This familiar voice did not belong to any of their teammates!
Hearing this voice, Number Three was the first to be struck with terror. She whipped her head around to look. Standing there was a man she had seen once before in her memories.
Indifferent eyes, messy hair...
Uchiha Lexon!
"Why... why are you still alive!" Number Three's face was filled with disbelief as she involuntarily staggered back several steps.
Hearing Number Three's voice, Number One, Number Two, and Number Four finally reacted and turned their gaze toward Lexon. Their expressions quickly shifted to the same look of utter disbelief.
"Hey, hey, hey! Why is this guy still alive!" Number Two's pupils constricted violently as he shouted at the top of his lungs.
The previous battle had already left him physically and mentally exhausted... if they had to do it all over again, his body would absolutely collapse...
"Perhaps he is at the end of his rope and just bluffing..." Number One said with a grim expression, trying to remain calm.
However, the faint tremble in his voice betrayed his turbulent state of mind.
"He was definitely supposed to be dead! You've got to be kidding me!" Number Four turned to look at the 'corpse' whose head he had just smashed into the sand, his voice cracking with intensity.
"Yeah, he definitely died," Lexon, who had suddenly appeared beside them, said nonchalantly.
"Then a dead man should just stay dead!" Number Four bellowed. His body suddenly expanded, forcing himself back into his peak combat state. A thick, pale infant's fist swung out with immense force, unleashing Six Paths level brute strength as it slammed toward Lexon's head.
"So barbaric..." Lexon murmured as he casually reached out a hand and caught Number Four's fist.
There was no outward shockwave, nor did anything else happen.
He had simply extended his palm and stopped Number Four's attack.
The thick, giant-like infant arm formed a stark, vivid contrast against Lexon's normal human-sized arm.
"What?" Both Number Two and Number One were stunned by the scene.
The power Number Four could generate by condensing fat into his limbs was arguably matchless. How could it be caught so easily? They couldn't understand it.
"Aaaaaah!!!" Seeing his attack blocked so effortlessly, Number Four became even more enraged. He tried to pull his fist back for another strike.
However, he found that no matter how much strength he exerted, he couldn't retract his fist. It was as if it were completely fixed in place.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!" Unable to bear being restrained like this, Number Four let out a piercing, infant-like wail. He pulled at his fist with all his might, desperate to break free from the grip at any cost.
"A bit noisy." Lexon swung the arm that was holding Number Four's fist.
In the next instant, Number Four's massive infant body was suddenly hoisted into the air and slammed violently into the sand following the arc of Lexon's arm.
Though it was just a simple slam, Number Four felt as if his entire body was shattering. He nearly lost his ability to maintain his child-form as endless agony rippled through his fat. The pain was so intense he couldn't even make a sound; he could only curl into a ball and endure it silently.
"Now it's quiet," Lexon said, dusting off his hands.
"I finally remember... I remember what I missed..." At that moment, Number Three spoke while looking at Lexon with a strained expression.
"What did you remember?" Lexon looked at her with curiosity.
Number Three's expression fluctuated wildly. Gritting her teeth, she said, "In that black guy's memory space, I saw that when you entered your combat state, you were surrounded by eight pitch-black orbs... In the battle just now... that version of you only had four pitch-black orbs surrounding him... That wasn't you!"
"That was me," Lexon replied as he walked over to the body of his Wood Clone. Looking at the Wood Clone with its head buried in the sand and its body exposed, he rubbed his chin and said, "The Chakra is all used up... You guys are actually quite strong..."
As he spoke, he actually praised the enemy Reincarnators.
The strength of Number One and the others had indeed exceeded Lexon's expectations; his praise was genuine. From Lexon's perspective, his Wood Clone possessed mid-tier Six Paths level combat power, making it a top-tier powerhouse in this world.
Yet, it had still been beaten into this state by the opposition...
Compared to the general Jonin-level strength his own camp started with, these hostile Reincarnators were truly freakishly strong. If he hadn't been here, the Reincarnators from his own side likely would have been wiped out without even scratching the enemy.
Lexon's praise did not bring even a hint of joy to Number One, Number Two, or Number Three. They were all tense, watching Lexon intently. They didn't even dare to spare a glance at their teammate, Number Four, who was still in agony.
"Then what on earth was that?!" Number Three asked, her voice sharp with confusion over Lexon's meaning.
"Good question." Lexon snapped his fingers. Immediately, the 'corpse' on the ground erupted in a cloud of white smoke.
When the smoke cleared, what remained was a human-shaped piece of wood.
Lexon waved a hand at the wood and said, "That was a Wood Clone."
Seeing this, cold sweat broke out on the foreheads of Number One and Number Two. Their faces were masks of horror. They felt a deep chill in their hearts.
Such a powerful opponent...
An opponent that their team had used almost all their power to defeat was just a Wood Clone? They couldn't believe this outcome.
"No, no, no..." Number Three clearly couldn't accept this reality. Her white hair was disheveled as she screamed like a madwoman, "I don't believe it! I don't believe it!"
"There's nothing to disbelieve." As Lexon spoke, he created over a dozen Wood Clones.
They appeared all around him. Then, he had the Wood Clones enter Six Paths Mode.
Upon receiving the command, all the Wood Clones slowly levitated. Their skin turned pale, haori manifested, four Truth-Seeking Orbs circled their bodies, black tin staffs appeared, and that ethereal aura emerged once again.
Pointing at the Wood Clones looking down indifferently at the enemy Reincarnators from above, Lexon said, "See? They're exactly the same as the one you just fought."
This series of actions seemed incredibly easy for him, as if it were a mere triviality.
Number One and Number Two did not respond. They remained silent, but their hearts were pounding so hard it felt like they would leap out of their chests.
"This... you..." Number Three looked up at those figures high in the sky, who looked like celestial gods. Her eyes gradually grew dim, and her body seemed to lose all strength as she collapsed onto the ground.
She was in despair. She gave up.
The opponent could create a dozen of those enemies at will—what was the point of resisting? What else could they do except wait for death?
Number One and Number Two had the same reaction. They had completely given up. They just sat there, waiting to die.
[Reviews - Power St0nes - Comments are highly appreciated to keep me going.....(+50 chapters) patre0n.c0m/talecrafter]