On the battlefield, the strange disturbances had gone unnoticed by the Konoha and Iwagakure ninjas immersed in slaughter, but Araki and Sasori, watching from the sky, had both sensed something faintly amiss.
For some unknown reason, the intensity of the war between the Konoha ninjas and the Iwagakure Ninja had quietly risen by several levels.
Originally, Konoha's strategy over the past few days had been to fight while retreating, focusing as much as possible on preserving themselves and buying time.
Unless they truly had no way out, they rarely fought the Iwagakure Ninja to the death.
The Iwagakure ninjas were even more so. They already held an overwhelming advantage. All they needed was to slowly encircle their enemies, and they could crush every Konoha ninja still resisting. Their actions had been more like a cat toying with mice, and they would not readily risk their lives.
It was precisely because of this mindset that the two sides had remained entangled for so long.
But now, as if in a very short span of time, everything had changed.
At some point, Konoha's ninjas had stopped following the principle of disengaging after a single clash and prioritizing survival. They would occasionally be provoked by the trash talk of the Iwagakure ninjas, abandoning situations where they could have escaped safely and turning back to fight for their lives.
The Iwagakure Ninja were the same. Perhaps they had grown tired and irritated after playing cat and mouse for so many days. They, too, began acting against their usual habits, even risking their lives to intercept Konoha ninjas who were about to escape.
Such cases began as one or two scattered incidents, then spread across the entire battlefield like a prairie fire in a very short time. Everyone seemed to have swallowed a barrel of