Following the Third's orders, the ANBU squad didn't dare stop for a moment. They raced out of the village and headed for the location where the Elite Shinobi Army was lying in wait.
But halfway there, they ran straight into the Elite Shinobi Army—or, more accurately, what was left of it: a routed force.
"Am I seeing things?"
"H-how could this happen?"
"What on earth happened?!"
The ANBU exchanged bewildered looks.
Before them stretched a shinobi force several miles long. Its ranks were scattered and disorganized, its members were all wounded, and its morale was utterly broken. It bore no resemblance to the elite force led by the Four Kage that they remembered.
Soon, they stopped a Konoha shinobi who looked utterly lost and asked, "What happened? Where are the Four Kage? Lord Tsunade and Lord Jiraiya?"
The Konoha shinobi they had stopped opened his mouth, then recounted the Elite Shinobi Army's ordeal with a pained expression.
As it turned out, just as Konoha came under attack, the Elite Shinobi Army—which had been lying in wait at a secret camp, ready to support the village—was ambushed as well.
The first to strike was the 'Deva Path.'
Before the Elite Shinobi Army could react, he unleashed a Super Almighty Push against their camp!
This Super Almighty Push was not as powerful as the one the 'Deva Path' had used to destroy Konoha in the original timeline, but it still devastated the Elite Shinobi Army's camp in an instant, leaving the force—including the Four Kage—stunned.
Then the Akatsuki Organization launched an all-out attack on the Elite Shinobi Army.
Without a doubt.
The diversion in the Land of Demons, where they deliberately let slip the location of the Four-Tails Jinchuriki and Five-Tails Jinchuriki, as well as Moryo summoning the 'Death Legion' to attack