After parting ways with Kamijo Yoichi, Qian began searching for traces of the three Sunagakure Chunin in the direction he had indicated.
Thanks to his familiarity with this stretch of terrain, as well as the powerful insight of the Sharingan, he soon found relevant clues.
After that, he continued pursuing them along those clues, and finally caught up to them half an hour later.
At this moment, they were still heading toward Sector E12.
Combined with the words of Squad Captain Tashiro Ukyo's ninja hound, Kiba—that there were many enemies in Sector E12—Qian could more or less tell that Sector E12 was the focus of this Sand shinobi attack.
"But why would so many Sand shinobi suddenly appear?"
Qian could not make sense of that question no matter how he thought about it.
One had to know that whether it was the neighboring Sector E12, their Sector E11, or even this entire nearby area, strictly speaking, they all belonged to the second line.
It was understandable for a few infiltration units to appear from time to time, but for the enemy to invade on a large scale like this was basically unlikely.
Unless—
"The front line collapsed!"
Qian was startled by the thought that had suddenly popped into his head, but he quickly calmed down.
If the entire line had collapsed, then the enemies appearing here would not be limited to just these few.
At that point, never mind Sector E12; the entire area they were defending would probably come under attack.
But so far, he had not seen any signs of that.
In other words, the front line had not completely collapsed.
But the enemy's numbers had indeed exceeded the scale an infiltration unit should have.
In that case, there was only one explanation: a few strongholds on the