Even My Farts Are Tactical Smoke

Thunder rumbled like muffled drums, pounding against the hearts of every Hidden Cloud ninja.

The torrential rain turned heaven and earth into a single gray prison. The lights within the outpost swayed in the gale, as though they might go out at any moment.

Darui's usually lazy face held nothing but gravity now.

He swept his gaze across the jonin in the conference room. Every one of them was an elite capable of standing alone, yet the oppressive atmosphere remained impossible to dispel.

"The target is definitely no ordinary rogue ninja." His voice cut through the rain and reached everyone's ears clearly. "Based on the fragmentary intelligence from Hidden Mist and Hidden Stone, as well as the final battle records left behind by our three sacrificed squads, I conclude that he most likely possesses some unknown ocular technique or advanced genjutsu unlike anything we've ever heard of. It can copy—and even... optimize—the S-rank ninjutsu we use in real time."

As soon as he finished, a senior jonin voiced the question on everyone's mind. "Copy and optimize S-rank ninjutsu? Could he be a surviving Uchiha who awakened some mutated Sharingan?"

"No." Darui slowly shook his head, dismissing the most obvious possibility.

His fingers lightly tapped the tabletop, each sound seeming to strike directly against everyone's nerves. "The intelligence says his eyes... have no tomoe, none of the traits of any known ocular technique. Rather than 'copying,' the witnesses' exact words were more like... 'eating.' He uses his eyes to 'eat' the structure of a ninjutsu, then 'spits out' a stronger, more perfect version."

Eating ninjutsu?

That bizarre description sent chills down everyone's spines.

This had already surpassed the realm of ninjutsu combat. It was more like... predation from a higher dimension.

Just then, a shrill alarm tore through the oppressive silence in the conference room. Red warning lights flashed madly, staining every face blood-red!

"Enemy attack! The outer perimeter has been breached!"

"Communications have been cut off! Every line is down!"

At nearly the same moment, a dense chorus of popping sounds arose from the curtain of rain outside.

To their horror, countless iron-sand grains as fine as hairs, like a swarm of living locusts, sliced precisely through the downpour and severed every exposed communications cable and signal amplifier at the outpost.

They caused no casualties at all, and their purpose was chillingly clear—turning this place into an isolated island cut off from the world.

Darui's expression darkened. He instantly rushed out of the conference room, with the others following close behind.

When they reached the open ground at the center of the outpost, everyone instinctively stopped and looked up at the rooftop.

There, a figure stood silently against the backdrop of lightning and thunder, allowing the violent wind and rain to lash his black robes.

It was Xuan, the mysterious existence who had become a headache for all four great nations.

Xuan narrowed his right eye slightly. A waterfall of pale golden data streamed across his pupil as [Ninjutsu Reverse Analysis] activated, and an invisible scan instantly covered the entire outpost.

Below, two Hidden Cloud elite ninja who could no longer restrain themselves roared and attacked first. Their hands formed seals as chakra surged.

"Lightning Release: Thunder Tiger Massacre!"

Two fierce tigers formed from high-density Lightning Release chakra burst forth with roaring fury. They tore through the air from both sides, blocking every route Xuan could use to evade.

Yet rather than retreating, Xuan stepped forward.

Within his activated vision, the two thunder tigers were no longer mere masses of energy, but precise models composed of countless chakra flows, structural nodes, and energy frequencies.

In an instant, his right eye had completely dismantled the A-rank ninjutsu.

"Three redundant structures. Energy conversion rate: 78%. Core nodes unstable..."

Cold data flashed through his mind, and a mocking curve touched Xuan's lips.

A rapidly spinning vortex appeared out of nowhere in his left palm. The negative-pressure whirlpool formed by Wind Release chakra instantly sucked away the surrounding rainwater and air. With his right hand, he drew upon his own Lightning Release chakra and simulated the core wave frequency of Thunder Tiger Massacre.

His palms slammed together!

"Roar—!"

A tiger's roar, far more violent and condensed than before, rang through the heavens!

A savage thunder tiger, jet-black from head to toe and nearly half again as large, formed out of thin air. Its lightning was condensed almost into substance!

This was [Thunder Tiger—Modified]. There was no seal-forming process, no casting delay. Its power was more concentrated, and its speed was even more terrifying!

Like a destructive bolt of lightning, the black thunder tiger struck after yet arrived first. It opened its jaws and crushed both blue-white thunder tigers in a single bite, scattering them into electric sparks that filled the sky.

Then, without losing any momentum, it pounced on the two dumbstruck Hidden Cloud ninja.

"Retreat!" Darui roared, but it was already too late.

With a deafening explosion, the two elite ninja did not even have time to scream before black lightning devoured them. Only two charred halves of corpses remained where they had stood.

"Bastard!" Darui burned with rage. He knew ordinary ninjutsu would be useless against this monster.

His hands formed seals as the Water and Lightning chakra within his body fused perfectly. The power of his bloodline limit erupted!

"Storm Release: Laser Circus!"

Dozens of blue-violet beams of lightning and water interwove into an inescapable net. Like living chains, they shot toward Xuan from every direction.

It was Darui's signature ninjutsu—extremely fast and capable of freely changing its trajectory, making it impossible to defend against.

The data stream in Xuan's right eye flickered at an unprecedented speed.

"Analysis initiated... dual-attribute Water and Lightning chakra composite model..."

"Searching for resonance frequency... energy nodes locked..."

"Calculating reverse-phase cancellation solution..."

Three seconds!

Only three seconds!

Xuan had already grasped the essence of Storm Release.

He did not even form seals. He merely raised his right hand, and the iron sand scattered around him instantly responded to his Magnet Release chakra, vibrating at an extremely high frequency.

The iron sand rapidly gathered before Xuan into a barrier as thin as a cicada's wing. Its vibration frequency was perfectly synchronized with the incoming Storm Release beams, but its phase was the complete opposite.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—

Something bizarre happened.

The violent lightning-water chains were neutralized and dissolved by an invisible force the instant they touched the iron-sand barrier. They vanished without even stirring a ripple.

"What?!" Darui's pupils constricted sharply. This had surpassed the limits of his understanding.

Before he could recover from his shock, Xuan had already completed his hand seals. An ancient Lightning Release ninjutsu that had nearly vanished from the ninja world reappeared in his hands.

"Lightning Release: False Darkness!"

A pitch-black lightning spear shot from his mouth, but it was completely different from the version Kakuzu used.

This False Darkness was darker, almost entirely devoid of light, as though it could swallow all illumination. Xuan had optimized its penetrating power to a terrifying degree.

Alarm bells rang wildly in Darui's mind. In his haste, he could only raise the Executioner's Blade across his chest to block it.

"Clang—!"

Amid an ear-splitting clash of metal, an irresistible force surged into him.

Darui's arms went numb, and his body flew backward uncontrollably. His feet plowed two deep trenches through the muddy ground. He staggered back seven full steps before barely stabilizing himself.

He looked down to see that the web between his thumb and forefinger had split open, blood running down the blade's handle. And on that sturdy sword, there was actually a tiny crack!

"Y-you... who exactly are you?!" Darui endured the searing pain in his arms and demanded furiously.

Copying ninjutsu was one thing, but instantly analyzing and neutralizing even a bloodline limit, then using a lost ninjutsu and strengthening it to such a degree—this was no longer something a human could do.

Xuan slowly lowered his hands and looked at him with indifferent eyes, as if he were examining an interesting test subject. "Someone here to collect tuition."

Before his words had even faded, his right eye moved almost imperceptibly. A fragment of memory that did not belong to him flashed through his mind.

It was a page of experimental notes filled with complex formulas, a remnant of Azure Dragon's knowledge. Its title was unmistakable—<A Mathematical Model for the Limits of Chakra Compression and Jutsu Formation Speed>.

"Model loaded. Beginning real-time calculations..."

A sudden insight struck Xuan, and he immediately adjusted the output rhythm and condensation method of his chakra.

The next second, he held two fingers together like a blade and slashed forward.

"Lightning Release: Swift Wolf Claw!"

This time, the form of the technique did not change, but its speed underwent a qualitative transformation!

From seal formation to completion to release, the entire process for the five wolf-claw-shaped lightning strikes was compressed into a terrifying 0.3 seconds!

That speed had already surpassed the neural reaction threshold of most elite ninja!

Darui's battle instincts screamed their warning. He only had time to twist his body to the side when a heart-rending pain tore through his shoulder.

Xuan's attack grazed his body, but it had already ripped apart the armor and flesh on his shoulder together. Blood instantly dyed the front of his clothes red.

At that moment, several smoke bombs exploded amid the distant ruins. Thick smoke rapidly spread, obscuring everyone's vision.

Saori was using her puppets to provide cover.

At the same time, beneath the ground on the other side, Baba Tesshin's Magnet Release trap had also been silently set. It only awaited Xuan stepping into it.

Yet Xuan stopped pursuing, as though he had lost interest in killing Darui.

Through the smoke, he coldly watched Darui's direction. His voice was not loud, yet every surviving Hidden Cloud ninja heard it clearly. "Go back and tell the Fourth Raikage, A, that I'm not after his territory, nor do I care for his power... I only want to borrow his laboratory for a few days."

After saying that, an extremely subtle golden-red glint suddenly flashed deep in his right eye.

Azure Dragon's ancient, weathered remnant of knowledge briefly surfaced once more, and a whisper sounded in his mind. "Do not let lightning... become a weapon."

A cold curve slowly rose on Xuan's lips as he answered inwardly, "Don't worry. I won't let it become a weapon..."

"I'll make it... divine punishment."

That trace of gold and red immediately faded, and everything returned to calm.

At some point, the torrential rain began to ease.

When the smoke dispersed, the entire eastern outpost had become a field of broken walls and rubble.

Xuan stood at the highest point of the ruins, his right eye scanning the entire area again.

This time, his target was no longer the enemy, but the encrypted map data he had intercepted before the outpost was destroyed.

Soon, three conspicuous red dots were marked on the three-dimensional map in his mind—the locations of Hidden Cloud Village's three core research sites.

At the same time, cold system notifications quietly appeared:

Cognitive Dimension Activation Progress: 17%

Ninjutsu Reverse Analysis Proficiency +500

Xuan turned, his figure gradually blending into the night. Only a cold sentence echoed above the ruins:

"Next time we meet, I won't demonstrate... I'll erase you directly."

At the same time, in the Land of Lightning, inside the Raikage's office.

The atmosphere was so oppressive that it seemed frozen solid.

After hearing the fragmented battle report transmitted back by Anbu members through an emergency secret technique, A's face turned livid.

When he heard Xuan's final message about "borrowing the laboratory," fury burst from his eyes. Lightning arcs crackled uncontrollably around his body.

"Crack!"

The specially reinforced teacup in his hand turned to powder.

"Raise his threat level to the highest!" A's voice was grim and filled with unquestionable authority. "Issue an S-rank maximum wanted order immediately. Notify the five great nations—the target's codename is 'Eye Eater.' Threat level... treat him as Otsutsuki Clan-class!"

With that command, the entire Hidden Cloud Village war machine began operating at full force.

Meanwhile, at the distant abandoned outpost, Xuan had finished analyzing the map data.

Of the three red dots, he casually crossed out two. Those were merely decoys placed in plain sight; the true core technology would never be kept there.

His gaze finally settled on the third coordinate, the deepest and most secretive one.

It lay three hundred meters underground, within the violent volcanic region of the Land of Lightning.

A name known only to a very small number of Hidden Cloud Village's upper ranks slowly surfaced in Xuan's mind—Thunder Library.