Projection: Zangetsu!

Shunren did not move.

Narrowing his eyes, the Root Ninja formed hand seals without warning!

Shunren's figure before him turned illusory and vanished.

"Whoosh!" He shifted slightly to the side, and a sharp sword blade swept through the spot where he had been standing.

The Root Ninja shook his head and said calmly, "Your talent for Genjutsu really is quite good, but it seems you only know one. Don't worry, though. Once you join Root, you'll have a chance to learn more."

"Erase my personality and turn me into a killing tool like you?" Shunren swung both swords at him.

"Of course. Only by eliminating emotion can one become a true ninja." The Root Ninja knew how formidable the Kanshou and Bakuya in Shunren's hands were, so he had no intention of using a weapon to oppose them. Instead, he dodged as nimbly as a loach.

Shunren unleashed a dozen or so slashes in succession, but failed to so much as touch him.

Meanwhile, the five remaining Root Ninjas simply watched in silence, with no intention of joining the fight. Or rather, they saw no need to enter the fray at all. Shunren couldn't even handle one of them. And that was indeed the case.

"Crack!" Cracks appeared in the twin swords in his hands.

Shunren's heart sank. Was the power of Yin Release still unable to hold its form?

The Root Ninja had a wealth of combat experience, after all. How could he have missed the opening Shunren exposed in that instant?

He swiftly completed a sequence of hand seals and held one palm outward.

Shunren instinctively raised his sword and slashed at him.

"Wind Release: Air Hammer!"

The blade stopped less than a centimeter from his opponent's palm, yet that tiny distance seemed an impassable chasm!

"Clang!" The Bakuya in Shunren's right hand seemed to strike an invisible wall, and the tremendous rebound sent it flying from his grasp!

Shunren gritted his teeth. Unwilling to give up, he gripped Kanshou tightly in his left hand and slashed horizontally at his opponent's thigh!

But his opponent abruptly raised his knee to brace the underside of the blade, while pressing his right elbow down on it from above, clamping the Kanshou in Shunren's hand fast.

"This is the difference in our strength!" The Root Ninja forcibly wrenched the remaining sword from Shunren's hand, caught the stolen weapon in a reverse grip with his left hand, and slashed at him.

Shunren paid the sharp blade no heed. He turned and launched a Konoha Whirlwind at his opponent's chest.

"Huh? This sword..."

"Whoosh!" Before the edge of the sword the Root Ninja had aimed at Shunren could strike him, it dissolved into smoke and dust.

It had been constructed from Shunren's mental energy, so he could naturally control his own weapon at will.

"Bang!" Shunren landed a direct kick on his opponent!

Everyone present was utterly astonished by Shunren.

"What a surprising kid."

Yet Shunren felt not the slightest bit of pride at the Root Ninja's praise. With his methods exhausted, he had only managed to land a single hit, and the damage it caused was practically negligible.

"Is that all?" The Root Ninja fixed him with an icy gaze and said coldly, "If you have any other tricks, hurry up and show me."

Faced with his opponent's mocking words, Shunren remained expressionless and said calmly, "You're right. Since things have come to this, there's nothing left to hold back for. I don't need to worry about the possibility of failure or the side effects anymore. As long as there's the slightest hope of winning, even a one-in-ten-thousand chance is worth taking, isn't it?"

The Root Ninja was taken aback. He clearly hadn't expected Shunren to still have something up his sleeve at this point. Still, he was only mildly surprised. After all, the difference in their strength was plain to see, and he did not believe

that Shunren's supposed trump card could pose any threat to him. Besides, even if Shunren had some extreme, self-destructive secret technique that could briefly give him greater power and allow him to defeat him,

defeating him alone would be meaningless. Apart from him, there were five more Root Ninjas present, five whose strength was at least equal to his!

What power in the world could let a brat who wasn't even a Genin defeat six Anbu Ninjas in one go?

"A fairy tale?" the Root Ninja said mockingly.

"It certainly is a fantasy, but..." Shunren slowly spread his hands and concentrated all his mental energy in his palms. "What would fantasy taken to its extreme look like?"

His opponent also seemed to sense the mental energy Shunren was releasing. He frowned. "A rare way of using Chakra. Could this be... Yin Release?"

"You've got to be kidding. Yin Release can be used in actual combat?" Yin Release was the theoretical framework by which ninjas controlled mental energy, but virtually no one used Yin Release directly in battle.

To put it in simpler terms, Yin Release was like a lump of raw iron, while Genjutsu was a finished blade, and various secret techniques were swords, shields, bows, and the like. In a fight, didn't everyone grab a weapon and get on with it? What were you going to do, coming at someone with a lump of iron? Were you planning to make a weapon on the spot?

It sounded absurd, yet that was precisely the fantastical thing Shunren was doing!

The basic definition of Yin Release was the ability to create form from "nothing." Limited by the knowledge of this world, ninjas mostly thought of weapons as things like Shuriken, Kunai, and Ninja Blades. No one would create anything more powerful, while creating ordinary weapons that already existed served little purpose.

Shunren alone was different. His mind contained a vast amount of knowledge of the two-dimensional world, allowing him to imagine things ordinary people could never conceive.

"Crackle!" The mental energy Shunren poured forth converged, faintly taking on a form visible to the naked eye!

It was a blade!

A gigantic blade!

Pushing the power of Yin Release as far as he could, Shunren felt as though his scalp were splitting open. The pain that came from his spirit and will was far more terrifying than any physical wound!

"Aaaaargh!" Shunren could not help roaring. His face was frighteningly pale, and blood even seeped from his eyes, nostrils, and ears, giving him a terrifying appearance!

"A weapon! A weapon! I need a more powerful weapon!" In Shunren's mind, the figure of an orange-haired man wielding a massive blade flickered in and out of sight.

"Shing!" The Root Ninjas drew their respective weapons and said coldly, "There's something strange about this kid! We can't let him go on like this!"

Root Ninjas had never been people who cared about honor, and ganging up on the outnumbered was an everyday occurrence for them. But this was the first time they had all attacked together to deal with a child of eight or nine!

With their keen perception, the Root Ninjas seemed to sense the dangerous aura faintly emanating from Shunren. Given their thorough and cautious way of doing things, the moment they noticed something amiss, all six moved together.

One of them alone could already beat Shunren until he had no power to fight back. With all six attacking together, it was utter despair!

"Yin Release: Projection!"

As Shunren let out that low shout, the air froze, and time seemed to stop at that moment.

A massive black cleaver appeared in Shunren's hand, with neither a tsuba nor a handguard, its appearance crude and simple!

One second!

Shunren knew full well that he could only maintain this blade for one second!

There was no flashy, dazzling swordplay. He simply raised the massive blade and swung it forward.

"Getsuga Tenshō!"