem structure data recorded.]
[Weakness analysis: energy core fragile, mobility poor, cannot respond to saturation attacks.]
Shinju sorted and archived the data instantly.
Just then, Toneri stabilized his fall.
When he looked at Hashirama now, there was no contempt left—only extreme fury and fear.
In a direct contest of power, he'd lost completely.
"Since I can't beat you with power…"
Toneri's green chakra surged explosively.
"Then we'll decide it with speed!"
Green light gathered in his hand, forming a light-sword honed to the extreme.
The system issued a sharp warning.
[Warning! Detected high-density energy aggregate!]
[Analyzing… composition: Gudōdama (Truth-Seeking Orbs)…]
[Skill name: Kinrin Tensei Baku (Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion).]
[Threat Level: Planet-Class!]
Shinju immediately warned Hashirama.
"Hashirama-sama, careful! He's changing attack methods— that sword—"
Before he could finish, Toneri vanished from where he stood.
A green streak—so fast it was beyond what the naked eye could catch—ripped through space and shot straight toward Hashirama atop the wooden Buddha.
Too fast!
So fast that even Shinju's dynamic vision could only barely catch an afterimage.
Hashirama clearly sensed it too, the massive wooden Buddha beginning to shift into a defensive posture—
But at that moment—
"Hashirama, step back," Madara shouted.
Hashirama's movement paused for a beat, a complicated expression flashing across his face.
"This opponent… leave him to me."
A Perfect Susanoo wielding twin blades moved in front of True Several Thousand Hands.
And the green streak arrived.
Toneri, gripping Kinrin Tensei Baku (Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion), swung down hard at the suddenly appearing purple giant.
Clang—!
A deafening impact rang out, echoing through the Moon's interior.
The golden light-sword and the purple chakra blade collided, and the shockwave alone shattered all the huge falling rocks nearby into powder.
(End of Chapter)
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