Kitsuchi stared fixedly at Uchiha Ling, who stood in the middle of the battlefield like a demon god. Fury and humiliation surged in his chest, threatening to burst out, but what little reason he had left bound him like icy chains.
Kitsuchi looked around. All he saw were faces filled with fear, no longer willing to fight. He heard his men's ragged, panicked breathing, some of it edging into sobs. He felt the terrifying pressure radiating from Uchiha Ling, as tangible as a physical force, blanketing the entire battlefield.
They had lost!
They had been utterly defeated!
Not by Konoha's massive reinforcements, but by a mere three-man squad—and most of all, by the lone boy called Uchiha Ling!
Five hundred elite Iwagakure Ninja had ambushed more than two hundred Konoha defenders. It should have been a one-sided rout.
Yet now, nearly half their force had fallen, several jōnin were dead, and their morale had completely collapsed. Meanwhile, aside from the casualties among the defenders at the outset, the three newcomers appeared completely unharmed!
Uchiha Ling in particular still brimmed with surging chakra, as if the battle had been nothing more than a warm-up.
Should they keep fighting?
Kitsuchi had no doubt that even if they fought to the last man, they still might not be able to do anything to that monstrous Uchiha.
By then, all five hundred elite troops would be wiped out, while Konoha would have paid a negligible price.
This was no longer a battle. It was a suicide mission, a pointless waste of lives.
"Uchi...ha...Ling!" Kitsuchi ground his teeth, as if he could crush the name between them.
He knew that from this day on, the name would become a nightmare Iwagakure could not ignore—and an indelible mark of shame on his career as a shinobi.