Chapter 190: Madara Uchiha’s Defeat, A New Level

Crackle, crackle…

As Yagyu pulled his feet out of the Wooden Human Arhat's head, his body erupted with a dazzling blue aura.

The solidified chakra immediately transformed into the sound of a thousand birds chirping, an electric current intertwining.

Whoosh——

In the next second, Yagyu shot into the sky like a bolt of lightning.

Seeing the lightning rapidly growing larger in his vision, the Complete Body Susanoo merely flapped its wings, and its massive body instantly flew hundreds of meters to the side.

Faced with Yagyu's bizarre attack, Madara Uchiha, though unsure of Yagyu's intentions, refused to let him have his way and did not take the opportunity to attack Yagyu with the Complete Body Susanoo.

However, when the lightning that shot into the sky reached the spot where the Complete Body Susanoo had been, it did not continue to ascend. Instead, it paused in mid-air for a fraction of a second before shooting toward the Complete Body Susanoo once more.

Since the afterglow of the lightning had not yet dissipated, from a god's-eye view, Yagyu, who had transformed into a blue lightning bolt, drew a right angle in the air.

But in Madara's eyes, Yagyu had instantly nullified the force of his upward surge, hovered in mid-air, and then used some unknown method as a propulsive force or stepping stone to accelerate from zero to one hundred.

"Light-Weight Rock Technique? Or a taijutsu-based flight ability?"

Madara muttered with a slight frown, but his movements were not slow as he raised his hand to release a repulsive storm.

He did not control the Complete Body Susanoo to release a large-scale repulsive storm, as that would require some charging time and would not be very effective against someone as fast as Yagyu.

However, when Madara's repulsive storm roared out, his pupils suddenly contracted.

Yagyu's figure had already disappeared from his sight.

Boom… Crack!

Before Madara could use his sensory abilities to detect Yagyu's chakra, a thunderous roar suddenly reached his ears.

At the same time, the mountain-sized Complete Body Susanoo leaned forward.

When Madara turned to look in the direction of the sound, a figure had already shattered the back of the Complete Body Susanoo's head and was rushing toward him.

Madara's eyes were filled with shock as he looked at Yagyu, who was crackling with lightning. Instinctively, he used Yin-Yang Release to form a sharp black rod in his hand.

At that moment, Yagyu's fist was already filling Madara's vision.

Madara sidestepped to avoid the devastating punch, which not only contained the chakra explosion of the Senju clan but also incorporated natural energy and Lightning Release nature transformation. If it had hit the ground, it would have caused a catastrophic scene. At the same time, Madara prepared to thrust the black rod toward Yagyu.

Boom——

A loud explosion rang out, and Madara's movements suddenly froze.

To be precise, his body went rigid.

Half of his upper body suddenly exploded into a cloud of white dust.

His head was almost blown off as well.

With only half of his head remaining, Madara's eyes were filled with confusion.

Relying on his battle-hardened instincts, Madara suppressed his confusion and immediately deactivated the Complete Body Susanoo, allowing his body to fall downward.

Whoosh——

Seeing Yagyu charging toward him, Madara raised his hand and unleashed a full-powered repulsive storm.

A dazzling white light erupted in the night sky, and from a distance, Madara looked like a shining star.

Above this star, there was also a lightning bolt, which from afar looked like a blue meteor chasing after the star.

However, the meteor soon stopped, and the blue light dissipated.

Resisting Madara's repulsive storm, Yagyu grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, his right palm facing Madara. On his palm appeared a black character: "Seal."

"Kōan Nyūten Suishu!"

Countless branches immediately shot into the sky, not like a swarm of snakes but rather intertwining to form a massive net of trees, attempting to ensnare Madara from below.

Moreover, the gaps in the net were rapidly being filled with vines, eliminating the possibility of escaping through the holes.

Once caught in this net, not only would one's chakra be rapidly drained to strengthen the net's durability, but they would also be instantly sealed, either losing control of their body or having their consciousness plunged into darkness, resulting in immediate defeat.

Furthermore, Wood Release was a physical and tangible attack, one of the few ninjutsu that the Rinnegan could not absorb. Madara could not use the Preta Path to absorb it as he could with Dust Release or Five-Element Combination Ninjutsu.

Madara seemed to realize this as well. With Shinra Tensei still on cooldown, he remained calm, clapped his hands together, and formed a black sphere, hurling it upward. At the same time, a dazzling blue light surged from his body, and the massive Complete Body Susanoo reappeared in the night sky.

The Planetary Devastation, like a black hole, released an astonishing gravitational force, creating a field that restricted Yagyu's movement, preventing him from moving as freely as before.

Meanwhile, the Complete Body Susanoo raised its hands, forming two katanas, and slashed out a series of flying slashes, cutting through the approaching net of trees. Then, it flapped its wings, preparing to escape.

"What?!"

In the next second, Madara's expression changed.

The severed branches of the tree net suddenly transformed into wooden dragons, roaring from all directions and wrapping around the Complete Body Susanoo's upper and lower body like ropes.

Both its legs and arms, as well as its wings, were bound by the wooden dragons, rendering it immobile and unable to fly. Like a blue meteor, it began to plummet toward the ground.

Moreover, as it fell, the size of the Complete Body Susanoo visibly shrank.

At this rate, by the time it hit the ground, the Complete Body Susanoo would be no larger than its third form.

More importantly, this time, it was not Madara who deactivated the Complete Body Susanoo, but rather the wooden dragons' absorption ability was too strong. Even with infinite chakra, Madara could not supply enough chakra to sustain it.

The sudden transformation of the branches into wooden dragons caught Madara off guard, as he had never seen Hashirama Senju use such a technique, nor did he believe Hashirama could achieve such a level.

Otherwise, during the Valley of the End battle, Hashirama would not have needed to use the Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands. This combination technique alone would have been enough to dominate Madara's Complete Body Susanoo and the Nine-Tails.

Boom———

Just as Madara was about to deactivate the Complete Body Susanoo to break free from the bindings of the wooden dragons, a deafening explosion nearly deafened even his reanimated body.

However, the blinding white light that illuminated the night, turning it into a pure white world, caused Madara to instinctively squint.

Looking up, he saw that just as the gravitational field of the Planetary Devastation was about to tear apart the earth and pull the remaining branches of the tree net into the sky, it suddenly exploded.

To be precise, it was blown apart by a massive energy sphere.

The dazzling white light was formed by the fusion of the two energies.

Whoosh, whoosh…

Boom, crack…

Taking advantage of Madara's momentary distraction, several strands of chakra, weak compared to the wooden dragons, suddenly split from the dragons' bodies, crackling with lightning as they shot toward the Complete Body Susanoo's head. In an instant, they shattered the head of the Susanoo, which had absolute defense, and were about to break through to attack Madara.

Looking at the few streaks of blue light in the pure white world, Madara spread his hands and released another full-powered repulsive storm.

The terrifying repulsive storm not only instantly shattered several wooden clones but also caused the wooden dragons coiled around the Complete Body Susanoo, which had already absorbed enough chakra to shrink it into a smaller tengu warrior but had not yet regressed to other forms, to develop numerous cracks.

Had it not been for the fact that the dragons' durability had greatly increased after absorbing the Complete Body Susanoo's chakra, they would have been instantly obliterated.

As evidence, the ground around the Complete Body Susanoo was instantly blasted into a massive crater, stirring up clouds of dust.

"One… two… three!"

The terrifying repulsive storm also affected Yagyu, who was in the sky.

While Yagyu could fly using the Light-Weight Rock Technique, it was not true flight.

This state was most vulnerable to powerful Wind Release techniques.

Facing the upward surge of the repulsive storm, Yagyu was like a leaf caught in a hurricane, being tossed around in the air.

However, his eyes were firmly locked on the dust cloud below, which was clearly visible even in the darkness, and he was counting numbers under his breath.

Crackle, crackle…

As he counted, the dazzling lightning once again enveloped his entire body. It resembled the Third Raikage's Lightning Release Chakra Mode but was fundamentally different. Yagyu had developed this enhanced state by stimulating his cells with Lightning Release chakra and fusing it with natural energy.

If Might Guy and Rock Lee were here, they would have noticed that Yagyu's brain's limiters had been unlocked. This was the first gate of the Eight Gates: the Gate of Opening.

Yagyu had always coveted the Eight Gates, but it was never the Eighth Gate that he desired.

Even though Yagyu possessed the resurrection coin of the Yellow Springs, he had no intention of using the Eight Gates' final technique.

After all, the side effects of the Eight Gates' final technique were something he understood all too well. It was a life-draining ultimate technique that burned all one's vitality and potential.

Yagyu didn't know if his vitality would return to its peak after resurrection or if his potential would be affected.

But it was better to be safe than sorry. He wasn't willing to gamble on it.

Moreover, while the Eight Gates' final technique was powerful, its ultimate power was only comparable to, or slightly superior to, the Eighty Gods Vacuum Fists of the Kekkei Mōra level.

In the original story, when Kaguya Ōtsutsuki used the Eighty Gods Vacuum Fists, she didn't unleash the full technique. If the full eighty strikes were unleashed, it might have been able to distort space.

If the complete Eighty Gods Vacuum Fists could also distort space, then the Night Guy of the Eight Gates' final technique would only be a threat to top-tier Six Paths-level beings like Kaguya and Hagoromo.

The reason Yagyu coveted the Eight Gates was for its first gate.

As everyone knew, series-level techniques often had special first and final moves.

Examples included the Rasengan and the Six Paths: Spiraling Shuriken.

The Eight Gates were no exception.

The first gate of the Eight Gates was called the Gate of Opening, and its effect was to remove the brain's limiters, allowing the user to exert 100% of their body's capabilities, overloading their physical energy to enhance attack and speed.

Humans were not perfect beings. No matter how strong someone was, they could not exert 100% of their body's potential.

Full-power mode was generally fixed at a certain level.

This was why, in Yagyu's previous life, certain athletes who exceeded this fixed level were said to have "gone supernova."

Even in this world of superpowers, strong individuals could not exert 100% of their body's potential, including Kage-level beings like Yagyu and Madara Uchiha.

As for the Six Paths level, Yagyu had not yet reached that stage, so he didn't know if such beings could exert 100% of their body's potential.

But the first gate of the Eight Gates could achieve this.

More importantly, unlike the other seven gates, the first gate did not cause the user's chakra to become unstable. Thus, even while in the first gate's state, one could still use ninjutsu.

The only cost was the rapid consumption of physical energy.

For others, this cost was neither too great nor too small.

But for Yagyu, who possessed the Sage's body, it was negligible.

Without a doubt, the first gate of the Eight Gates was the most suitable ability for Yagyu.

After perfecting his Sage Body, Yagyu had already combined the first gate of the Eight Gates, Lightning Release cell stimulation, and the Sage Mode's enhancement, allowing his high-speed movement and flight speed to surpass those of Lightning Release, second only to Might Guy's Eight Gates' final technique, which was a Six Paths-level taijutsu.

As for Madara's ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu, his ninjutsu and genjutsu were at the pinnacle, but his taijutsu had not reached the Kage level, not even the level of the Five Kage's peak.

So…

When Yagyu reached the count of three, his figure suddenly disappeared without warning.

Boom———

As the repulsive storm faded, a loud explosion rang out.

The shockwave blew away a portion of the dust cloud, revealing Madara Uchiha, whose upper body had been blasted into a cloud of dust.

Around him were numerous wooden fragments and a figure crackling with lightning.

Upon closer inspection, one would notice that among the wooden fragments, which were barely visible in the darkness and easily overlooked, one piece bore the character "Ryū."

This was none other than the Flying Thunder God Formula!

Madara Uchiha had fallen into Yagyu's trap, completely outmaneuvered!

As Madara's upper body began to regenerate, countless branches swiftly wrapped around him, binding him into a cocoon.

Numerous black sealing symbols spread across the cocoon, signaling Madara's defeat.

Whoosh———

Almost as soon as the cocoon formed, a tri-colored light, visible only to Yagyu, suddenly flashed.

Seeing this light, Yagyu felt as though he had returned to the past, his expression momentarily stunned.

This was…

A new level?!