Chapter 502: Where Is the Limit?

Chapter 502: Chapter 502: Where Is the Limit?

On the shattered cliff, the two figures who had just arrived stood silently, one slightly ahead of the other.

Whoosh...

The night wind swept past, stirring their robes.

The pale moonlight spilled across the ferocious demon mask, lending the already mysterious figure an indescribably ethereal air.

Konan subconsciously took a step back and whispered to Nagato,

"Be careful!"

She had always firmly believed that Nagato, who possessed the Rinnegan, was the strongest shinobi in the entire shinobi world.

Yet for some reason, whenever she saw the terrifying demon mask worn by the leader of the Kamigami, ’Yama,’ a sense of tension and unease would rise from the depths of her heart.

Nagato nodded seriously, his cold gaze remaining firmly locked on Yama.

During their previous confrontation, he had nearly died at Yama’s hands.

That moment when he had been driven almost completely into despair remained vivid in his memory even now. Thus, among everyone in the entire shinobi world, the person Nagato was most wary of was the leader of the Kamigami standing before him.

Even though the Nagato of today was already worlds apart from the person he had been back then, that wariness had not diminished in the slightest.

At this moment, Shisui tacitly stepped back behind Kagami.

However, because he was currently dressed as a Konoha shinobi, he deliberately maintained a slight distance from Kagami and Itachi, who were both dressed as members of the Kamigami.

Meanwhile, Kagami endured the tremendous pressure emanating from Nagato—and from the Gedo Statue looming behind him—as he carefully surveyed the battlefield.

"No way... How did he manage this?"

After sweeping his gaze across the entire battlefield, Kagami’s brows furrowed slightly beneath his demon mask, his heart filled with astonishment and uncertainty.

All around the shattered cliff, nearly a hundred shinobi from the Five Great Shinobi Villages lay sprawled across the ground. Among them were many renowned elite jonin whom Kagami could recognize by name.

In addition, the Fourth Raikage, Fourth Kazekage, and Fourth Mizukage were among the fallen.

Although all three appeared to still be alive, they had clearly lost the ability to fight.

After sweeping his gaze across the devastated battlefield, Kagami turned his attention to Nagato.

He immediately noticed that Nagato had undergone an enormous change compared to before.

He was no longer the emaciated, skeletal figure he had once been. The wooden cart beneath him was nowhere to be seen, and his legs appeared to have completely recovered. Even the Uzumaki clan’s signature red hair, which had once looked dull and lifeless, now gleamed with vitality, appearing even more vivid than before.

Kagami had already guessed that since Nagato dared launch an attack on Konoha, he must have found some way to recover from his injuries.

But he had never expected Nagato’s condition to have recovered this much.

And more importantly...

He had never expected him to be this strong!

Putting himself in Nagato’s position, if Kagami had been forced to face so many powerful opponents by himself, even if he ultimately emerged victorious, he would probably have suffered severe injuries, with both his stamina and chakra pushed to the brink.

"This is bad. He should be quite a bit stronger than me right now!"

Looking at the perfectly composed Nagato, Kagami’s brows knitted even tighter.

As far as he remembered, Kagami actually couldn’t say for certain where Nagato’s true limit lay.

After all, in the original timeline, Nagato had not actually been defeated.

Instead, he had placed his hopes in Naruto and resolutely chosen to sacrifice his own life.

And even then...

Nagato had actually been nowhere near his limit.

Otherwise, there was no way he could have resurrected thousands upon thousands of dead people in a single stroke.

One had to understand that in the shinobi world, truly resurrecting the dead was an incredibly, incredibly difficult feat.

Aside from the Rinnegan’s Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique, the only known methods capable of accomplishing such a thing were advisory elder Chiyo of Sunagakure’s One’s Own Life Reincarnation, the Ryu Clan of Kusagakure’s forbidden bloodline technique, the Dragon Life Reincarnation Technique, and Mount Myoboku’s Sage Talisman.

Yet whether it was the One’s Own Life Reincarnation, the Dragon Life Reincarnation Technique, or even Mount Myoboku’s treasured Sage Talisman, each could barely resurrect a single person.

Something like Nagato resurrecting thousands upon thousands of dead people at once was absolutely unprecedented in the shinobi world.

In other words, if Naruto had failed to persuade Nagato back then, and no outside force had intervened, there was a nine-out-of-ten chance that Naruto would have been unable to defeat Nagato.

This point had actually been demonstrated perfectly later on, during Naruto and Killer B’s battle against Nagato’s reanimated body!

One had to remember that by then, Naruto had undergone special training on the Island Turtle and had already reconciled with the Nine-Tails within him. He could freely draw upon the Nine-Tails’ Tailed Beast chakra, becoming a perfect jinchuriki.

Combined with senjutsu, his strength had skyrocketed into the Super-Kage level in one leap.

The Eight-Tails’ jinchuriki, Killer B, was also at his peak and could coordinate perfectly with the Eight-Tails within him, making him a flawless perfect jinchuriki.

Yet when facing Nagato’s reanimated body, Naruto and Killer B—two of the strongest fighters in the entire Allied Shinobi Forces—had almost no ability to resist.

They were effortlessly crushed by a reanimated Nagato who possessed no fighting spirit whatsoever and could only mechanically and woodenly carry out attacks.

Had Itachi’s reanimated body not broken free from Kabuto’s control through Kotoamatsukami, and then used the power of the divine artifact, the Totsuka Blade, to seal Nagato’s reanimated body...

It was difficult to say how the Fourth Shinobi World War would have ultimately ended.

Because of this, Kagami had always had only a vague understanding of where Nagato’s true limit actually lay. He had never been able to form a clear picture of it.

But no matter how powerful Nagato was, there was simply no way he should have been capable of single-handedly defeating this many powerful shinobi—including the Fourth Mizukage, Fourth Kazekage, and Fourth Raikage—without suffering so much as a scratch!

It completely defied common sense.

It had gone far, far beyond Kagami’s expectations.

"Just what happened to him? Why has his strength increased so dramatically? And... why does he look like he’s in such incredible condition? Compared to the Nagato who used to sit in that wooden cart, he’s practically a completely different person!"

The more Kagami thought about it, the more he felt that something was wrong.

The Nagato who had previously been confined to the wooden cart had looked like a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties.

But the Nagato standing before them now looked no older than twenty, roughly the same age as Kagami.

In reality, however, Nagato’s true age should have been somewhere between twenty-five and thirty.

Just then, a distorted vortex suddenly appeared beside Nagato.

Obito stepped out from within the vortex, while at the same time, Zetsu—clad in the Akatsuki’s red-cloud cloak—emerged from underground.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Amid a succession of sharp sounds tearing through the air, several figures also appeared on Kagami’s side.

At the forefront was none other than the Third Hokage, wielding the Adamantine Staff.

Although he looked somewhat exhausted, he did not appear to have suffered any serious injuries.

Jiraiya and Tsunade of the Sannin followed close behind, arriving at the shattered cliff as well.

After them, several other powerful shinobi from the Five Great Shinobi Villages—including Terumi Mei of Kirigakure and Chiyo of Sunagakure—appeared on the cliff one after another.

They looked considerably more battered, and all of them bore injuries.

At the same time, the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, and his son Kitsuchi flew over through the air.

However, the two of them did not immediately land on the cliff. Instead, they hovered faintly in the sky at a carefully maintained distance—close enough to intervene in the battle at any moment, yet far enough to retreat whenever necessary.

In the blink of an eye...

On this devastated, shattered cliff, the two sides once again fell into a tense confrontation.