Time flew by, winter passed, and spring arrived.
In the blink of an eye, nearly three months had gone by.
It was now late February of the following year.
Just as Qian had expected, with Orochimaru staying hidden and refusing to surface, Konoha simply did not have the ability to find him.
Over these three months, although Konoha had destroyed several of Orochimaru's bases, they had never managed to catch his trail.
As a result, by today, the order to hunt down Orochimaru had already become nothing more than an empty formality.
On the other hand, the conflicts between the other villages and Konoha had grown even more intense. At certain times, it even made people wonder whether the Fourth Ninja World War was about to break out.
Fortunately, the wounds the Third Great Ninja War had left on the major ninja villages had yet to fully heal.
Therefore, although the major ninja villages fought fiercely in secret, they still had not crossed the bottom line openly.
As for the Akatsuki Organization and the Three Great Sage Locations...
Qian already understood the Akatsuki Organization's objective.
They wanted to take advantage of the chaos to investigate detailed intelligence on each village's Tailed Beasts and Jinchuriki, while also accepting hired missions from the major ninja villages to accumulate funds for their future operations.
As for the Three Great Sage Locations...
Mount Myōboku and Shikkotsu Forest had only acted for about a month before falling quiet again.
Ryūchi Cave, however, was still persistent in searching for his traces, and judging from their recent movements, they were already getting closer and closer to him.
Faced with this, Qian was not only unpanicked, he was even somewhat pleased to see it happen.
As for the reason...
"Panel!"
Beneath Moon Island, inside the Lava Cave, Qian