Naruto: Starting as the Third Hokage with Tears in His Eyes

Chapter 528 Art is self-destruction!

They spread their arms wide, using their last bit of strength to chant the twisted and insane doctrines aloud, their faces filled with a fanatical and devout fervor for the Holy Land.

"not good!"

Jiraiya felt a chill run down his spine.

The simultaneous detonation of such a number of explosive tags would be powerful enough to wipe the ruins, along with the three of them, off the map.

Without thinking, he slapped his hands together in front of his chest.

"Ninjutsu: Needle Jizo!"

In an instant, his signature long white hair seemed to come alive, growing and hardening wildly, transforming into countless steel needles that gleamed with a cold light.

These steel needles quickly intertwined and coiled, forming a huge, seamless, pure white sphere of spikes that completely enveloped him, Tsunade, and Orochimaru, who had reacted just as quickly and was already close in, at the very center.

Almost at the same instant that the needle-shaped shrine completely closed.

boom--!!!

A terrifying explosion, beyond description, occurred.

A blinding white light instantly engulfed everything, followed by a deafening roar that could tear eardrums and a shockwave that destroyed everything.

The entire snowfield trembled violently from the terrifying explosion.

At the center of the explosion, a huge, bottomless crater was formed. The surrounding ruins, snow, and frozen soil were all instantly evaporated and vaporized in the violent energy, turning into the most primitive particles.

Only the eerie, evil god statue remained intact, slowly and silently sinking into the depths of the blasted-open ground during this horrific suicide attack.

for a long time.

The destructive energy storm finally subsided, and the dust and snow gradually settled.

"Splash!"

The enormous white spiked sphere of the Needle God slowly opened, revealing the three people inside.

Jiraiya released the ninjutsu, and his white hair returned to normal.

The biting wind, carrying the acrid smell of gunpowder and snow, rushed in, causing the three who had just escaped danger to shiver.

"call……"

Jiraiya let out a long sigh of relief, raised his hand to wipe away the fine beads of sweat that had seeped from his forehead due to the rapid depletion of chakra, and looked at the completely altered terrain in front of him with lingering fear.

The people had vanished without a trace, replaced by a huge crater several meters in diameter, with black smoke still hissing from the frozen soil at the edges, emitting a strange, burnt smell.

"These guys... they're a complete bunch of lunatics."

He muttered to himself, his voice still carrying a hint of lingering fear.

"interesting."

A deep, enthusiastic voice broke the silence.

Orochimaru slowly walked to the edge of the huge crater, looking down with great interest at the still churning dust below.

His golden snake eyes showed no fear whatsoever; instead, they gleamed with an almost fanatical, inquisitive light, the light of someone discovering a new continent.

"Combining faith, arcane arts, and explosive tags in this way... truly... amazing! A perfect suicide weapon, logically consistent, a work of art."

Tsunade frowned, strode forward, and unceremoniously kicked Orochimaru aside, who was still making his remarks.

"Shut up with that disgusting tone, Orochimaru."

She glanced at the bottomless pit, then at the spot where the eerie, evil god statue had sunk into the ground, and snorted coldly.

"Stop daydreaming, Jiraiya."

Tsunade's instructions were clear and decisive: "Record the findings here using an encrypted scroll, highest level. These are no ordinary ninjas; there's something behind this that we don't know."

"clear."

Jiraiya immediately dropped his frivolous expression.

He took out a blank scroll and special ink from his ninja tool bag, squatted down, and began to record in detail everything that had just happened, from the encounter with the evil god cultists to their bizarre behavior, and finally to the inexplicable self-destruction.

His pen moved swiftly, but every word was clear, powerful, and logically rigorous, completely devoid of his usual nonchalant attitude.

This was a report written for the teacher, so Jiraiya dared not be careless in the slightest.

Tsunade stood to the side, arms crossed, scanning her surroundings with the keen senses of a medical ninja to confirm that there were no more potential threats.

However, her gaze was soon drawn to the pit.

"Hey, Orochimaru, what are you up to now?"

Orochimaru had somehow slipped into the still-steaming pit and was squatting beside a pile of dark, foul-smelling wreckage, carefully poking at something with a thin metal skewer.

The pile of wreckage appeared to be left behind by the cultists who had just self-destructed.

"Hehehe..."

Orochimaru didn't even turn his head, letting out a few of his signature low laughs. "Tsunade, don't you find it strange? Such a huge explosion could instantly vaporize steel, yet there are still remnants of their body tissue."

He used a skewer to pick up a fist-sized, still slightly wriggling piece of black meat.

The texture of the flesh was extremely strange; it was neither flesh nor crystal, but more like a high-density energy gel, with a layer of viscous black liquid attached to its surface, emitting a nauseating stench.

"This is no ordinary flesh and blood body; it's a completely transformed aggregate. Cellular structure, energy conduction methods… everything is utterly different from anything we know. Incredible! This is a whole new field in life sciences!"

Tsunade stared at the disgusting, still-wriggling thing, and her stomach churned.

"Get away from me! Throw that thing away!"

She shouted in disgust.

As a medical ninja who considers saving lives her sacred duty, she felt both physically and psychologically uncomfortable with this desecrating method of modification.

"Throw it away? Heh, Tsunade, you're still so naive."

Orochimaru stood up and carefully placed the piece of meat into a specially made sealed container. "This is priceless; it's the key to unlocking the mystery of their immortality. My teacher will definitely be interested in my discovery."

After saying that, he seemed to think it wasn't enough and started searching around in the pit again.

Soon, he made another new discovery.

At the edge of the explosion, he found several more intact pieces of limb. Their shapes were quite well preserved, only their surfaces were charred black by the high temperature.

Orochimaru, as if he had found a beloved toy, carefully brushed away the dust.

It was a left leg, a right leg, a left hand, and a right hand.

They lay there quietly, as if they were just parts that had been carelessly discarded.

"Perfect……"

Orochimaru stared at the four severed limbs, his snake-like eyes gleaming with a mesmerizing light.

One can even imagine the scene when he brings these samples back to his laboratory in Konoha, dissecting them layer by layer under a microscope to uncover their energy structure and the secrets of cell regeneration.

What a beautiful melody that would be!

Jiraiya had finished writing the intelligence scroll and sealed it with sealing wax. When he looked up, he saw Orochimaru rummaging around in the pit like a treasure-hunting groundhog, and finally hugging several arms and legs with a happy expression.

His lips twitched slightly.

"Hey Orochimaru, isn't your fetish a bit too unusual? You're taking this thing with you too?"