Chapter 307: A Thirty-Minute Death Gate
Right as Guy was starting to grow suspicious—wondering if maybe an open window meant someone had broken in—
Wait a second.
A burglar?
Some despicable, no-good burglar, daring to steal from his own beloved teacher's house? Unforgivable...
Just as Guy was gearing up to burst in and catch the "thief" red-handed, a single sheet of paper came drifting down from the window, and Guy instinctively snatched it out of the air.
Staring at it in astonishment, Guy saw it was about the size of a standard sheet of paper, densely covered on both sides with tightly packed handwriting.
Looking closer, two headers immediately caught his eye: [Six Powers: Shave] and [Six Powers: Moonwalk].
Because he already knew Tempest Kick and Iron Body—the two techniques he'd already learned—also came from the Six Powers, that same powerful martial art only Ryū-sensei knew.
Which meant the person in the house wasn't some burglar at all—it was Ryū-sensei himself!
Of course!
Guy hastily folded up the sheet and tucked it into his pocket, calling out gratefully, "Thank you so much, Ryū-sensei! I swear I'll master these within the year! The power of youth burns bright in my heart!!"
Once his Observation Haki registered Guy heading off, Ryū let out a helpless little laugh. No telling what kind of bizarre butterfly effects teaching Guy the Six Powers might set off down the line.
If Guy ever crossed paths with Madara again someday, wouldn't it be something if he could go toe-to-toe using nothing but the Six Powers alone?
And if all this Six Powers training left Guy's constitution dozens, even hundreds of times stronger than in the original canon...
Then when it came time to open the Eighth Gate—the Gate of Death—and he could hold it for half an hour, or even just ten-plus minutes, instead of collapsing almost instantly...that might just leave Madara in genuine despair.
A Death Gate sustained for ten-plus minutes, maybe even a full half hour—who could possibly withstand that?
Kicking Six Paths-tier Madara clean off the map in one blow suddenly didn't sound like such a stretch. After all, in the original canon, Guy had only managed to hold the Eight Gates open for about five minutes.
If he could stretch that out to ten-plus minutes, or even half an hour, that started sounding genuinely terrifying. Even the Sage of Six Paths himself would probably get thoroughly wrecked at that point.
It really had to be said—the Eight Gates Formation was quite possibly the single biggest broken mechanic in the entire Naruto world. A forbidden technique capable of instantly turning a Jōnin into an absolute monster of raw power.
If someone with an insanely durable life force, like Hashirama Senju himself, ever trained the Eight Gates and opened the Death Gate, that would honestly be terrifying to think about.
Speaking of which—Tsunade, who also carried Senju blood and had a monstrously durable life force herself, why hadn't she ever bothered learning the Eight Gates?
Setting aside the guaranteed death from opening the Eighth Gate, even just the first seven Gates alone would've been absurdly powerful on their own.
Ryū wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe Tsunade just didn't care for that kind of self-destructive forbidden technique?
Logically speaking, the damage the first seven Gates inflicted on the body probably wouldn't hit someone from the Senju clan nearly as hard—certainly nowhere near as brutal as it was on Guy.
Or maybe Kishimoto just never thought to write that angle into the story in the first place?
Whatever, not his problem to solve. Whatever plot holes existed in the Naruto world, it was obviously all old man Kishimoto's fault. The blame for literally everything wrong with this world landed squarely on Kishimoto's shoulders.
Time ticked steadily onward, and Ryū quickly put the whole Eight Gates business out of his mind—he had somewhere to be. Time to head to the Arena and see exactly how much stronger he'd gotten now that his skills had improved.
Especially Armament Haki and Life Return, both freshly freed from their old caps—he really wanted to see firsthand exactly how different these two abilities felt compared to before.
Observation Haki, after breaking its ceiling, now let him predict 10 to 15 seconds into the future.
It also let him read a target's deeper thoughts, extended its precision range to cover an area the size of an entire province, and could even "see through" the ground itself to detect what lay beneath.
Since Armament Haki was its counterpart among the two color-based Haki, breaking through its own ceiling almost certainly meant changes just as dramatic.
Slipping his consciousness into the Dimensional Chat Group, Ryū skimmed the ongoing chat briefly, found nothing that caught his interest, and didn't bother sticking around. Instead, he headed straight into the Arena and once again selected Solo Mode.
The scenery around him shifted violently once again—though this time, he wasn't out in the void of space.
The enemy waiting for him wasn't the same colossal creature from last time, either. A brand new opponent had spawned in.
Of course, Ryū had no idea where this new enemy actually was right now—it hadn't shown itself yet.
A wave of blistering heat swept over his entire body the instant he arrived. Ryū's brow furrowed slightly as Armament Haki coated his whole body on instinct, perfectly blocking out the scorching air.
Everywhere he looked, nothing but molten lava, stretching in every direction—he was literally standing directly on top of it!
Thanks to Armament Haki's protection, though, his shoes showed no sign of melting whatsoever.
Wherever his eyes fell, molten lava sprawled endlessly, sulfur fumes flooding his nose, an unpleasant, faintly nauseating smell—the kind of gas that would poison a normal person if they breathed too much of it.
Of course, Ryū's constitution made poisoning essentially impossible at this point. At his current level, even chugging pesticide, or straight sulfuric acid as if it were a drink, wouldn't cause him much real discomfort—at worst, it'd just taste absolutely terrible. That was the real power of a body built through serious martial cultivation.
"So this round's battlefield is molten lava? Doesn't look like there's a single solid foothold anywhere around here—guess I'll just have to keep Armament Haki up nonstop to protect my clothes..."
Ryū's brow furrowed further. Honestly, in all his time training in the Arena, this was the first time he'd run into a situation quite like this.
And something else was off—this lava's temperature didn't match ordinary lava at all. Regular volcanic lava usually sat somewhere around 1,000-plus degrees Celsius, actually cooler than some kinds of flame.
But the lava beneath his feet right now felt like it had to be tens of thousands of degrees, at minimum.
Ryū tested it—releasing Armament Haki from just one finger and poking the lava beneath him with it. A wave of searing heat instantly shot straight to his brain!
His finger didn't vaporize outright, but thick smoke curled up off it almost immediately, along with a sharp, stinging pain.
Pulling his hand back, he noticed his skin had gone visibly red.
"Guess this counts as cooking myself, doesn't it? This temperature's on another level entirely. If I tried taking an actual bath in this stuff with zero protection, that'd probably be a real experience."
Ryū's expression slowly turned serious. This opponent seemed like it might actually be a genuine challenge.
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