Chapter 268: Warm-Up Complete
As Uchiha Madara unleashed his carnage, deafening explosions erupted one after another across Iwagakure. The village, which had just begun to regain a semblance of peace after the clone attacks subsided, was once again torn apart by relentless chaos.
Flames soared into the sky, painting the night in shades of red, while thick black smoke rose like a massive wave, obscuring the stars and moon. The air was filled with the choking stench of gunpowder, making it difficult to breathe.
Even while focusing on the meteors and carefully lowering them, Onoki couldn't ignore the destruction below.
"Uchiha Madara!"
Seeing Madara rampaging through the ninja forces and slaughtering countless warriors, Onoki's composure finally cracked.
The shadow of the meteors loomed over all of Iwagakure, just as the shadow of Uchiha Madara loomed over Onoki's mind.
Years ago, during a trip to Konoha with his mentor, Onoki had encountered Madara. His cold words and overwhelming power had left an indelible mark on him—a shadow that lingered to this day.
Onoki had thought he'd moved past it after Madara's death, but seeing him now, he realized he had never truly escaped that fear.
But he was the Tsuchikage!
"You hold the line. I'm going down there!" Onoki shouted to the surrounding ninjas.
If Madara was allowed to continue, everyone would die!
"T-Tsuchikage-sama!"
As the Iwagakure ninjas exchanged panicked glances, Onoki flew toward Madara's location. At that moment, a crushing pressure descended upon the remaining ninjas.
It felt as though Onoki had been shouldering half the weight of the meteors on his own, and now they were forced to bear that burden. Though their faces turned red from exertion, and the meteors continued to descend, they managed to hold on.
Those beneath the meteors gave it their all, ensuring the massive rocks were lowered slowly.
---
While Uchiha Madara rampaged freely across the battlefield, claiming lives with ease, a kunai silently shot toward his blind spot. It carried an explosive tag, slicing through the air with a sharp whistle—a whisper of death aimed at Madara's back.
However, Madara's expression didn't change. It was as if he had anticipated this all along. Without even turning around, he casually grabbed a longsword from a nearby jonin, who hadn't even realized his weapon had been taken.
Madara swung the sword backward without looking. A flash of cold steel struck the kunai mid-air with pinpoint precision, shattering it into two clean halves.
The fragmented kunai, however, did not lose its lethality. One half flew into a ninja's neck, killing him instantly, while the other embedded itself in another ninja's chest—exploding on impact. The two ninjas fell to the ground, dead before they could even scream.
The jonin who had lost his weapon froze in panic. Before he could react, Madara grabbed him by the throat with one hand and lifted him high into the air.
"You said you'd defeat me in three minutes?" Madara asked coldly, his voice dripping with disdain and mockery, his eyes emotionless as if he were staring at a corpse.
The jonin struggled, letting out garbled sounds, but Madara's iron grip made it impossible for him to beg or resist effectively.
The jonin never expected that a simple morale-boosting statement would make him Madara's target…
By now, the tide of the battle had completely turned in Madara's favor. The original force of 100 ninjas lay scattered in pools of blood, reduced to nothing in less than a minute. The ground was littered with dismembered bodies and broken weapons, the air thick with the stench of blood.
If not for the reinforcements arriving steadily, there would already be no survivors left.
"Dead men… should remain in the Pure Land. Don't come back to stir up trouble!"
The jonin gritted his teeth, glancing at his terrified comrades and the golems preparing to rescue him. Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out a metallic sphere and shouted:
"You're nothing but a relic of a bygone era! The new age has no place for you!"
The metallic sphere erupted in blinding white light, brighter than the sun, forcing everyone to shield their eyes. Even Madara squinted slightly but showed no signs of panic.
BOOM!
The sphere exploded with a deafening roar, unleashing a massive shockwave and searing heat that engulfed the battlefield. Smoke and dust billowed upward, shrouding everything in an impenetrable haze.
The explosion's force tore through the ground, hurling debris into the air. Many ninjas were thrown back by the shockwave, despite their attempts to evade it.
As the dust began to settle, all eyes turned to where the explosion had occurred.
The sphere was an upgraded version of an explosive tag, with ten times the power of a standard tag. Surely, even someone like Madara couldn't survive unscathed…
But in the despairing eyes of the ninjas, a massive blue figure began to rise from the smoke. Uchiha Madara stood within the protective shell of his Susano'o, casually brushing dust off his crimson armor as though nothing had happened.
"Warm-up's over," he said calmly.
---
At that moment, the ground shook violently. The remaining four earth golems, wielding massive fists, emerged through the lingering smoke and charged at Madara and his Susano'o.
"I said… the warm-up's over."
The Susano'o conjured four massive swords in its hands, slashing downward with devastating force.
The enormous blue energy blades clashed with the golems' fists, producing a thunderous boom. The shockwave rippled outward, splitting the earth and flinging debris high into the air.
The golems' fists shattered under the power of the swords, but the energy blades didn't stop there—they continued forward, slicing through the golems' bodies.
The swords tore through the golems with a resounding crash, sending massive fragments flying in all directions. The blue sword energy extended hundreds of meters, obliterating everything in its path. The ninjas caught in the blade's trajectory were reduced to dust.
"How is this possible? The earth golems were destroyed in a single strike?" The ninja controlling the golems exclaimed in disbelief as their connection to the constructs was severed.
As long as the cores were intact, the golems should have been able to absorb earth and regenerate endlessly. How could Madara have destroyed them so easily?
On the battlefield, with the shattered remnants of the golems around him, Uchiha Madara's expression remained calm.
These constructs were effective against weaker ninjas, even capable of overpowering groups of jonin. But against him, they were no different from the others.
No, in truth, every ninja in Iwagakure was the same to him.
Except… one.
Sensing a chakra source rapidly approaching him, Madara's lips curled into a faint smile.
Finally, someone interesting. He hadn't expected Iwagakure to have a person like this.
(End of chapter)