"Is this the power of Uchiha Yue, the man who nearly wiped out all of Konoha by himself? So spectacular, so powerful... No wonder some say Uchiha Yue was already capable of rivaling the former God of Shinobi!"
"Xi, to fight all of Konoha alone and force Konoha to flee... only the legendary God of Shinobi could probably defeat someone with such power!"
At the edge of the Dead Silence Domain, two ninjas stood there, gazing at the blurry domain, as though it had been covered by a layer of frosted glass, and spoke to each other.
These two were ninjas from other Ninja Villages. After learning that Konoha had suffered an enormous upheaval—the Hokage had died, along with a great many of the village's main fighting forces—the leaders of the major Ninja Villages became greedy. They wanted to take advantage of Konoha's weakness and tear off a huge chunk of flesh.
After all, as the strongest Ninja Village, Konoha had the largest share of missions and the highest rewards. How could that not tempt people?
However, before carving meat off Konoha, they needed to find out what had happened to the culprit behind Konoha's current miserable state. If necessary, they could recruit this powerful man, whose Human Heart had been utterly wounded by Konoha, into their own village.
Then their village could replace Konoha and become the new strongest village, receiving countless mission shares and taking on missions until their legs went weak. That was every ninja's dream. Just thinking about endless missions and countless bounties was enough to make even the most worthless ninja hum with delight.
These two ninjas were from Sunagakure: one Jonin, one Chunin, and several Genin.
Then, the Jonin sent a Shadow Clone into the Dead Silence Domain to venture deeper and deeper. Once it reached a certain distance, it vanished like a bubble, and because all its Chakra had been completely absorbed, it did not send back even a single memory.
Seeing this, they sent out more Shadow Clones to test it. This time, the clones merely stood at the edge. Just as they were about to dissipate, they hurriedly left the Dead Silence Domain, then dispersed and returned their memories.
"Sure enough, the information was correct. This domain truly possesses the ability to absorb Chakra."
The Jonin leading the group sorted through the Shadow Clones' memories as he studied the Dead Silence Domain. Then he stepped forward and placed his hand inside. He immediately felt his Chakra begin to drain uncontrollably, though not very quickly. After estimating the rate of depletion, he concluded that he had enough Chakra to run from here all the way to Konoha. It did not seem like a major problem.
Remembering Lord Rasa's orders, he considered it for a moment and decided to enter the domain in search of Uchiha Yue. If he could find him, perhaps he could recruit Uchiha Yue into Sunagakure. With a supreme expert capable of rivaling the legendary God of Shinobi guarding their village, they would surely gain the daimyo's favor and receive more funding, along with an endless stream of mission commissions.
Then their leader would no longer need to toil away panning for gold in the desert just to fill the village's coffers.
He immediately sank into an incomparably beautiful fantasy. Compared to that wonderful future, such a small risk was nothing. Besides, at this rate of absorption, if anything went wrong, he could easily retreat unscathed.
With that in mind, after giving a few orders, he immediately stepped into the Dead Silence Domain and began sprinting wildly. If the intelligence was correct, Uchiha Yue should be at the center of this domain.
As long as... as long as he reached that place...
However, what he did not know was that the bizarre force draining Chakra from within the body increased level by level. The pull at the edge was the weakest; anyone could run back out from there. Nor did he know that, beyond absorbing Chakra, this domain absorbed other forms of energy from living organisms as well. Heat, bioelectric currents, even chemical energy produced within the body—all of it fell within Uchiha Yue's range of absorption.
Before coming here, they had possessed some understanding of the domain, but only a limited understanding. Those who relayed the information had merely said that it absorbed Chakra. As for other forms of energy, it was impossible to detect them without entering the domain personally. But if someone entered it personally, would he still have a life to leave with?
As for Jiraiya's situation, some people had seen him when he returned, so Konoha came up with a different explanation. Naturally, they could not tell the people of Konoha, "Our invincible Lord Jiraiya entered Uchiha Yue's domain, never even saw him, never touched a hair on him, and ended up in this state."
How could they say something like that? So they polished the story, claiming that Jiraiya had been beaten into this state by Uchiha Yue. The invincible Lord Jiraiya had fought Uchiha Yue for three hundred rounds, but in the end, he had been outmatched and defeated.
That was more like it. Such an explanation was far better than doing nothing and turning himself into a cripple all on his own. Besides, after Konoha's villagers heard this news, might it not raise morale? The Hokage had been directly beaten to death by Uchiha Yue, while Jiraiya had managed to keep his life. Wasn't that encouraging?
This was something worth celebrating! If Jiraiya had not become crippled, making celebration somewhat inappropriate, Konoha's villagers would already have been running through the streets cheering.
Lord Jiraiya survived!
Uchiha Yue is not unbeatable!!!
Xi! We can definitely defeat that monster!!!
Damn it, if only I could have witnessed such an epic battle—even dying would have been worth it!
If I had known, I would have gone to see Lord Jiraiya's heroic bearing!
Under such embellishment, neither Konoha's villagers nor even some of its ninjas knew that the Lord Jiraiya they revered, that invincible powerhouse, had not even seen Uchiha Yue before fleeing in panic. If those Konoha Ninjas had not sacrificed their lives to save him, Jiraiya would already have become nothing more than a corpse.
As for the truth, all the ninjas who had accompanied Jiraiya were dead. As long as Jiraiya himself did not expose it, and those few remaining people did not expose it either, who could possibly know what had really happened?
As for Uchiha Yue? First, he would never explain anything to people he regarded as dead. Second, he did not even know...
Before you continue