Hong Meiling Sleepwalks Through the Heavens

Watching Fuguki Suikasan dashing towards her, Hong Meiling immediately turned around and ran towards Sandaime Mizukage. As she ran, she slid her foot down into the ground, turning around as she charged a large bomb made of qi within her palms as she launched it towards Fuguki.

This spell of hers is called “Earth-Moving Star Pulse Bullets,” a rare long-range attack of hers in her large arsenal of melee moves. She gathers qi into the palm of her hand, molding it into a spherical bomb, which can be launched to do devastating damage to an enemy.

Seeing the bomb launching towards him, Fuguki sneered, and immediately raised his Samehada, ensuring that the mouth of the sword was capturing the bomb.

Samehada is able to absorb chakra, and he guessed that Meiling’s bombs were made out of condensed chakra. Hence, if Samehada devours this chakra-bomb, it could turn the tides of battle to their favor.

However, as the bomb fell onto the sword’s maw, it violently exploded, and Fuguki was dumbfounded as he and his sword were launched far away from the battlefield.

Meiling immediately rushed towards Sandaime Mizukage.

He was still bound by adamantine chains, and he could only watch as Meiling stuck her palm out with a determined expression since the chakra in his body was dampened by the chains.

“Colorful Light – Lotus Flower Palm!”

Dazzling rainbows revolved around Meiling’s palm as she hit him straight in the chest – this spell of hers is extremely powerful, as she is able to inject qi into the body of her opponent and detonate it, causing lethal damage.

Her palm whizzed through the air with a colorful brilliance, showering the air with rainbows that promised death.

Sandaime Mizukage could only attempt to move to the side, but with Meiling as his opponent, doing this but simply delaying the inevitable.

He tried dodging it to the side, but Meiling simply drilled her palm into his chest as she injected insurmountable amounts of qi into his body, willing it to explode within his blood vessels.

The impact of her dazzling palm loosened the chains binding him, and he was launched into the air in a wonderous display of color.

As he was launched into the air, an arc of blood followed.

All he could feel was a sharp, excruciating pain that resonated and pounded within every inch of his body, and in his tiniest clarity, he knew that death was approaching.

Ninjas are particularly trained in terms of defense, unless they are specialized to do so. Even a Kage like Sandaime Mizukage would not be able to withstand a blow this lethal.

His consciousness fully left him, and his body continued to draw an arc across the air, like a shooting star, before falling back to the ground with a ‘thud!’

That should be enough to kill him, but to be safe…

“Star Pulse Bullet!”

The bomb made of qi arced through the air like a ball of paper, and obviously, Sandaime Mizukage was unable to dodge it.

Boom!

A violent explosion erupted, bringing up dust and sand. As the dust receded, all that was left was Sandaime Mizukage’s motionless body that was drenched in blood.

Dying on the first day of battle as the Kage of a village is extremely unfortunate.

Seeing his motionless corpse, Meiling felt her stomach turn.

After all, she was just an ordinary human a few days ago. She wouldn’t exactly be comfortable with the sudden introduction of murder.

Yes, she may have killed and injured several ninjas, but she paid them no mind as she was rushing to get to Sandaime Mizukage. The guilt began to settle within her heart, and she felt her mind turning numb.

She wanted to vomit, and willed herself to do so. However, the adrenaline in her body did not allow it, so all she could do was breathe to get rid of the nausea.

Feeling her brain buzz back to reality, she huffed as she got up from the floor, and shouted in the loudest voice possible, “I killed Sandaime Mizukage!”

Her shouts rang throughout the battlefield, shocking countless ninjas on both sides of the battle.

Our Lord… our Kage… is dead?

The enemy Kage is dead?!

The emotions of the ninjas on the battlefield were polarizing. Dodai, the confidant of Sandaime Raikage from Hidden Mist, frowned upon hearing Meiling’s announcement.

I estimated that the attack on Hidden Eddy Village would be easy. According to my senior officials, Hidden Leaf’s reinforcements would never arrive in time. If that’s the case, how does a medium-sized ninja village like them defend against the joint coalition of several villages? How… strange.

As the morale of Hidden Eddy steadily increased, Dodai realized that this was going to be an uphill battle for them.

However, Ashina Uzumaki himself was severely injured.

Jinpachi Munashi was fervent in his chase on Ashina, and with each slash of his blade, violent explosion would ring across the battlefield.

Ashina still kept maintaining his chains despite being pounced on, so he was unable to counteract Jinpachi’s assault. He dodged side to side, focusing on maintaining his chains, but to no avail, he was still injured by the devastating explosions of Jinpachi’s blade.

Ashina finally withdrew his chains when Meiling finished Sandaime Mizukage off, but his exposed back was now littered with deep wounds, and blood stained the grass beneath him.

Meiling quickly turned around to study the battle, and hurriedly rushed towards Ashina to rescue him.

However, Fuguki recovered from her qi bomb and relentlessly pursued after her once again.

He still looked uninjured, and she guessed that he must have used his blade to resist against the bulk of the explosion.

Seeing that his Lord’s corpse was motionless by Meiling, his eyes revealed a hint of ambition and bloodlust, as if he was ready to tear Meiling apart with his own hands.

Because he knew that, if he avenged his Lord, he would be granted the title of the next Mizukage.

Meiling huffed in annoyance and thought to herself, Seems like I need to force this guy back again.

She planted her foot on the ground and performed a turtle-like stance as she gathered a large amount of qi between her palms that grew larger and larger.

Meiling made a turtle style Qigong posture, and then a large amount of Qi condensed between her palms, forming a huge Qi bomb.

This was a powered up version of her Earth-Moving Star Pulse Bullets. As a comparison, it is like the difference between an ordinary Rasengan and a powered-up version of a Rasengan.

The ball of qi grew larger and larger within her palms, and the immense power contained within it shook the earth, as if it was a mini star.

As Fuguki drew closer and closer, with great effort, she pushed the star-like qi that was almost as big as Fuguki himself towards him.

“Hmph, futile!” Fuguki sneered. Although my Samehada is unable to absorb it, I have learnt my lesson – I will simply avoid it!

Fuguki immediately dodged to the right, but to his surprise, Meiling twirled her arm through the air, and the pulsing star switched directions towards the direction was he dodging.

She… she can control it!

In desperation, he held his bulky sword up to resist against the star. However, this spell of hers was a powered-up version, and Fuguki was once again blown away into the sky.

The explosion shook the land violently. Although Fuguki used his Samehada in an attempt to shield against the attack, he was severely injured as well.

I’ve got no time for you! Meiling thought in her head. I need to save Ashina Uzumaki!

She absolutely couldn’t let Ashina fall. That would mean that her efforts of killing Sandaime Mizukage will turn meaningless.

Ashina Uzumaki’s condition was worsening. His dodges were getting clumsy, and he would stumble from time-to-time with each dodge. He could no longer conjure his chains, and he felt that he may fall in the hands of Jinpachi.

As he closed his eyes to accept his death, Meiling leapt straight into the battle.

Jinpachi immediately faltered, expecting Meiling to pounce on him. However, she simply swiped Ashina Uzumaki up on her shoulders, and ran away in the blink of an eye.

Now that Sandaime Mizukage is dead, there was no point in fighting. As long as they stalled for time, Hidden Eddy will inevitably win the war.

When Jinpachi saw this, he growled as he chased after them. At this moment, he had the same thoughts as Fuguki – if I can kill that red-haired girl and avenge my Lord, I will become the next Mizukage!

He reveled at the thought of power, and swung his sword in the direction of their path, causing several explosive tags to launch off the sword as violent explosions crept closer and closer towards Meiling…