185: The first salute, Spear of Gaia!

“Then, the final battle…

Begins now!”

When Tang Yan’s understated declaration echoed through the heavens and earth via the resonance of the Naihe Bridge, time seemed to freeze for a moment.

Following that was action.

There was no hesitation, no superfluous commands.

On the world-destroying bridge, which spanned the sky and connected the earth to the war fortress, tens of thousands of crimson muzzles, densely packed, completed their final calibration at the same instant.

All the death rays, all the antimatter cannons, all the spatial disintegration bombs, all precisely locked onto the star-sea fleet composed of pale Mukuro in the sky above.

Killing intent was no longer a vague aura.

It transformed into the purest, coldest physical parameters, into a torrent of energy about to erupt, powerful enough to tear reality apart.

The survivors on this land, the remnants of the Ninja Allied Forces, had now completely become background scenery.

No, they weren’t even background scenery.

They were more like ants trembling under the feet of two colossal beasts about to begin a battle.

The pressure emanating from the three core members on the Ōtsutsuki flagship was like an invisible Mount Tai, pressing them firmly to the ground. Tsunade used all her strength just to keep her spine from being crushed by this force, but each breath felt like inhaling molten iron, burning her internal organs.

Fourth Raikage A’s proud physique was now veined with bulging blue veins under his skin, and his muscle fibers groaned under the unbearable strain. He couldn’t even lift a single finger.

This was the power of “gods.”

Merely standing there could strip mortals of everything.

On the other side, the man who called himself Tang Yan, and the “Calamity Legion” he had single-handedly created, emanated a completely different kind of terror.

It was a pure, undisguised, rampant will with destruction as its ultimate goal.

If the Ōtsutsuki were high and mighty divine judges, then Tang Yan was the ultimate rogue who had overturned the judgment seat and intended to burn down both the judges and the court.

Caught between two extremes of terror, Nara Shikaku’s brain had completely ceased to function.

All he could do now was watch.

Watching this war between gods and demons, which he couldn’t even comprehend.

He saw that at the forefront of the star-sea fleet, on the flagship resembling a giant beast’s skull, one of the three blurred figures stepped out.

It was a relatively slender Ōtsutsuki clan member with a single horn on his head, holding a red, fishing-rod-like weapon.

His face bore an undisguised contempt and disgust, as if he were looking at a pile of hopeless, dirty, inferior beings.

He slowly raised his other hand, the one not holding the weapon, and within his palm, a sphere as black as ink, seemingly capable of devouring all light, was slowly condensing.

That was not Chakra, nor any known energy.

That was the materialization of a law.

It was the authority of “erasure.”

Tsunade could clearly sense that once that black sphere was released, Tang Yan and the towering bridge beneath his feet would be completely “deleted” from this world, leaving not a single trace.

It was over.

Indeed, it was over after all.

This incomprehensible power was simply not something any strategy or might could contend with.

However, just as that Ōtsutsuki clan member was about to bring his hand down to execute the divine judgment.

A lazy voice, abrupt yet incredibly clear, resounded across the entire battlefield.

“Don’t rush.”

It was Tang Yan.

He stood at the highest point of the Naihe Bridge, facing the attack capable of erasing laws, with the same cynical smile on his face.

He didn’t even look at the Ōtsutsuki clan member, merely glancing with a hint of disdain at the black sphere in the other’s palm, as if looking at a shoddily made toy.

Then, he raised his hand.

Under the gaze of the Ninja Allied Forces, the star-sea fleet, and the three core Ōtsutsuki members, he gently snapped his fingers.

“Snap.”

A crisp, insignificant sound.

“First, accept my welcoming gift.”

The moment the finger snap fell.

The world lost its sound.

In the sky above, the Gaia's Spear, which had completed its final charge, that crimson energy sphere, originally comparable to a star and emitting endless light and heat, suddenly collapsed inward!

All light, all energy, all laws of destruction, were compressed into an infinitely small “singularity” within a fraction of a billionth of a second.

Then.

Fire.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, no ear-splitting roar, not even a trace of energy fluctuation leaking out.

Only a beam of light.

A crimson beam of light, impossible to describe with any color, transcending the limits of human vision, shot out from the cannon with a speed that defied the concepts of space and time.

It was not “flying.”

It was “arriving.”

The moment it appeared, it had already arrived at its target.

The vanguard formation of the Ōtsutsuki fleet.

The dozens of indestructible interstellar battleships, crafted from giant beast Mukuro, were as fragile as paper in front of that crimson beam.

The beam swept silently.

Everything touched by the beam vanished.

It wasn’t vaporized, not disintegrated, not turned into dust.

Instead, it was completely, cleanly, directly erased from the level of “existence.”

As if they had never appeared.

As if that space, from the very beginning, was an absolute, empty void.

Silence.

A deathly silence.

When the crimson beam of light dissipated, a huge, shocking “gap” appeared in the sky of the Ninja World.

That was where the Ōtsutsuki fleet had originally been.

Now, there was nothing there.

This disciplined, perfectly arrayed interstellar fleet, for the first time, showed visible confusion and commotion.

On the flagship.

The expressions on the faces of the three core Ōtsutsuki members, who had always maintained a god-like detached demeanor, froze.

The one-horned clan member holding the fishing rod, who was about to launch an attack, his hand was stiffly suspended in mid-air, and the black law sphere in his palm flickered unstably due to the violent tremor in his master’s mind.

Their precognition, their perception of laws, had been completely torn apart and overwritten in that instant by a pure, violent, unanalyzable torrent of crimson data!

They hadn’t even… reacted.

Tsunade, Fourth Raikage A, Nara Shikaku… all the Ninja who still retained a shred of consciousness stared blankly at the “hole” in the sky.

Their minds were blank.

This was…

A local specialty?

This was…

A salute?

An emotion more absurd, more inconceivable than despair, seized their souls.

They finally, to some extent, understood the man named Tang Yan.

He was not insane.

Or rather, his madness was built upon an absolute power they could never hope to reach.

Amidst everyone’s stupor, Tang Yan slowly lowered the hand that had snapped its fingers.

He looked at the three faces on the distant fleet flagship, which were finally no longer calm, showing surprise and solemnity for the first time, and nodded with satisfaction.

As if a discerning gourmet, after tasting a passable appetizer, gave his evaluation.

“Just an appetizer.”

He spoke lazily, his voice carrying a hint of finally stirred interest.

“Now, you can begin your performance.”