[Inside the high city walls, civilians wearing expressions of utter despair had become catatonic.
They could not believe that such massive and terrifying monsters truly existed in this world.
The city walls they once believed were impregnable were as fragile as paper beneath the beasts' feet, failing to delay them for even a single second.
At this moment, they didn't even have the courage to run.
Boom!
As a Honkai Beast's massive forelimb stomped down, buildings collapsed instantly, and people perished within the rubble.
When the Beast Tide surged past, it left only total devastation in its wake. The only traces of humanity left behind—the only evidence that a civilization had ever existed—were a few crumbling ruins scattered across the wilderness and flesh and blood ground into the earth.]
"!!!"
Ordinary Ninja: "Is this what a Beast Tide is? It's truly horrific!"
Unknown Ninja: "Yeah, how are we supposed to fight against a disaster like this?"
Unknown Ninja No. 2: "Fight? Right now we should be thinking about how to survive their onslaught!"
Unknown Ninja No. 3: "Run! Run as far as you can! There's no way to survive under the hooves of these Honkai Beasts!"
Merchant: "Run? Run where? Neither the sky nor the depths of the water can stop them. Even being overseas only slows them down. Unless we can escape to another world, no place on earth is safe!"
The high-level officials of various villages looked upon the Beast Tide with grim expressions.
The destructive power of the Beast Tide far exceeded their estimations.
Even though they had predicted that almost nothing would remain intact in the tide's wake, seeing it in person made them realize that leaving behind even the slightest ruin only happened if the beasts took particularly large strides.
In reality, no matter how many people stood against the tide, the outcome was almost certainly death!
It seemed they had to research a method to combat the Honkai Beasts as quickly as possible, even if doing so accelerated the arrival of the Honkai.
Hastening the Honkai's arrival might make the disaster more severe, but doing nothing meant certain death regardless.
The only difference was dying sooner or later, and dying with or without the power to resist!
Therefore, they chose to resist!
The Ninja World was full of lunatics who would descend into madness for the sake of "peace."
In fact, this was the very essence of the Ninja World.
A series of various disasters caused by a group of madmen who believed they could bring peace to the world, obsessively pursuing it at any cost and acting willfully.
Furthermore, Black Zetsu, that hidden schemer, lurked in the shadows, constantly influencing and twisting the wills of one person after another just to achieve his own desired outcome.
When these people gathered and cast everything aside, even Uchiha Hoshi could not predict what kind of chaos they would stir up.
But...
This suited her interests.
Thus, Uchiha Hoshi chose not to intervene excessively.
[The Land of Wind.
A nation composed entirely of Desert.
Among the five great nations, the Land of Wind's geographical location was the most unique.
The environment here was extremely harsh, covered in Desert with scarce water sources.
People could only survive around the very rare oases scattered throughout the sands.
Precisely because of the lack of resources, Sunagakure was also the least populated among the Five Great Ninja Villages.
Because of the harsh desert environment, even though Sunagakure was one of the Five Great Ninja Villages, few people chose to settle there.
Now, however, Sunagakure had become overcrowded.
Not only was the interior of the village packed, but the area beneath the massive stone walls built to block the wind and sand was also covered in tents.
The reason for all of this was the impending Beast Tide.
Not everyone ignored the warnings.
Most people—especially the wealthy, nobles, and merchants—always had ways to get news about the Beast Tide from various sources and quickly sought refuge.
As one of the Five Great Ninja Villages and one of the three major branches of the Shinobi Alliance, Sunagakure was, in their eyes, one of the safest places in the entire Ninja World.
More importantly, they couldn't think of anywhere else to seek shelter besides Sunagakure.
The Land of Wind was unlike other places; the environment was simply too harsh.
Furthermore, the Beast Tide was moving so fast that they didn't have enough time to leave the Land of Wind and seek refuge elsewhere.
Besides, even if they could leave the Land of Wind, was any other place necessarily safe?
Therefore, everyone who had the means came to Sunagakure to take refuge.
The sudden influx of so many people placed an enormous burden on Sunagakure.
Aside from the difficulty of managing such a crowd, the consumption of food and water was a massive problem.
As for water, Gaara used his sand manipulation to tap into groundwater from beneath the desert, so they weren't particularly short on that.
Food, however, was in short supply.
Even counting the refugees' own supplies, it likely wouldn't last long.
Of course, while these matters were a headache, they weren't the most urgent.
For Sunagakure, the most terrifying disaster currently was not the food shortage, but the approaching Beast Tide!
No one knew exactly what was wrong with those Honkai Beasts.
It was as if they were equipped with some kind of radar that could detect life signs within a certain range and then surge toward that direction.
Based on the Beast Tide's current path, it was highly likely they would discover Sunagakure's existence!
If that happened, the entire Sunagakure would be trampled flat by the tide.
And the people taking refuge in the village would likely meet a grim end!]
Rasa: "What!? My Sunagakure is going to be destroyed again!?"
Granny Chiyo: "Calm down. Hasn't it not happened yet? There's still room to turn things around."
["According to intelligence, the Beast Tide will discover Sunagakure in three days at most. Then, it will only take half a day for them to level the entire village. Everyone, speak up. What should we do?"
Inside the meeting room of the Kazekage building in Sunagakure.
Aside from Ebizo, who had taken Gaara and some elite Ninjas to represent Sunagakure at the Shinobi Alliance headquarters in the Land of Water, everyone of influence in the village had gathered.
"We absolutely cannot let those Honkai Beasts discover Sunagakure, or else everything is over!" Remembering the horror of the Honkai Beasts, Kankuro shuddered.
"Do you even need to say that? The Kazekage-sama is asking for a solution, not the consequences!" Temari was also afraid of the approaching Honkai Beasts, but fear was useless; it would only cloud your judgment.
Looking around, the more experienced Baki spoke up. "We can only send Ninjas to lure the Beast Tide away and force them to change direction."
"But Onoki and the others tried that method. They even manually created slopes, swamps, and other obstacles, but the results were negligible." Rasa's face was full of exhaustion; clearly, handling the affairs of Sunagakure over the past few days had aged him significantly.]