I'm in Konoha, and I started with Ashura Chakra.

"Such a range—is this the legendary Wood Release Kekkei Genkai?"

Looking at the advancing sea of ​​trees, Pain was slightly surprised and finally realized why Wood Release was called the bloodline limit for pacifying the chaotic world.

Such an astonishingly wide-ranging technique, even for Nagato with the Rinnegan, only the strongest Pain, with his Super Shinra Tensei, could rival this sea of ​​trees in terms of destructive range.

Moreover, when Nagato unleashes Super Shinra Tensei, he needs to temporarily reclaim the chakra of the other five Pains. The energy required is something that even someone with the Uzumaki clan bloodline would find difficult to handle.

In contrast, for Yagyu, this sea of ​​trees was merely his starting point.

Just like the Sea of ​​Trees, Yagyu's vast chakra reserves were so immense that even Nagato was awestruck.

Before even meeting, Pain abandoned his arrogance as a "god".

He knew that his next opponent was also a young new god.

However, this ninja world does not need two gods, so one of him and Yagyu must die.

In Nagato's eyes, Yagyu had become the biggest obstacle to his peace efforts.

So he said to the Senju brothers and the Second Tsuchikage beside him, who were controlled by the Hundred Faces and had their consciousness stripped away, "I'll take the lead in the attack. You assist me from the side. If an opportunity arises, don't hesitate to attack."

"They'll wipe me out along with all the Wood Release ninjas from Konoha."

Of the Six Paths of Pain, Nagato Cho was the only one who truly valued Yahiko's body.

The current Pain is merely a clone that was sacrificed using White Zetsu clones. Nagato wouldn't care at all if he used it and destroyed it.

As for the other six Paths of Pain, Nagato preserved some of their body tissues. Even if they were all destroyed or turned to dust, Nagato, the true strongest Outer Path with the Six Paths Technique, could still use the Hell Path's abilities to revive them.

If we could trade Pain for Yagyu, that would be an incredible bargain.

"I understand." Bai Mao nodded and reminded him, "However, I need to control three people at the same time. Their combat power may be less than 70% of what they were in life, at most only about 50%."

"That's enough."

Pain calmly said, "Even if we can't kill him, it doesn't matter. As long as we can hold him off and successfully seal the Four-Tails to the Seven-Tails, that will be our victory."

"Understood, let's go then."

The Second Tsuchikage, controlled by the Hundred Faces, nodded, then his body, covered in white bandages and riddled with cracks, was revealed.

It vanished into nothingness at a speed visible to the naked eye.

This is the infiltration technique second only to the most powerful technique in the ninja world... - Dustless Concealment!

This invisibility technique, even more unbeatable than the Transmission technique, earned the Second Tsuchikage the title of "Nobody."

Instead of relying on strange titles such as the Decomposition Ninja of Dust Release and Annihilation Release.

The moment the Second Tsuchikage disappeared, the sea of ​​trees was already upon them.

Gazing at the enormous sea of ​​trees before them, which resembled countless green pythons unleashed from their cages, neither Pain nor the Senju brothers dodged, nor could they dodge.

After all, even if one can use earth-遁 (earth-遁 is a technique used in Chinese metaphysics) to burrow underground, aside from flying, they are still within the attack range of tree roots.

Instead of dodging, Pain transformed into a black afterimage and rushed into the sea of ​​trees.

The same applies to the Thousand Hands Brothers.

As soon as Pain rushed into the sea of ​​trees, he discovered that the surrounding branches, as if endowed with sentience by the creator, suddenly began to bind them.

Pain did not use ninjutsu to defend himself, as he did not intend to waste his chakra on such things.

The Six Paths of Pain constantly dodged with blinks; their ability to share vision meant they essentially had six different perspectives.

No matter how many branches there are, unless they cover the entire area, even a small gap will not be enough to bind the Six Paths of Pain.

As if sensing this, the tree branches suddenly stopped after failing to catch Pain's Six Paths several times.

Along with the tree branches, the ever-advancing sea of ​​trees also came to a halt.

An astonishingly large forest has appeared within the Rain Country, where it is said that light rain falls from above, forming a vast, permanent rainforest.

Splash...

The sound of the waves suddenly drowned out the sound of the rain.

Pain looked in the direction of the sound and saw an astonishing flow of water, like a dam releasing floodwaters, surging towards them.

The terrifying impact knocked down several towering trees that would take more than a dozen people to encircle.

Encountering such a terrifying flood in the forest, unless one possesses the ability to fly or burrow underground, there is simply no way to escape.

The astonishing impact and turbulence made it impossible to walk on water, even with the most powerful chakra control.

However, faced with this astonishing flood, Pain did not attempt to scale walls or climb to the top of a towering tree to escape.

They did not allow the animal realm to summon flying spirit beasts to carry them away.

Instead, it was the Hungry Ghost Realm that emerged from within, standing in front of the rest of Pain, stretching out its hands, and a transparent white protective shield appeared from its palms.

When the giant wave roared in and crashed into the Hungry Ghost Realm, there was no scene of it submerging the Six Paths of Pain.

Instead of roaring forward like a flood, the torrent of water suddenly stopped and twisted as it converged towards the Hungry Ghost Realm, as if being absorbed by the gravitational pull of a black hole. It continuously passed through the transparent white protective shield and poured into the body of the Hungry Ghost Realm.

The body of the Hungry Ghost Realm was like a bottomless black hole, absorbing an astonishing amount of water at an extremely fast speed.

However, even the Rinnegan's most advanced chakra absorption technique cannot absorb such an astonishing amount of water-style chakra quickly.

Buzzing...

Just as the Hungry Ghost Path was paralyzed due to absorbing ninjutsu.

Three piercing, ringing sounds suddenly entered the ears of Pain.

Suddenly, three energy balls of different colors but the same enormous size flew in from the left, right, and behind Pain.

Around the energy sphere, there were also shuriken formed by vortexes, spinning at high speed like propellers.

The ear-piercing sound comes from these rapidly rotating cyclones.

"Shinra Tensei!"

By visually sharing his vision of the three incoming energy balls, Pain simply opened his arms, whispered a word, and released a repulsive force similar to Wind Release but completely different from a gale, attempting to shatter the three energy balls and even disperse the nature changes contained within them.

However, it was unknown whether Pain's Deva Path was merely a clone, causing him to subconsciously exert the same amount of force as usual.

Did this weaken the repulsive force, or did he underestimate the power of those three energy spheres?

Unlike the original story where the repulsive force could shatter the spiral shuriken, this repulsive force only destroyed three energy balls.

However, it could not dispel the changes in properties within.

In an instant, a tremendous explosion resounded.

Even though they were far apart, Iida and Karin could faintly hear the thunderous sound.

As a startling explosion rang out, red, blue-white, and transparent white lights suddenly burst forth in the rainforest.

Immediately, a dazzling flame shot into the sky, colliding with the rain and evaporating into astonishing smoke.

In the area where the blue and white light was present, the rain and rainforest froze at a visible speed, turning into a frost-covered forest in the blink of an eye.

The change in properties contained within this energy sphere was clearly an Ice Release property change.

Not to mention that the Konoha faction here only has Yagyu.

At this stage, there's no need for Yagyu to hide anything anymore.

After all, the Konoha Elders and the four great ninja clans have been wiped out, and Konoha is now ruled by Tsunade's absolute authority.

In the future, it will also be Yagyu's one-man show.

Moreover, Yagyu's ninjutsu talent had already been labeled as inheriting Tobirama Senju's, so his sudden synthesis of Ice Release was not unacceptable.

So even if Tenzo saw him and suspected him of being the mysterious person who broke into the Hokage Building back then, Yagyu didn't care.

Rumble—···

The sounds of trees being cut down and falling echoed continuously.

Unlike flames and freezing, the area of ​​transparent white light was filled with howling winds, not only with incredibly sharp wind blades, but also with hundreds of millions of sharp needles.

If any creature were to stray into this area, it would not only be sliced ​​into countless pieces by the wind blades, but its cells would also be killed by countless needles, resulting in a gruesome death.

This is the Wind Release: Rasengan.

The other two Rasengan are Flame Release: Rasengan and Ice Release: Rasengan.

This is the Spiral Shuriken series that Yagyu has developed over the years.

After the smoke formed by the flames evaporating the rain curtain was dispersed by the strong wind.

The rainforest has been turned into a mess.

Even the most resilient trees could not withstand the impact of the waves, the repulsive force, and the ravages of the icy and fiery winds.

Meanwhile, the hungry ghost realm had already absorbed all the floodwater.

"Are you the leader of the Akatsuki?"

Yagyu, who had greeted Pain from afar, finally appeared before him, standing atop a towering tree, looking down at Pain below, and succinctly revealed the truth: "Although they all possess chakra, I can still smell the stench of corpses even from a great distance."

"It seems these six are merely special clones; their true forms are entirely different people. If I'm not mistaken, your true form is none other than Jiraiya-sama's disciple, Nagato!"

Pain did not answer. The Deva Path of Pain looked up at Yagyu, the astonishing power of his Rinnegan shining through.

His gaze seemed to look down on him as he calmly said, "Wood Release ninja Yagyu, you are the biggest obstacle to Akatsuki's peace efforts. Your death is the key to peace."

"What a coincidence, I think the same way as you," Yagyu said with a smile. "Your death is the key to peace. Without you, my power will be able to dominate the ninja world, just like the First Hokage, so that no country or ninja village dares to start a war."

"There's only one god in the ninja world—that's me!"

Pain raised his palm towards Yagyu and softly proclaimed, "Universal Pull!"

A terrifying gravitational pull, like an invisible hand, grabbed Yagyu and pulled him down from the treetop, sending him flying toward Pain at incredible speed.

At the same time, the Asura Path, standing next to Pain, also raised its hand as if assembling a machine.

Several holes appeared, and several rockets were fired, flying towards Yagyu.

Instead of using ninjutsu to counter this, Yagyu vanished without a trace.

The next second, he reappeared on the top of a towering tree.

In this forest formed by Wood Release, every tree contains Yagyu's chakra. Yagyu can mobilize this chakra at any time to perform various Wood Release techniques, and can also use this chakra to perform some special techniques.

For example, the technique of Flying Thunder God Technique.

With just a thought, Yagyu could conjure up any spell anywhere.

In this scene that belongs exclusively to Yagyu, even Pain, one of the Six Paths, is at a disadvantage.

If Yagyu wanted, he could easily make the surrounding trees appear with countless Flying Thunder God Technique seals, and then, like Minato Namikaze during the Third Shinobi World War, instantly kill dozens of Iwa ninja, transforming into a silver flash.

However, Yagyu did not do that.

Just as Nagato was indifferent to the deaths of Pain, Yagyu also knew that killing Pain was pointless.

If he wanted to kill Nagato, with Hyakko as his inside man, he would have more than one way to get to Nagato.

But Yagyu did not do that.

He just wanted to play a minor role, to help the Akatsuki successfully seal the Four-Tails and Seven-Tails in a way that no one would suspect.

His true stage came in the later stages of the Fourth Shinobi World War.

Now, it should be a personal showcase for everyone.

Suddenly, Yagyu clapped his hands together, and blue flames appeared around him.

Unlike the outward surge of chakra, these blue flames seemed to appear out of thin air, flowing into Yagyu's body from the outside in.

The next second, Yagyu's pupils changed from red to golden yellow, and a red mask appeared at the corner of his eye. Although it was different from Jiraiya's, Pain recognized it as Sage Mode at a glance.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh...

Shura Dao fired a large number of rockets at Yagyu again, while raising his other hand. His wrist fell off, revealing a huge cannon barrel, but instead of firing any cannonballs, he shot out a huge laser beam that shot towards Yagyu.

"Immortal Technique: Yin Escape Thunder Style!"

This time, Yagyu did not use the Flying Thunder God Technique to dodge. Instead, he formed hand seals and released a large amount of dark purple branch-shaped lightning from his palms.

Rumble—

Although small, branching lightning is incredibly powerful.

Especially with the blessing of natural energy, the incoming rocket was instantly shattered, exploding like fireworks, while the remaining power of the branching lightning continued to engulf the Six Paths of Pain.

A massive laser beam, attempting to form a dark purple lightning grid.

However, it was just a tiny, dark purple lightning bolt that blocked the laser beam that could have shattered a building.

Faced with the remaining overwhelming lightning, the Hungry Ghost Realm once again stepped forward and raised its hand to absorb it.

But the next second, the Hungry Ghost Path immediately stopped absorbing, and its figure vanished in an instant.

At his feet, vines were growing.

Because the Preta Path, which can absorb ninjutsu, escaped, Pain was too late to use Shinra Tensei to defend himself, and ultimately he and the other six Paths of Pain also used Body Flicker to escape.

Rumble—

When a large number of branching lightning bolts struck the ground, they immediately triggered a series of explosions no less than those caused by the spiral shuriken.