As the floating black powder continuously settled, the air grew thick with the pungent stench of sulfur and carbon. Every breath felt like swallowing sandpaper.
Within the monochromatic vision of the Byakugan, amidst the drifting black powder settling downward, an intensely bright light suddenly flared up. Over twenty meters away, it formed a layer of flowing, high-temperature lava over Rōshi's body.
Immediately following that, from the position closest to Rōshi, a blinding white flash—incredibly fast and brilliantly bright, even outshining the layer of molten lava—ignited at the point of contact!
It was as if a miniature sun had suddenly been born within the enclosed space. The radiance instantly engulfed Hyuga Yu's panoramic Byakugan vision, swallowing every shadow around and illuminating the smooth walls of the cubical stone pit in stark detail!
Hyuga Yu's brow furrowed. In a flash, utilizing the information observed by his Byakugan just before he was temporarily blinded, he deduced that the concentration of coal dust in the air had reached the explosive limit of 50 g/m³!
Realizing what was about to happen next, he reacted instantly. Hyuga Yu forced his footsteps to a sudden halt, immediately aborting his assault on Rōshi. In a span of time measured in microseconds, he stopped suppressing his Wind Release. Instead, he unleashed a torrent of Wind Release: Chakra Scalpels from every single chakra point across his body.
This shared the same underlying principle as the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven. In fact, as long as Hyuga Yu spun his body during this process, he could execute a Wind Release: Revolving Heaven infused with nature transformation!
Revolving Heaven itself was not an exceptionally difficult ninjutsu; its mechanism was outrageously simple. The only thing preventing ordinary members of the Hyūga clan from mastering it was an insufficient level of chakra control and bloodline limit development.
At the same time, the flaws of Revolving Heaven were glaringly obvious:
Its chakra consumption was excessively high, and its supposedly absolute defense was actually nothing to write home about. Hyuga Yu had mastered this move long ago. Previously, he couldn't use it due to a lack of chakra, and later, he chose not to because he had developed more advanced techniques. However, in the current situation, a Revolving Heaven fused with Wind Release nature transformation was undoubtedly the prime choice to break the deadlock—because it was fast enough!
"Wind Release: Vacuum Revolving Heaven!"
In an instant, Hyuga Yu spun in place like a top!
All around him, countless massive currents of air whipped into existence, swirling at a violent velocity generated by his rotation!
Simultaneously, within the Revolving Heaven, Hyuga Yu switched his standard breathing to internal respiration, linking it to the Wind Release: Flowing Gale system inside his body. He manipulated the Wind Release: Chakra Scalpels erupting from his physique to push the air outward from his center (which was exactly where the massive outer currents came from).
In the blink of an eye, Hyuga Yu created a vacuum zone completely devoid of oxygen and air within a five-meter radius. And he wasn't done yet. Beyond the hemispherical barrier formed by the Revolving Heaven, the rotating air currents were meticulously controlled and condensed by his Chakra Scalpels, forming an outer Wind Release barrier of extreme density that was nearly semi-solid.
All of this was accomplished in less than half a second!
In the next split second—
BOOM!!!
Centering around Rōshi, who had activated his Lava Release: Chakra Mode just a short distance from Hyuga Yu, a colossal, churning orange-red fireball expanded frantically at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye, feeding along the combustion pathways carved by the coal dust in the air!
This was no slow burn; it was a rapid, explosive combustion bordering on a detonation.
The immense specific surface area of the massive amount of coal dust suspended in the air meant that every single microscopic particle reacted with oxygen simultaneously, unleashing all of its energy in an instant!
Under the influence of the thermal radiation, the surrounding temperature instantly skyrocketed past 1500°C!
In Hyuga Yu's vision, which was recovering after being temporarily blinded by what felt like a flashbang, Rōshi stood not far ahead. In this infernal environment, his hair, his clothes, and even his lava-covered beard had caught fire!
A heatwave instantly swept through the enclosed stone pit, turning it into a veritable furnace.
Fortunately, the vacuum possessed superb thermal insulation, so Hyuga Yu felt no burning sensation whatsoever. However, his expression did not ease; instead, it grew extremely grave. When the thermal radiation ignited all combustible materials within range—including the air itself—the rapidly expanding high-temperature gases violently compressed the surrounding atmosphere, forging a visible, ultra-dense white shockwave!
In the blink of an eye, the white wave of force surged forward like a solid wall, slamming hard into the outer layer of the Wind Release: Vacuum Revolving Heaven!
At that exact moment, the highly compressed wind wall collided with the white shockwave!
Hyuga Yu, who had unified himself and the entire Vacuum Revolving Heaven into a single cohesive whole, instantly felt a tremendous, crushing force slam against his back!
The non-combustible vacuum sphere, along with the frantically spinning Hyuga Yu himself, was instantly blasted away by this monstrous power. Like a pebble kicked violently against a roadside wall, BANG!!
The hemispherical Revolving Heaven rocketed backward like a cannonball, embedding itself straight into a stone wall. With its momentum unchecked, it bored through the rock, cratering over ten meters deep into the mountain!
The wind wall of the Revolving Heaven shattered, and the vacuum zone was instantly inundated by a massive influx of scorching gases!
Hyuga Yu ceased his rotation. Under the immense backlash of his own Wind Release and the sheer kinetic thrust of the shockwave, his skin instantly split open with countless swollen lacerations, and his internal organs sustained severe trauma!
"Pfft... cough!"
He coughed up a large mouthful of blood, yet his complexion turned a bizarre, unnatural flush. With his bodily functions heavily compromised, his cellular proliferation—which he had been barely suppressing—flared up once more. While it continuously repaired the injuries within his body, it also inexorably dragged him toward the precipice of death!
But Hyuga Yu had no leisure to address these complications. Following the shockwave came a brief, heart-stopping silence.
Immediately after, Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The blistering, partially combusted air that had been driven away by the shockwave, along with fresh air from the outside, rushed back in at a terrifying velocity. This created a secondary wave of destructive air currents that let out a piercing howl.
A secondary explosion, triggered by the vacuum and backdraft, erupted!
In near-seamless succession, an entity possessing an inconceivably massive amount of chakra—shining with a brilliant white light amidst the darkness—abruptly burst into the Byakugan's field of vision, thrusting toward Hyuga Yu at breakneck speed!
"Lava Release: Needle of the Sea Floor!"
This was a jutsu Rōshi utilized after entering his semi-tailed beast state, turning his entire body into magma and concentrating an ultra-high-temperature Lava Release attack into his palm!
At this moment, riding the momentum of the shockwave, he raised his arm and clenched his fist. His entire being broke the sound barrier in an instant as he swung his right fist, smashing down toward Hyuga Yu's face!
At this juncture, Hyuga Yu had no Wind Release barrier protecting his exterior, and his body was merely a human frame only slightly sturdier than an average ninja's. If he were struck by this flaming fist exceeding 3000°C, he would likely perish on the spot!
Yet, despite his slightly disheveled state, Hyuga Yu's gaze grew exceptionally calm at this precise moment.
It was a calmness so profound it made the heart quail, almost evoking the phantom illusion of a ferocious countenance.
"Hiss... Haa..."
...
Slumped in the crater, Hyuga Yu slowly raised his head. He stared indifferently at the rapidly approaching Rōshi, exhaling a long, straight stream of white steam from between his teeth. Facing this fatal strike, he did not dodge or evade at all. Instead, he simply made a single gesture—he smiled disdainfully.
In the next instant, across Hyuga Yu's body, twelve meridians and a total of 309 chakra points—stretching from Zhongfu to Shenmen—illuminated simultaneously!
"Full Form: Wind Release: Chakra Mode—"
"—Activate!"
Having absorbed the reactive force generated by the collision between his Wind Release: Vacuum Revolving Heaven and the dust explosion's shockwave, the Wind Release: Chakra Mode—which had never before erupted with its ultimate power—flared to life with absolutely nothing held back!
A surging, majestic power instantaneously coursed through Hyuga Yu's limbs and bones!
An unprecedented sensation of absolute clarity shot from the very tips of his cells straight to the crown of his head, reaching every single nerve ending in a millisecond.
A near-tangible aura of azure Wind Release chakra erupted from within his body, unleashing a violent gale that caused the entire stone pit to shake frantically under the impact!
His shredded black combat uniform whipped wildly in the tempest, and the long black hair reaching down to his waist danced madly upward like a demon!
It was almost as if he had transformed into a Super Saiyan!
Witnessing this scene, Rōshi's heart skipped a beat. His footsteps, which had been driving forward to crush Hyuga Yu with a single blow, ground to a sudden halt. A premonition of mortal peril born from the cellular level surged from the tips of his toes straight to the crown of his head. A sixth sense, rooted in the deepest bedrock of human instinct, flooded his mind, warning him: If you keep moving forward, you will die!
At this moment, as the distance closed, the Four-Tails' chakra absorbed by the Zero-Tails inside his abdominal seal, the dark chakra, and the azure chakra—which inherently influenced Hyuga Yu's emotions, driving him toward extreme paranoia—all converged and melded into a singular, deep cyan chakra!
Hyuga Yu abruptly snapped his eyes open!
A flash of pure madness darted across his stark white pupils!
The muscles on his face twitched as he bared a ferocious smile at Rōshi, who had stopped ten meters away. With a violent tug, he tore away the tattered remains of his black combat uniform, exposing a bare torso rippling with corded muscles!
"Are you all... having a grand old time?!"
In stark contrast to his past clear and serene voice, a chilling, bone-deep utterance that sounded like someone grinding iron nails echoed through the stone pit!
As if an eerie, freezing draft had swept over him, Rōshi couldn't help but shudder violently. Looking at Hyuga Yu, who seemed to have suddenly undergone a power awakening and entered a completely inhuman form, any lingering disdain or thoughts that this fourteen-year-old "Heavenly Ninja of Konoha" was merely a fraud hunting for unearned fame vanished completely into thin air!
An explosion of this caliber didn't kill him... instead, it forced him to fully unleash that S-rank Wind Release nintaijutsu comparable to the Lightning Release: Chakra Mode?!
Rōshi stared at Hyuga Yu with a heavy expression, his face turning incredibly grim. According to the intel, in his complete form, he possesses the physical strength to engage in direct hand-to-hand combat with a fully unleashed Tailed Beast... With my current semi-tailed beast state, I'm afraid I won't be able to defeat him.
The plan has utterly failed...
...
I have no choice but to use the backup plan!
Just then, while Rōshi was secretly deliberating on his next move, Hyuga Yu's frigid voice rang out once more. He tilted his head back slightly, looking down his nose at Rōshi as he snarled again, "Are you... deaf?!"
"I asked you a question!"
Rōshi didn't bother to reply. He cast a deep, lingering look at Hyuga Yu, then immediately turned around, dug his semi-transformed limbs into the ground, and leapt without hesitation toward the top of the stone pit!
Seeing this, Hyuga Yu let out an even darker laugh, his face so gloomy it seemed ready to drip water. His gaze tracked Rōshi as the man bounded upward. "Heh, trying to run?!"
Two icy gleams suddenly shot from his eyes as the veins around his eyes and across his forehead bulged frantically. The veins on his arms popped as a howling gale converged and condensed over his knuckles!
Then, pulling his shoulder back and dropping into a deep horse stance, Hyuga Yu swung his fist—veins pulsing ferociously—straight up toward the heavens!
A single punch thrown!
...
BOOM!!!
A terrifying pillar of pressurized air from the punch, measuring five meters across, shot straight upward from below, blasting directly toward the sole point of light in the darkened space—the semi-transformed Rōshi!
Rōshi's heart leaped. He immediately lunged sideways, narrowly evading the blast of air. The force of the punch continued unabated, directly striking the massive stone ceiling created by Kitsuchi and three hundred Iwagakure ninja!
BANG!
In an instant, the earth shook and the mountains trembled as the stone ceiling fractured with a rustling cascade of debris!
The spot that sustained the direct hit revealed a cratered fist print over five meters wide and of indeterminate depth, surrounded by a massive web of spiderweb-like cracks!
Beholding this sight, Rōshi swallowed hard. This raw power was even more savage than his own semi-tailed beast form, directly rivaling Han, the Five-Tails Jinchūriki known for his monstrous strength and mastery of Boil Release!
Rōshi realized in an instant that if this continued, he wouldn't survive long enough for Han and Kitsuchi to arrive with reinforcements; he would be beaten to death right here by Hyuga Yu!
In this confined environment, a Full Tailed Beast Transformation—the only form capable of matching Hyuga Yu's strength—couldn't be properly deployed at all. Not only would his limbs be trapped and constrained, but releasing a Tailed Beast Ball would likely end up injuring himself as well.
Furthermore, having been reluctant to take on this mission in the first place, there was no way he was genuinely willing to perish together with Hyuga Yu in a mutual destruction!
The trap originally designed to hunt down Hyuga Yu had now, ironically, become a cage imprisoning Rōshi himself!
"Damn it!"
"Lava Release: Flower-Fruit Mountain!"
Roaring in anger within his semi-tailed beast state, Rōshi slammed his hands against the stone walls. The rock layers collapsed instantly, and under the influence of his ninjutsu, a massive torrent of scorching magma erupted directly from the stone, raining down overhead upon Hyuga Yu, who was staring coldly up from below!
At this very moment, disregarding the risk of completely losing his sanity, Rōshi drove his seal to aggressively seize more of the Four-Tails' power, attempting to force a Full Tailed Beast Transformation to shatter the stone ceiling and escape!
However, the moment his delaying tactic was unleashed, Hyuga Yu—completely fearless against the massive sheets of falling magma—bolted straight up the vertical rock wall from below!
A tremendous gale wrapped around his form. Before the descending magma could even touch his body, it was sliced clean apart and deflected to either side!
And Hyuga Yu tore through the cascading waterfall of scorching river-like lava with absolute violence, appearing right before Rōshi's eyes in the blink of an eye!
So fast!
Rōshi's pupils shrunk to pinpricks. He instinctively whipped a crimson tail toward Hyuga Yu's head!
However, when the strike reached half a meter from Hyuga Yu, it seemed to collide with an invisible barrier, grinding to an abrupt halt!
Then, Rōshi watched as Hyuga Yu lunged forward, clapping his hands together to pull a pitch-black iron rod from between his palms!
Instinctively, Rōshi felt a sudden pang of dread at the black rod Hyuga Yu had produced, and his expression warped in shock. "Wait... what is this? What is this now?!"
"Why wasn't any of this in the intel?!"
————
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