[The Land of Lightning]
High above the outskirts of Kumogakure, within the clouds.
After flying for an entire day, Byaku finally arrived at Kumogakure.
Looking down at the village below, he couldn't shake the feeling that it was somehow dangerous.
Since his instincts were warning him, Byaku wasn't about to let his guard down.
After thinking it over briefly, a layer of frost immediately formed over the wings on his back.
The original Paper Release wings were concealed.
He formed a hand seal.
Poof!
A shadow clone appeared beside him.
It also covered its Paper Release wings with frost before descending toward Kumogakure.
When the shadow clone dropped to an altitude of five thousand meters, piercing alarms immediately began sounding throughout Kumogakure.
Although Byaku couldn't hear them clearly from such a height, his Kagura Mind's Eye showed Kumo shinobi rushing about all over the village.
As he wondered how they intended to stop him, platforms began rising from various parts of Kumogakure.
Mounted on each platform was a weapon shaped like a tuning fork, connected below to thick pipes.
Large amounts of chakra began gathering around the tuning-fork weapons.
Bright yellow spheres of light appeared at their tips, dazzling even in broad daylight.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Countless light spheres shot into the sky.
Their target was Byaku's shadow clone flying overhead.
Wanting to test both the speed and power of this weapon, Byaku's shadow clone kept flying through the sky, trying to dodge.
When the yellow light spheres reached midair, they suddenly burst apart.
They split into numerous smaller light spheres.
Byaku ran into them, and his body immediately slowed.
The light spheres weren't very powerful.
In fact, they had almost no destructive force at all.
Their only effect was brief paralysis.
One or two couldn't stop him.
But below were mechanical launch platforms, continuously firing endless streams of light spheres into the sky.
Before long, Byaku's shadow clone had nowhere left to dodge.
After being struck by a large number of light spheres, his body went numb, and he couldn't even keep flying.
Byaku, still hidden within the clouds, immediately dismissed the shadow clone.
After it exploded into a puff of smoke, Kumogakure immediately sent people into the sky to search the area.
Byaku entered Null Horizon and began thinking about how to give Kumogakure a devastating blow.
Then he looked at the thick clouds overhead and came up with an idea.
After Kumogakure searched back and forth for several hours without finding anything, the search teams finally withdrew.
Only then did he emerge from Null Horizon and appear within the clouds.
'If I use this technique, my dojutsu clones won't be enough.'
A thoughtful look flashed through Byaku's eyes. His figure blurred, and the original body switched over using Shadow Transfer.
He used the Transformation Technique again to disguise himself.
This time, however, he didn't use Paper Release to create wings.
Instead, he used the Spirit Transformation Technique to float in the air, while the ice wings on his back became nothing more than decoration.
Byaku clasped his hands together.
A massive amount of sage energy erupted within his body, and sage markings appeared on his face.
Sage Mode!
Ice Release: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals could create ice mirrors anywhere his chakra was distributed.
After making a slight modification to the technique, the effect became completely different.
Trailing long ice wings behind him, Byaku began weaving and spiraling through the clouds.
Sage chakra spread throughout the cloud layer.
Powerful winds streamed from Byaku's body, increasing his speed once again.
Once he had built up enough speed, he formed another hand seal.
"Sage Art, Wind Release: Tornado Hurricane Technique!"
The fierce winds around him had already formed into a spiral, slowly rotating in the sky.
The clouds churned by Byaku gradually turned pitch black.
It was as though the entire sky was collapsing.
Kumogakure had already been on high alert. As soon as the vortex appeared in the sky, they noticed it.
"What's going on? Who's up there?"
Mabui slammed open the door and shouted toward Cee, who was inside the sensory room.
As Kumogakure's top sensor, Cee had remained in the sensory room ever since Byaku's earlier probing attack.
The sensory room contained equipment that amplified sensing abilities, and Cee was constantly monitoring the changes in the sky.
"I can't sense him! He's too high up!"
"The cloud layer is blocking mechanical observation too!"
"But the chakra signature overhead has already surpassed a Tailed Beast Bomb! Get the villagers into the shelters immediately!"
Cold sweat covered Cee's face as he spoke rapidly to Mabui.
Mabui immediately ran to a large red button nearby, smashed the protective glass covering it, and slammed her palm onto it.
Beep... Beep... Beep...
Everyone in Kumogakure heard the massive alarm.
The short beeps gradually changed into a continuous tone.
A few seconds later, the volume increased until the entire village could hear the deafening alarm.
Fear filled the villagers' faces as they ran toward the shelters like mad.
"Hurry! Run!"
"This is the highest-level evacuation alarm!"
"Run!"
Ever since Kumogakure had been bombarded by Yagura's high-altitude Tailed Beast Bombs five years earlier, the village had conducted regular evacuation drills.
The villagers all understood the different alarm levels.
So when they heard the alarm reach the highest level, many of them broke down in panic.
The entire village fell into chaos.
Crying and screams echoed everywhere.
Although the Kumo shinobi were frightened as well, they still came out to maintain order.
By then, the sky had turned completely dark.
The cloud vortex had fully taken shape and was accelerating.
At that moment, Rengoku felt that the sage chakra within his body simply couldn't keep up with the consumption.
Even with a dojutsu clone continuously absorbing and transmitting sage chakra through the Rainbow Crystal Wall, using this technique was still pushing him beyond his limits.
The center of the vortex still required an enormous amount of chakra to remain stable.
His eyes sharpened, and the black diamond-shaped mark on his forehead instantly released.
Yin Seal, Release!
A tremendous amount of sage chakra poured out.
Whoosh!
Byaku poured every bit of the sage chakra he had stored in the Yin Seal during this time into the cloud vortex.
As it continued spinning, the vortex finally stabilized and began accelerating on its own.
This was Byaku's Super S-rank Ice Release secret technique, created using tailed beast-level sage chakra combined with Wind Release and Ice Release.
"Sage Art, Ice Release: Hail Ice Cloud Vortex!"
After the vortex formed, Byaku continuously used Wind Release to keep accelerating its rotation.
The icy eye at its center continuously froze all the rainwater within the clouds into ice crystals, forming countless ice blades and hailstones.
Guided by Byaku, the cloud vortex gradually descended and soon entered Kumogakure's observation range.
When the Kumo shinobi saw the center of the vortex, which measured five kilometers across, many of them were stunned.
Then the freezing air descended from the sky, and countless ice blades and hailstones swept down.
Kumogakure instantly fell into complete chaos.
The ice blades flew through the air like countless shuriken.
Being struck by a hailstone was like being hit by an exploding paper bomb.
The temperature plunged to more than thirty degrees below zero.
Even with chakra protecting their bodies, the Kumo shinobi found their hands and joints growing stiff.
Anyone who slowed down even slightly would be instantly crushed by the hailstones and ice blades.
The entire Kumogakure looked as though it had entered the end of the world.