Mingye kept needling Tamaza Ryojin, making him even angrier, yet showed no intention of attacking him. Tamaza Ryojin had already fallen into a frenzy. Pale blue chakra began to seep from all over his body, a sign that he had fully unlocked the chakra points where his chakra was fused.
The moment chakra as bright as light appeared in his perception, Mingye knew the time had come. He quickly pressed both hands against the sea of snakes. At the same time, Ara darted out of Mingye's sleeve and into the sea of snakes.
"Poison Dragon!"
"Wind Release: Great Windstorm!"
The moment the black snakes beneath Mingye's palms touched the ground, they seemed to take shape, gathering together into a dragon that rose from beneath Tamaza Ryojin's feet and lunged at him. Tamaza Ryojin spat chakra from his mouth, forming a vortex in front of him that spun faster and grew larger, like a meat grinder tearing apart the snakes around him. Countless blades of wind shot from it toward Mingye.
A wall of wind formed in front of Mingye, blocking the incoming blades. Unfortunately, their razor-sharp edges and tremendous force proved too much for him. They pierced through the wall, and Mingye instinctively crossed his arms in front of his chest to block them, avoiding disfigurement or any life-threatening injuries.
Even so, his arms were slashed to ribbons, exposing bone. He flipped backward and retreated again at top speed. Meanwhile, the snakes kept biting Tamaza Ryojin all over, but he no longer attacked Mingye. An idea struck him. He smeared the blood from the snake bites across his hands and pressed them against his chest. A wave rippled out from his body, forcibly tearing apart the snakes' formation. Then he vanished from Mingye's perception.
"How are you feeling?"
Ara emerged from the sea of snakes and saw Mingye sitting on a stone platform nearby, panting. He asked with concern, but Mingye gave a slight shake of his head and said nothing. If he had truly fought Tamaza Ryojin head-on, he would have been the one to die. His combat ability was not particularly strong; poison was his main weapon for dealing damage. Now that the chakra in his body was gone, he could only gather and absorb the natural energy around him to fight. But that energy had to be refined and condensed first. Otherwise, there was no way to supply it for his use. After all, his current abilities were still far from the level of turning the energy of heaven and earth to his own use.
Mingye lay silently on the stone platform and closed his eyes, focusing all his mental energy on repairing his body. Before long, a white python appeared beside him. It was only three meters long and half a meter thick. It lifted Mingye and slithered toward the Dragon Transformation Pool.
Between the steep peaks ran a narrow path, a perilous ravine leading to the endless forest beyond the mountains. It was easy to defend and impossible to force your way through, no matter how powerful a ninja you were. Unless you flattened the entire mountain, even the gods would have to turn back in despair.
But things were different now. Miserable sobbing, children's cries, and constant pleas for mercy had turned the entire ravine into hell on earth. Hundreds of white wolves surrounded several hundred people on a patch of level ground. Three white-haired men sat on separate rocks, watching the children, the elderly, and the women weep without a trace of emotion, as though they couldn't hear them at all. Just then, space rippled in front of them. Tamaza Ryojin tore it open by force and stumbled out, covered in blood. Hearing the hundreds of people crying and begging for mercy, he let out a relieved breath.
The fact that they could still cry meant his people were alive. That meant there was still a chance. As for why he had not attacked Mingye in a bid to take them both down, but instead torn through the barrier and escaped Earth Dragon Cave, Tamaza Ryojin had his reasons. He had to leave his clan a spark, a glimmer of hope—not for revenge, but to pass on his clan's will, so the Wind-Thunder Clan would not become history in his hands, reduced to nothing but a memory.
But when he looked up again, he saw blood everywhere in the ravine. Even the stone path on the ground had been dyed scarlet. In the silver moonlight, it looked like the entrance to the underworld. A sword flew out of the shadows in the distance and landed in front of Tamaza Ryojin. The three Hatake Clan ninjas did not move. From the shadows emerged the enormous white wolf he had seen in the forest, with the cold-eyed man from the forest beside it.
"Hatake Yūya!"
The Hatake Clan ninja introduced himself, and Tamaza Ryojin suddenly remembered the legend about the Hatake Clan. The wolf clan feared no creature. When night fell, the mountains and forests became their domain. "Fierce" did not mean they were mad or arrogant, but that their attacks were wild and merciless. "Wolf" meant that their attacks were orderly: they came in wave after wave, hunting their enemies like a pack of wolves. That was the legend of the Hatake Clan, the legend of the so-called Fierce Wolf Clan.
"Kill me, and release all 372 of them!"
As he approached once more, Hatake Yūya remained cold and expressionless, showing no sign of being moved. Still, he gave Tamaza Ryojin a faint glimmer of hope. Tamaza Ryojin quickly pulled the sword from the ground, took a deep breath, and looked at Hatake Yūya with a solemn, resolute expression.
"I am Tamaza Ryojin!"
"Kill!"
As the words left Tamaza Ryojin's mouth, a flash of silver appeared before his eyes. He gripped the blade with one hand, and lightning instantly enveloped the sword. Having done that, Tamaza Ryojin swung it, sending a powerful current surging out as a solid arc of electricity that swept forward and dispelled the silver flash.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves!"
"Skanda!"
The next moment, a sharp gaze met Tamaza Ryojin's through the gaps in the silver flash. In an instant, Hatake Yūya was right in front of him. A gale howled, and five or six wind vortices appeared around Tamaza Ryojin, grinding toward Hatake Yūya like meat grinders.
"Fusha!"
Hatake Yūya responded calmly. He rested his long sword on his shoulder, then spun, sending sword energy outward in a ring that dispersed the wind vortices. He leaped back three or four meters and crouched like a wolf, returning the sword to its sheath at his waist. The sheath tilted slightly upward as he placed one hand on the hilt and suddenly drew the blade in a straight line.
"Floating Boat!" The silver flash shot toward Tamaza Ryojin like a boat gliding over the water. Tamaza Ryojin didn't dodge. He charged straight at it, his sword wreathed in arcs of lightning, and slammed into the sword energy with his body.
Boom!
A huge explosion erupted between them. Tamaza Ryojin soon burst from the dust, covered in blood, and lunged at Hatake Yūya like a devil from hell, seeming intent on tearing him apart.
"Tiger Tremor!"
With no time to sheath his sword, Hatake Yūya drove it into the ground the wrong way around. A powerful aura poured from his body. Then, with a roar like a tiger's, he drew his sword and slashed again. A fierce tiger charged at Tamaza Ryojin. Tamaza Ryojin shuddered all over, his body freezing for an instant. By the time he reacted, his throat had already been cut by Hatake Yūya's blade.
The pale blue Chakra Cloak gradually faded. Tamaza Ryojin struggled to lift his head and look at his people, still waiting for him to return. Hearing their sorrowful cries for help, he began to weep again. He tried to speak, but couldn't open his mouth to form a single word. He stared blankly at Hatake Yūya, who had walked up to him again. But Hatake Yūya showed none of the sentiment of one hero recognizing another, as the stories would have it. As though he already knew what Tamaza Ryojin wanted to say, he answered coldly:
"Impossible!"
Their wretched pleas for mercy, their furious and desperate curses, even their feeble attempts to resist—and the children, who knew nothing of life or death and felt only pain as the blades swung toward them—none could stop the three Hatake Clan ninjas from slaughtering the entire Wind-Thunder Clan, more than three hundred people. Mingye spent only twenty minutes at the Dragon Transformation Pool before returning to the Wind-Thunder Clan's stronghold.
Blood dripped from above the ravine like a river. The entire gorge was shrouded in a thick, cloying stench of blood. Mingye couldn't hear anyone, but he could feel the sticky blood flowing beneath his feet and imagine the scene before him.
"Hatake Yūya!"
"Uchiha Mingye!"
Just as Mingye stood dazed, a cold voice like a blade rang by his ear. He immediately gave his name in reply, then heard footsteps coming from the ravine nearby, approaching him.
"All three hundred or so members of the Wind-Thunder Clan are dead here. My Hatake Clan excels not only at killing, but also at tracking. We've already obtained their clan register. I guarantee that within a month, every ninja who hasn't returned will be dead!"
Mingye gave a slight nod after hearing him. He hated this kind of scene, but he had to admit that he would see plenty more of it in the future. He kept reminding himself that killing people now would give more people a better tomorrow. Then he spoke to Hatake Yūya.
"Good. I hope you can make it look like you had nothing to do with this."
Hatake Yūya was puzzled. They had already killed everyone. In his mind, he should be boasting of their victory for all the world to hear. But Mingye seemed to want people to believe that his Hatake Clan had not wiped out a middling clan like the Wind-Thunder Clan.
"What do you mean?"
Mingye smiled faintly, took two scrolls from inside his sleeve, and handed them to Hatake Yūya before explaining.
"The Wind-Thunder Clan was under the protection of my Uchiha Clan. If they were wiped out right under our noses, people would look down on my clan. So we must stamp out every possible suspect with the force of a storm. These scrolls contain the ninjutsu and weapons commonly used by the Kurohabaki, Haguro, and Togakushi clans. You have to make it convincing!"
Hatake Yūya wasn't a fool. Mingye clearly intended to use the Wind-Thunder Clan's destruction as a pretext to attack other ninja clans. Then he remembered that the three clans Mingye had named were all on friendly terms with the Senju Clan, and his expression changed. In the thousand-year conflict, the Senju and Uchiha clans had never shown each other the slightest affection. Their battles were also among the most talked-about events in the Ninja World. The reason was simple: both clans claimed to be the most orthodox heirs of the Sage, and both had remained powerful ever since the Sage disappeared.
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