Orochimaru's battle with the trio

"Sasuke Uchiha."

The Grass Ninja licked his lips, his eyes brimming with greed.

"I'm growing more and more interested in you."

As his words fell, a change came over him.

A terrifying wave of killing intent suddenly erupted from his body.

Boom!

An invisible pressure bore down like a mountain, and the leaves around them instantly stopped drifting.

Naruto and his two teammates froze at the same time.

Even the chakra flowing through their bodies grew sluggish in the face of that killing intent.

Naruto's eyes widened, cold sweat quickly beading on his forehead.

"Wh... what's going on?"

He wasn't injured at all.

Yet his body refused to obey him.

Sasuke looked just as grim.

His one-tomoe Sharingan spun frantically, but he still couldn't fully fathom the terror of the person before him.

He had felt something like this from Zabuza before.

But Zabuza's killing intent was on an entirely different level from this Grass Ninja's.

If Zabuza's killing intent was a razor-sharp blade, then this was something else entirely.

This Grass Ninja's killing intent was a mountain of corpses in a sea of blood!

"I can't move..."

Sakura gritted her teeth.

She tried to gather her chakra, only to find that her body felt bound by countless chains. Even raising an arm was incredibly difficult.

Watching their reactions, the Grass Ninja's smile grew wider.

"Not bad."

"Lasting this long under my killing intent already puts you well above ordinary genin."

"Unfortunately, geniuses often die younger, too."

He walked toward the three of them, step by step.

With every footfall, the ground seemed to tremble slightly.

Naruto's breathing grew more and more rapid.

I can't move.

They couldn't even fight back.

Just as the Grass Ninja came within ten meters of Naruto, Naruto's gaze suddenly fell on the Black Kunai