On a mountain peak dozens of kilometers away from Kumogakure.
A massive Space-Time Chakra Cannon was set up there, its enormous barrel continuously charging.
"Charge at seventy percent... eighty percent..."
"Ninety percent... one hundred percent!"
"Fire!"
A chakra sphere five meters in diameter shot straight toward the cloud vortex above Kumogakure.
The chakra shell exploded violently.
At the same time, huge chakra shells were fired from four other directions into the clouds.
Each chakra shell exploded instantly, affecting an area several dozen meters across.
But...
The next moment, against a cloud vortex whose eye alone measured five kilometers across, it had no effect whatsoever.
The areas affected by the explosions were immediately scattered by the raging hurricane.
The vortex's rotation wasn't affected at all.
"It's no use, Mabui! We can't destroy the vortex at all!"
Yukubi roared into the communicator.
[Bzzz... target... that... person...]
The powerful freezing winds distorted the sound coming through the communicator.
Even so, Yukubi heard Mabui's voice.
"Change targets! Aim at the person inside the clouds!"
"Shoot him down!"
The Space-Time Chakra Cannons began charging again.
A huge sphere of energy gathered in front of each barrel.
This time, all five Space-Time Chakra Cannons condensed massive energy spheres.
"Yukubi! That person's too fast! We can't lock onto him!"
"And the barrels need to cool down now! Otherwise they'll be damaged!"
The operators hurriedly reported.
At that moment, Byaku was focusing all his efforts on using Wind Release to drive the cloud vortex, making it spin faster and faster.
As time passed, a layer of high-speed rotating airflow gradually formed around the outside of the vortex, like a gigantic whirlpool.
Within its center, thousands or even tens of thousands of hailstones and ice blades were produced every second.
Driven by the tremendous winds, they were hurled toward Kumogakure below at terrifying speed.
Caught between the raging winds and the hail and ice blades, Kumogakure fell into complete chaos.
Buildings were destroyed, trees were uprooted, and people fled in all directions, screaming in terror.
Anyone below the rank of chunin could barely keep their footing.
All the Kumo shinobi could do was hide inside buildings.
["If you can't lock on, then calculate his lead! We have to make him stop! Don't worry about damaging the barrels! We don't have time anymore!"]
Kumogakure was suffering losses every moment. Yukubi could no longer care about anything else and roared angrily.
The other Kumo shinobi were also covered in cold sweat as they calculated Byaku's projected flight path.
Even with the Space-Time Chakra Cannons, Kumogakure's automatic targeting still struggled under these conditions.
Once the operators finally finished their calculations...
"Fire!"
Yukubi immediately chopped his hand down with a grim expression.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The five Space-Time Chakra Cannons all fired toward Byaku's position above Kumogakure.
To their credit, Kumogakure's operators knew what they were doing.
The five cannons completely covered the three-kilometer area ahead of Byaku's flight path.
Unless he stopped in place or flew backward, he would have no choice but to take the blast head-on.
The large yellow energy spheres reached their designated positions and exploded at once.
But Byaku wasn't stupid. He had already seen through Kumogakure's plan.
In the middle of such a violent storm, no one outside could see him anyway.
With a thought, he slipped directly into Null Horizon.
Although the chakra shells exploded violently in the air, they hit nothing.
As soon as the explosions ended, Byaku emerged from Null Horizon and continued using Wind Release.
Kumogakure's Space-Time Chakra Cannons relied on chakra signatures to determine whether a target was still present.
Although Byaku had just disappeared into Null Horizon, before Kumogakure even had time to celebrate, he appeared again.
The bombardment had once more accomplished nothing.
"Damn it! We missed again?"
Yukubi looked at the radar, utterly dejected.
"Keep firing!"
The Kumo shinobi under his command could only obey and begin gathering energy again.
Unexpectedly...
Crackle!
The Space-Time Chakra Cannon beside them erupted with sparks and immediately shut down.
The Space-Time Chakra Cannons at the other four positions fired two more chakra shells.
But once again, they had no effect whatsoever.
The target was still visible on the radar.
Before long, voices came through the communicator.
"Yukubi, Space-Time Chakra Cannon Number Two has overloaded and been destroyed."
"Number Three has overloaded and been destroyed."
"Number Four..."
"Number Five..."
Including the cannon beside Yukubi, all five Space-Time Chakra Cannons had overloaded.
Even so, they still hadn't managed to stop Byaku.
Yukubi collapsed to the ground, his face ashen.
The cloud vortex above Kumogakure had completely descended.
The combination of freezing temperatures and violent winds turned the ice blades and hailstones into the sharpest of weapons.
Anyone who hadn't made it inside a building died miserably outside.
Even buildings weren't completely safe. Some with weaker walls were smashed through by the hailstones.
Combined with the raging winds, trees, rocks, and everything else were hurled everywhere.
The final wave of violent wind swept down, washing over Kumogakure one last time.
Only after countless buildings had been swallowed up and mountain peaks had been leveled did the cloud vortex finally disappear.
The cloud cover overhead had been limited in size. Once all the rainwater inside had been used up, Byaku could only continue feeding it with his own chakra.
But even he could only sustain a weather-scale super-large secret technique like this for a few minutes.
The moment he guided the vortex down to the ground, he immediately escaped into Null Horizon.
Only after confirming that the enemy had disappeared did the Kumo shinobi emerge from hiding and begin disaster relief.
Samui, Mabui, and Cee all came out of their shelters and climbed to higher ground to overlook the entire village.
All three of them wore grim expressions.
The technique had lasted for a full half hour, and Kumogakure had suffered catastrophic losses.
The ground was covered with ice blades and hailstones.
There wasn't a single living person left outside the buildings.
All of Kumogakure's defenses had become a joke, and the painstakingly developed Space-Time Chakra Cannons had turned into nothing more than decorations.
The key point was that they still didn't even know who their attacker was.
Just then, several ANBU arrived beside Mabui to report.
"More than two thousand civilians and around three hundred shinobi were killed in this attack. The number of injured hasn't been counted yet."
"But the greatest losses were to buildings and supplies."
The Hail Ice Cloud Vortex took a long time to prepare, so large numbers of people had managed to reach the shelters and survive.
The civilians and shinobi who died had all failed to find adequate shelter for one reason or another.
After hearing the report, Mabui showed no relief.
If a single secret technique from the enemy could suppress all of Kumogakure, then what about next time?
Who knew when they might come back and do it again?
Kumogakure was already nearly crippled. If this happened a few more times, its economy, technology, and every other aspect would suffer a complete decline.
At that moment, a huge shadow slowly descended from the horizon.
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