GSiN: Ch. 208

Jigen was extremely confident in his own power. Faced with Ryouma descending from the sky, he reacted instantly, releasing a row of black rods in front of himself, intending to forcibly withstand the impact and then counterkill.

Unfortunately for him, he made a classic mistake born of experience.

In their previous exchanges, Ryouma's attacks had mostly targeted Jigen's vital points. Both sides relied on technique to counter each move as it came. But this time, Ryouma abandoned technique altogether and chose to clash head-on with the purest form of brute force.

And in a battle at this level, what consequences await the side that makes the wrong choice?

The answer was this: the neatly arranged black rods were almost instantly shattered the moment they made contact with Ryouma's fist. That overwhelmingly dominant force met no resistance as it slammed directly into Jigen's body, driving him violently into the ground.

Dust and debris flew everywhere. The rock layers deep within the mantle were smashed apart as the two continued plunging downward, while golden-red circular shockwaves rippled outward from the center of the battlefield.

The villagers stared in terror, their gazes seemingly pulled by invisible threads and locked onto the lingering currents in the sky.

Some people's lips trembled slightly as they muttered incoherently, clearly so shocked by the unimaginable scene before them that they had completely lost their composure.

Deep underground, Jigen no longer had the leisure to ponder why Ryouma had suddenly become so powerful. To escape this unfavorable situation, he could only expend a considerable amount of chakra to deploy a space-time technique, opening a vortex behind himself and pulling his body into it.

Seeing his target disappear, Ryouma immediately stopped exerting force. He swept the area and instantly pinpointed Jigen's location. In a flash of the Flying Thunder God Technique, his figure shot back up from deep underground to the surface.

However, the moment Ryouma had just revealed himself, on the other side, Jigen, who had already memorized the locations of all the Flying Thunder God marks, launched a fully charged straight punch the instant he saw him appear.

The fist cut through the air with a howling sound, smashing heavily toward Ryouma's chest.

Fortunately, with the massive boost provided by the Super Saiyan Mode 2 and Armament Haki, Ryouma was no longer in a situation where his eyes could react but his body could not.

A series of violent explosions rang out. The power of Jigen's punch was so great that it triggered sonic booms in the surrounding air. Centered on the point where the two collided, visible shockwaves spread outward in rippling rings. Wherever they passed, the ground seemed torn apart by colossal force, cracking inch by inch as hideous fissures rapidly spread.

The roadside trees fared no better. Uprooted entirely, they tumbled helplessly through the air before crashing heavily back to the ground. Thick smoke quickly spread, engulfing both fighters.

Jigen's eyes widened as he stared at the golden-red figure opposite him.

Ryouma had extended just one hand, and had firmly caught the full-power punch he had thrown.

"How is this possible?!"

A storm of terror and disbelief surged through Jigen's heart. In his view, these creatures of the shinobi world should neither possess, nor deserve to possess, such powerful chakra.

Or could it be that Kaguya had done something?

Ryouma keenly caught the doubt and astonishment in Jigen's eyes, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

"What's with that surprised look? Don't tell me only Ōtsutsuki are allowed to have a second stage. Am I not allowed one too?"

Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, he gave Jigen no chance to respond. He immediately rooted his stance, twisted his waist and shoulders in unison, and with a massive spinning swing of his arm, hurled Jigen violently toward the eastern coastline.

It had been a long time since he'd activated this mode, and he admitted he'd gotten a little too excited. So excited, in fact, that he'd almost forgotten he had previously told Kirin that he would try to move the battlefield as far away from Takumi Village as possible.

But it still wasn't too late.

With a slight bend of his knees and a powerful push, the ground within a hundred-meter radius exploded under the recoil. In the next instant, Ryouma shot off in the direction Jigen had been flung, like an electromagnetic railgun projectile.

---

After the two titans had flown off, in a concealed corner at the edge of the battlefield, a small white snake silently emerged from the ground. It glanced around, and after seemingly confirming that it was safe, its body rapidly expanded in a cloud of smoke.

Immediately afterward, Orochimaru's figure crawled out from the gigantic snake's mouth, which had opened a full 180 degrees, strands of mucus still clinging to his body.

When he had seen Ryouma buried underground by Jigen earlier, he had hesitated over whether to take the risk and intervene to help. Now it seemed all those worries had been completely unnecessary.

"So this is what you look like when you go all out. Truly terrifying," Orochimaru murmured softly, licking his lips.

Though he said it was terrifying, what he felt at that moment was nothing but reassurance. After all, who would ever complain about a teammate being overwhelmingly powerful?

Under the output of two sheer stat monsters, Takumi Village had been utterly transformed.

The ground was now crisscrossed with shocking, jagged fissures, and large numbers of buildings had become unstable under the shockwaves of the battle. Window glass shattered and sprayed everywhere. Furniture inside houses was swept out by raging winds. Pots and pans, tables and chairs flew wildly through the air, colliding with one another.

Dust filled the streets. Whether ordinary civilians or merchant nobles who had come to do business, everyone was now fleeing in panic, scrambling desperately toward the outskirts of the village. And beneath a thick wall at the entrance of the village, watching a golden-red meteor streak across the sky in pursuit of another figure, four villagers who had been skulking there finally let out sighs of relief.

"That scared me to death."

"By the way, is that mode really this strong without any price to pay? He doesn't even seem to hesitate when activating it."

"Who cares whether there's a price or not? We should hurry up and send this information to Black Zetsu."

"You're right."

Clearly, these four "villagers" were White Zetsu in disguise, using the Transformation Technique. Existences like them could be found in every village across the shinobi world, more or less. Their purpose was naturally to gather intelligence.

This had been the greatest aid to Madara in his ability to secretly manipulate and lay plans across the entire shinobi world over the past several decades.

However, because they feared that getting too close to the battlefield would allow Ryouma to sense them and kill them, the intelligence they had obtained was still very limited. All they knew was that there was some mysterious individual whose strength was simply outrageous, someone capable of fighting Ryouma at full power to a standstill.

These four White Zetsu looked at each other, one staring at another, another staring back, engaging in a round of wild speculation, yet ultimately failing to reach any useful conclusion. And just as Ryouma flew away, there was no longer any need for them to keep up the act. They immediately canceled their disguises, sank into the ground, and used the Mayfly Technique, rapidly fleeing in the direction of the Land of Wind.

---

Elsewhere, Ryouma pressed the attack, his entire body wrapped in a dazzling chakra cloak. At a terrifying speed that broke the sound barrier, he tore open the ground along his path. Like a bolt of lightning, he set off later yet arrived first, catching up to Jigen, who had been flung more than a thousand meters through the air.

Ryouma raised his right palm, violent chakra crazily converging upon it, emitting a piercing shriek.

Jigen forcibly stabilized himself midair as he violently flung his hands outward. Several incomparably sharp black rods appeared beside Ryouma as if teleporting, aiming straight for his body.

However, the golden-red chakra cloak merely rippled for a moment before knocking the black rods away, as easily as brushing off dust. The instant the rods were struck, they twisted and deformed in midair, finally shattering into fragments that scattered with the wind.

Seeing that his attack couldn't even break through Ryouma's defenses, Jigen no longer took him lightly. He swiftly pulled out a cube from the space-time storage, placing it in front of himself. When Ryouma saw the enormous black cube suddenly appear before him, not only was he unalarmed, he was delighted.

As his hand struck it, leaving a Flying Thunder God mark behind, he conveniently transferred the cube to the Land of Whirlpools to keep for future use.

Of course, Jigen knew perfectly well that using Daihakoten in front of Ryouma was no different from supplying the enemy. But at this moment, he had no other choice. He desperately needed even this brief moment to catch his breath.

A black space-time portal unfolded behind him, and Jigen seized the opportunity to widen the distance between himself and Ryouma. Then he reached into his robe and pulled out a handful of Chakra Edible Creations. A pained expression crossed his face, his lips twitched slightly, before he finally clenched his teeth and swallowed them all.

With the replenishment from the chakra pills, he no longer needed to carefully ration the chakra within his body.

At this moment, his mind was filled with a single thought: to kill the guy before him, whom he firmly believed to be Kaguya's lackey.

That's right. Up to now, he still stubbornly believed that Ryouma and Kaguya were on the same side. As proud as he was, he simply could not accept that a high-ranking member of the Ōtsutsuki clan could be locked in such a hard-fought battle with a native from a backwater nursery planet.

"Space-time abilities are such a pain."

Ryouma clicked his tongue in annoyance, finally understanding how his past opponents must have felt.

Earlier, he had tried to interrupt Jigen's teleportation at the fastest speed possible, but he had still been a step too slow.

As several chakra pills were swallowed, the patterns on Jigen's body grew increasingly complex, and his outward appearance drew even closer to that of a true Ōtsutsuki. Doing this would undoubtedly further shorten the usable lifespan of Jigen's vessel, but Isshiki within him no longer had any choice.

"Judging by this distance, it should be about enough."

Ryouma's gaze sharpened as he rapidly descended from the sky, slamming into the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust. Within the smoke, his hands moved in a blur as he formed seals at high speed, then struck the ground with a decisive palm.

The massive reserves of Magnet Release chakra brought about an absolute expansion of the jutsu's scale. Endless raging sand surged up from underground, flooding the forest near the coast. Trees were ripped up by the roots under the onslaught of sand and swept into the roaring sand tide.

Five enormous, ferocious sand dragons soared up from the sea of sand, carrying an unrivaled momentum as they converged and crashed toward Jigen. Wherever they passed, the air was compressed to the point of releasing dull, thunderous booms.

"Ninjutsu attacks like this are useless against me. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

Jigen calmly spread his hands. The Kāma in his palms erupted with a powerful suction force, forming a circular vortex around him.

The Magnet Release chakra attached to the surrounding sand was frantically drawn in. Even the five ferocious sand dragons could not escape. Their bodies twisted and distorted, eventually breaking down into countless fine grains of sand that collapsed back into the sea of sand.

Yet Ryouma felt no regret at all. He had never intended for Magnet Release to be his winning move. Creating this sand domain was merely to provide himself with a battlefield where he could freely use the Flying Thunder God Technique.

Beneath the unseen sand sea, countless space-time marks drifted slowly.

Without the slightest warning, Ryouma's figure flashed instantly to Jigen's back.

A clear, piercing cry of birds rang out.

A jet-black cube abruptly appeared once more, blocking Ryouma's attack. The collision instantly generated a shockwave that turned into a small storm, blasting the surrounding sand waves in all directions.

This time, before Ryouma could transfer the cube away, Jigen used Sukunahikona in advance, shrinking it into a die-sized object that dropped to the ground. At the same time, seizing the opportunity, he grasped a staff and smashed it down at Ryouma. The power contained in that strike was immense. Wherever it passed, the sea of sand was split apart, and even the ground beneath was torn open, forming a bottomless chasm.

With a flash of the Flying Thunder God Technique, Ryouma was undeterred and launched another ambush. As long as he was above this sea of sand, he was invincible.

The shrill cries of countless thunderbirds blended together

Four shadow clones simultaneously wielded golden-red Chidori, attacking Jigen from four different directions. In response, Jigen chose to avoid the clash. A space-time portal rapidly unfolded behind him, and his figure vanished abruptly from the encirclement of Ryouma's clones.

In the next instant, large numbers of black spikes burst forth from within Ryouma's shadow clones.

With several puffs of smoke exploding, Jigen's figure silently appeared behind Ryouma, scattering into the air countless rods so tiny they would require a microscope to see.

Relying on the Rikugan and Observation Haki's omnidirectional vision, Ryouma immediately detected the enemy's movement.

Holding his breath, he used the Flying Thunder God Technique to temporarily widen the distance.

At the same time, several tadpole-like curse-mark formulas quietly crawled onto Jigen's body. However, such small tricks clearly could no longer fool him. The Kāma in his palm shone brilliantly, absorbing all abnormal foreign chakra on his body in an instant. And this was precisely the opening Ryouma had been waiting for. When the Kāma absorbed ninjutsu, Jigen's main body would also be fixed in place.

The golden-red Chidori screeched as it left behind an indistinct afterimage along Ryouma's charging path.

"Damn, missed again. Did he dodge by shrinking this time?"

He did not disperse the Chidori in his hand. While carefully observing his surroundings, he pushed his malice-sensing ability to its limit.

At the same moment, under extremely precise chakra control, the Chidori in his hand rapidly changed shape, spreading outward into a ring of golden-red flames. In the instant the target was lost, he activated all three detection methods at once.

As the ring of fire expanded, a clearly visible gap appeared in the direction behind him.

It was none other than Jigen, who had shrunk himself and was using Kāma to absorb and reinforce the Fire Release flames.

"He found me that fast?"

He knew the fight could no longer continue in this sea of sand. He had to change locations. Ideally, he would drag Ryouma into his own space-time, but the opponent's Flying Thunder God, activated without any startup, would never give him that chance.

In a flash of thought, he chose to turn and flee, flying straight east toward the maritime region of the Land of Water.