After the Wind Country daimyō roared out his order, the rōnin gathered in the daimyō's residence—along with the guardian shinobi and the monks—launched their attack on Uchiha Feiyu without hesitation.
Yet in the very next instant, a golden tide surged forth, blotting out the sky. It rose like an ocean wave vast enough to swallow the entire tenshukaku, and in the blink of an eye, the monks and ninja below were crushed into clouds of blood mist.
It was the same Magnet Release—but Uchiha Feiyu not only possessed a far stronger foundation and vastly greater chakra reserves than the Fourth Kazekage, he had also incorporated an off-type Magnet Release taken from Cloud ninja. The power he displayed was at least five times greater than that of the Fourth Kazekage!
Magnet Release was not a jutsu with many fancy variations—or rather, Magnet Release in the shinobi world had very little room for tricks. Everything depended on how many metallic particles one could control.
If the power was five times greater, that meant Feiyu could control five times more gold dust than the Fourth Kazekage.
Under that terrifying wave, within the daimyō's residence, any being that possessed even a trace of chakra was crushed to death. Moments later, when the golden tide dissipated, aside from the Wind Country daimyō standing there in a daze, not a single living being with chakra remained inside the residence.
"This is only a warning," Feiyu said coldly.
"Daimyō-sama, you'd better behave yourself and remain an obedient puppet."
As his words fell, Uchiha Feiyu vanished like a ghost, leaving behind only the Wind Country daimyō, still roaring in fury:
"Mad—madness! The Sand Village has completely lost its mind!! I will utterly destroy these ninja! Contact the Temple of Wind! Contact the other guardian shinobi! Mobilize my ninja army—assemble everyone at once!"
As the daimyō raged, the entire capital of Wind Country sprang into motion.
The psychological suggestion left behind by the Sharingan burned like wildfire in his mind, driving him to pour all his strength into killing Uchiha Feiyu and destroying Sunagakure.
And that was exactly what Feiyu wanted.
The hidden strength of the Wind Country daimyō startled Feiyu slightly.
Over two thousand monks.
More than a thousand rōnin led by guardian shinobi.
Those numbers alone were nothing unusual to him.
But nearly fifty thousand chakra soldiers—each with chakra reserves comparable to students in their second or third year at the Ninja Academy—that truly surprised him.
For an army, cultivating chakra was not particularly difficult, because chakra training itself did not demand much in terms of external resources.
It was true that the great ninja villages used secret medicines, medicinal baths, and special diets to raise chakra capacity, but such methods had limits. At best, they could only raise a shinobi's chakra ceiling by one or two levels.
If one did not pursue increasing chakra capacity, but merely awakening and refining chakra, then the cost in resources was minimal—roughly equivalent to ordinary physical training.
No matter how stingy the Wind Country daimyō was, he would never starve his own troops. That meant as long as the soldiers were fed, they could train chakra directly.
Even so, the amount of chakra ordinary people could refine was extremely limited.
Back then, the Sage of Six Paths had distributed the seeds of chakra to his followers, allowing chakra to spread throughout the shinobi world.
But after more than a thousand years of dilution, aside from the great ninja villages—gathering places of the Sage's direct bloodlines and followers—the chakra ordinary people could refine was often only one-tenth that of a genin.
From that perspective, the soldiers in this army could all be considered fairly talented.
"I wonder what kind of feng shui site or heavenly treasure the Wind Country daimyō found," Feiyu murmured.
"It looks like it can slightly increase the chakra of these soldiers…"
Seated atop the Wind Country's tenshukaku, invisible, Uchiha Feiyu watched like a specter as the daimyō mobilized the full military might of the nation.
He raised his hand slightly, tempted to devour this feast on the spot—but after a moment's thought, he lowered it again.
"Too close to the capital…"
"I'll wait a bit… better not harm the innocent."
Facing an army of this scale, Feiyu obviously could not kill them one by one. Even the Third Raikage—that muscle-brained monster—had been exhausted to death after fighting ten thousand Iwa ninja. Feiyu was no exception.
Using large-scale ninjutsu would almost certainly affect the city beneath him. Though Feiyu could be ruthless enough to swallow tens of thousands of soldiers in one bite, without a direct利益 conflict, he would not casually take the lives of ordinary civilians.
Fortunately, he did not have to wait long.
Within a dozen minutes, the army—tens of thousands strong—had fully assembled. Led by monks and rōnin guardian shinobi, they began marching toward Sunagakure.
Feiyu chuckled softly, summoned a patch of golden sand, sat atop it, and flew after the army.
"Heh… still maintaining a military formation. Looks like the daimyō only learned the surface level—he never grasped the essence of shinobi warfare."
Then again, perhaps he had no choice.
The truly difficult part of training ninja was never resources—it was knowledge. Otherwise, there would be no need for ninja academies.
Military training was always simple and brutal. It could never match the refinement of a ninja school. As a result, the breadth of knowledge possessed by soldiers was worlds apart from that of shinobi.
If an army of tens of thousands really tried to scatter like ninja, half of them might end up lost.
A soldier's will to fight simply could not compare to shinobi who had been indoctrinated since childhood.
Reaching the sky above the army, Feiyu dismissed the gold sand and dropped straight down. Aside from the soldiers, the monks and ninja among them were fairly strong—sensing types quickly detected the chakra descending from above.
"Careful! Someone's dropping from the sky—it's that Sand ninja's chakra!"
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!! Prepare for battle!!"
With a thunderous boom, Feiyu slammed into the ground. Golden sand exploded outward in a raging wave, instantly pulverizing the surrounding soldiers.
The nearby troops reacted at once. Swords, spears, clubs, and arrows were all leveled at him.
Feiyu merely waved his hand.
The golden grains of sand transformed into a razor-sharp circular saw. As it spun, it sliced the surrounding soldiers cleanly in half.
The severed soldiers collapsed, screaming in agony. Flowing blood and broken bodies sent waves of terror through the ranks, causing the rest to retreat in panic.
They could not use ninjutsu. Their taijutsu and swordsmanship were crude. They could not even perform the Substitution Technique.
Against another ordinary army, these soldiers might have crushed millions.
But when faced with an absolute powerhouse of the shinobi world, they could only tremble—utterly helpless.
The only problem was—
"There are too many of them!"
"How long would it take to kill all of these?!"
Watching the soldiers being driven forward again and again by rōnin and monks acting as overseers, Feiyu's face darkened with impatience. He knew exactly what they were trying to do—force him to exhaust his chakra, then kill him.
But not to mention his abilities to fly, burrow, turn invisible, and escape at extreme speed—after awakening even a partial Sage Body, his chakra reserves and recovery speed had skyrocketed to a level that even Kage-class shinobi could not match.
Taking chakra recovery into account, it would be easier for them to hope he starved to death from a prolonged battle than to drain him dry.
"Tch… dealing with a massive but mediocre ninja army—using that jutsu really is the most convenient."
Feiyu brought his hands together, watching the soldiers charge yet again, a cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Wood Release — Deep Forest Emergence."
Towering trees erupted from the earth, blotting out the sky. Soldiers around Feiyu were instantly bound by thick roots and branches. In moments, they felt the meager chakra and physical strength drain from their bodies, sucked away completely.
The trees, having absorbed chakra, seemed to go berserk—growing wildly. Though each soldier possessed little chakra, the sheer number of them and their dense formation allowed Wood Release's chakra-draining ability to reach its absolute peak.
The chakra fed back into the jutsu, causing Deep Forest Emergence to grow stronger and stronger.
This was the greatest difference between Wood Release and ordinary elemental kekkei genkai.
Born from the Divine Tree, Wood Release possessed an absolute counter to the chakra system. Any being with chakra, once caught, would be drained dry—only to fuel the jutsu further.
One hundred meters.
Two hundred meters.
Three hundred meters…
One kilometer.
Two kilometers.
The horrifying forest continued to expand. Tens of thousands of chakra-bearing soldiers became nothing more than sacrifices to Wood Release. Having devoured so much chakra, the power of Deep Forest Emergence spiraled into something monstrous.
The monks and rōnin on the outskirts—acting as overseers—collapsed almost instantly. Most were captured in moments, with only a handful managing to escape the range of the attack.
The rōnin who escaped turned and fled without hesitation. They were nothing like village ninja or monks in loyalty. With the tide lost, survival came first.
Thus, when Feiyu emerged from the forest, only a few dozen monks remained.
"You're not running?" he asked calmly.
"My goal was to completely destroy the power under the Wind Country daimyō—to make him understand his place. I never intended to hunt down every last remnant. Leaving you alive to spread the word would've been a better warning."
"Don't joke!"
A bald monk roared angrily.
"Centuries of the Wind Temple's legacy were destroyed by you! Do you think we'd flee like stray dogs?!"
"Tch… I thought you'd understand the gap between us better," Feiyu replied coldly.
"Didn't expect you to come here just to die."
"Hmph! After using such a powerful jutsu, I refuse to believe you have much chakra left! This is our best chance—if we run now, we'll have no chance at all!"
The instant the monk finished speaking, a flash of cold light passed behind him.
His round head dropped to the ground, blood spraying everywhere.
A chilling voice sounded behind him:
"Since you've abandoned my final mercy, I'll send all of you on your way."
The Feiyu who had stepped out of the forest was only a clone.
The real body had already gone invisible, silently circling behind them. The moment negotiations failed, he struck without hesitation.
Any monk who survived the earlier Deep Forest Emergence without sheer luck possessed at least special jōnin–level strength.
Coupled with their rare techniques—mostly tied to Yin Release or sealing arts—Feiyu naturally would not confront them head-on.
There were countless ninja who died because they were too reckless. If these monks possessed suicidal techniques like the Reverse Four Symbols Seal or the Reaper Death Seal, Feiyu would be the one in trouble.
Even as he spoke, his hands never stopped moving. By the time his words ended, half the monks had already been silently decapitated by invisible blades.
The remaining monks tried to retaliate, but a Wood Clone standing at the forest's edge formed seals. Massive trees surged from the forest behind it, crashing toward them.
Moments later—whether beheaded by unseen blades or crushed by trees—not a single monk remained alive.
"I originally planned to leave a few survivors," Feiyu muttered.
"But it doesn't matter. The rōnin who escaped will spread the message well enough."
"This time… what a massive haul. Tens of thousands of people."
"Even if most of them were trash with barely any chakra, sheer numbers more than make up for it."
"But cleaning up all these corpses… what a hassle. I should get Sunagakure ninja to help collect them."
At the same time, Feiyu closed his eyes slightly, his consciousness entering the space of the Demonic Inheritance Grimoire, gazing at the surging black mist beneath the altar.
Tens of thousands of dead—most of them chakra soldiers not even comparable to genin—had condensed into rolling waves of black mist, far surpassing any previous sacrifice.
"This time…"
"What kind of inheritance will I obtain?"
Without hesitation, Feiyu went all in—burning all the black mist at once, using precise sacrifice, choosing the demonic art with the greatest growth potential for himself.
The Demonic Inheritance Grimoire trembled violently, more than ever before. A grinding sound echoed as the book slowly opened a corner, blood-like liquid seeping from its pages.
The crimson liquid floated and spread through the void.
An overwhelming torrent of information slammed into Feiyu's mind.
Heaven-Devouring Demonic Art — Secret Technique Volume.
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