Monster? Susanoo! Death God Enters the Formation

The white feathers above the audience stands were still drifting through the air. The thunderous explosions had already torn the peace over Hidden Leaf Village to shreds.

"Kill!"

Hundreds of Hidden Sand Village and Sound Ninja hidden among the spectators instantly ripped off their disguises. The ninja blades in their hands reflected a piercing cold gleam beneath the sun, and they hacked at everyone they saw.

Several Hidden Leaf genin who were still dazed did not even have time to react before their heads were sliced clean off. Blood sprayed like fountains across the stone pillars around them.

Above the high platform, the purple pillars of light from the Four Violet Flames Formation shot straight into the clouds, locking Orochimaru and the Third Hokage firmly inside.

And by the walls outside Hidden Leaf Village, the full five-thousand-strong allied army of Sand Ninja and Sound Ninja that had long since been lying in wait directly blasted the gates apart with explosive tags, then pounced onto the streets of the Hidden Leaf like a pack of hungry wolves.

Shrill alarms rang through the entire village.

The Hidden Leaf was in utter chaos. Burning shops, collapsed houses, corpses and severed limbs strewn across the streets. Large numbers of Hidden Leaf ninja who had been thrown hastily into battle were surrounded and cut down by enemies several times their number, suffering devastating casualties.

The outskirts of the old Uchiha clan grounds.

A dozen or so Sand Ninja with camouflage painted on their faces were carrying bloodstained machetes, sneering as they approached this somewhat run-down district.

"Boss, the intel says this used to be Uchiha territory. Now there are only a few old, weak, sick, and crippled left. There's definitely stockpiled goods here, and maybe we can even grab a few women to enjoy." One Sand Ninja licked the blood from the edge of his blade.

They had only just stepped past the fallen stone monument when several piercing sounds of wind being cut suddenly came from midair.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"

Several kunai pinned themselves precisely into the ground before the toes of the lead Sand Ninja, biting deep into the earth.

At the end of the street, atop the ruins, stood more than twenty people. There were no elite ninja, only white-haired old men, disabled young men, and a few women whose hands were trembling as they clutched shuriken in a death grip.

Standing at the very front was Aunt Mihui.

She had long since taken off the apron she usually wore for chores and changed into a neat black night suit, holding a specially made refined-steel kunai in each hand in a reverse grip. In the wrinkles on her face was a viciousness that would not back down in the slightest, and her feet were planted firmly on the bluestone slabs at the entrance to the district.

"Sister-in-law Mihui, can we really hold them off?" Beside her, a clansman who had lost his left arm gritted his teeth.

"Even if we can't, we have to!" Mihui's voice did not tremble in the slightest. "We hid like dogs for six years. Yuan finally helped us hang our signboard back up. The men are out there fighting, and those of us in the rear have to guard our home! Whoever dares cross this line, even if we have to use our teeth, we bite through their throats!"

The Sand Ninja opposite them froze for a moment, then burst into a fit of arrogant laughter.

"With trash like you? Slaughter them for me!"

A dozen or so Sand Ninja roared and charged forward.

At that moment, several streets away from the clan grounds, atop a towering water tower.

Yuan stood against the wind on the railing, his long black coat snapping loudly in the gale. He paid no attention to that damned Hidden Leaf Crush plan, nor did he go save the Anbu lying in pools of blood.

He looked down at the streets below, now sunk in a sea of flames, and listened to the endless screams around him. The corners of his mouth slowly pulled into a fanatical curve.

Let it fall into chaos. Let them kill. This hypocritical Hidden Leaf should have been washed in blood long ago.

"Orochimaru, I really have to thank you properly." Yuan licked his lips, his knuckles cracking as he clenched them. "You brought me such a huge feast. With all these moving fragments filling the streets, don't mind if I take them all!"

Before his voice had faded, the concrete at the top of the water tower exploded with a bang, a large chunk shattered beneath his feet. Yuan's figure turned into a streak of black lightning wrapped in dark-red airflow and plunged headfirst into the densest enemy formation below.

It was the main road on the eastern side of Hidden Leaf Village, where more than three hundred Sand Ninja and Sound Ninja were gathering, preparing to break through the defensive line ahead in one charge.

"Who's there!" A sharp-eyed Sound Ninja sensed the sound of wind breaking above his head and had just raised his head.

"Boom!"

Yuan's feet stomped down hard on the Sound Ninja's shoulders. The terrifying force of his fall, combined with Kage-level explosive power, directly drove the man's upper body into his own chest cavity. Bone, blood, and organs burst apart in an instant, splattering the faces of several people nearby.

The crowd fell into chaos.

"Enemy attack! Kill him!" Over a hundred ninja blades slashed toward Yuan at the same time.

"A pack of bastards asking to die."

Yuan drew the short blade on his back, not even bothering to form hand seals. Pure taijutsu paired with the abnormally sharp dynamic vision of the Mangekyo made him turn into a meat grinder in the crowd.

His left hand crushed a Sand Ninja's throat, while the short blade in his right swept horizontally, lightning from Lightning Style clinging to the edge. With one slash, five Sound Ninja were cut in half at the waist, their upper bodies flying through the air while their lower bodies were still running forward.

He was like a tireless killing machine, completely abandoning defense. Whoever struck him with a blade would have that blade instantly knocked away by the layer of materialized berserk chakra, followed by a head-on heavy punch capable of shattering city walls.

In just two short minutes, the street was carpeted with severed limbs.

"Retreat! Hurry, retreat! Monster! He's a monster!" The remaining hundred-plus enemy troops broke, turned, and tried to flee.

"Did I say you could leave?"

Yuan stabbed the short blade in his hand into the stone slab beside him, his hands rapidly flashing through seals, afterimages overlapping. The fire-nature chakra and poison chakra inside his body fused perfectly.

"Fire Style: Poison Fire Prairie Blaze!"

Yuan opened his mouth wide. This time, what he spat was not an ordinary sea of fire, but raging flames mixed with purple-black deadly poison. The wall of fire rose more than ten meters high and swept along the street like a tsunami.

As long as a single spark touched them, not only would their flesh carbonize instantly, but that poison would also follow their airways and corrode their lungs directly into bloody water. Shrill screams rose and fell within the poisonous flames. In less than ten seconds, the entire street had been burned into a charred wasteland, without even a single intact bone left behind.

[Beep! Killed Sound Ninja chunin ×120! Gained green fragments ×1200!]

[Beep! Killed Hidden Sand Village jonin ×30! Gained purple fragments ×900!]

The notification sounds in his mind flooded past like a waterfall, and Yuan felt the pores all over his body open wide.

Just then, two extremely oppressive waves of chakra dropped from the rooftop ahead and crashed heavily in front of Yuan.

One was a puppet master leader wearing a forehead protector from the Hidden Sand Village, and the other was an elite Sound Ninja covered in bone spurs. Both were top combatants on the edge of Kage level within their respective units.

"You're the one who killed so many of our men? Die!" the puppet master roared. Chakra threads danced wildly from his ten fingers, and three refined-steel puppets coated in deadly poison clattered as they pounced at Yuan. The elite Sound Ninja swung his bone blade, cutting off Yuan's retreat.

"Two slightly bigger bugs."

Yuan did not even draw his blade. His Mangekyo Sharingan suddenly widened.

A red half-body Susanoo more than twice as large as before rose from the ground with a crash! It no longer had only ribs and arms; it had even been draped in a layer of armor condensed from chakra.

The enormous skeletal palm of the Susanoo spread its five fingers and swatted straight toward the three refined-steel puppets like it was smacking flies.

"Bang!"

The supposedly indestructible puppets exploded into a sky full of scrap parts the instant they made contact. The Susanoo's skeletal palm did not lose momentum, slapping down onto the puppet master's head.

There was no scream. This top expert, who had not even had time to announce his name, was directly smashed into a puddle of meat paste mixed with shattered bone on the ground.

The elite Sound Ninja who had circled behind him was so frightened his eyes nearly bulged out. He swung his bone blade at the Susanoo's armor like a madman, but he could not leave even a white mark.

Yuan turned around and stared at him through the red phantom of the Susanoo.

"Trying to tickle me?"

The Susanoo's other arm suddenly clenched into a fist, and a heavy hammer blow smashed down from above toward the elite Sound Ninja's chest. One punch pierced through! It pinned his entire body firmly to the ground, blasting out a pit several meters deep.

With the two leaders killed instantly, the dozens of surviving broken soldiers in the distance completely collapsed. They threw away the weapons in their hands, their knees went weak, and they knelt on the ground, kowtowing madly.

"Sir, spare us! We surrender! Please take us in as prisoners!"

Yuan stepped through the blood and mangled flesh covering the ground and slowly walked before them. He looked down at these enemies who had cracked their heads open from kowtowing, the six-pointed stars in his Mangekyo radiating cold killing intent.

"Prisoners?"

Yuan drew the short blade from the ground with a backhand grip, blood dripping from the edge beneath the sunlight.

"In my rules, once blades are drawn, no one is left alive. Take your rotten lives and repent in hell."

Blade light flashed, and thunder exploded.

Dozens of heads almost shot into the sky at the same time, blood mist spraying from their necks and weaving into a red rain in midair.

Yuan casually flicked the blood from his blade. Just as he was about to continue slaughtering his way forward, a powerful abnormal fluctuation of chakra suddenly came from high overhead.

Yuan raised his head. His Mangekyo pierced straight into the clouds.

He could clearly sense that inside the Four Violet Flames Formation barrier sealed on the rooftop, the massive, tree-like chakra that had originally belonged to the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, was rapidly declining at a sheer, cliff-like speed.

That was the sign that the source of his life had burned out.