Chapter 261: The End of the Konoha Collapse

"Hey, you Konoha folks, send someone who can actually talk!"

Although Bai Cangshu was asking for someone with enough prestige, he had already thrown the corpse of Sarutobi Hiruzen toward Jiraiya, who was repelling several of the Pein.

At this moment, a large number of Konoha ninja, all covered in wounds, were gathered behind Jiraiya.

No matter how unreliable Jiraiya might be, he was a top-tier ninja who had earned the title of Sannin during the Third Shinobi World War, and after the series of upheavals Konoha had experienced, he was one of the few people they could rely on.

Jiraiya subconsciously caught the flying corpse, then froze in place.

He looked at the charred corpse in his hands, yet he could still recognize the stern face of his teacher.

Jiraiya looked up at Orochimaru, who was standing dozens of meters away; the other party was wearing the Red Cloud Black Robe and standing together with the Tao Baibai mentioned in the Intelligence.

"Orochimaru... Teacher is dead..."

Jiraiya's tone was sorrowful; when Orochimaru defected, he had pursued him for a long time, but in the end, he was wounded by Orochimaru, and the two who had fought side-by-side since their youth had parted on bad terms.

He could not understand why Orochimaru insisted on doing those things, and Orochimaru could not understand why Jiraiya insisted on staying in the village.

Seeing Jiraiya show that look of sorrow, Orochimaru only revealed a cold smile, his voice remaining calm and tinged with chill.

"Indeed, it is a pity; the Third Hokage fought to the death to protect the village."

There was absolutely no sense of regret in Orochimaru's tone, and words like these made Jiraiya's heart turn cold.

Jiraiya took a deep breath and finally confirmed that Orochimaru was completely an enemy; he stood in front of the others, looked coldly at Tao Baibai and Orochimaru, and said,

"At this point, is there anything left to say?!"

Orochimaru stepped aside, and the Deva Path, who had not made many moves until now, walked over, but there was no doubt that the ones causing the most destruction to Konoha were the Summoning Beasts of the Animal Path and the missiles and lasers of the Asura Path.

The Pein Liudao were overwhelming in their lethality toward ordinary ninja, but the massive Summoning Beasts they summoned at will required Jonin-level combatants to deal with; ordinary Chunin or even Special Jonin needed to coordinate just to take one down, and it was very easy to cause casualties.

Moreover, the Animal Path could summon dozens of them and grant these Summoning Beasts the ability to split; once defeated, they would split into even more Summoning Beasts.

This ability caused immense destruction throughout Konoha, which was the reason Konoha could not concentrate a large number of ninja to release joint Ninja Arts to attack Orochimaru and Tao Baibai.

Furthermore, no matter which path of Pein it was, they all possessed the insight of the Rinnegan, making ordinary Body Flicker Technique, taijutsu, Ninja Arts, and projectile attacks very difficult to be effective.

Although these Pein Liudao seemed unable to cause effective damage when facing Bai Cangshu, relying only on the Deva Path's 【Universal Pull】, 【Shinra Tensei】, and 【Chibaku Tensei】 for offense and defense, in this level of battle, every single Pein could easily kill a large number of ninja with taijutsu alone.

"We do not intend to completely destroy Konoha."

In fact, according to Pein's original idea, he was prepared to level Konoha completely to make the world feel pain.

But Tao Baibai told him that the result of doing so would merely be to make other Ninja Villages unite to deal with the Akatsuki, and subsequently, the Cloud Hidden Village, the Sand Hidden Village, or the Rock Hidden Village would take Konoha's place.

Pein did not understand this Logic, but he had already understood the core content of what Tao Baibai said: these Ninja Villages were merely complete violent institutions that accepted orders to start wars, initiate looting, and were supported by the state.

The core of this cycle of interests did not lie in the Ninja Villages.

Therefore, he was willing to start the 【Five Nations Fall】 plan; he wanted to see the possibility of what Tao Baibai called "long-term peace and stability."

Although Nagato understood very clearly that Tao Baibai could not possibly be a good person—this guy was a tyrant who completely craved chaos—Nagato had been trapped in the spiral of ninja Hatred for too long; as long as there was even a shred of hope, he was willing to try.

As long as the war could truly be ended, even if he personally placed a tyrannical monarch on the throne, there would always be someone else to assassinate them later.

"Next, we will withdraw from Konoha, and you will be unable to block the fact that Konoha was attacked by us and is now incomparably weak."

The Deva Path's tone was calm; he was simply stating the facts of what would happen next.

"Konoha ninja, the war will begin immediately; I hope you will not let this war end too soon."

After Pein finished speaking, he began to drift into the air; he had one last thing to do: he was going to completely destroy Konoha's defensive fortifications, leaving Konoha with no defenses to rely on.

Seeing this scene, Jiraiya felt something was wrong and quickly formed seals to condense Sage Chakra.

The blonde woman standing behind Bai Cangshu, however, said,

"I advise you not to do that, Lord Jiraiya. Today's situation is already the optimal solution; no matter what you do now, it will only make Konoha's situation even worse."

She walked out from behind Bai Cangshu and the others; Jiraiya was startled—this woman wearing an Anbu mask had a dense amount of natural energy on her!

With that intensity of natural energy, if one could not harmonize it with powerful Chakra, the other party should have been eroded.

But this woman was completely unaffected.

【Heaven】 sensed Jiraiya's gaze; she calmly opened her arms, natural energy radiating from her body, and she even turned around; as she spun, her figure floated slightly.

Her power was definitely not as weak as she described to others.

"Lord Jiraiya, the question we should be thinking about now is how to complete the reconstruction of the new Konoha in this situation within two days, and how to successfully protect the village during the upcoming multi-village attack."

"We?!"

Uchiha Fugaku questioned coldly; there was a time when he had indeed regarded this woman as a plan—the other party had numerous channels of Intelligence and was mysterious and unpredictable; both Sarutobi Hiruzen and Shimura Danzo trusted her.

Furthermore, this woman had expressed affirmation for the Uchiha; if this woman could rise to power, the Uchiha's situation would be eased—that was how he thought.

But today's events made it completely impossible for him to see through what this woman had been doing all along.

Facing the incoming strong enemy, the other party had silently betrayed the Third Hokage's side without giving any Intelligence warning at all.

Heaven chuckled, not explaining; she believed that in the face of desperate power gaps, these ninja would eventually walk the path she wanted.

She did not do things restricted by any Contract or Logic; she simply followed the choice of the most perfect timeline, that was all.

At this moment, a black-haired Uchiha ninja walked from the direction of the Uchiha clan grounds, blood dripping continuously from the blade in his hand.

Uchiha Fugaku saw his eldest son, and behind him, Mikoto was pulling Sasuke hard; Sasuke's face was covered in tears, calling out incessantly, hoping his brother would turn back.

But Uchiha Itachi only paused his Footwork for a moment, then came to Tao Baibai's side without looking back.

"Danzō has been killed."

Bai Cangshu raised an eyebrow; he did not see Uchiha Itachi bring Danzō's head, and in his heart, he understood roughly what had happened, while in the distance, on the Magic Carpet floating in the air, Catherine gestured with a sign.

Bai Cangshu's lips curled, and he patted Itachi on the shoulder, saying,

"Very good, I am very satisfied with your slaughter quota."

"The Konoha collapse ends here; next... it is time for us to spread chaos to every piece of land."

Bai Cangshu watched as the Susanoo in the distance could not attack Uchiha Obito; it was clear that Uchiha Shisui still had not released that 【Kotoamatsukami】.

He grabbed Uchiha Itachi, turned, and jumped into the air, constantly stepping on the air as he used 【Moon Walk】 to quickly depart from Konoha.

Then, the Deva Path in the sky released a terrifying impact toward the direction of the Konoha Hokage Rock.

A devastating repulsive force smashed the Hokage Rock, causing the entire mountain to collapse and recede, extending all the way into the forest behind Konoha, leaving nothing left to provide cover.

Swish, swish, swish.

At this moment, Kakashi, looking somewhat Weak, arrived behind Jiraiya along with many ninja clan leaders such as Aburame Shibi, Akimichi Choza, and Yamanaka Inoichi.

These people had previously been dispersed to various locations to intercept Summoning Beasts, using the power of their clans to bring the chaos in Konoha under control.

Behind these people, Sarutobi Asuma, Yuhi Kurenai, Might Guy, and a group of other ninjas from the same generation as Kakashi gathered together, all covered in wounds.

These people had successfully achieved Survival from today's catastrophic event.

Sarutobi Asuma stared blankly at the charred corpse in front of Jiraiya and collapsed to his knees in despair; he could only watch as that group rapidly moved away into the sky, lacking even the strength to throw a single Shuriken.

——

"Where the leaves of Konoha dance, fire shall also burn..."

"The shadow of the fire will illuminate the village, and Konoha will sprout and grow once more."

(End of this chapter)