The Iwagakure phalanx continued advancing steadily across the battlefield.
Six hundred meters. Five hundred meters. Four hundred meters.
The earth beneath Mount Kikyo trembled continuously, yet this was not the trembling of an earthquake. It was the vibration created by two thousand pairs of feet landing in perfect unison again and again like giant hammers smashing against the battlefield.
Might Guy stood atop the mountain ridge while feeling the gravel beneath his feet bounce nonstop from the impact. His fingers unconsciously tightened around the hilt of his blade while sweat slowly spread across his palms.
Nobody spoke.
Across the entire mountain ridge, fifteen hundred Konoha Ninja stood in complete silence.
It was not because they were fearless. It was because fear itself no longer had meaning.
Most of the people here had already defended the border for more than a year. They had long since witnessed the deaths of comrades who should have survived and the survival of people who should have died. Even newcomers like Ebisu had already spent three months escorting supply lines while experiencing repeated ambushes and battles of life and death.
The determination required for war had already been carved into their bones.
There were two thousand enemies on the opposite side while Konoha only had fifteen hundred defenders, leaving a difference of five hundred men between the two sides. However, the defensive line was here, and three hundred miles behind them stood Konoha itself.
They could not retreat.
When the enemy formation reached three hundred meters away, the advancing Iwagakure army finally stopped.
Might Guy immediately noticed the man standing at the very front of the enemy formation. The man was not especially tall, yet his shoulders were broad and his face carried no expression whatsoever. Calmly, he raised one hand into the air.
At that instant, two thousand Iwagakure Ninja formed hand seals simultaneously.
The gestures matched perfectly. The rhythm matched perfectly. Even their breathing seemed synchronized.
The moment Nara Shikaku witnessed this scene, his pupils contracted sharply. Yet after looking carefully, there was still no trace of panic within his eyes. Instead, a faint glimmer of excitement flickered there.
"As expected... it's this technique again."
Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately roared his orders across the battlefield.
"First line Earth Release squads, rise!"
At the foot of the mountain ridge, the battlefield instantly began bulging upward. Soil churned violently while rocks squeezed upward from beneath the earth. In the blink of an eye, enormous three-meter-tall earthen walls erupted upward across the battlefield.
The walls were incomparably thick, and countless sharp stone spikes protruded from their surfaces while angling westward toward the enemy. From south to north, the defensive walls stretched continuously along the entire foot of the mountain ridge, completely enveloping Konoha's defensive line.
Behind those walls, more than two hundred Earth Release Ninja crouched low while pressing both hands firmly against the ground and continuously pouring Chakra into the earth.
The walls continued rising higher and higher.
Three hundred meters away, the enemy finally completed their hand seals.
Two thousand people simultaneously pressed both hands against the earth.
"Earth Release: Endless Earth Style Wall!"
The sound that followed was impossibly heavy.
Everyone heard it clearly.
This was not the roar of a single person. It was the unified shout of two thousand Ninja speaking together. The sound rolled across the battlefield like thunder descending from the heavens.
The earth instantly cracked apart.
Starting beneath the enemy formation, the soil churned upward like gigantic ocean waves. Massive walls of earth over three meters high surged continuously forward while carrying rocks, gravel, mud, and sand within them.
From south to north, the colossal earth wave completely covered the horizon.
There were no gaps, no openings, and no weak points. There was only a gigantic moving torrent of mud and stone.
The scale of this scene already resembled a natural disaster.
This was the standard battlefield tactic of Iwagakure.
The overwhelming torrent of earth did not merely impose psychological pressure upon enemies. It could also instantly erase every arrangement made upon the battlefield. Traps, mechanisms, explosive tags, and defensive formations would all simply be swallowed and destroyed beneath the advancing tide of earth.
The gigantic mud wave collided directly against Konoha's earthen walls.
The Earth Release squad members gritted their teeth fiercely while keeping both hands pressed against the ground without releasing their techniques.
At that exact moment, Nara Shikaku's voice rang out once again.
"Fire Release squads, release!"
More than two hundred Konoha Ninja atop the ridge simultaneously formed hand seals. Fireballs, walls of flame, blazing dragons, and countless Fire Release techniques erupted together before converging into one gigantic wall of fire.
The sea of flames slammed head-on into the advancing earth wave.
Boom!
Fire collided against earth while steam exploded violently upward, instantly swallowing half the battlefield beneath dense yellow mist.
The advancing earth wave was blocked.
The gigantic wall of fire held the enemy tide back one hundred meters away from the ridge while boiling mud and scorching steam spilled across the battlefield.
But the enemy did not stop.
The two thousand Iwagakure Ninja still pressed their hands against the earth while continuously pouring Chakra into their technique.
The earth wave continued rising.
Five meters. Six meters. Seven meters.
The blazing wall of fire slowly began retreating backward meter by meter.
The Earth Release squads began faltering. Some people had blood flowing from their noses, some people's arms trembled violently, and cracks spread continuously across the defensive walls.
At that moment, Nara Shikaku's third command rang across the battlefield.
"Wind Release squads, reinforce!"
Another two hundred Konoha Ninja immediately stood up atop the ridge.
Wind blades tore across the battlefield before slicing directly into the center of the massive fire wall. Instantly, the flames roared even higher under the enhancement of the wind and surged violently forward once again.
The two sides entered a complete deadlock.
The gigantic earth wave finally halted one hundred meters away from the mountain ridge.
Neither side advanced. Neither side retreated. The battlefield remained frozen in violent stalemate.
Might Guy stood atop the ridge while silently staring at the massive sea of fire before him.
Two hundred Fire Release users. Two hundred Wind Release users. Two hundred Earth Release users.
Six hundred Konoha Ninja were working together just to hold the line against two thousand enemies.
Steam thickened further while yellow mist swallowed the battlefield completely. The ground trembled, the air trembled, and even the act of breathing seemed to tremble alongside the battlefield itself.
The deadlock continued for thirty seconds.
Then the enemy suddenly increased their Chakra output again.
Two thousand Iwagakure Ninja simultaneously poured even greater power into the technique. The earth wave instantly surged upward once more.
The wall of fire was pushed backward violently while the defensive earth walls shattered apart.
Some Earth Release users vomited blood immediately while others collapsed unconscious with their hands still pressed against the ground.
Atop the highest point of the ridge, Nara Shikaku silently watched the gigantic earth wave continue advancing toward them.
His expression remained completely calm while his hands rested motionlessly at his sides.
Eighty meters. Seventy meters. Sixty meters.
The gigantic earth wave was now only fifty-five meters away from the ridge.
Might Guy could already clearly see muddy water flowing along the front of the advancing wave, and he could see the massive rocks tumbling within the mud.
Only fifty meters remained.
At that exact instant, Nara Shikaku's hand suddenly shot upward.
"Explosive tag squads! Detonate everything!"
The next second, the battlefield directly in front of the advancing earth wave suddenly split apart.
This was not another Earth Release technique.
These were explosive tags buried beneath the battlefield beforehand.
Nara Shikaku had willingly consumed the Chakra reserves of three entire squads solely to stall the enemy's composite Ninjutsu long enough to protect the explosive tags buried fifty meters in front of their line.
Tens of thousands of explosive tags erupted upward from beneath the earth.
Dense. Endless. Layer upon layer.
From the foot of the ridge all the way fifty meters outward, the battlefield was completely covered.
The enemy saw them.
Someone shouted something desperately.
But it was already too late.
Nara Shikaku's raised hand slammed downward.
The explosive tags detonated simultaneously.
BOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!
It no longer sounded like countless separate explosions because tens of thousands of detonations merged into a single apocalyptic roar.
The earth itself was lifted upward.
Mud, stone, fire, and earth waves all exploded into the sky.
The gigantic earth wave was not simply collapsed. It was torn apart from the center and shattered completely.
Boiling mud surged backward beneath the force of the blast while countless rocks flew toward the enemy formation like deadly shrapnel. Flames pierced through the exploding dust and illuminated the entire battlefield brightly.
Even Might Guy temporarily lost his hearing from the blast.
Nothing remained inside his ears except a loud ringing buzz.
He could see people shouting around him, but no sound reached him.
He saw Earth Release users blown backward by the shockwave. He saw Fire Release Ninja covering their bleeding ears while lying on the ground. He saw Wind Release users screaming commands desperately.
Then he saw Nara Shikaku raise his hand once more.
The Wind Release squads stood again.
Another two hundred Ninja simultaneously formed hand seals.
This time, however, they did not launch wind blades.
They created wind walls.
Two hundred enormous wind walls stacked together before crashing downward from the mountain ridge.
The wind did not blow.
It pushed.
Fire, explosions, mud, and gravel were all gathered together and hurled violently back toward the enemy.
The remains of the gigantic earth tide vanished completely beneath the advancing wind pressure.
The enemy tried to retreat.
But it was already too late.
The wind walls moved too quickly.
Explosions, flames, and stone fragments crashed directly into the Iwagakure formations. Some people were tossed away like paper dolls while others were swallowed by explosions instantly. Those near the rear were pierced by flying rocks while those trapped in the center were crushed beneath the advancing wind walls and trampled by their own allies.
Might Guy saw a burning figure rolling desperately across the battlefield. He saw someone whose face had been split apart by flying gravel somehow still standing. He saw bodies launched high into the air before crashing back down. He saw the enemy phalanx ripped apart through the center while people shoved and trampled one another in panic.
Gradually, the dust began settling.
Iwagakure's main force still remained.
However, an enormous section of their formation had vanished completely.
More than one hundred corpses now littered the battlefield while some bodies still twitched weakly and others remained motionless forever.
Although Iwagakure's casualties were not truly devastating, the most important thing was something else entirely.
Their formation had been broken.
A sharp light flashed within Nara Shikaku's eyes.
This was the exact result he wanted.
Iwagakure's greatest battlefield strength came from combining large numbers of same-element Ninjutsu together. Even ordinary C-rank techniques could become terrifyingly destructive once amplified by thousands of people simultaneously.
This was their greatest weapon.
And also their greatest arrogance.
However, once that formation was shattered, Iwagakure's individual combat ability became far inferior to Konoha's.
In small-scale combat, Konoha absolutely possessed the advantage.
From the very beginning, Nara Shikaku's objective had only been one thing.
Break the enemy formation, then split them apart and force the battlefield into countless small group engagements.
Only then could Konoha win.
That was right.
What Nara Shikaku desired had never simply been "holding the line."
What he wanted was victory.
Using fifteen hundred Konoha Ninja to defeat two thousand Iwagakure soldiers and make the enemy come to Mount Kikyo only to never return again.
Nara Shikaku abruptly drew the sword at his waist.
This was not a blade for killing.
It was a commander's sword.
He raised the blade high overhead before pointing its tip directly toward the battlefield ahead, then roared with all his strength:
"All forces... attack!"
{π₯³ Loving the story so far? Craving more chapters? π₯°
Support me on Patreon and unlock 30+ advance chapters right now, plus 3 fresh chapters every two days to keep you hooked! π
β¨ Subscribe or grab lifetime access with a one-time purchase...your choice, no pressure!
π patreon.com/mythborne}