The Powerful Deva Path

The Land of Fire was vast, with mountainous and forested terrain. As a result, many regions were plagued by bandits who made a living robbing passing merchants. Some bandit groups even had samurai or ninjas among them, making them brazen enough to raid villages and towns with complete impunity.

This was especially true in the border regions. Far from both Konohagakure and the Land of Fire's capital, the bandits ran rampant. They also understood the essence of guerrilla warfare: whenever Konoha ninjas came to wipe them out, they would split up and disappear into the mountains and forests, sometimes even fleeing into other countries to hide. They were as slippery as eels.

Once the Konoha ninjas left, they happily went right back to robbing people.

It was not that Konoha's ninjas were incompetent. The problem was that missions to clear out bandits paid very little, so they were usually classified as C-Rank or even D-Rank. At most, missions of that level would send a Chunin, but in truth, the vast majority were carried out by Genin.

That gave the bandits plenty of chances to escape.

With bandits running rampant, wealthy merchants trading between nations had no choice but to hire ninjas as escorts.

"Lord Kakuzu, we truly have you to thank this time." The wealthy merchant Tian Xia politely made small talk with Kakuzu.

He had brought his caravan to the Land of Fire this time, originally intending to hire two ordinary Chunin from the Black Market. Unexpectedly, Kakuzu had volunteered himself, claiming he was worth two men. He took two shares of the commission and forcibly accepted the escort mission.

Although Kakuzu was a Missing-nin from Takigakure and extremely greedy, his reputation in the Black Market was excellent, so Tian Xia did not object.

Sure enough, after entering the