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Chapter 26 — The Eight Gates? How Are We Supposed to Fight This!?
Super Activating Fist.
A taijutsu born from Shinnō's fusion with the Zero-Tails' dark chakra.
By compressing that sinister chakra into his palms, he formed dense spheres of blackened energy that could be fired as devastating beams—piercing, corrosive, fast, and seal-free.
"Keh keh keh keh! Power! This is the true power of my body!"
Shinnō's face was wild with ecstasy. The instant his right palm launched a black beam, his left hand gathered another orb of dark chakra and fired again.
Two deadly rays shot forth in succession, slicing through the air with lethal precision toward Konan.
Her expression tightened. With a powerful step, she vanished using the Body Flicker Technique, darting aside just as the beams grazed past her face.
A few strands of her violet hair brushed the black light—and vanished instantly, disintegrated into nothingness.
"White Tiger! You can't escape!"
Shinnō twisted his stance, drawing in a deep breath as more dark chakra surged through his body. His fists pumped like piston strikes, launching beam after beam in every direction.
Within mere breaths, over a hundred black beams radiated from him—spreading outward in a deadly, 360-degree storm of annihilation.
The underground hall was instantly engulfed in chaos.
Konan, still in midair, didn't touch the ground again. From her back spread two pure-white wings of paper.
With one tremendous flap, she became a streak of white light, weaving through the storm of death that filled the chamber.
Each beam missed her by inches as she spun, dove, and twisted through the air with impossible grace.
The beams ripped through the surroundings, punching holes into the walls, pillars, and stone floor.
The underground fortress trembled violently—stone shattering, dust billowing, debris raining from above.
"Hmph! Is dodging all you can do?"
Seeing her still untouched, Shinnō's grin twisted with killing intent.
"One hundred beams can't hit you? Then let's see how you handle a thousand!"
BOOM!
A massive surge of chakra erupted from his body, shaking the entire structure.
His fists blurred faster than the eye could see—launching hundreds more beams in an instant.
They fused into a blinding curtain of black light, spreading outward in every direction like an expanding sphere of ink in clear water.
The attack filled the entire third sublevel of the Flying Fortress. There was nowhere to run.
[Konan! Get out of there, now!]
Alex's words flared in bright ink on her shoulder paper.
There was no dodging this—it was death incarnate.
The Super Activating Fist had grown beyond reason. The beams merged into one immense, swirling wall of chakra, devouring everything in its path.
In the air, Konan's wings beat harder, her sharp eyes locked on the storm's core—on Shinnō.
The endless barrage left her no room for counterattack; she could barely keep ahead of it.
Hearing Alex's warning, she clenched her jaw. He was right. If she stayed, she'd be vaporized.
In a single motion, she banked upward, twisted her body, and shot toward the ceiling.
Her wings flared—and she disappeared into one of the massive holes blasted through the roof by the earlier explosions.
With a sharp whoosh, she shot upward through the wreckage and emerged onto the surface above.
She hovered over the fortress deck, the eerie landscape of strange, stone statues stretching below her.
For a brief moment, there was silence.
Then she asked quietly, "Alex… do you have any ideas?"
The ground beneath her was eerily still; no sign of Shinnō yet.
But the tension in her voice revealed her frustration.
After their last exchange, she had realized just how impossible this fight had become.
His "ultimate body" shrugged off explosions, regeneration faster than any healing jutsu, and now—his attacks were overwhelming.
Even getting close to him had become impossible.
Alex could feel her heart pounding—rapid, uneven, the exhaustion and stress clear through the rhythm.
He didn't hesitate; his body shimmered softly, restoring her chakra reserves like a living power source.
[We could retreat for now… regroup, plan something that'll actually work.]
He was being practical—live to fight another day.
Konan shook her head immediately. "No."
"Shinnō just merged with the Zero-Tails. His strength is still growing. If we give him time to absorb more emotion, more chakra… he'll become unstoppable."
Alex knew she was right.
But logic screamed otherwise.
That body of his—it was a monster. Unless they had Dust Release to erase him down to atoms, or a sealing technique strong enough to bind him forever, there was no way to win.
And they had neither.
Konan fell silent, deep in thought.
If only she'd had time to prepare another barrage of six trillion Exploding Tags… she might have been able to bury him for good.
Suddenly—
Crack, crack!
The ground beneath her feet began to splinter, webbed with fine cracks.
The stone trembled, then crumbled into dust—collapsing inward to form a black hole several meters wide.
From its depths erupted a massive beam of black energy, thick as a tree trunk.
It tore through all three levels of the fortress like a spear of death.
Another Super Activating Fist.
The instant the ground shifted, Konan flared her wings and darted aside—barely dodging as the beam ripped past, so close she could feel the heat.
"White Tiger!" Shinnō's voice thundered from below. "I told you—you'll help me test my new power!"
Then, with a sharp whoosh, his figure burst up through the hole, landing on the deck before her.
The pressure radiating from him was suffocating.
His chakra output had surged to a monstrous degree—dark energy spilling from every pore, cloaking him entirely in a black aura.
He looked like a walking Tailed Beast.
Alex's eyes practically bulged from his paper form. That… that's just like the Eight Gates! Except it's black!
It was the same: raw chakra pouring from the body, forming a blazing shroud that warped the air.
Shinnō's dark chakra lashed out in waves, shaking the earth, splitting the stone, howling through the air.
The entire fortress trembled under the pressure.
It wasn't just regeneration anymore. It wasn't just brute strength.
Shinnō had achieved something horrifying—an open-gate state driven by dark chakra.
Alex swallowed hard.
He's basically gone full Eight Gates…
How the hell are we supposed to fight that!?