Anbu × Dragon Might

"Or rather, they weren't even on the same level."

"'Limit State' was nothing more than using the jumping power built up through training to dunk."

"Like an overworked engine, it could be used, but not for long."

"But the realm of God-Seeing Indestructibility was like growing into a giant three meters tall and simply lifting the entire hoop!"

"Every bit of strength in my body, every bit of Chakra, was being used to its fullest."

"Almost none of it was wasted or restricted."

"Every strike was at 'Limit State.' Every strike achieved results I couldn't have reached before, no matter how hard I tried."

"From this point on, I had fully stepped into the realm of Kage."

"In fact, if I got close to most so-called Kage, I could kill them head-on."

"That was because the difference in the very nature of our lives meant they entered that realm mostly through Chakra Nature Transformation."

"Ultimately, their nervous systems still fell within the bounds of ordinary people."

"And with my speed and strength, once I got close enough, those so-called Kage wouldn't have time to react to my fist."

Nara Dan calmly assessed his current strength, unable to help feeling a little wistful.

Half a year of stagnation and hitting a bottleneck had finally paid off. His efforts had borne fruit.

Of course, if he voiced such a boastful attitude, he'd probably get cursed out.

Half a year at a bottleneck counted as being stuck? When the Third heard that, he'd questioned his whole life.

And what would make him question his life even more now was that Nara Dan had already broken through.

Suddenly, Nara Dan seemed to sense something. He looked up into the distance.

Several miles away, several Anbu Ninja were running side by side in the direction of Nara Dan's home.

Clearly, the commotion caused by Nara Dan opening the Eight Inner Gates had been considerable.

Any ninja with even a little sensing ability could detect the terrifyingly vast Chakra fluctuations in the Nara Clan Grounds that night.

They were as savage and uncontrollable as a Tailed Beast.

Although no one knew why they had suddenly vanished, anyone with some experience who connected this to the Nara Clan Grounds would likely guess that Nara Dan had acquired the Eight Inner Gates, or was practicing an equally terrifying Forbidden Technique.

Naturally, they would send Anbu subordinates to investigate the details.

Suddenly, the Anbu Ninja at the head of the group felt his heart tighten.

He felt a terribly dangerous sense of fear crawl over him, raising goosebumps all over his body.

In a daze, he seemed to see a pair of eyes, bright as lanterns, watching him in the darkness.

The eyes radiated a gentle warmth, yet his body felt as if it were about to melt.

From head to toe, from mind to body, he slowly melted bit by bit, inch by inch, beneath that gaze.

The Anbu Ninja felt cold sweat pouring off him and his heart pounding wildly. He wanted to scream, but couldn't make a sound.

"Captain? What's wrong?"

Suddenly, a voice broke the strange silence. He recognized it as one of his subordinates.

With a crash, like someone jolted awake from a nightmare, he snapped out of that bizarre state.

"Haah... haah... haah..."

The Anbu Captain hunched over, gasping for breath. He felt as if he'd just passed through the gates between life and death.

"I..."

Just as the Anbu Captain began to explain what had happened, he only got the first word out before a drowsiness that reached straight into his soul rose from within him.

Thud.

The Anbu Captain collapsed to the ground.

"Captain!"

"What happened?"

"It could be an enemy attack!"

The whole squad tensed at once. Two members went to check on the fallen Anbu Captain, while two others formed Hand Seals, ready to stay on guard.

"Captain! Captain!"

The Anbu members called out to him, but the Anbu Captain was already unconscious.

"He's fine."

Suddenly, a voice spoke beside them, and nearly all the Anbu tensed up.

Nara Dan was standing in front of the tactical unit, though no one knew when he had arrived from several miles away.

The Anbu members exchanged glances, at a loss for what to do.

"Nara... sir?"

After a moment, one of the Anbu members spoke, sounding somewhat tentative.

They weren't sure because the place was still several miles from Nara Dan's home.

More than that, Nara Dan looked completely different from before.

Before, Nara Dan had been muscular and tall, his skin darkened by years of outdoor training. He'd radiated the ferocious air of a black leopard.

Anyone who met him would feel an obvious threat, as if their life were in immediate danger.

But the Nara Dan standing quietly before them now, though still tall, had visibly lost some of his bulging muscle.

Not only that, even though dusk was already falling, Nara Dan's skin looked almost translucent.

And the threat they'd felt before, like standing before a wild beast, had vanished completely.

Instead, he had an air of calm as the sea, with a depth like an abyss.

Rather than a famed Taijutsu ninja, he seemed more like the levelheaded strategist of the Nara House.

So even though some of the Anbu members had met Nara Dan before, none of them dared to be certain at first that the person in front of them was him.

He was connected to Nara Dan, but somehow seemed entirely different.

Nara Dan nodded. He understood the reason and didn't bother explaining. Instead, he reassured the Anbu Ninja.

"Your captain wasn't injured. He was just startled by the energy I inadvertently let slip."

"He'll be fine after getting some rest."

Nara Dan had no intention of making things difficult for these Anbu Ninja, who were only carrying out their mission. Besides, they hadn't interfered with him.

What had happened just now really was an accident. After reaching the realm of God-Seeing Indestructibility, his already powerful instincts had evolved into an almost precognitive, exceptionally precise intuition.

It wasn't that Nara Dan had spotted them. Rather, he had "foreseen" their arrival.

That was the so-called "Cicada Senses Autumn Before It Moves."

His innate instinct to protect his own life had been amplified to its utmost limit.

In other words, whether it was a long-range Ninjutsu strike, an ambush, or poison, he could see such dangers as clearly as the lines on his palm.

He could easily sense them in advance, making it difficult for anything to threaten his life.

The Anbu Captain's collapse was even simpler to explain. Nara Dan's powerful Life Magnetic Field had inadvertently disrupted the Anbu Captain's energy field.

Or rather, it was the overwhelming aura of a higher life-form crushing a lower one.

Something similar to the "Dragon Might" found in mythology.

If Nara Dan had once been a tiger, displaying his threat to enemies through his size, scent, and fangs,

then now, having completely contained his Life Magnetic Field and strengthened the very nature of his life, Nara Dan was a dragon.

A dragon could grow or shrink, appear or disappear.

But the strength of a dragon's Life Magnetic Field remained constant.

Against an enemy, he only needed to release his powerful Life Magnetic Field, and their own fields would fall into disarray.

The most obvious effects were being unable to move and fainting on the spot.

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