Damn it!
Umemaro cursed inwardly as the shockwave and searing heat from the exploding ground rushed straight at him.
An ordinary shinobi caught at the center of such a dense barrage of explosive tags would have had no chance of survival. They would have been blown to pieces on the spot.
But the Kaguya Clan was different.
They possessed the Shikotsumyaku Kekkei Genkai, granting them naturally powerful bodies.
They could even condense a hard layer of bone membrane beneath their skin, dramatically increasing their defenses.
To them, this first wave of concentrated explosions was less an injury and more pain.
After enduring the initial blast from all sides, Umemaro reacted instantly. His bones crackled violently as countless pale-white spikes burst from his body. In the blink of an eye, they intertwined and layered together, completely enclosing him within an airtight sphere of bone.
He didn't spare a single thought for the clansmen behind him who had also been caught in the explosion, even though he could have.
Because in the Kaguya Clan's philosophy of survival, anyone too incompetent to avoid an ambush of this level deserved to die.
And almost at the exact moment his bone shield took shape—
Countless ninjutsu erupted from behind the cliffs and reefs along both sides of the shoreline.
Like a torrential downpour, attacks screamed in from every direction and slammed into their position.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!
Lightning Release: Earth Flow!
Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!
The second wave of destruction—a combination of explosions and ninjutsu—completely engulfed the beach.
The Kaguya clansmen at the very front had already been devastated by the explosive tags. Now, crashing headfirst into this blanket bombardment, they immediately erupted into screams as flesh and blood flew everywhere.
"An ambush! It's those Konoha bastards!"
All of this seemed lengthy when described, but in reality it happened in a flash.
Farther back, the Kaguya clansmen who had not yet entered the trap zone roared in fury and rushed forward to support their comrades.
But at that very moment—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Massive earth walls suddenly rose from beneath the sand.
These abruptly erected barriers forcibly split the Kaguya forces into two separate groups.
At the same time, countless figures dashed down from the cliffs on both sides under the faint light of dawn, weaving rapidly between reefs and sand while taking up strategic positions.
Clearly, the second offensive was already prepared.
Among them, one figure stood out in particular.
His entire body shimmered with pale-cyan chakra, trailing a long stream of compressed air behind him. Wherever he passed, the atmosphere was violently pushed aside, forming a vacuum corridor through which he sped at incredible velocity.
What was strange was that the process produced none of the deafening sonic booms one would expect.
Instead, the displaced air currents continuously converged and stacked together behind him according to some mysterious principle, further propelling him forward and driving his speed to an utterly terrifying level.
On the battlefield, Umemaro—who had been singled out and drawn the overwhelming majority of the enemy's firepower—finally discarded the bone shield, now charred black and riddled with cracks.
One glance around him made his heart sink.
Only a little more than ten clansmen remained standing, all of them elite fighters.
The rest lay in pools of blood, wailing in agony—or had already fallen silent forever.
The enemy hadn't even shown their faces yet, and the Kaguya Clan had already lost nearly one-fifth of its combat strength.
Those damn Konoha shinobi!!!
Overwhelming killing intent surged wildly within Umemaro.
Yet before he could think further, a tremendous pressure descended from above.
An unstoppable, domineering presence that looked down upon entire armies locked firmly onto him.
Looking up, he saw a cyan figure appear out of nowhere, hurtling toward him at a horrifying speed.
As the distance closed, the figure stopped concealing himself.
The cyan light around his body suddenly flared brilliantly, transforming him into a hurricane wrapped in blinding radiance and thunderous peals of explosive sound.
Like a sword of heavenly judgment, it came crashing down directly upon him.
Its momentum was ferocious beyond belief.
"You Konoha bastards!!!"
Faced with such a savage assault, not the slightest trace of fear appeared in Umemaro's eyes.
Instead, the madness and bloodlust buried deep within his bones seemed to ignite completely.
With a furious roar, he not only refused to retreat—he charged straight forward.
As he sprinted, a bone-grating crack erupted from his right shoulder blade.
His bones twisted, intertwined, and extended on their own, instantly forming a monstrous bone spear as thick as an adult's waist, constructed in a double-helix pattern.
He gripped it tightly.
The spearpoint aimed directly ahead.
As he thrust with all his strength, it tore through the air, producing a shrill howl like a raging gale rushing through a narrow pass.
Dance of the Kudzu!
The Kaguya Clan's techniques were all named using the pattern "Plant Name + Dance," reflecting the combat characteristics of their bones.
Kudzu was one of the most common and resilient vines in the shinobi world.
Its twisting stems climbed relentlessly in spirals, capable of strangling giant trees, splitting stone, and breaking through the earth. Its vitality was fierce and overbearing.
And Dance of the Kudzu was the Kaguya Clan's ultimate piercing technique.
As it struck, the bone spear continuously spun at high speed. Like kudzu vines coiling around a tree trunk, it used spiraling tearing force to drill through any defense.
Both combatants possessed absolute confidence in themselves.
Neither attempted to dodge.
Instead, they chose the purest and most violent method possible—
A direct collision.
BOOM!!!
A terrifying explosion far surpassing all previous blasts erupted.
The cyan hurricane and the spiral bone spear collided like two meteors, unleashing blinding light and countless fragments of shattered bone.
The surrounding air surged like a storm-tossed ocean raising colossal waves. Visible ring-shaped shockwaves expanded wildly in every direction, hurling sand, rocks, and even mangled corpses into the air.
Both the hurricane and the bone spear released terrifying spiraling tearing forces, invading and canceling each other out like mercury spreading across the ground.
The enormous spiral bone spear began to crack and disintegrate inch by inch.
But as the spear dissolved, the cyan hurricane's radiance rapidly dimmed as well, its size steadily shrinking.
And at the instant the two forces reached a stalemate and annihilated one another—
A figure suddenly burst from the center of the collapsing hurricane.
A longsword in each hand.
It was none other than the weapon obtained during the journey to Takumi Village—
The Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords.
The figure spun through the air, crossing both swords as he slashed downward!
In an instant, countless incomparably sharp wind blades detached from the twin swords, forming an airtight net of death that descended upon Umemaro from above!
"Hmph!"
Umemaro snorted coldly and suddenly raised his left arm. A thick bone shield instantly formed in front of him.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!!!
Amid a barrage of impacts as dense as drumbeats, deep cracks were carved across the shield's surface as fragments of bone flew everywhere.
Even while defending, Umemaro's mind raced.
Who was this person?
How could their mastery of Wind Release be this terrifying?
Among Konoha's wind specialists...
Could it be Shimura Danzō?
The name had only just surfaced in his mind when a sharp pain suddenly shot through his left arm!
A vicious wind blade had slipped through a gap in the bone shield's defenses and slashed heavily into his arm, leaving behind a gruesome wound that split flesh and exposed bone.
Kill! Kill! Kill!!!
Such an injury meant nothing to a member of the Kaguya Clan. It would heal before long.
But the humiliation of being wounded, combined with the metallic scent of blood, completely ignited the overwhelming malice that had been building inside Umemaro's chest.
With a furious roar, he hurled the already-cracked bone shield toward his opponent and exploded forward in pursuit—
Only to discover that the enemy had vanished from sight.
"Where are you!?"
His savage eyes swept the battlefield like those of a hunting hawk.
The next instant, pure combat instinct made him react almost simultaneously.
His left arm snapped across his chest while his right hand shot out like lightning.
Crack!
Splurt!
The two sounds rang out almost at the same time.
Countless bones burst from Umemaro's left arm, clamping down like iron pincers around a longsword that had suddenly appeared from an oblique angle and was aimed directly at his heart.
At the same time, his right hand seized another blade that was slashing toward his head.
Set into the hilts of both swords were azure gemstones glowing with a faint, flowing light.
Only now did he finally get a clear look at his attacker.
That face was absurdly young.
Yet calm enough to make one's heart tremble.
"You? Zehahaha!"
Umemaro froze briefly before breaking into a grin, exposing a row of ghastly white teeth as he burst into twisted, manic laughter.
"So it's you!"
"Higashino Shinichi!"
The young man before him was the most famous figure to emerge since the start of the current Great Ninja War.
Countless factions had been studying every scrap of information about him.
Although Umemaro had always disdained such matters, even he knew there was a Konoha brat named Higashino Shinichi who had made an enormous name for himself during this war.
Kill! Kill! Kill!!!
Boundless killing intent surged through his chest.
He considered himself among the strongest shinobi in the world, yet his name had never spread far.
If he could personally twist off this brat's head right here...
Then the name "Umemaro of the Kaguya Clan" would shake the entire shinobi world!
"Good! Good! Excellent!"
Laughing wildly, Umemaro's muscles bulged all over his body.
His arms suddenly exerted force as he attempted to forcibly knock aside the two swords trapped within his bone-clad hands.
Yet the twin blades merely trembled slightly.
Then, in the next instant, a rebounding force far stronger and more concentrated than he had imagined surged through the swords.
Umemaro's massive body was actually forced to stagger backward by a step.
For a brief moment, he froze.
Then an explosive mixture of fury, humiliation, and madness erupted within his chest like a keg of gunpowder set alight.
"Die!"
Letting out a roar that scarcely sounded human, Umemaro transformed into a living hedgehog.
Bones exploded from all over his body, turning into countless spear-like spikes that shot toward Shinichi at point-blank range!
Dance of the Willow!
Yet just before the spikes could completely encircle him, Shinichi's figure swayed lightly.
Like a breeze brushing past willow branches.
Like a speck of dust skimming across water.
His figure had already appeared more than a dozen meters away.
His clothes fluttered gently, untouched by even a grain of dust.
"Hmph!"
With bloodshot eyes, Umemaro spread all ten fingers toward Shinichi.
Ten-Finger Drilling Bullets!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Countless finger bones, sharp as bullets, tore through the air.
Accompanied by shrill screams of wind, they formed an airtight barrage of death that blanketed Shinichi's position.
Faced with such a ferocious assault, Shinichi merely raised the longsword in his right hand and casually drew it through the air.
Wind Release: Wind Wall!
A semi-transparent barrier instantly materialized before him, formed from countless high-speed rotating air currents.
The incoming bone bullets crashed into the wall and were immediately deflected, shredded, and erased by the countless swirling streams of wind.
But in the very next instant—
A massive figure resembling a ferocious beast smashed straight through the wind barrier using nothing but raw physical strength and violent chakra.
Amid exploding currents of air, Umemaro charged forward like a runaway war chariot, hurtling directly toward Shinichi!
"Oh?"
Shinichi raised an eyebrow slightly.
"That's pretty savage."
He tightly clasped the hilts of the Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords together with both hands.
Lowering his center of gravity into a bow stance, he raised the joined hilts over his shoulder.
The posture resembled someone wielding a heavy bat rather than a pair of swords.
Fierce air currents like raging tidal waves poured into the blades.
He compressed them again and again with brutal force.
The swords vibrated violently, emitting a continuous hum.
"But..."
A faint smile appeared at the corner of Shinichi's mouth.
"I like it."
The moment the words fell, he planted his foot, twisted his waist, and swung.
The entire sequence flowed in one seamless motion.
Every ounce of his strength, together with Wind Release chakra compressed to its absolute limit, was poured into this simple horizontal slash devoid of any flourish.
BOOM!!!
A terrifying explosion erupted.
Centered on the two of them, a visible ring of milky-white shockwaves expanded wildly outward.
The sand was overturned as though plowed by a gigantic harrow.
Rocks were reduced to powder.
Even the distant ocean was forced into a vast concave arc by the sheer pressure.
Within the raging storm, both figures froze for a brief instant.
The next instant, Umemaro's free left hand shot forward.
The bones in his palm suddenly proliferated and extended, transforming into a sharp bone blade that stabbed toward Shinichi's temple like a venomous serpent.
Shinichi tilted his head slightly.
The bone blade brushed past his hair.
His footwork flowed like water as he slipped away once more, widening the distance between them.
"Die! Die!! Die!!!"
Umemaro had completely descended into a frenzy.
Without the slightest pause, he continued his mad howling as he launched himself forward again.
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