Chapter 248: The Weight of Despair
At point-blank range, against any other shinobi, the Lava Release would have been a death sentence. But for Ren, it was a triviality.
As the torrent of corrosive mud spewed forth, Ren's expression remained one of detached amusement. A faint, almost imperceptible smirk played on his lips. There was no panic, no hurried movement—only a flicker of light, a subtle distortion in the air, and he was simply gone. Mei's devastating attack met nothing but empty space, sizzling harmlessly against the ground where he had stood.
*So fast!* The thought was a cold spike of dread in Mei's heart. *I had him locked! I calculated the timing and trajectory of his reappearance perfectly! Even a Kage shouldn't have been able to evade that!* The legendary Flying Thunder God Technique was more formidable than any rumor. A profound sense of powerlessness began to creep into her soul. With this technique, pinning him down was impossible. Escaping was a fantasy. A chilling realization settled over her: *Perhaps... my end truly is here.*
Her face, already pale from exertion and injury, lost another shade of color. Her eyes, wide with hyper-vigilance, darted, trying to track a presence that moved faster than sight. She didn't dare to blink, to even breathe too deeply. Her only option was a desperate, full-sensory defense, praying to weather the storm and find a single, fleeting opening for a counter-strike.
It came in the space between heartbeats.
He materialized behind her, not with a grand announcement, but with the silent finality of a reaper's shadow. There was no wasted motion. The instant the air solidified into his form, he was already in motion—a simple, brutally efficient punch aimed at the center of her back.
Mei's reflexes, honed by a lifetime of combat, screamed a warning. She spun, her arms crossing in a guard over her vitals. It was a testament to her skill that she managed any defense at all.
*CRACK!*
The impact was not that of a fist, but of a battering ram. The moment his knuckles connected with her forearms, a sickening crunch echoed, and white-hot agony lanced up to her shoulders. It was not a normal strike; it carried the monstrous, concentrated power of the Strength of a Hundred Seal. The force bypassed her block, shattering bone and sending her flying backward as if launched from a catapult. Her body was a ragdill in a hurricane of her own pain.
"It's over," Ren's voice was a cold statement of fact.
Before Mei's stunned, airborne body could even begin to arc towards the ground, Ren vanished again. He reappeared high above her, a dark silhouette against the sky. The air around him crackled and hissed as arcs of blue-white lightning spontaneously converged, coiling around his leg like serpents of pure energy.
**"Lightning Release: Shadow of the Dancing God!"**
He dropped like a thunderbolt. His leg, sheathed in a blinding corona of chakra-forged lightning, became an axe of divine punishment aimed directly at her defenseless torso. The sheer, domineering pressure of the attack stole the very breath from her lungs.
Mei's mind screamed for a counter—a Water Wall, a Mist technique, anything! But when she tried to force her hands into a seal, a fresh, searing wave of agony from her shattered arms made her gasp. She couldn't even lift them. They hung, useless and broken, at her sides.
Time had run out. In a final, desperate act of survival, she poured every last drop of her chakra into a raw, unshaped barrier around her body, a last-ditch attempt to armor herself against the inevitable.
*BOOOOM!*
The impact was catastrophic. The sound of the hit was a dull, wet thud that spoke of internal ruin. The distinct, horrifying snap of her spine breaking was unmistakable, even over the roar of the lightning. A choked, guttural scream was torn from Mei's throat, only to be cut short as her body was slammed into the earth.
The ground erupted. A crater, webbed with deep fissures, marked her point of impact. Dust and debris plumed into the air. When it settled, the Fifth Mizukage lay motionless in the center of the shallow pit, a broken doll amidst the shattered earth.
Ren landed gracefully a few feet away, his footsteps silent. He walked to the edge of the crater and looked down at his work with a clinical, almost playful curiosity.
"Heh. Terumi Mei," he mused aloud. "In another life, you were the object of desire for countless fans. I wonder if they'd still adore their goddess if they could see her now, broken and defeated."
A faint twitch of her eyelashes was the only response. Then, with immense effort, Mei's eyes fluttered open. Consciousness returned, and with it, a tsunami of pain so absolute it threatened to drag her back into the void. Her vision swam, finally focusing on the smirking visage of Uchiha Ren standing over her.
A jolt of primal fear shot through her. She tried to push herself up, to rally, to fight—but the movement sent fresh, blinding agony through her upper body. Worse, she realized with a cold, sinking horror that she felt nothing from the waist down. Her legs were distant, numb things. The memory of that final, crisp *snap* echoed in her mind. Her spine was severed. Without immediate, expert medical ninjutsu, she would never walk again.
The realization did not bring a fresh wave of anger or a final, defiant struggle. It brought a quiet, all-consuming despair. The fight drained from her completely, leaving behind a hollow shell. The fire in her eyes, the very will that had carried her through a civil war and the rebirth of her village, guttered and died.
She looked up at Ren, not with hatred, but with a profound, exhausted emptiness. Then, she closed her eyes, a silent, final surrender to the darkness that had claimed her body and her hope.
💀 WANT TO READ AHEAD? 💀
👉 JOIN MY PATREON — Patreon.com/The_Ripper_87
════════ ⬛ ⬛ ⬛ ⬛ ⬛ ════════
🔥CURRENTLY AT Chapter 350 : The Gods and the Titans
⚡ SUPPORT THE STORY WITH YOUR POWER STONES! ⚡
🖤 EVERY STONE AND EVERY PLEDGE HELPS KEEP THE STORY GOING! 🖤