Rumble, rumble, rumble!
Konoha's ninja had received orders to tighten their defenses, but Mist Village was not about to stand by and watch them do so.
War was not a turn-based game.
Just as Konoha's ninja abandoned their ships and rushed toward the largest flagship at the center, the shark swarms besieging the vessels suddenly turned around. They gave up attacking the ships and instead pounced on the Konoha ninja who had lost the protection of their vessels.
Most of this batch of Konoha shinobi were chūnin. They at least had the strength to resist or evade the sharks' attacks, but the small number of genin suffered miserably.
Although Konoha genin were always joked about as being able to beat up the Six Paths and kick around Kage-level opponents, there were only a handful of genin with such extraordinary strength. The vast majority still sat at the very bottom of the Shinobi World's food chain.
Blood-Eye Sharks with scarlet eyes burst up from beneath their feet. Rather than exploding immediately, they opened their bloody maws and slashed wound after wound across the ninja with their sharp teeth.
That was right. They even carefully controlled the force of their bites, trying not to kill their victims outright.
Such behavior, which clearly went against a shark's natural hunting instincts, was obviously the result of Oyashiro En's control from behind the scenes.
But what exactly was his purpose in doing this?
"Damn it, are they trying that wounded-but-not-dead trick again?"
An experienced Konoha jōnin saw the scene and immediately shouted in anger.
It reminded him of the Second Shinobi World War, when Sunagakure had used poison that wounded without killing, using the injured to drag down Konoha's active forces.
Although something was wrong with the thinking of Konoha's upper ranks, the overwhelming majority