The flames and smoke thrown up by the explosions even buried the Nine-Tails' own crimson beneath them.
Yet amid the unbroken blaze, that pitch-black sphere still continued little by little to solidify and grow.
Though the power of explosive tags was formidable, that was only for fragile shinobi; when they fell upon the Nine-Tails, their force was no more than a firecracker.
They could cause it some pain, but fundamentally were nothing of consequence.
After the powder smoke dispersed, although the chakra outer layer on the Nine-Tails had some damage, it was recovering at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The Nine-Tails shook its head, not even deigning to pay attention to this level of attack; it simply finished condensing the Tailed Beast Ball and spat it toward Konan.
The instant the Tailed Beast Ball left its mouth, the air was torn with a shrill sonic boom; the pitch-black energy sphere, trailing a long wake, shot straight for the sky, and in a breath it crossed the short distance between them, arriving before Konan.
But Akatsuki had sought for years to capture Tailed Beasts and understood much about them; when the Nine-Tails opened its mouth, Konan already knew what it was going to do.
Relying on the convenience of flight, she could easily dodge this attack.
But she immediately realized that once she avoided the Tailed Beast Ball, its ultimate point of impact after flying off would be hard to determine.
Even with the Six Paths of Pain in the village, it would be impossible to allow the Tailed Beast Ball to fall into Amegakure; but there was no telling if it would end up landing in a nearby forest or field.
The power of the Tailed Beast Ball was simply far too immense—once it struck the ground, it would completely level everything around it.
With no other choice, Konan brought her arms together, condensing a vast number of explosive tags into a single paper whip. When the Tailed Beast Ball came flying toward her, she swung the paper whip upward to meet it, striking from below while simultaneously detonating it.
Amid a succession of thunderous roars, relying on the shockwave produced by the massive explosion of explosive tags, she finally adjusted the trajectory of the Tailed Beast Ball, sending it shooting straight up into the sky.
With a sharp "whoosh," the pitch-black Tailed Beast Ball soared upward, piercing a gigantic hole through the clouds and revealing the azure sky hidden behind them.
Moments later, the Tailed Beast Ball exploded with a thunderous blast high above the heavens.
Even separated by several kilometers, the brilliance of the explosion was so blinding that no one could keep their eyes open, as though a second sun had bloomed in the air.
A violent shockwave swept down from the sky, annihilating everything in its path and blowing away all the clouds.
Even on the ground, everyone was buffeted by the hurricane-force wind, staggering and unable to stand firm.
"Roar…"
Seeing its attack fail, the Nine-Tails let out another furious howl and began condensing a second Tailed Beast Ball.
As a pure energy creature possessing infinite chakra, the Nine-Tails could spew out such Tailed Beast Balls continuously for an entire day—but Konan could not possibly endure it with it like this.
Her figure dropped slightly as she prepared to switch to another strategy to deal with the Nine-Tails.
But just as she moved, a shadow flickered beside her—Pain appeared next to her. His short orange hair remained perfectly still amid the gale, and a cold light glimmered in his Rinnegan.
"All right, Konan. Let me handle this."
"Although I'm not fully prepared yet, since the Tailed Beast has come to us on its own, there's absolutely no reason to let it go."
"Those guys back there are watching anyway—this is a good opportunity to let them witness what the true power of a god is."
Hearing this, Konan turned her head to glance downward and indeed saw a group of people wearing black cloaks patterned with red clouds standing in the distance, silently watching in this direction. The expressions on each of their faces were somewhat intriguing.
The previous battle had already alarmed the members of Akatsuki, but it hadn't drawn much of their attention.
After all, as shinobi, which day goes by without fighting?
Moreover, since they had just accepted the Konoha defector Uchiha Itachi, it was only natural for Konoha's people to come looking for him.
But once the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki appeared, everything changed.
One of Akatsuki's objectives was to collect the Tailed Beasts—now that one had come right to their doorstep, how could their leader possibly let it slip away?
When they had first been recruited, they had all witnessed Pain's overwhelming might and knew they were no match for him. Still, taking the chance to see the upper limits of their leader's power and gather some information wasn't a bad thing.
Thus, they immediately came out of the village, hiding in the distance to watch the spectacle—none of them stepping forward to help.
Konan couldn't help but frown as she recalled those like-minded companions from back then—and… the already deceased Yahiko.
"What a bunch of scheming bastards!"
She muttered softly, quietly stepping back to give Pain the space.
At this moment, the Nine Tails' second Tailed Beast Bomb had already shot forward, but Pain's expression didn't change in the slightest. He merely extended his hand and said lightly, "Shinra Tensei!"
As his voice fell, an immense repulsive force burst forth from his eyes, striking straight at the incoming Tailed Beast Bomb.
That black sphere radiating a terrifying aura resisted for only a second or two before suddenly rebounding, flying back along its original trajectory toward the Nine Tails' head.
This sudden turn of events startled even the Nine Tails itself.
Even the Uchiha who often controlled it could only use Sharingan genjutsu to restrain it—never could they directly take on its Tailed Beast Bomb head-on, let alone send it back.
"Roar…"
Shocked and furious, the Nine Tails' massive body had no time to dodge. It could only watch helplessly as the black sphere expanded before its eyes—after letting out a roar, the Tailed Beast Bomb it had spat out struck it squarely on the head.
[Boom!]
The Tailed Beast Bomb exploded violently. Even the Nine Tails couldn't withstand the enormous shockwave; its fiery-red head was forcibly pressed down and slammed hard into the ground.
A mushroom cloud rose high into the sky, and the shockwave leveled everything around, creating a massive crater over a hundred meters in diameter.
"Graaah…" The Nine Tails howled in agony, yet panic began to rise in its heart.
'Those eyes… why did they look so much like the old man's!'
Pain intended to establish his dominance and had no plan to waste time slowly grinding away. He pressed his hands together, and the space between his palms began to distort. A black sphere resembling a Tailed Beast Bomb floated into being within his hands.
He released his palms, and that black sphere drifted upward into the sky.
"Chibaku Tensei."
With Pain's cold voice resounding, the black sphere hung high above like a strange dark sun, forming an immense gravitational field that enveloped the Nine Tails below.
Under this tremendous pull, the ground seemed to be torn apart by invisible giant hands—it began to crack, and massive stones broke free from gravity, slowly rising as they converged around the black sphere at the center.
Heaven and earth suddenly fell into an eerie silence; only the rustling of suspended rubble—scraping and colliding—echoed above the battlefield.
"No!"
The Nine Tails screamed in terror. Reflected in those beastly eyes was the black sphere in the sky; its pupils shrank to pinpoints, and a fear unseen in a thousand years surged into its heart.
It drove its four limbs hard into the ground for purchase, sinking its body as much as possible. Its 9 tails tightly wrapped around the nearby rock pillars, trying to resist the pull descending from the sky.
Although it had not witnessed back then the Sage of Six Paths sealing Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, it had been cut out from the Ten Tails itself; the memory inherited in its blood made it instinctively fear that black sphere in the heavens.
The many shinobi on the ground, though not the targets of "Chibaku Tensei," were still pulled off balance by that immense suction. They grabbed onto everything fixed around them to keep from being drawn into the sky.
Those with slightly weaker strength were directly swept aloft, letting out wretched screams.
Ino–Shika–Chō had enough to protect themselves, yet had no strength at all to save anyone. They could only watch with eyes wide open as people were drawn into the black sphere, their sounds and breaths gone.
In just a moment, that chaotic and brutal battlefield on the ground became utterly clean. Corpses, fresh blood, severed limbs, sand, stone, splintered wood—everything was drawn into that black sphere, as if it had never existed.
The Nine Tails held out a little longer, but in the end it still could not withstand the power of this sealing technique.
The rocks beneath it failed first, quickly cracking and breaking. Its massive body was yanked toward the sky like a doll. Its 9 tails flailed in vain, but ultimately could not change the fate of being sealed, and it could only be drawn in together with that huge slab of rock beneath it.
After the Nine Tails entered, the gradually gathering rubble sealed completely, leaving only a gigantic stone sphere. It hung in midair as if without gravity, casting a suffocating shadow down upon the ground.
The field instantly fell silent as a grave. A suffocating oppression pervaded the air. Everyone stared, dumbfounded, at the figure standing in the void beneath the stone sphere.
With the blazing sun high above, Pain stood backlit in midair. Framed by the colossal rock sphere he looked incomparably small, yet he radiated a godlike majesty; the fierce sun behind him was dazzling, impossible to look at directly.
The group from the Akatsuki observing from the rear was equally shocked.
They had originally thought the Nine Tails would at least make Pain work for it, yet who could have expected it to end so effortlessly.
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