At this moment, atop the mountain peak adjacent to the colossal pillar housing the Tenshu Pavilion...
"Hmph!"
"Can this thing truly break through the defense of the Susanoo?"
Hyuga Shōta, his Byakugan bulging, cast a side-long glance at the smoking Chakra Cannon. His face bore a trace of arrogance, clearly looking down on the Cloud's heavy weaponry.
"Such opportunistic and base methods... only you of the Cloud would resort to them. For a shinobi, this piece of scrap metal is utterly worthless!"
Beside him, Killer Bee adjusted his sunglasses and shot a peculiar look at this Hyuga reinforcement sent by the Fire Daimyo. Nevertheless, he explained with a surprisingly calm temper:
"Based on the skeletal giant defense Ren Uchiha displayed during the last battle of Unraikyō, we specifically replaced the chakra rounds with solid tungsten shells. Their penetration power is comparable to an S-rank ninjutsu."
"Even with the Old Man's mastery of his strongest Lightning Style Armor, he would suffer minor injuries if hit by this shot."
Bee's expression darkened as he looked toward the northern gate, a cold smirk appearing on his face. "Ren Uchiha... there is no way he can block such an attack! It means he will fall here, undone by a single, tiny oversight!"
—Creeeeeak!
Crack!
—BOOM!!!
A violent explosion roared, followed by a surging pillar of thick smoke. The cannonball, striking like a falling star, instantly gouged a crater nearly a hundred meters in diameter in front of the gate.
The earth shook and the mountains groaned! Web-like fissures spread across the terrain.
"Is the brat dead?"
"Did the shot work?"
The ninjas and samurai atop the wall, feeling the tremors like a localized earthquake, stared in horror at the impact site. Their eyes were wide with shock, tinged with fear. Even as trained shinobi, facing such terrifying mechanical power felt like a bolt of divine lightning striking right beside their ears, leaving their hearts racing.
"Everyone, silence!" Ramii barked, turning with a cold shout. "Get back to your positions and prepare the next jutsu! Now!"
Tensing his face to stabilize morale, Ramii leaned toward Motoi and whispered urgently, "How is it? Motoi, was the brat blown to bits?"
"T-This..."
Motoi was trembling, his hands frozen as he stared in horror at the smoke-shrouded crater below. "So terrifying... such a cold, evil chakra! What... what on earth is that thing?!"
Ramii's face paled. Realizing something was wrong, he roared to his subordinates without hesitation:
"Quick!! Signal the War Cessation Line! Initiate Plan B and launch the ninjutsu immediately!"
At his command, the ninjas who had previously used the Lightning Signal Pillar retreated. In their place, a group of specially dressed shinobi stepped onto the kilometer-long wall. They wore the red uniforms and forehead protectors of the Hidden Stone. They began weaving hand seals the moment they arrived.
Below the gate, the acrid, sulfurous smoke suddenly shuddered. A giant, flaming skeletal palm tore through the haze, appearing in everyone's view before sweeping outward!
A violent gale erupted, clearing the smoke and revealing the horror behind it.
The skeletal giant surrounding Ren Uchiha was in a state of ruin. The raised palm and forearm were gone; the shoulder blade and half of that terrifying, grinning skull had been blasted away. Flames flickered at the jagged breaks, and the entire Susanoo was covered in deep cracks.
But the most arresting sight was the youth protected within the shattered frame.
At this moment, the left side of Ren's body—including half of his head—was nothing but a white skeletal frame. Strands of flesh and blood were frantically crawling and weaving along the newly grown bone, reconstructing organs and skin at a visible speed.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
"Holy hell... you bastards have no sense of sportsmanship. You actually developed armor-piercing rounds."
The injuries were fully repaired in an instant. Ren pulled a set of clothes from an emergency storage scroll and draped them over himself. He coughed twice, spitting out a glob of black phlegm.
"No wonder Orochimaru was chased off. This group of barbarians has a seriously messed-up technology tree!"
A deathly silence fell over the wall as they heard the boy's vibrant cursing and saw him standing unharmed within the crater.
Ren blinked, looking up at them in confusion. "I shouldn't have exposed anything inappropriate... why are they so shocked?"
Using his keen hearing, he caught the whispers of the crowd above:
"As expected... that boy is the leader of that terrifying organization!?"
"That outfit... hiss..."
"No mistake, it's the Akatsuki! That evil organization is indeed linked to Ren Uchiha!"
Following their gaze, Ren finally realized that the clothes he had pulled from the scroll were the Akatsuki robes given to him by Yahiko.
With the black fabric and red clouds now on his shoulders, an aura of a classic villain naturally radiated from him. Ren had a momentary epiphany as he surveyed the massive crater around him. He felt like he was Pain himself, currently raiding Konoha.
Shaking the random thoughts out of his head, Ren cleared his throat, about to deliver a line about "feeling pain" to set the mood, when suddenly—
BOOM!
An explosion roared to the east of the gate! Following the earth-shaking rumble, a pillar of smoke identical to the one in front of him rose in the distance.
"Quick! We can't let him break through now!" Ramii shouted frantically, slamming his fist against the battlements. "Launch the ninjutsu, damn it!!!"
If Ren was fine, then they were in trouble! If the next phase of the plan didn't start, he was finished!
Ren shifted his gaze to the wall. A row of red-clad Stone ninjas pressed their hands against the stone.
"Coordinated Ninja Art: Earth Style—Great Wall of Ten Thousand Miles!"
With the roar of the Stone ninjas, the ground was violently uprooted. Ren watched as the twenty-meter wall in front of him began to soar upward.
Thirty meters... fifty... a hundred!
The area was plunged into deep shadow as the earth trembled and stone flew. The wall, originally built of black stone, seemed to turn into a mountain of earth, rising like a natural barrier a hundred meters high!
Ren was momentarily startled. However, through the shifting environment, he realized the truth. It wasn't that the wall was rising—Ramii and the Cloud ninjas hadn't actually changed their altitude.
Instead—the ground beneath Ren's own feet was sinking!
This move looked like a Great Wall technique, but building a hundred-meter wall in seconds would be a waste of resources and impossible to maintain. If one reversed the logic, using Earth Style: Moving Earth Core to hollow out the ground for a kilometer around the inner city, the intruder would drop into a hundred-meter-deep trench.
This was the Coordinated Ninja Art: Earth Style—Super Moving Earth Core!
Inside the city, the second ring of defense was executing the opposite maneuver. Countless Cloud elites performed the Earth Style: Earth Flow Rampart, raising the entire terrain of the city center by fifty meters.
Combined with the Tenshu Pavilion perched on its natural cylindrical cliff, the inner city now resembled a Triple-Gated Pyramid.
By lowering the enemy's elevation and raising their own, the Cloud defenders secured an overwhelming geographical advantage. They held the high ground with a clear line of sight, instantly erasing the disadvantage of the broken barrier.
Ren looked up and frowned. From the 120-meter heights, a rain of kunai laden with explosive tags began to fall. Below his feet, the ground hummed with the 'Explosive Flame Formation'—the same trap that would later cripple Nagato in the original timeline.
The Cloud wanted to grind him down, much like Konan would later attempt against Obito, forcing him to exhaust his chakra here.
Ren simply replenished his half-body Susanoo, ignoring the common explosives. Having absorbed nearly half of the Eight-Tails' chakra recently, he wasn't short on the "small change" required to keep his giant armored warrior active.
What truly bothered him was something else.
"Where did all these Stone ninjas come from?" Ren muttered, watching the red-clad shinobi on the wall. "Even with the Earth Daimyo's support and a potential alliance... this number is way too high."
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