Rushing to the Front Lines

This healing property must be a trait of the Kaguya Clan's Sage Body; after all, an ordinary person would have been finished in this state.

Hyuga Lan held the bone sword and flourished it. Since he had never learned the Kaguya Clan's systematic taijutsu, he could only use some crude methods to determine the strength of the clone's Shikotsumyaku.

Hyuga Lan took out a kunai, then held it in one hand and the bone sword in the other, clashing them together.

Clang!

Following a crisp sound, the bone sword formed by the Shikotsumyaku shattered, and the kunai was left with a notch.

Tsk, tsk...

The current strength of the clone's Shikotsumyaku was truly unsightly; its power was completely incomparable to the Kaguya Clan Head.

Hyuga Lan tried a few more Shikotsumyaku ninjutsu in succession. Simple techniques like the Ten-Finger Drilling Bullets could barely be performed by this clone, but major moves like the Dance of the Seedling Fern were impossible to activate with this body.

The talent of this clone was truly terrible to the extreme; it was likely no better than the trash of the Kaguya Clan.

Fortunately, what he needed right now was a clone with weak Shikotsumyaku bloodline traits. If it were a clone that hadn't even awakened the Shikotsumyaku yet, it would actually be even more effective for the blood-exchange ritual.

For now, he would use this clone to help the Kaguya Clan Head hold on. As his techniques improved, the clones he produced should become increasingly suited to his needs.

When his spirit returned to his original body, Hyuga Lan compared the two and sighed, feeling that his own body was much more comfortable.

Afterward, Hyuga Lan began the blood-exchange ritual. Once it was complete, he checked the Kaguya Clan Head's physical condition.

The final results made Hyuga Lan heave a sigh of relief; the blood-exchange ritual was truly worthy of being a secret technique developed by the Kaguya Clan at the cost of their heart's blood.

Now that the Kaguya Clan Head had undergone the ritual, his Kekkei Genkai Disease was suppressed, and he appeared much more spirited. In this state, there was no problem with him holding on for another half a year.

Although the newly made clone was now ruined, being able to hold on for another six months was enough time for him to produce new ones. Moreover, with this successful experience, he was fully confident that he could cultivate multiple clones at once.

Just as Hyuga Lan was painstakingly studying cloning technology, the war between the Cloud Village and Konoha Village entered a white-hot stage.

Both sides were committing more and more personnel, and even Hyuga Lan received a draft notice.

Before heading to the battlefield, the village arranged a simple Jonin assessment for them and announced that he was now a Special Jonin, qualified to execute higher-level missions.

Such a blatant move, without even pretending, clearly indicated that the village simply wanted to recruit some cannon fodder.

Had the situation at the front really become so dire that they needed people to fill the lines?

When Hyuga Lan saw the teammates the village had arranged for him, he shook his head helplessly, as Anko was among them.

Besides her, there was Gekko Hayate and his girlfriend at the time, Uzuki Yugao.

Looking at Gekko Hayate's appearance—already showing signs of extreme kidney deficiency at such a young age—Hyuga Lan couldn't help but sigh that the boy was young and didn't know how to exercise restraint.

"Ahem..."

Gekko Hayate coughed twice, then reached out to greet Hyuga Lan.

"Lan, you are the captain of our Team 8 this time. We will listen to all your arrangements."

Lan scanned the three of them, finally taking a deep look at Anko before saying with a cold face, "Since everyone is here, let's move out."

Land of Fire border.

Hyuga Lan led Anko and the others to encounter a Cloud Village squad. After a fierce battle, the Cloud squad was completely wiped out within the borders of the Land of Fire.

However, while Anko and the others were resting, Hyuga Lan was seen cutting off a piece of human tissue from the Cloud squad leader and storing it away.

Watching Hyuga Lan's actions, Anko couldn't help but think of her former master, Orochimaru.

Orochimaru loved to collect the corpses of ninjas with bloodline limits because he wanted to use them to find the truth of the Ninja World.

But Hyuga Lan was different from Orochimaru; he collected intelligence on these Cloud Village personnel to find the Otsutsuki bloodline hidden within the Cloud Village.

Indeed, the Cloud Village was also related to a branch of the Otsutsuki bloodline.

When he was assigned to defend against the Cloud Village, Hyuga Lan suddenly realized that he had actually missed one Otsutsuki branch.

The Kinkaku and Ginkaku brothers, who hailed from the Cloud Village and caused the deaths of the Second Hokage and the Second Raikage, also possessed the blood of the Sage of Six Paths.

Furthermore, given that these two brothers could fuse with Nine-Tails chakra, manipulate the Six Paths Tools, and possessed the prominent Otsutsuki trait of horns on their foreheads, the Otsutsuki bloodline of Kinkaku and Ginkaku was also very dense.

And since they were clearly unrelated to the Senju, Uzumaki, or Uchiha bloodlines of the Sage of Six Paths, it was highly probable that these two brothers originated from the Hagoromo Clan, which had perished during the Warring States period.

The Sage of Six Paths' real name was Otsutsuki Hagoromo, so this Hagoromo Clan must be the descendants of the Sage of Six Paths.

Hyuga Lan's plan to revive the Otsutsuki bloodline was naturally better the more complete it was. So, with the idea of killing two birds with one stone, Hyuga Lan decided to collect more information on Cloud Village ninjas while defending against them, hoping to find the bloodline of the Hagoromo Clan.

However, the Hagoromo Clan had perished in the Warring States period; after so many years, finding their bloodline would be as difficult as ascending to heaven. This clumsy method of looking for a needle in a haystack was a last resort.

With Hyuga Lan's leadership, his squad not only completed missions brilliantly but also suffered no casualties. Thus, gradually, in this war against the Cloud Village, Lan's squad began to enter the Cloud Village's field of vision.

Soon, the Cloud Village made a targeted arrangement, and a Cloud squad led by a Jonin came for them.

That Jonin was named Dekai. His skin was a brownish-black, and his face was painted with oil paint. At this moment, his eyes stared fiercely at Hyuga Lan and the others.

"Byakugan? The Hyuga Clan?

It's a pity that you're just a kid from the branch family."

Dekai knew the function of the Hyuga Clan's Caged Bird Seal. With that seal in place, the Byakugan of a Hyuga branch member could never be extracted intact.

With that, Hyuga Lan's value in Dekai's eyes plummeted significantly.

Turning his attention to the other two women and one man, he saw the man coughing incessantly, looking like a complete invalid. It was his first time seeing a ninja like that; was Konoha Village truly so desperate for manpower?

Why were they sending such bottom-of-the-barrel trash to the front lines?

However, the two female ninjas, each possessing a distinct charm, caught Dekai's eye and brightened his mood.

Seeing the covetous look in Dekai's eyes, Anko and Uzuki Yugao's expressions darkened; they knew they had been targeted by the man.

In this moment of crisis, both women couldn't help but cast their gazes toward Hyuga Lan.

Throughout their time together, whenever they thought they had gauged Lan's strength, they were soon shocked again by the power he displayed. Over time, Hyuga Lan had given them the impression that his strength was truly unfathomable.

Seeing that everyone's attention was focused on Hyuga Lan, Dekai finally realized that the soul of this squad was this young boy with the Byakugan.

"Kid with the Byakugan, consider it your bad luck to have run into me."

"You talk too much!"