Silence.
Absolute silence.
Heartbeats stopped. Eyes bulged in unison.
Every onlooker felt their blood freeze, a chill crawling up their spines, coiling around their hearts, constricting their throats.
Thump! Kimura Shū swallowed with difficulty, his face as pale as a death shroud. His lips trembled so much he couldn't utter a single word, his entire body shaking like a sieve.
Kushina's hand-over-mouth pose froze in place, her palms icy cold.
That excited blush she had just moments ago while watching the fight?
Gone. Replaced by boundless terror and a complete blankness.
The eyes that always lit up when following Ryo?
Now filled with unshakable horror. For the first time, she felt what it meant to face an "insurmountable chasm"—an absolute crushing of power levels.
Just one look at that corridor of destruction extending from Ryo's feet into the depths of the forest, and her legs turned to jelly.
Mikoto's noble and aloof facade?
Shattered in an instant.
Her gaze? Never in her life had she been so shaken.
On the high platform, a crisp clack!
Hiruzen's treasured pipe slipped straight out of his agape mouth.
Carrying a few wisps of smoke, it fell onto the cold stone bricks, sparks scattering, tobacco spilling everywhere.
This old man, known as "The Professor," who had crawled his way through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, who always kept a steady face? He couldn't hold it anymore.
He stared fixedly at the training ground—at that terrifying gash.
It started just a meter in front of Ryo's feet, wide and bottomless, tearing through the earth, plowing across the entire training field, and savagely plunging into the distant forest.
Just looking at that savage maw, one could almost smell the aura of everything being cut.
The sound of the pipe dropping was jarring in the silence, but it couldn't suppress the thunderclap resounding in Hiruzen's heart.
"Unbelievable…" His throat was dry, and he forced out words heavy as stones. "…The sword wasn't even unsheathed? Just with the scabbard… he unleashed something so condensed? No. That was normal chakra. There's no chakra signature at all!"
He swept his gaze toward the devastated forest edge, his heart pounding, the destructive aftermath making his body tremble.
"…This kid…" Hiruzen's voice was low and deep, carrying a thousand-pound weight and a hint of hidden fear. "…Just this one attack's destructive power and that level of control… Even ordinary Jōnin can't reach this. It's already Kage-level."
Hiruzen's mind exploded instantly.
Whoosh—As the dust settled slightly, the sight at the end of the gash made everyone's hearts almost leap out of their chests.
Minato. He wasn't dead yet.
He hadn't even been directly hit by that crimson crescent.
But his state? A million times worse than death.
He had been flung by the terrifying shockwave from the side of the slash, smashing into the edge of the gash like a cannonball. His internal organs were so shaken they were almost falling apart.
Worst of all was his right arm, broken.
It hung limply at a grotesque angle, not severed only by sheer luck.
This proved one thing—Ryo had intentionally aimed off.
But Minato's boasted speed and strength?
In front of that crimson, dazzling crescent that was as fast as teleportation, they were less than nothing.
Just being grazed by the impact, his entire body felt like it had been stuffed into countless invisible meat grinders.
His clothes were in tatters, his body covered in dense cuts. In some places, bones were visible.
Blood, like spilled water, stained the scorched earth by the gash. His twisted, broken right arm and the deep gash on his left shoulder bled nonstop, bone visible beneath torn flesh.
Curled up there, the intense pain and blood loss made his body shake like a broken bellows, spraying blood foam with every tremor.
He struggled to lift his head, his face smeared with bloody mud. Only a pair of bloodshot, crimson eyes stubbornly, fixedly stared.
His gaze was hollow, leaving only despair, fixed on the origin point of the gash—Ryo, who stood with his hands in his pockets, his clothes barely wrinkled.
This damned monster.
He lost. A complete and utter loss. Not because his technique was inferior. Not because of exhaustion. It was a comprehensive, crushing defeat from spirit to will, from strength to soul, in every dimension, leaving not even a speck of dust.
Minato tried to open his mouth, but only tore the already bitten-through wound on his lower lip, blood foam mixed with dirt dripping from the corners.
His throat made "hnn… hnn…" sounds, like a broken bellows leaking air, wanting to roar, wanting to say something…
Finally.
A voice so faint it was almost inaudible, mixed with a strong scent of blood, as if scraped from the shattered remnants of his soul, trembling with collapse, tore through the silent air: "I…"
His voice caught. He desperately gathered his last bit of strength, his facial muscles twisted from pain, his voice as light as a mosquito's hum, yet weighing on everyone's hearts: "...lost..."
The two broken words left his mouth, draining the last strength supporting his head.
On the side, Kushina slowly lowered her icy hands, her large eyes misty.
Looking at Ryo again, her gaze was complex, filled with incomprehensible bewilderment. This was the first time she had seen even a fragment of his power.
Hiruzen stiffly bent his old back and picked up the cold pipe from the ground. The embers had long since died out, ashes utterly dead, like his mood at this moment.
He gripped the pipe tightly, his knuckles white.
No one spoke. Silence.
Only the wind, carrying the mixed scent of fresh earth, grass, and thick blood, swirled around the edge of the massive gash.
That gash, traversing the entire training ground and splitting deep into the forest, like a savage wound torn open by a monster's claws, stood like a silent tombstone, a cold and cruel pronouncement carved into Konoha.
It announced the arrival of a monstrous existence.
(To be continued.)