Chapter 388: The Ten-Tails Appears

Yet even with Kaguya's overwhelming power, the sudden teamwork between her two sons—whose coordination had become nearly flawless as they continued to break through their limits in the midst of battle—left her unable, for the moment, to find a decisive means of crushing them once and for all.

The battle reached a suffocating stalemate.

Terrifying shockwaves radiated outward from every clash, reducing the already ruined palace grounds to little more than dust.

Then—

Just as the deadlock reached its peak—

Another upheaval occurred.

Rumble—!!

The entire earth suddenly began to tremble violently, as though it had come alive.

This was no aftershock from the battle.

It was something far older.

Far more immense.

Something awakening from the depths beneath the world.

The colossal God Tree, silent witness to countless sacrifices and tragedies, suddenly stirred.

Its massive roots, buried deep beneath the earth, burst violently from the ground like enraged primordial serpents.

They twisted.

Coiled.

Expanded.

Then, amid a deafening roar that seemed capable of shattering the very foundation of the world, the towering tree began an unimaginable transformation.

Its trunk split apart.

Its branches dissolved.

Its immeasurable life force and Chakra converged, twisted together, and condensed into a single existence.

Then—

Before the horrified eyes of every witness—

The God Tree disappeared.

In its place stood an enormous beast so vast that it eclipsed the sky themselves.

Ten monstrous tails writhed behind it.

Its form defied description, as though it were the ultimate fusion of Chakra and malice.

Pure, primordial destruction poured from its body.

Its mere existence distorted the surrounding space, causing reality itself to groan beneath its presence.

The Ten-Tails had appeared.

The ultimate weapon born from the God Tree wasted no time.

Without hesitation, it unleashed a silent roar that shook the sky before charging directly at Hagoromo and Hamura with enough force to crush everything in its path.

Its Chakra resonated perfectly with Kaguya's.

Together, they formed a deadly pincer attack.

With the Ten-Tails joining the battle—

The tide of war changed instantly.

The scenes within the Heavenly Curtain became even faster and more fragmented, flashing by like the final moments before the apocalypse.

Yet each brief image was enough to sear itself into every viewer's memory.

A gigantic Tailed Beast Ball, larger than an entire mountain, gathered within the Ten-Tails' maw before erupting across the battlefield.

When it struck a distant mountain range, the explosion swallowed everything.

Towering peaks were torn apart as though made of paper.

Bottomless chasms split the earth.

Molten lava erupted skyward, staining the sky crimson.

Endless forests stretching for thousands of miles vanished beneath the shockwaves and raging torrents of destructive energy.

In mere moments, vibrant wilderness became an endless sea of scorched earth and ash.

Not a single living creature survived.

Great rivers were severed.

Others evaporated instantly.

Still others reversed course under the overwhelming force, unleashing catastrophic floods that drowned entire plains.

Exquisite homes and prosperous cities crumbled like sandcastles beneath the expanding waves of destruction.

The traces of civilization disappeared with terrifying ease.

So did the people who had built them.

Endless deserts were overturned by unimaginable force.

Sandstorms swallowed fertile oases.

Elsewhere, entire tectonic plates buckled upward, giving birth to jagged new mountain ranges.

Ancient highlands were pulverized into vast plains.

Heaven collapsed.

Earth split apart.

Even the sun and moon seemed to lose their light.

The sky filled with fractures and whirlpools formed from violent currents of energy, as though it might shatter completely at any moment.

The earth surged and convulsed like an ocean caught in an endless storm, rising, collapsing, splitting apart, and reforming without cease.

The very geography of the world was being rewritten.

Mountains.

Rivers.

Continents.

Everything was transformed by a battle that far exceeded what the world itself could endure.

Everywhere one looked—

There was only destruction.

This was the apocalyptic battlefield created by an uncompromising war between a god...

...and those who dared oppose one.

The shinobi watching throughout the world had long since turned pale.

They stared fixedly at the Heavenly Curtain.

Even breathing seemed difficult beneath the suffocating aura of destruction radiating from the scenes above.

For the first time, they witnessed the catastrophe that had nearly torn their world apart in ancient times.

And the battle that would determine the fate of the world...

Was far from over.

Even though the Heavenly Curtain now showed only scattered flashes of combat too swift for the eye to follow, each glimpse displayed power capable of annihilating heaven and earth and reshaping the world itself.

Every collision of energy.

Every upheaval of the landscape.

Struck the hearts of the viewers like a heavy hammer, filling them with indescribable terror.

"My god... the God Tree... it really can transform into a monster like that! The Ten-Tails! Everything Gamamaru said was true! It's actually fighting alongside Kaguya!"

Someone pointed toward the colossal beast in the Heavenly Curtain, their voice trembling.

"The Sage of Six Paths is unbelievable! Sage Mode, the Three Corpse Technique, and now the Rinnegan... How many abilities does he even have?! Is he still human?!"

The speaker's voice was filled with awe at Hagoromo's endless array of astonishing techniques.

"Lord Hamura is incredible too! Look at his Byakugan—it's glowing blue! He actually broke through in the middle of the fight! He's getting stronger the longer the battle goes! These two brothers..."

Many others had noticed Hamura's transformation and were astonished that the brothers could temporarily contend against both Kaguya and the Ten-Tails together.

Yet amid all the amazement, a number of seasoned shinobi perceived something deeper.

"Wait..."

"Has anyone else noticed something strange about Kaguya?"

An elderly Kage-level shinobi with countless life-and-death battles behind him frowned thoughtfully.

"She's unbelievably powerful. Her Chakra seems inexhaustible, and she commands the Ten-Tails without effort..."

"But doesn't her fighting style feel..."

"...a little too straightforward?"

"Exactly!"

Someone beside him immediately nodded in agreement.

"She possesses overwhelming Chakra and power capable of destroying the world, but most of her attacks rely on brute force—overwhelming Chakra, overwhelming dōjutsu, and the raw might of the Ten-Tails."

"She lacks the kind of refined technique... the seamless combinations... and the precise control over the flow of battle that experienced fighters possess."

"It's like a child blessed with divine strength."

"The power is there."

"But she doesn't know how to use it with maximum efficiency."

"That's actually not difficult to explain."

A tactical analyst adjusted his glasses before speaking calmly.

"After Kaguya devoured the Chakra Fruit and obtained supreme power..."

"Did she ever have a true enemy in this world?"

"Did she ever have an opponent capable of forcing her into a life-or-death battle?"

"No."

"She had always been the absolute ruler."

"The one who created the rules."

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