Chapter 96: Who Withstood a Thermobaric Bomb? A Werewolf!
It was a thermobaric bomb.
Sasori still threw it exactly as Kenichi had instructed, sending it plunging toward the Eight Tails on the ground. The moment he saw it leave Sasori's control, Kenichi could only pop his parachute and use Wind Release to drift away from the blast center as fast as possible.
He did not get far.
A scorching heat wave surged up from below and slammed into him, blasting him upward like a fist. With the parachute catching the air, Kenichi was suddenly lifted even higher than the hot air balloon.
The heat hammered his back. Kenichi sucked in a sharp breath, realizing the weapon was even more brutal than he had imagined. Fortunately, he was high in the sky and far from the core killing zone, so the damage to him was limited.
When he looked down, he saw a mushroom cloud climbing rapidly. A shockwave expanded from its heart, so clear it was almost visible to the naked eye. It tore across the battlefield with devastating force, knocking shinobi off their feet like grass in a storm.
"In open terrain it looks more spectacular, but the lethality drops a lot," Kenichi muttered, rubbing his chin. "Next time, for a wide open battlefield, maybe fuel air explosives would be better."
It was not that thermobaric weapons were weak. In Kenichi's eyes, fuel air explosives were simply more economical and practical. If you cared about cost effectiveness, fuel air was the better choice.
The prerequisite was getting the schematics.
Thermobaric weapons were terrifying in confined environments. In the open, their advantage was reduced, especially the part where they could strip oxygen and create a vacuum like effect. Still, even reduced, it was more than enough.
In front of countless eyes, the thermobaric bomb made its second perfect appearance.
Under the intense heat and violent pressure of the explosion, the Eight Tails, Gyuki, let out a furious roar. Because it stood at the blast center, it was the first thing struck by the shockwave and the heat wave.
Almost instantly, Gyuki's outer hide charred and peeled, exposing raw tissue beneath. Temperatures above 2,000 degrees Celsius could melt most organic matter. If not for Gyuki's monstrous constitution, it would have been roasted beef on the spot.
But heat was only half of it.
There was also crushing pressure. A patch of skin the size of a thumb endured five hundred kilograms or more. In the instant of detonation, Gyuki was nearly driven flat into the ground.
"What?!" Gyuki trembled violently, pain ripping through him. The last time he had suffered like this was when that idiot Kurama slammed him, but even a Tailed Beast Ball never felt like this.
Worse, when the blast passed, Gyuki suddenly realized he could not breathe.
It was as if the air had been stolen. His lungs seized, and the simple act of drawing breath became impossible.
"I…" Killer B grit his teeth inside the Eight Tails. "I don't know either."
He had never seen a ninjutsu like this.
There was no defensive barrier this time to dilute the explosion, and the moment the black object fell, it was already too late. His attention had been dragged upward by the lightning that fell from the sky. By the time he recognized the bomb was much smaller than the lightning, its fuse had already been triggered.
Then came the violent blast, the searing heat, and the shockwaves that swept the battlefield clean.
A rushed over, but even he could not stop the explosion in time. In the instant of impact, B acted on instinct and shielded A with his tail.
At that moment, the Fourth Raikage's rage was about to detonate.
His plan had still failed to catch the enemy. Not only that, the opponent had directly resisted a Tailed Beast Ball. That level of strength was at least elite jonin, and possibly higher.
A Kage level fighter who could strike from the sky made A's mood turn viciously ugly.
Still, there was one piece of luck.
Even without a protective barrier, the sheer bulk of the Jinchuriki in front of them had blocked part of the blast, allowing the main force of Kumogakure to survive.
The shinobi outside that cover were not so fortunate.
Genin near the blast point were vaporized almost instantly. Their defensive jutsu might as well have been paper.
Even chunin and above, who had followed A's orders and erected layers of defenses like Earth Walls, found those jutsu shredded in seconds. The heat and shockwave smashed through them, flinging the shinobi sheltering behind them into the air like broken dolls.
The pressure was even worse than the burns.
Even survivors suffered severe internal damage. Many collapsed, unable to move, doing nothing but coughing and vomiting blood.
On the front lines, shinobi fighting Leaf forces were struck from behind by the heat wave and shockwave. Some Leaf shinobi were caught as well. For a brief moment, the entire battlefield fell into a stunned silence.
Burns spread across bodies. The air filled with a nauseating stench of scorched meat.
"Kage level…" Hiruzen, positioned far from the blast, watched with a grim expression. ANBU had blocked the worst of the shockwave for him, so he was not in danger.
But seeing the battlefield ahead turned into a scene of misery made his heart sink.
He had seen countless jutsu in his life. He had never seen anything like this.
"Jade's strength is… impressive," Nagato said quietly, eyes narrowing.
He already knew a quarter of Kumogakure had been destroyed before, but witnessing this level of destructive force in person still shocked him.
For a moment, Nagato even thought that when his future plan began, he might not need to use a super Shinra Tensei at all. He could simply send Kenichi to erase Konoha.
He did not let excitement take over, though.
If it had been him, Nagato believed he could have repelled that strange weapon with a single Shinra Tensei before it even landed.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, had moved closer to see more clearly.
The shockwave ripped through the area and tore apart the fresh face he had just applied, revealing golden hair and strikingly handsome features beneath.
Kakuzu, who had been deep in thought, snapped out of it so hard his mouth almost fell open.
Orochimaru was actually a woman?
And, to Kakuzu's disbelief, a rather cute looking one at that.
The realization left him completely bewildered.
If this got out, plenty of people's eyes would pop right out of their skulls.
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