The battlefield situation developed at terrifying speed.
The Third Raikage's ferocity, combined with Kumo's elite forces, created an extremely savage fighting force.
The four Tailed Beasts were still locked in combat, but Iwa's carefully constructed defensive line collapsed in just one day under the Raikage's unstoppable blade.
BOOM!
Another massive Earth Flow Wall was shattered by the Raikage's Hell Stab. The Iwa shinobi maintaining the jutsu from behind were caught in the lightning backlash and suffered heavy casualties.
The collapse of this key position was like the first domino falling.
Iwa's already strained defensive line instantly developed a massive breach.
"We can't hold! Retreat!"
"Fall back! The Raikage is coming through!"
Panic spread like a plague.
Iwa's will to resist crumbled rapidly in the face of the Raikage's rampage.
The front-line Iwa forces began a large-scale rout, discarding weapons and armor as they fled backward like a broken dam.
The bounty hunters who had been embedded in Iwa squads were now completely panicked as well.
They were swept up in the flood of retreating soldiers, forced to run with the main force whether they wanted to or not.
They watched helplessly as the Iwa shinobi who had been fighting beside them moments earlier were cut down by lightning and kunai from the pursuing Kumo forces.
The shadow of death had never felt so real.
"Fuck! I never should've taken this job for the money!"
"We're finished— This battlefield isn't something we can survive!"
"Those goddamn Iwa bastards! They used us as cannon fodder!"
Curses of regret and cries of despair rose from the crowd.
Some tried to break away from the retreating army and flee to the flanks, but the Iwa shinobi in their squads had clearly been given prior orders.
Elite Iwa forces immediately moved to kill any bounty hunter attempting to escape.
"Deserters will be executed without mercy!"
The cold order echoed through the retreating army.
The threat of death forced these desperate men to keep running with the main Iwa force toward the rear.
Only now did they truly understand—they had boarded a pirate ship, and the only way off was to feed the sharks.
That kind of generous bounty had never been easy money. Iwa wouldn't have offered so much without expecting them to fight to the death.
The Third Raikage was in high spirits.
He stood atop the ruins of the broken defensive line, watching Iwa's army flee like stray dogs, and let out a bold, booming laugh that echoed across the battlefield.
"Hahahaha! Ōnoki! Your turtle shell isn't as tough as you thought! Warriors of Kumo, follow me! Crush these rock rats into the soil of the Land of Earth! Leave none alive!"
Victory burned in his eyes. He was determined to end this in one decisive blow and bury Iwa's main force here.
Hidden in the shadows, Taiichi watched with his own eyes how Kumo crushed Iwa's defenses.
As a third party, he could clearly sense that Iwa's defense had never been as solid as it appeared.
But those fighting inside the battle—especially the Raikage leading from the front—would find it much harder to notice anything unusual.
Taiichi was now certain: Iwa had prepared a grand performance for the Raikage.
The routed Iwa army retreated all the way back, with the Raikage leading Kumo's most elite troops in hot pursuit, like parasites that refused to let go.
The fleeing forces were driven into a treacherous canyon.
Steep cliffs rose on both sides, with only a narrow passage in the middle.
The moment the Raikage's elite forces followed them deep into the canyon—
RUMBLE—!
A deafening explosion erupted!
Both ends of the canyon were instantly sealed by pre-prepared Earth Release jutsu and explosive tags!
At the same time, countless Iwa shinobi appeared along the clifftops like bamboo shoots after rain.
A storm of kunai, explosive tags, Wind Release, and Fire Release rained down from above. Massive boulders were pushed over the edge by Earth Release users and crashed toward the canyon floor with thunderous roars.
It was an encirclement. A killing trap.
The canyon instantly turned into a living hell.
No way forward. No way back.
Above them, a lethal saturation bombardment.
Kumo's elite forces, caught completely off guard, suffered devastating losses. Screams, explosions, and the roar of falling rocks mixed into a nightmarish chorus.
"Damn it! We walked into a trap!"
The Third Raikage's pupils shrank. He understood immediately.
He swung his lightning-wreathed arm and easily smashed several falling boulders, protecting the guards around him.
But when he saw how many Kumo shinobi had already fallen inside the canyon, his heart bled.
Ōnoki! To lure him in, the old man had actually been willing to use so many of his own Iwa forces as bait!
That cold calculation sent a chill through even the Raikage.
So the real reason Iwa had recruited bounty hunters was simply to make the bait more convincing.
They wanted to lose fewer Iwa shinobi while still getting Kumo to bite. They had come up with this plan.
And after this battle, most of the bounty hunters would be dead anyway. The ones who died wouldn't need to be paid. Two birds with one stone.
"What a move, Ōnoki! To make me take the bait, you used your own people as sacrifices, you despicable old bastard!"
The Raikage's face was ashen as he roared toward Iwa's position. His voice boomed like thunder, cutting through the battlefield noise.
"Hehehehe—"
A short figure slowly floated into view on the cliff at one end of the canyon. It was Ōnoki, the Third Tsuchikage.
His distinctive duck-like voice carried a trace of satisfaction and cold resolve.
"A! Surrender. To set this trap, I did pay a price.
But look at your current situation! Can you really bear to let your Kumo elites die here?
To avoid unnecessary bloodshed, lay down your weapons. In the name of the Tsuchikage, I promise you a way out."
Ōnoki's words were both an offer to surrender and a psychological attack meant to break the remaining will of the Kumo forces.
"Bullshit!"
The Raikage's roar exploded like rolling thunder, drowning out the chaos in the canyon. He raised his head and glared at Ōnoki, eyes burning with rage and Kumo pride.
"Using schemes and tricks doesn't prove your strength, Ōnoki! You're the leader of a village, yet you sacrifice your own people's lives for victory.
The word 'surrender' doesn't exist in Kumo's dictionary. Our honor is forged with blood and fists! You want me to surrender? Dream on!"
He looked around at the elite Kumo shinobi fighting desperately beside him, their eyes still filled with trust despite the hopeless situation.
These were the future of the village. Kumo's backbone.
A wave of deep regret surged in his chest. He had been blinded by victory and underestimated Ōnoki's ruthlessness, leading them into this death trap.
But at the same time, a resolute will rose within him.
"Warriors of Kumo!"
The Raikage's voice rang out among the Kumo shinobi, filled with the determination to die fighting.
"You are Kumo's backbone. Your lives are worth far more than this old body of mine!
I now order you—break out to the east with everything you have!
That is where the cliff is weakest. Focus all your power and smash open a path to survival! I will hold these rock rats back for you!"
"Raikage-sama!"
"No! We can't leave you!"
The guards and elites beside him cried out in anguish, eyes bloodshot.
"This is an order!"
The Raikage roared, cutting them off. The light of his Lightning Release chakra armor blazed brighter than ever, making him look like a god descended to earth.
He spun around, ignoring their protests, and faced the tide of Iwa shinobi flooding into the canyon alone, along with the countless kunai and jutsu aimed at him from the clifftops.
"Go! Survive! Carry my will back to Kumo!"
With those final words, he transformed into a streak of blue lightning that tore through the battlefield and charged straight into the densest part of the Iwa army.
Deafening explosions echoed repeatedly through the narrow canyon. Every thunderous impact was accompanied by collapsing rock and vanishing lives.
Smoke and blood mist mixed into a thick curtain, sealing this living hell.
Ōnoki hovered above the cliff, looking down at the glaring streak of lightning still cutting through the Iwa flood below. A trace of gravity appeared on his aged face, but no mercy.
The Third Raikage—this man who stood at the peak of the ninja world—had become Kumo's final wall.
His dazzling Lightning Release chakra armor flickered under the relentless bombardment of countless jutsu but never went out.
He had abandoned all defense. He poured every ounce of his chakra and will into pure offense.
Hell Stab — One-Finger Thrust!
Blue lightning tore through the air with a piercing shriek sharp enough to rupture eardrums.
Every thrust was like the fang of death itself, precisely piercing through the hastily formed Earth Release defenses and claiming several—sometimes over ten—lives with each strike.
Solid rock walls crumbled like foam before him, smashed and shattered by raw force.
Broken stone mixed with blood and severed limbs flew in every direction, piling up into a terrifying mountain of corpses beneath his feet.
"Come on! You Iwa rats!"
The Raikage's roar rose above the battlefield noise, filled with the resolve to perish together with his enemies.
"Kumo's bones will never break in front of you schemers! You want to kill me? Then fill the path with your corpses!"
Using the most primitive and violent methods, he single-handedly slowed Iwa's main pursuit force, buying every precious second for the Kumo elites trying to break out behind him.
On the cliff above, Ōnoki's expression grew darker.
The Third Raikage's strength had far exceeded expectations.
Every second of delay increased the chance that the Kumo breakout force would escape.
"We can't drag this out any longer! Combined jutsu unit, listen up!"
His hoarse voice carried unprecedented seriousness. He raised his hand and gave the order.
"Combined Earth Release — Great Earth Flow River!"
Hundreds of Iwa shinobi rapidly formed seals in perfect unison. Massive amounts of chakra gathered together. The canyon floor shook violently, as if a sleeping giant had been awakened.
The rocky ground at the bottom of the canyon turned into a flowing mudslide. With terrifying force, it swept up countless boulders and debris and surged backward in a massive wave.
The mudslide transformed into a terrifying wall of earth and stone dozens of meters high and crashed straight toward the center of the canyon—toward that stubborn figure!
This was a natural-disaster-level jutsu capable of burying an entire army.
Hidden in a crevice of shadow within the canyon, Taiichi's lips curved into a cold arc.
The moment had come.
This was exactly the opportunity he had been waiting for—to make both Iwa and Kumo suffer heavy losses.
At the other end of the battlefield.
"Move! Keep up! We can't waste the time Raikage-sama is buying us!"
A Kumo jōnin roared, leading the shaken remnants of their force toward the eastern side of the canyon.
Among the group, a tall, blood-covered figure (Taiichi's shadow clone) stood out sharply.
He looked around with a "panicked" expression, then suddenly pointed at what appeared to be a climbable crack in the cliff wall.
"There! There's an opening over there! Hurry and get through!"
His voice was rough and filled with desperate urgency to survive.
The exhausted, desperate Kumo shinobi didn't suspect anything. They followed his lead and surged toward the narrow rock fissure.
"Now!"
Taiichi's shadow clone's eyes flashed coldly. At the exact moment the crowd was most densely packed, he stomped hard on the ground.
Earth Release chakra quietly seeped into the cracks in the rock.
Earth Release: Rock Lodging Destruction.
BOOM!
That small section of seemingly solid cliff collapsed like a brittle cookie.
Huge boulders crashed down, instantly crushing the Kumo chūnin who had been at the front into pulp and completely blocking the narrow passage.
"AAHH!"
"The path is blocked!"
"Damn it! Who led us here?!"
The Kumo shinobi were forced to stop. They scrambled to clear the fallen rocks and rescue their comrades while others frantically searched for another route.
Iwa forces were already closing in from all sides. No matter how strong the Raikage was, he was still only one man.
The Kumo shinobi had to split their attention to deal with the pursuing Iwa forces, making their already difficult escape even harder.
And with Taiichi deliberately causing trouble—triggering rockslides with Earth Release and sometimes exposing their position to draw Iwa pursuers—the escaping Kumo group grew smaller and smaller.
Meanwhile, Iwa's main force was also in a bad situation.
In the center of the canyon, facing the devastating "Great Earth Flow River," the Third Raikage's eyes widened. He pushed his Lightning Armor to its absolute limit, preparing to take the lethal impact head-on.
But just as the massive combined Earth Release was about to crash into him, something unexpected happened.
Hidden on the cliff, Taiichi's real body pressed both hands against the cold, rough rock. His sensory ability extended like invisible tentacles, locking onto the critical node of the Iwa combined jutsu below.
That node was the core of the entire combined technique—the point that allowed hundreds of shinobi's chakra to flow smoothly and amplify the jutsu's power.
It wasn't enough to simply have many people use the same jutsu at once and call it "combined." There was real technique involved.
That was why only Iwa could reliably bully others with combined jutsu in the ninja world. The other villages simply didn't have the capability.
Taiichi didn't have that level of skill either. He was simply using his superior Earth Release mastery to find the weak point while the enemy was performing the combined jutsu.
After all, finding flaws was always easier than creating perfection.
At that moment, Taiichi remotely guided his own chakra and skillfully merged it into the great flow. At the critical instant, he gave it a sharp twist.
The previously stable flow of over a hundred strands of chakra inside that node instantly lost balance. Strong "repulsion" and "erosion" erupted between them.
"Break for me—!"
The massive earth wave that had been surging forward suddenly stalled!
The once-powerful mudslide seemed to have had its bones removed. It still looked ferocious on the surface, but its inner strength had vanished.
The Iwa commander overseeing the combined jutsu turned deathly pale. He could feel an indescribable sluggishness running through the entire technique.
Chakra circulation was suddenly obstructed, as if thick sludge had been poured into the pipes. The jutsu's energy structure became unstable in an instant.
"Hold it together! Increase chakra output!" the commander roared hoarsely.
Hundreds of Iwa shinobi gritted their teeth and desperately pushed more chakra, trying to forcibly stabilize the colossal jutsu.
However—