[please send some power stones]
When Uchiha Feiyu finally processed the fact that, for the time being, he was the only top-tier combatant left standing on the battlefield, that tiny thought in the back of his mind… swelled rapidly.
Earlier, when he first ran into those wounded Konoha shinobi and realized just how brutal the fight had been, one idea had already flashed through his head:
Chiyo had lost an arm.
Pakura couldn't fully recover in the short term.
If the Fourth Kazekage's injuries were also severe enough…
Wouldn't that mean he could just hit Suna's main camp directly?
But reality turned out to be even better than he'd hoped.
The Fourth Kazekage had been poisoned by the Silver-Scaled Vipers and was hanging by a thread. Pakura had forced herself back into the field and even clashed with Orochimaru while still injured—there was no way she'd be back to full strength in just a few days.
Right now, Sunagakure was, in Feiyu's eyes…
Basically a giant meat bun with a paper-thin wrapper.
After chatting with Orochimaru a bit more, Feiyu didn't hide his intentions. He straightforwardly stated that he was planning to "do something" at Suna's main encampment.
Orochimaru blinked, taken aback.
In his opinion, the Fourth Kazekage had maybe a ten percent chance of surviving. Under those circumstances, Suna was practically guaranteed to lose the will to keep fighting. Give it a little time, and they'd probably collapse on their own without another major battle.
But Konoha was currently under pressure on multiple fronts. Rumor had it that Kumogakure was also stirring restlessly.
Ending this front early would be ideal.
With that in mind, Orochimaru nodded.
"In that case," he said, "do you need other shinobi to assist you?"
"No," Feiyu said. "I'll be more flexible on my own."
As the number of souls under his control grew, he'd been steadily moving toward being a true all-rounder. He already had sensory ninjutsu and medical ninjutsu in his repertoire; his dependence on a classic four-man squad was shrinking by the day.
Just him alone—
Was effectively a complete, versatile ninja team.
…
Roughly thirty li west of Kikyō Mountain lay Sunagakure's temporary encampment.
Naturally, something thrown together in a single night couldn't compare to a proper fortress. They'd thrown up sentry posts and basic barrier formations, but anything built overnight was bound to be full of holes.
With so many Suna souls in his collection, Feiyu had picked up a fair bit of barrier and sealing knowledge. More importantly, those Suna souls were intimately familiar with their own village's barrier habits.
Finding a flaw and slipping in quietly…
Was child's play.
"Now then… where should I start?" Feiyu muttered.
From above, the camp looked like it had been stamped out with one mold—dotted with dome-shaped earthen bunkers.
This was just standard Suna architecture. The semicircular design helped them weather desert sandstorms as efficiently as possible.
"Gotta hand it to shinobi," Feiyu thought as he skulked between buildings, "their civil engineering is busted. A so-called 'temporary base' built in a day looks like this… In the modern world, they'd just throw some tents down and call it a day."
On second thought, it made sense.
In the Land of Wind, Earth Release was the second most common nature after Wind Release. Out of ten Suna nin, at least three had earth affinity. Each one throws out one good Earth Release technique, and boom—the entire camp basically builds itself.
Of course, there was a downside:
Most of the buildings looked exactly the same.
Which meant it was almost impossible to tell where the command staff actually were.
At this point, the only person in the entire camp who posed a real threat to Feiyu was Pakura. If he could open with a surprise attack and cripple her again, then there really wouldn't be anyone left inside this camp who could endanger him.
Killing every last Suna shinobi in one night would still be tough. But with their high-end forces gone…
He could just chip away.
Hit them once today, once tomorrow. Keep that up for ten days or so, and Feiyu was confident he could basically erase Sunagakure's field army.
Kage-level shinobi were terrifying to begin with.
A Kage-level shinobi like Feiyu, who was also extremely fast and could turn invisible—
Was the natural predator of any "normal" ninja corps that relied on numbers.
You couldn't find him.
You couldn't catch him.
He would cut his way through your ranks and disappear.
If this happened three to five times without anyone of equal level to pin him down—
Even the best-trained, most "fearless" troops would eventually break and rout.
Wrapped in Camouflage Concealment, Feiyu quietly drifted through the camp, scouting for any sign of Pakura.
Halfway through, though, his soul-sense picked up a different, very familiar aura.
His lips curled up.
"Oh? That old bat is here too, huh."
He moved toward it, steps silent.
"Elder Chiyo, the poison in Lord Kazekage's body…"
"I am… sorry," Chiyo's tired voice replied. "This old woman can do nothing more. The venom bred by that Orochimaru is simply too vicious."
"Even with everything I know, the most I can do is let Lord Kazekage live a little longer. No more than a month at best. As for being 'saved'…"
"What kind of poison is that?" the other Suna ninja asked, voice nearly cracking. "You're the strongest medical ninja in the Land of Wind! In the entire shinobi world, only Tsunade of the Sannin is said to surpass you—how could there be a poison that even you can't cure?"
Chiyo sighed, bitter and helpless.
"The toxin in the Kazekage's body is completely unlike ordinary poisons. It's like… hundreds, no, thousands of different snake venoms blended together. They react with one another in extremely subtle ways."
"And it spreads very quickly. Under normal methods, it is almost impossible to fully break down."
"To truly neutralize this venom, there are only two viable paths:
"First, immediately—before the poison has begun to spread—use Fine Affliction Extraction Technique (细患抽出之术), draw out a large amount of blood from the victim, and perform a full transfusion."
"Second, have the original creator of the venom develop a corresponding antidote formula."
"If we tried to slowly analyze and counter it with conventional methods, we would need at least half a year to a year to fully unravel it. But Lord Kazekage…"
She paused for a moment.
"Lord Kazekage doesn't even have a month."
"And even if we somehow removed all the poison," she added quietly, "the Kazekage's chakra network has already been thoroughly corroded. He will never be a shinobi again."
"…How… how could it end like this…"
Outside the wall, Feiyu listened for a while, and the corners of his mouth slowly curled upward.
He hadn't expected the Silver-Scaled Vipers' venom to have a chakra-corroding effect as well.
But thinking about it, it made a lot of sense.
Back in the original Condor Trilogy world, Hong Qigong had been bitten by one of those snakes. Even with his legendary inner strength helping him force out the venom, he still lost all of his martial power and became a cripple. He only managed to rebuild himself later thanks to the Nine Yin Manual.
In many respects, "internal energy" from those wuxia worlds lagged behind chakra.
But when it came to nourishing the body and resisting toxins, high-level inner strength far outclassed ordinary chakra.
If even a "Five Greats" master's inner strength couldn't completely withstand the venom, then average chakra obviously had no hope.
If not for a Kage-level shinobi's raw vitality, plus Chiyo—the top-tier poison expert in the Land of Wind—working overtime to suppress and dissect the poison…
The Fourth Kazekage would already be dead.
And even with that level of help—
All he'd really bought himself was a short delay before the end.
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