"It doesn't matter what kind of hero you were or how 'iron' your fists are," Huoguang snarled, his face twisted into a mask of feral greed. "You're nothing but a relic now! A senile old fool!"
Ignoring Kitsuchi's frantic warnings, Huoguang poured every ounce of his chakra into the technique. His heart hammered against his ribs in a frantic rhythm of adrenaline and ambition. He could see it now—the sharp, jagged tip of the earth spear was inches from Ikki's chest.
In his mind, he was already a legend. He was the man who had slain the titan who stood above the God of Shinobi. After today, the name Huoguang would eclipse even Konoha's White Fang.
CRACK.
The sound of impact echoed across the clearing, but the pride in Huoguang's eyes instantly froze into a hollow, jagged terror.
The forest of rock spears hadn't pierced the giant. Instead, they had shattered against his muscular frame like glass thrown against a mountain of iron. Hundreds of Earth Style lances, fueled by the combined chakra of an army, hadn't even managed to tear Ikki's black suit, let alone draw blood from the impenetrable wall of his flesh.
"How... how is this possible?" a Rock Shinobi stammered, his kunai slipping from a nerveless grip.
"Is he even human? We hit him with everything!"
"He's still asleep... and we can't even scratch his clothes!"
The sheer impossibility of the scene struck the Iwa-nin like a physical blow.
"I was having a nice doze," a raspy voice rumbled. "It wasn't that I was tired because I'm old. It's that you're all so weak... you're boring enough to make an old man drowsy."
The snot bubble on Ikki's nose burst with a sharp pop. His eyes snapped open.
He didn't move a muscle, yet the world seemed to tilt. An indescribable, suffocating pressure exploded outward—a predatory aura so thick it felt like the air had turned to lead. It wasn't just chakra; it was the raw, crushing weight of a man who had stood at the top of the world for a century. In the front ranks, dozens of Rock Shinobi collapsed to their knees, their wills snapping like dry twigs.
"Fall back! Fall back now!" Kitsuchi screamed. His pupils had shrunk to pinpricks, and he fought the urge to vomit under the weight of Ikki's presence. "The legend is awake!"
"Lord Kitsuchi, don't let him bluff you! He's just—"
Huoguang, still held aloft, tried to rally his courage. He never finished the sentence. A sudden, violent surge of power rippled through Ikki's fingers. With a sickening crunch, Huoguang's neck was pulverized. Crimson blood sprayed across the dirt as the Jōnin's body went limp, his eyes wide with a final, lingering look of disbelief. Even with Earth Style hardening his skin, he had popped like a overinflated balloon in Ikki's grip.
"Lord Ikki, wait! I can explain—" Kitsuchi started, his voice cracking.
"You've done enough talking. I've done enough listening," Ikki interrupted. His voice was flat, devoid of the earlier humor.
Dropping Huoguang's corpse like a piece of trash, Ikki reached down and plunged his massive hands deep into the bedrock.
RUMBLE.
The ground beneath the Iwa army didn't just shake—it disintegrated. A massive fissure, hundreds of meters long, tore across the landscape. Then, with a grunt of pure, unadulterated effort, Ikki heaved upward.
The earth groaned in agony as a colossal slab of solid rock—a boulder the size of a mountain, nearly two hundred meters in diameter—was ripped clean from the crust of the planet.
"Shields up! Get the wall ready!" Kitsuchi roared, his voice bordering on hysteria. "NOW!"
"Earth Style: Ten-Thousand-Mile Earth Flow Wall!"
Terror lent the Rock Shinobi a frantic strength. Hundreds of them slammed their palms into the ground, weaving their chakra together to summon a massive, reinforced barrier of stone that rose up like a fortress.
Ikki stood before the rising wall, the massive boulder held aloft above his head like a god of old. A flash of pure disdain crossed his weathered face. He didn't use a jutsu. He didn't weave a seal. He simply leaned back and threw.
"Fist Bone Meteor!"
The mountain-sized rock didn't just fall; it ignited the air, screaming forward like a celestial cannonball. The sheer displacement of air created a vacuum that dragged the clouds down with it.
"We were fools," a shinobi whispered, falling to his knees as the sky turned black above him. "We actually thought we could fight a god..."
Despair, cold and absolute, washed over the Iwa ranks. They watched the shadow grow, the suffocating momentum robbing them of the will to even breathe. Even the 'Ten-Thousand-Mile' wall, their greatest collective defense, felt like a sheet of paper against a hurricane.
Kitsuchi stood alone, the only one still upright, staring at the rapidly approaching doom. It's over, he thought.
The impact was cataclysmic.
The massive Earth Flow Wall didn't just break—it vanished, pulverized into dust the moment the boulder touched it. The giant rock tore through the defenses as if they weren't there, slamming into the heart of the Iwa army.
The sound that followed was less of an explosion and more like the world itself was being torn in half. Hundreds of Rock Shinobi were snuffed out in an instant, crushed into the soil before they could even scream. The boulder didn't stop, carrying the momentum of Ikki's "Iron Fist" as it plowed deep into the Land of Earth, leaving nothing behind but a crater and the silence of the dead.