Chapter 150: When the Clown Possesses a Weapon of Mass Destruction
The rapidly shooting cloth strips coiled around the Slug, but due to its massive size, they could not fully restrain it.
"Slug, use Split."
In the next second, the giant Slug's body split into countless small Slugs, scattering across the ground.
In the blink of an eye, the arena was crawling with fist-sized Slugs, surging toward Maki from all directions.
Her cloth strips could bind a few, but they were simply unable to handle such numbers.
"Damn it..."
Maki abandoned her control tactics, instead charging in one direction, attempting to break through and shake off the Slugs.
The cloth strips spun around her, batting away the approaching Slugs.
"Hmph, trying to escape?" Haruko pressed his hands to the ground after weaving signs, "Lightning Whirlwind Wall!"
One after another, earth walls rose rapidly, blocking Maki's path.
Before long, Maki was trapped inside a sealed Earth Release: Earth House—along with countless small Slugs.
"This kind of thing..."
Maki tried to destroy the earth wall, but her binding cloth simply lacked the offensive power to break it.
Even if Maki wanted to do it herself, she couldn't focus under the interference of the Slugs, and her forced attacks on the wall weren't as fast as Haruko could build them.
With things having reached this point, Maki had no choice but to deal with the Slugs in front of her with all her might.
Haruko stood outside the Earth Release: Earth House, listening to the commotion inside, and began the next step.
As he wove hand signs, Wind Release Chakra seeped through the cracks in the earth wall.
It wasn't an attack, but rather... air extraction.
The air inside the Earth Release: Earth House began to circulate, and the air pressure slowly dropped.
...
After Maki finished dealing with the Slugs and was preparing to break the wall with all her might, she suddenly felt a wave of dizziness.
She thought it was because of the excessive exertion earlier and took a deep breath to calm her heartbeat—only to find that breathing was becoming difficult.
"What's going on..."
Dizziness, tinnitus, blackening at the edges of her vision; the symptoms became increasingly obvious.
A sealed space, a large number of living creatures, plus low air pressure. By the time Maki realized what was happening, she had already fallen into a state of severe oxygen deprivation.
Maki tried to break through the wall, but she couldn't summon any strength, and could only hit the wall in vain.
A few minutes later, as Haruko raised his hand, the Earth Release: Earth House slowly collapsed.
Maki lay on the ground, having already lost consciousness.
"The winner is Haruko!"
As Genma announced the result, the medical team rushed up to check Maki's condition, and after confirming it was just a coma from oxygen deprivation, they lifted her onto a stretcher.
The audience was silent, followed by a buzzing of whispers.
"That's it... he won?"
"He didn't even fight! What happened inside that Earth Release: Earth House?"
From the audience's perspective, this match was quite boring—Haruko trapped Maki with the Earth Release: Earth House, and it was over.
"Hmm... the audience's reaction isn't great. Should I make the next match a bit flashier?"
Haruko felt helpless—under Tsunade's restrictions, his offensive power was clearly insufficient against a defensive type like Maki.
Even if he used that Demon Destruction Style swordsmanship, which was more about special effects than practicality, it would take a great deal of effort to win. So, he had no choice but to use this opportunistic method.
Haruko stood in the arena with his arms crossed, waiting for the final match to begin.
Just then, an Anbu Ninja suddenly appeared beside the Third Hokage via body flicker, leaned over, and whispered a few words.
After hearing this, the Third Hokage put down his pipe and slowly stood up.
"Ladies and gentlemen, to present the most exciting final match to everyone, the competition will begin in half an hour, to give the contestants time to recover."
The audience looked at each other, and then people began to leave their seats one after another to stretch, use the restroom, or discuss the previous match in groups of three or five.
Haruko silently returned to the contestant's viewing platform, where Uchiha Izumi came up to meet him.
"Haruko, do you need to rest?" Izumi looked Haruko up and down.
"No need."
Haruko didn't feel tired, and looking at Izumi, she didn't seem to need a rest either, so...
"Something must have happened."
Sure enough, several Jonin gathered one after another around the Third Hokage, and then left the arena via body flicker.
Seeing this, Haruko instinctively looked toward the Hidden Cloud Village viewing area.
Those distracted guys were now clearly restless—some were frequently exchanging glances, others had already stood up, making as if to leave, but were held back by the team-leading Jonin.
Observing carefully, one could see several Ninjas, suspected to be Anbu, sitting around the Hidden Cloud Village group.
When the Hidden Cloud Village people stood up, those individuals' attention was clearly focused on them.
"It seems the Old Man has already prepared countermeasures."
...
Half an hour would be a long time if he just waited, so Haruko simply used Earth Release to craft a rocking chair and dragged it into a corner.
The noise from the audience came through; most people were discussing the "boring" match just now, while a few were still guessing the reason for the Hokage's sudden pause in the competition.
Haruko lay on the rocking chair without even lifting his eyelids.
This place was noisy, and the relaxation effect was average, but it was better than nothing—
"Hmm?"
After relaxing his body and mind, he sensed something was wrong.
The Natural Energy drifting in the air was flowing in a certain direction.
It was as if it were being drawn by some kind of power, gathering slowly but continuously.
Haruko opened his eyes and looked in the direction the energy was flowing—in the corner of the viewing area, two figures were bundled up tightly, huddled in their seats.
Seeming to have sensed something, the other party suddenly looked up, toward Haruko's direction.
Their eyes met.
Although they were in disguise, Haruko would never mistake those very distinctive eyes, nor the way they gathered Natural Energy.
That was definitely the En no Gyoja and Shiranami!
'Damn it... even if Natural Energy was forbidden, I should have noticed it sooner..."
Haruko rose from the rocking chair, intending to take action—
But it was already too late; Shiranami had clearly realized that he had been exposed.
Before Haruko could make a move, Shiranami and the En no Gyoja leaped into the center of the arena.
The entire arena went silent.
"What a sharp little brat. I originally wanted to wait until the final match ended to give everyone a surprise, but since I've been discovered, let's open the curtain early."
Shiranami spread his arms, a fanatical smile on his face.
"I am Shiranami, and the order of the new world shall be born from my hands at this very moment!"
The audience erupted in an uproar.
"Who is that? Has anyone heard the name Shiranami?"
"Don't know, feels like a lunatic."
"That symbol is... the user of Heavenly Fury Eruption?!"
Most were confused, but the few knowledgeable people were quite nervous.
"Take him down!"
The Third Hokage gave a sharp shout. Several Anbu Ninjas appeared via body flicker and lunged straight at Shiranami.
Shiranami just smiled and lightly hooked his finger.
The En no Gyoja stiffly raised his hands, and the surrounding air suddenly twisted.
The Natural Energy that had been secretly gathered for a long time was released at this moment.
"Heavenly Fury Eruption."
A white light engulfed everything.
His body was faster than his thoughts. Long before the Anbu acted, Haruko had already moved.
He used the fastest speed of his life to reach Teuchi, pressing him and Ayame to the ground.
At the same time, several earth walls rose from the ground to shield them.
Rumble—
A visible circular shockwave crushed the ground; the Anbu at the very front couldn't even let out a scream before being sent flying backward like cannonballs.
Under the protection of the earth walls, Teuchi and the others were unscathed, but Haruko couldn't laugh at all.
"Tsk, I underestimated this clown..."
Although he had known about the power of Heavenly Fury Eruption, only when facing it for real did he realize how absurd this technique was.
Haruko poked his head out from behind the wall, only to see blood staining the arena floor; some audience members who were close by were also affected, with screams rising one after another.
And that En no Gyoja looked completely fine, and the accumulated Natural Energy hadn't even decreased much—the core of the Forbidden Jutsu was indeed tricky.
"Konoha's Anbu is nothing more than this."
Shiranami stood in the center of the crater, surrounded by a layer of pink Barrier Ninjutsu, with several Fuma Clan Ninjas standing beside him—the very ones who had abandoned Kagero.
"Lord Shiranami, the Barrier Ninjutsu has been set up," one of them said respectfully.
"Very good." Shiranami nodded with satisfaction, then looked up at the VIP box, "Third Hokage, now, we can talk."
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