Yan stayed at the third line of defense.
It was not that he wanted to stay. He could not leave.
Iwagakure's major offensive began the day after he arrived.
At five in the morning, the sun had not fully risen yet. A thin layer of morning mist hung over the river valley.
Yan leaned against the trench wall, dozing off—he really was dozing, not pretending. After dealing with the underground tunnels yesterday, he had spent another half the night using Observation Haki to search for potential hidden passages beneath the entire defensive line. The mental drain had been considerable.
"Boom—!!"
The first explosion yanked him out of his half-asleep state.
His Observation Haki spread out at the exact instant the blast rang out. Two kilometers ahead—no, one kilometer ahead—a massive number of life signatures were moving at high speed, charging toward Konoha's defensive line.
The numbers—
Yan's mouth twitched.
A lot. Far too many.
Within the range of his Observation Haki, densely packed points of light filled his vision from the front all the way to the flanks. Every point represented a living person, and all of their wills pointed in the same direction—Konoha's line of defense.
"They're here, they're here, they're here—!!" someone shouted from the trenches.
More explosions rang out in rapid succession. Iwagakure's long-range ninjutsu units were laying down suppressive fire. Rock shells, Earth Dragon Bullets, Explosion Release: Clay Bullets—they rained densely from the sky, blasting the area fifty meters in front of Konoha's line into a churning sea of mud.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
The Earth Release ninja on the line formed hand seals desperately, and earthen walls rose one after another from the ground. But Iwagakure's firepower was too dense—a wall had barely risen before three or four rock shells smashed it apart. Shattered stone