Summary (Happy May Day!)

Whoosh—

Qian's figure appeared in the field.

Then he threw a Kunai, sending it straight at the still-struggling Shiroishi Kurato.

The Kunai shot across seven or eight meters, about to strike him.

But just then, Shiroishi Kurato suddenly raised his head and revealed a savage grin.

Then his entire body turned into a bolt of Lightning, closing in on Qian at incredible speed.

In that state...

He looked nothing like the weakness he had shown just now.

Clearly, Shiroishi Kurato had been putting on an act.

And yet, faced with Shiroishi Kurato's sudden outburst, Qian showed none of the panic he should have.

As if he had expected it all along, the instant his opponent erupted into motion, he was already retreating.

Not only that, as he backed away, his hands were forming seals at lightning speed.

"Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Technique!"

With a thought, Qian cast the technique before Shiroishi Kurato could get close.

Watching the enormous Sharingan gradually fill his entire field of vision, Shiroishi Kurato murmured, "It's not ninjutsu."

Clearly, he had thought Qian was using ninjutsu again this time. Instead, it was genjutsu he had never used before.

The next moment, his spiritual will was pulled away, as if he had entered some illusory scene. Though he could still feel his body, he could not move even an inch.

When he lowered his head, he saw several meter-long rusty iron stakes piercing through his limbs, chest, and abdomen.

Even knowing the scene before him was fake, the pain that seemed to sink into his bones still made the corners of his mouth twitch.

At the same time—

In the outside world, Qian looked at the Short Blade before his neck, its lightning gradually fading away, and let out a long breath.

Right then, a figure appeared behind him, rushing at him from the rear at a speed no slower than Shiroishi Kurato's earlier charge.

From the look of it, he seemed to want to take advantage of Qian's moment of relaxation and kill him in one blow.

But had Qian really relaxed?

The instant the newcomer appeared, Qian moved as if he had sensed it long ago, flashing behind Shiroishi Kurato.

Looking at the rapidly approaching figure ahead, Qian sneered, "You finally showed yourself!"

With that, he immediately retreated.

Seeing this, Shiroishi Kurato—no, more accurately, Shiroishi Kurato's Shadow Clone—changed expression and was about to step forward to dispel the genjutsu on the original.

But just then, sparks of fire suddenly flared on Shiroishi Kurato's back. It was an Exploding Tag that had already begun to burn.

Boom—

A violent explosion rang out.

Crimson flames instantly swallowed Shiroishi Kurato and his Shadow Clone, the bright fire driving back the surrounding darkness by several degrees.

Only then did Qian truly relax and begin gasping for breath.

In this battle, his victory had seemed simple, but in truth, it had all depended on the convenience of the Sharingan.

If not for the Sharingan's hypnotic ability, after his initial mistake and being caught, he would already have been cut down by Shiroishi Kurato's chain of attacks.

It was obvious that Shiroishi Kurato had intended to end the fight quickly back then.

Unfortunately for him, because Qian had activated the Sharingan early, he had escaped disaster.

If that had been all, then he could only have lingered on under his opponent's pursuit.

However, aside from its hypnotic ability, the Sharingan had also granted him powerful insight.

With it, he could see through Shiroishi Kurato's movements and push his three Fire Release Ninjutsu and the skill "Ninja Tool Throwing" to the limit.

Otherwise, even though he had already trained his three Fire Release Ninjutsu to Lv2 and raised "Ninja Tool Throwing" to Lv3, he still might not have been able to do anything to his opponent.

And once his attacks could no longer threaten his opponent, his opponent could simply have dragged things out and exhausted his Chakra.

At that point, only death would have awaited him.

Fortunately, the Sharingan had been powerful enough to force his opponent to take the initiative and counterattack.

However, Shiroishi Kurato's counterattack had not been a random flurry. He had had his own plan.

First, at the very beginning of his counterattack, when he walked out from behind that great tree, he had already cast the "Shadow Clone Technique" in advance and secretly split off a Shadow Clone.

Then, using himself as bait, he had taken the initiative to attack Qian, attempting to draw all his attention and create an opening for the Shadow Clone.

However, Qian's strength had clearly exceeded his expectations—the combination of "Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique" and "Ninja Tool Throwing" had directly caught him off guard.

From there, the situation gradually slipped out of Shiroishi Kurato's control.

But the arrow was already on the string, and it had to be loosed.

So after he was hit by the "Phoenix Sage Fire Technique," Shiroishi Kurato went along with it and pretended to be badly injured, luring Qian into showing himself.

Although Qian saw that something was off, he still revealed himself.

At that moment, both of them had their own plans.

Shiroishi Kurato wanted to pincer Qian from front and back with his shadow clone and kill him.

Qian, meanwhile, planned to beat him at his own game and take him down in one fell swoop.

It was not that he was some brilliant strategist. Rather, after the other party first used the "Shadow Clone Technique," he had mentally prepared himself accordingly.

Although the Sharingan could not directly see the human body's Chakra Meridians and Acupoints, it could still roughly make out the amount of chakra someone had.

Therefore, while he had not seen the process of the other party using the "Shadow Clone Technique," he had clearly seen the strange situation where the chakra in his body abruptly decreased by half.

If he still could not guess something from that, then this pair of eyes would have been wasted on him.

And with that mental preparation, whether it was Shiroishi Kurato's final sudden attack or the abrupt appearance of his shadow clone, he was not overly surprised.

All he could say was that the saying passed around the Ninja World was not wrong.

One-on-one, the Sharingan really gave too much of an advantage.

From the very beginning, Shiroishi Kurato's trump card had been guessed by him. It would have been strange if he had won in the end!

Taking a deep breath and feeling the pain in his chest ease a little, Qian stopped thinking about it and opened the panel to glance at it.

After that battle, the chakra he had left had also been mostly consumed.

Not all of it had been spent on using ninjutsu. A considerable portion had also been used to drive the Sharingan.

Although activating the Sharingan in normal times only required one point of chakra per minute, in the midst of intense combat, the chakra consumption rose sharply.

Just like a moment ago, in only a few short minutes, it had consumed several hundred points of chakra.

However, there was also one piece of good news: because of this, his Sharingan's Evolution Progress had increased by ten points.

This allowed Qian to see a shortcut for increasing the Sharingan's Evolution Progress.

However, after thinking about it, Qian gave up on the idea.

He did not want to go through another life-and-death crisis.

With the Proficiency Panel, he had absolutely no need to take such a risk, even if it was a shortcut.

Looking at the flames ahead as they gradually died out, Qian clutched his chest and walked forward, picked up the Short Blade on the ground, and then left the place.

Next, he planned to find somewhere to hole up and quietly wait for this strange surprise attack to end.

As for the battlefield—

Whoever wanted to go could go!

He had already done enough. Whether they lived or died would depend on their own fortune.

Besides, even if he wanted to go to the battlefield, his body would not allow it.

Leaving aside his nearly depleted chakra, the injury on his chest alone meant he could not bring out much of his strength.

If he still joined the battle under such circumstances, that would be outright suicide.

Qian had no intention of sacrificing himself for others.