The Shinnō slammed down, the steel deck shattered, countless fragments pierced into his back.
He let out a painful scream, and from the corner of his eye he saw Star Platinum already once again clenching its fist, smashing straight toward his face.
On the other side, Killer Queen appeared, stretching out its hand to touch Shinnō's hand, about to set a bomb.
And from the fingertips of Ryosuke, who was tightly gripping Shinnō's skull, came a scorching heat.
Shinnō suddenly realized, 'Ryosuke, this vicious bastard, he actually wants to roast my brain alive!'
Three certain-death attacks were about to fall, death rapidly pressing in, the great undertaking Shinnō longed for was about to shatter and sink into the sand.
Determination flashed across his eyes, and he roared loudly, "Explode!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Every single deck, every single cabin of the Sky Fortress, all at Shinnō's single command, exploded at the same time.
Along with the flames of the explosion, a surging tide of negative emotions once again appeared.
'Zero-Tails Core!'
Shinnō, seeing things were going badly, chose to detonate the Zero-Tails Core.
The entire Sky Fortress, whether the weapons system, the defense system, or even the lightbulbs and telephones in every cabin, was all powered by the Zero-Tails Core.
Dark chakra covered the entire Sky Fortress, and as long as Shinnō gave the order, the Sky Fortress could become the most dazzling, and also the most terrifying, firework.
And now, this was his final trump card to escape with his life.
The flames of the explosion swallowed Ryosuke, blocked his sight, and a mouthful of blood infused with the remnant chakra of the Zero-Tails, like steel needles, shot straight toward Ryosuke's eyes.
"Ora!"
Star Platinum smashed apart the incoming blood with a single punch, while the speed of its other hand did not decrease, pounding down at the position marked in memory.
A muffled sound of flesh turning into pulp rang out.
But Ryosuke knew, Shinnō was not dead.
Because in his hand, there was now something else.
A skull fragment, jagged and uneven at the break.
To escape, at the instant of the explosion, Shinnō had forcefully smashed his own skull apart, breaking free from Ryosuke's restraint.
Taking the Sky Fortress, which he had always been proud of, as the price, he fought for a fleeting chance at survival.
Shinnō might have this flaw or that flaw, but in order to reach his goal, the cruelty he applied to himself and to his subordinates far exceeded the scope ordinary people could ever achieve.
On the ground lay flesh crushed by Star Platinum, from its appearance it seemed the entire left arm up to the shoulder blade had been smashed, with part of the ribs and kidney taken along with it.
After detonating the Zero-Tails Core, Shinnō could no longer rely on dark chakra, and couldn't possibly repair his body as recklessly as before. In this state, Shinnō could not run far at all.
Ryosuke waved his hand, releasing a gust of wind that blew away the explosion's smoke.
And at the end of his sight, he saw a staggering figure, Shinnō.
Struggling, he took a step, standing before a blasted hole, turned back to meet Ryosuke's eyes.
In his gaze there was panic, fear, and even doubt, "Do you want to come kill me, or..."
"Save the city below?"
The Sky Fortress, more than 170 meters long, weighing 200,000 tons, in the explosion was quickly turning into millions of burning steel fragments of all sizes, all wrapped with the negative emotional energy of the Zero-Tails.
And the outward blast waves from inside out would make the fragments shoot outward.
Just like a loaded shotgun, once the trigger was pulled, the unlucky thing called "Gorin City" would be blasted into a hornet's nest, hundreds of thousands would die in the disaster, and even more would perish in the ensuing chaos.
And…
This process would not take long.
Since the Sky Fortress had already gone through a round of descent, now it was only two hundred meters above Gorin City. In just three or four seconds, the city below would be turned into a sea of flames and ruins.
Ryosuke had just ended his last time stop, he still needed a brief rest. If he wanted to kill Shinnō by any other means, it would take at least one or two seconds.
So, the answer appeared in his heart.
Ryosuke and Shinnō exchanged a glance, and his indifferent gaze answered Shinnō's question, "You're not worthy."
'Not worthy of what?'
Shinnō froze for half a second, then suddenly realized.
"You think… the life of me, the dignified leader of the Land of the Sky, is not worthy of being compared to the hundreds of thousands of lowly people below?!"
Shinnō stared at Ryosuke's departing back, enraged into laughter, "Hahaha!"
"I'll remember this, next time we meet, I'll make you regret today's decision!"
Shinnō cursed aloud, but in his heart…
He was secretly overjoyed.
'Alive… heh… I survived!'
Shinnō once again leapt into the Sky Fortress, stripped a flight tool from the body of a dead Sky Ninja soldier, and strapped it on himself.
'Exactly as I guessed. This fool Ryosuke, he looks as if he has no desires, but actually he's greedier than anyone. What he seeks is the most fragile, the most useless thing, '
'Kindness and morality.'
'And those two 'filthy things' only 'humans' have. If you want to become above humans, want to fly into the sky, looking down on the lowly, you have to make yourself clean and weightless.'
'Just like me.'
From a broken wall, Shinnō flew out.
Apart from Shinnō, there were still dozens of Sky Ninja soldiers who had not been caught in the first blast, escaping out of the Sky Fortress.
Shinnō mixed among them, disguised as an ordinary soldier, intending to flee in the chaos.
Thinking back on Ryosuke's previous opponents, how many could push this monster into retreat? And how many could escape intact? And today, the Zero-Tails techniques and the Sky Fortress battle body had been perfectly demonstrated.
As long as he could get away, Shinnō had won.
"Farewell, Ryosuke."
Shinnō whispered, finally turning his head to glance at Gorin City, saw Ryosuke who had landed on the ground, and his proud expression turned into confusion.
"He… what is he doing?"
———
Ryosuke fell straight down from the Sky Fortress, returning to the ground.
Just as he landed, once again from the sky came another earth-shaking roar.
The Sky Fortress, in this explosion, completely disintegrated, and a rain of fire fell in all directions without any pattern.
"Brother Ryosuke!"
Sasuke, Rei, and Kakashi were running over from afar.
The ease was gone from their faces.
Yes, just as they thought, Ryosuke had no problem dealing with Shinnō. But… this Sky Fortress was beyond that scope, it wasn't even about Shinnō anymore.
Even if Shinnō wasn't on the Sky Fortress, as long as this thing appeared above Gorin City, this city-wide explosion would happen.
Everyone knew, the Sky Ninja army had long stopped being human, they were cruel, their own lives meant nothing, much less the lives of others.
The series of large-scale bombings on the Land of Fire was solid proof.
But Gorin City was a different matter.
The Land of Wind's consortiums were Shinnō's financial backers, and Gorin City was a very important oasis city in the Land of Wind, providing massive taxes and minerals each year.
The earlier Destruction Ray had targeted the civilian area, meant to lure Ryosuke into responding, barely… could be considered tactical.
But this current self-detonation,
From a rational point of view, it caused their financiers immense losses.
From an emotional point of view… this was pure, inhuman, indiscriminate slaughter.
And all of this, just to cover the escape of one old beast.
Ryosuke's eyes were incomparably cold.
He looked up at the sky.
Endless fire rain, meteors, explosions.
Ryosuke looked around.
People's faces were gradually filled with despair. They knew, there was nowhere to run, no way to hide.
The only thing they could do was wait for death.
Ryosuke took a deep breath, took out the Dragon-Serpent Pearl from the Ghost Room, and raised it high.
In an instant, the natural energy within dozens of kilometers surged into his body.
BOOM!
Rolling thunder appeared, strands of golden lightning coiled around, soon the lightning turned into flames, and under countless gazes, the flames turned into,
Ryosuke closed his eyes, took a deep breath, all of his Ripple, his natural energy, surged and roared with every breath, until the power reached its peak. He suddenly opened his eyes.
His pupils dazzling, like a blazing sun fallen into the world.
Five fingers clenched into a fist, wrapped in boundless blazing sun-like fire, he pounded heavily into the ground.
At this moment, the entire Gorin City felt the tremor, not only from beneath their feet, but a shudder from their souls.
Golden flames roared, spun, sinking into the deepest earth.
The earth power bestowed by the Dragon Core spread deep into the earth veins, rippling outward like waves on a pond.
The earth awakened.
Countless tiny grains of sand broke free from gravity, slowly floating up.
Kakashi, who had just arrived, exclaimed, "This is… the Sage Art of the White Snake Sage?!"
The sage art of manipulating the earth, it matched perfectly with the intel describing the White Snake Sage.
'Could it be that Ryosuke can also control the earth!'
Kakashi's thought was beautiful.
If Ryosuke could control the earth like the White Snake Sage, not to mention one Sky Fortress, even if an entire Sky Fleet came, Ryosuke would not care.
But Ryosuke had only absorbed the Dragon Core, mastering just a part of the earth's power. If it were any other land, at most he could only draw strength from the earth, gaining a boost in ability.
But the Land of Wind was different.
Here, the earth... was sand.
To control solid land into waves, and to control tiny, light sand, these were completely two different difficulties.
This was the method Ryosuke thought of.
Substitutes, Ripple, Golden Spin, none of them could deal with such a large-scale attack.
Now, Ryosuke could only gamble.
Gamble that he could endure.
Gamble that time was enough.
Gamble…
That these innocent, not yet off-work, just-finished-paying-mortgage poor workers…
Their lives would not end here.
Sha~ Sha~
The sound came from afar, Sasuke turned his head and saw, a tiny grain of sand passed before his eyes, flying into the sky.
It glowed faintly golden, like a grain of golden sand.
Looking closely, one could see tiny golden flames burning on it.
The little sand grain collided with a falling fire rain, punched a tiny hole, then vanished.
Sasuke blankly stared at the fire rain about to fall from the sky.
BOOM!
The flames of Ryosuke's whole body poured into the earth.
The next second, tens of thousands of rivers of golden sand surged from afar, flowing past the citizens, like fireflies rushing into flames, charging at the falling fire rain.
This was a rainstorm flowing against the current.
One by one, the steel fragments of the Sky Fortress were melted and pierced by golden sand.
Finally they turned into a sky full of iron dust, like falling snowflakes.
Ryosuke panted heavily, his body and spirit exhausted like never before. To achieve this effect, he had used up all of his Ripple.
This could be said to be his weakest moment.
Now, Ryosuke was only an ordinary man with many Stands, the mastery of the Golden Spin, and super-speed regeneration. For a short time, he could no longer use Ripple or natural power.
Ryosuke really wanted to rest.
But the battle was not over.
"Hermit Purple!"
Purple vines shot out, precisely grabbing a crookedly flying "Sky Ninja soldier" in midair. Ryosuke pulled hard, yanking him forward.
It was Shinnō.
Shinnō erupted with the last of his strength, breaking free from Hermit Purple's vines.
He had seen Ryosuke's weakness.
Of course, even if anyone unleashed such a terrifying "technique" just now, how could it be without a price.
Shinnō advanced instead of retreating, face wild, feeling the light at the end of the tunnel.
"Ryosuke! You are now incomparably weak! This is my best chance to kill you!"
He once again swung a heavy punch, determined to kill Ryosuke here, but the response was, "Ora!"
A simple jab from Star Platinum broke Shinnō's momentum.
Shinnō was dumbfounded.
A man who had just unleashed a golden sand river technique, how could he… still have such terrifying power…
Star Platinum coldly stared at Shinnō.
"Ora ora ora ora!"
A chain of punches, Shinnō immediately coughed blood, slammed against a wall, then thudded to the ground.
Shinnō tried again to use a forbidden jutsu to heal his body, but found not only did the wounds not close, under the forbidden jutsu his body instead aged faster.
Strands of hair fell out, his hands and face covered in wrinkles, his once burly and tall body withered and hunched.
A hand reached over, gently supporting him, kindly saying,
"Old man, don't you die yet, I haven't beaten you up."
White Snake said this, glanced at Shinnō's skull-less head, felt it unsightly, and pushed the hair from both sides together in the middle.
White Snake's fingers were cold, like a real viper.
Shinnō's frail body trembled, looking at Ryosuke who was walking toward him step by step.
"You just said."
Ryosuke stood before him, "Next time we meet, you'll make me… what?"
Shinnō had never imagined, in less than half a minute after separating, they would meet again.
"I, I…"
Shinnō was utterly flustered.
Clearly he had so many trump cards, clearly he had prepared for so long, why were they all so easily torn apart by this man before him?
In the sky, a few surviving Sky Ninja soldiers still hovered, including Shinnō's most loyal lieutenant.
Seeing his commander captured, his heart was weighed down in grief, he suddenly tore off his uniform, revealing the explosive tag lining underneath.
He dove straight down, intending to turn himself into a bomb to save Shinnō.
The lieutenant flew closer and closer, about to pull the line and ignite the explosive tags, when he saw, Shinnō kneeling on the ground.
"Please, don't kill me… I can become your subordinate, I can give you the technology of the Sky Fortress… as long as you don't kill me, I'll agree to anything, I can even help you negotiate with the consortium…"
The lieutenant hung in midair, staring blankly at the scene, only feeling the fuse line in his hand… had lost all meaning.
He closed his eyes, pulled the line.
An explosion in midair, leaving not even a body.
Ryosuke glanced at the self-destructing lieutenant in the sky, then looked back down at Shinnō, "This has nothing to do with technology or the consortium. I kill you for one reason only."
White Snake stabbed through Shinnō's chest from behind, two discs popped out from Shinnō's forehead.
"And that is, you're too much of a beast," Ryosuke said.
Shinnō coughed blood, his gaze toward Ryosuke scattering, and whispered, "Ryosuke… even if you succeed… do you think a stable world… can tolerate a monster like you?"
Ryosuke leaned in close to his ear.
"None of your damn business."
With that, he pulled out the discs.
Shinnō collapsed to the ground, no more life within him.
[Slayed Shinnō, obtained 700 soul fragments.]
[Destroyed Zero-Tails Nihility, Infinite Energy, obtained 1200 soul fragments.]
[Crushed the Sky Ninja Army, obtained 1500 soul fragments.]
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
patreon.com/XenosX
🥳Joining Patreon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰