Seeing the situation, the Kumogakure junior captain also gave the order to attack.
In an instant, the entire mountain became a battlefield for ninja.
Outside the wrecked Hagoromo's Ship, however, cloud shinobi had already surrounded it long before.
"Finish them quickly." Jiraiya rushed out first, not forgetting to bring Young Wenzhe along.
Along the way, he formed hand seals with both hands. "Wenzhe, get ready now!"
"I know!" Wenzhe was somewhat losing his cool, having silently cursed Jiraiya countless times by now.
But what could he do? He was still just a small, weak, pitiful toad — his temper hadn't grown nearly as bad yet as when he got older.
Obediently, Wenzhe formed the seals and spat a small glob of oil from his mouth, gradually dispersing it into the air.
[Fire Release: Flame Bullet]! Immediately afterward, Jiraiya exhaled fire onto that glob of oil.
Instantly, taking advantage of the flammable nature of the vaporized oil, the fireball expanded more than tenfold.
The nearly twenty-meter-wide [Toad Oil Fireball] reduced the dozen or so Kumogakure shinobi standing in front to nothing but charred corpses.
Wuzhe and Wenzhe followed closely behind — one donning specialized knuckle guards, the other activating his Sharingan and drawing a pitch-black slender blade.
At the top of the mountain, Tsunade charged downward with overwhelming momentum.
Realizing the unfavorable situation, the Kumogakure junior captain made his escape ahead of time.
His encirclement plan succeeded at the cost of one Hagoromo's Ship, effectively shattering the enemy formation.
"As long as we collect enough wreckage, I suppose this operation won't count as a failure."
This kind of aircraft — long cloaked in mystery among all nations — turned out to be highly effective on the battlefield.
As soon as the Kumogakure junior captain descended down the mountain, he immediately saw a white-haired man who without saying a word blasted him directly with a fiery projectile.
Reacting just in time, seeing the man charge straight up the mountain, he slightly lowered his guard.
"Don't underestimate Kumo ninja!" A sound cutting through the air from his left forced him to promptly draw the blade on his back.
There was a sharp metallic clang.
The Kumogakure junior captain discovered that his opponent was actually using brass knuckles fitted over his fingers.
"One inch shorter, one inch more dangerous." It was a basic principle they had learned since childhood — after all, Kumo was a martial faction that emphasized close-quarters combat.
"Don't look down on us!" Slightly angling his sword blade and stepping backward, he dodged the incoming punch.
Yet in the next moment, his eyes widened at seeing the five extended fingers beneath those brass knuckles.
Those thick, powerful digits halted mid-thrust just as they pierced into the captain's chest.
This happened because a long blade was currently swinging toward the shoulder of the tall man's outstretched arm.
"Big brother Wuzhe!"
From a distance, the Kumogakure junior captain saw a blade aura approaching — so solid it seemed almost tangible — rushing right toward him.
Trying to pull his sword back, he noticed the white-haired man had already stepped forward again.
Between the pain in his chest and the unknown power behind that incoming blade aura, he found himself momentarily paralyzed with indecision.
"In Shen's words, death has finally come to claim your pitiful life, just as promised." Dodging the shoulder strike, Wu drove his entire arm deep into the captain's chest cavity.
"Death?"
"Don't joke around..." A sharp pain shot through his heart as the Kumogakure captain, in his final moments, watched his opponent raise his hand and effortlessly shatter the Sword Qi.
"I should've chosen to retreat and intercept that Sword Qi first," he realized as a final lesson.
If there was a next life, he'd definitely prefer getting hit by a falling object over enduring another Black Tiger Heart Rip.
About ten minutes later, Tsunade finally spotted Jiraiya arriving from above, who had rushed over twenty kilometers from below to provide reinforcements.
"Reinforcements from the east have arrived!"
The message through the earpiece reignited hope among the Konoha and Yugakure shinobi trapped in the mountains.
Jiraiya and Tsunade exchanged glances before both decided to launch an attack on the Kumogakure forces.
By just before dawn, after staying up all night, the Third Hokage finally received their phone call.
"What are our casualties?"
"Our side suffered one hundred and sixty-three immediate deaths and three hundred and seventy-five fatal injuries, with Yugakure accounting for two-thirds of those," Tsunade's voice slightly trembled.
Jiraiya's tone was equally sorrowful: "Many ninja were injured, but most will recover on their own. At least twice or even thrice more Kumogakure casualties compared to ours."
"It's because they were only testing us," the frowning Third Hokage said, certain that Kumogakure was planning something.
They must've already gotten the intel on the communication devices and aircraft.
One was an aerial vehicle capable of reaching speeds up to 900 kilometers per hour; the other was a high-tech invention that enabled instant communication within a thirty-kilometer radius once base stations were set up.
Kumogakure, trying to gain advantages without investing resources, probably had their eyes on these two items.
"I see now. I understand their intentions thoroughly," the suddenly enlightened Hokage then ordered them to secure supplies carefully and prevent anything from being left behind on the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Jiraiya and Tsunade, who'd just finished tallying their own losses, also figured it out.
"The Kumogakure commander is really thinking ahead, probably aiming to get hold of the communication equipment soon enough."
"Tsunade, in the short term, Kumogakure definitely won't be able to crack Shen's technology. Given his personality, maybe when they're disassembling it, the whole thing might suddenly self-destruct."
"Yeah, that could definitely happen."
Both victims, intimately familiar with such hardships, consistently believed that Shen Uchiha—who had stirred Konoha into chaos—would certainly leave some hidden countermeasures.
After all, since childhood, every single thing this person had done always contained multiple backup plans.
Back at the Uchiha clan leader's residence, Shen, who also hadn't slept the entire night, closed the sealing scroll he had studied throughout the night.
He had already mastered all techniques including [Impure World Reincarnation], [Flying Thunder God], [Eight Gates], [Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu], and [Konoha Kenjutsu Stream Willow (Renal Attack)].
This genuine Sealing Scroll wasn't like the one Naruto had stolen—it was the authentic copy recording all kinjutsu from the founding of Konoha until the present day.
The reason why these techniques were labeled as forbidden: either their difficulty was far too great for regular shinobi to ever learn, or the chakra consumption and side effects were excessive, resulting in certain death for normal ninja after just a single use.
To put it bluntly, kinjutsu were techniques that the strong could use freely, while the weak weren't even qualified to attempt.
The Eight Gates Technique was an instant-level-up cheat ability. Unfortunately, Shen possessed Elemental Chakra Mode, so even if he studied diligently, it would likely take ten or eight years before achieving any significant mastery.
Besides, real men preferred battles lasting longer!
Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu consumed way too much chakra, and Flying Thunder God Technique's instant map-wide teleportation? Totally useless for him.
Creating a thousand clones only to drop dead immediately? Or wasting chakra on teleportation when his speed was already fast enough?
Shen, the great inventor, made it clear—no interest in dying young or dragging himself across the shinobi world just to mark every corner with Flying Thunder God tags.
[Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags], Impure World Reincarnation, and the underhanded kidney strike that killed Izuna—at least those had some real use for him.
"Explosive Summoning Tag? It's not as good as having a machine gun or rocket launcher!" Shen began imagining how utterly desperate enemies surrounded by bullets and rockets would feel.
After mastering Impure World Reincarnation, even if his soul got yanked into a corpse after death, he could still shake off the caster's control.
As for that final kidney strike, it was simply learned out of sheer personal twisted pleasure.
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