Monster! He Kicked a Ninjutsu to Pieces!

Qian Ye took a deep breath and fiercely kicked forward with his right leg.

No hand seals.

No complex chakra transformations.

Only physical strength amplified through pressure points, and the air pressure created by his leg lashing through the air at high speed.

Hiss!

A pale blue vacuum slash, nearly shaped like a full moon, burst from Qian Ye's toe.

The slash expanded against the wind.

In the blink of an eye, it stretched several meters wide.

With a shriek that tore through the air, it slammed into the weakest central node of the flaming tornado.

Boom!

A deafening explosion thundered through the forest.

Shockwaves rolled outward.

Dirt and splintered wood filled the sky.

Hyuga Tianfeng raised an arm before his face, his Byakugan fixed on the center of the explosion.

He saw a sight he would remember for the rest of his life.

That pale blue vacuum slash cut into the flames like a razor-sharp blade.

It forcibly severed the chakra balance within the flaming tornado!

The Wind Release and Fire Release lost their connection and exploded apart in opposite directions.

The vacuum slash was also stripped of most of its power by the combined ninjutsu.

What remained skimmed along the ground as it surged forward.

Several large trees in its path were cut cleanly in half.

The cuts were smooth, as though they had been carved by a blade.

Yi stood at the very front and took the brunt of it.

As he watched the blue slash continue flying toward him after breaking through the flames, his pupils suddenly contracted.

There was no time to fully dodge.

It was too close.

What kind of taijutsu was this?!

Why didn't it even require hand seals?!

Yi twisted his body with all his strength, trying to avoid a hit to his chest and abdomen.

Rip!

The slash grazed Yi's chest.

The blank mask on his face cracked into two pieces and fell to the ground.

His tough skintight combat suit was torn apart as well.

A bloody gash, deep enough to expose bone, ran from his left shoulder to the ribs on his right side.

Blood sprayed out.

Yi let out a muffled groan and was sent flying backward, crashing heavily into a broken tree trunk.

The other Root ninjas were also caught in the aftermath of the out-of-control ninjutsu.

Several who stood closer vomited blood and collapsed, while the rest were forced to stop forming hand seals and retreat in disarray.

A huge gap had opened in the encirclement they had just formed.

The forest fell silent once more.

Only the crashing of broken trunks hitting the ground and the crackling of flames burning leaves remained.

Qian Ye slowly lowered his right leg.

Just as he was about to brush the dust from his pant leg, his right leg trembled uncontrollably.

"Damn..."

The power of Tempest Kick really was absurd.

With pressure-point amplification, its destructive force far surpassed the basic Six Powers.

It truly deserved to be called a humanoid Wind Release artillery platform.

But the price was no small matter either.

Pakura stood in the distance with her mouth hanging open for a long while.

She looked down at the revolver in her hand, then at Qian Ye standing amid the wreckage.

A monster.

That brat was absolutely a monster wearing human skin.

Twelve years old.

No publicly known Bloodline Limit.

No powerful clan background either.

He had not even used a conventional ninjutsu.

Relying only on his body and a bizarre taijutsu technique, he had broken head-on through an encirclement by Root elites.

Where had Hidden Leaf dug up someone like this?

Hyuga Tianfeng swallowed with difficulty.

He suddenly felt that the wound in his thigh did not hurt quite so much anymore.

Compared to his physical injury, the pride of a main family genius had already been kicked full of cracks by that blow.

Not long ago, Uchiha Yan had mocked Qian Ye as a civilian only there to make up the numbers.

But now?

Who was really just making up the numbers?

Without this civilian Genin they had always looked down on, these so-called descendants of prestigious clans would likely have died here today.

Qian Ye lowered his right leg.

The muscles in his leg ached terribly.

He looked calm as ever on the surface, but inwardly, he was panicking like hell.

That Tempest Kick had drained every last bit of chakra stored in his right leg.

Fortunately, the results had been outstanding.

Root's encirclement had been completely torn apart.

The remaining dozen or so masked men looked at one another.

They were killing machines, that was true.

But even machines calculated the ratio of losses to gains.

Yi was severely injured, and Jia's right shoulder had been crippled.

That twelve-year-old civilian Genin had not formed a single hand seal, yet he had unleashed destruction at the level of a Jonin.

This fight could not continue.

"Retreat!"

Someone shouted.

The remaining Root ninjas did not hesitate in the slightest.

They threw out several smoke bombs.

Under the cover of the smoke, they leaped a few times and vanished into the dense canopy.

They did not even bother with the corpses of their companions on the ground.

The forest quieted again.

Only the crackling of burning tree trunks remained.

Hyuga Tianfeng pushed himself upright against a tree trunk.

As he looked at Qian Ye's back, his gaze had completely changed.

The ninja world was this realistic.

Strength decided everything.

Before, Tianfeng had thought Qian Ye was dead weight tagging along to claim military merit.

Now, all he felt was a burning pain in his face.

If not for that dead weight, the Hyuga main family's genius would have been finished today.

The fat boy from the Akimichi clan also climbed up from the ground.

Without even bothering to brush the dirt from himself, he looked at Qian Ye with nothing but awe in his eyes.

The Nara boy's gaze held an extra trace of curiosity.

Only Uchiha Yan was an exception.

This young master of the Uchiha clan had just woken from his unconsciousness.

He clutched his swollen cheek, his mind still somewhat muddled.

He only remembered being kicked away by that masked man.

Now that he saw the masked men had fled and Qian Ye standing in the middle of the clearing, Uchiha Yan's aristocratic arrogance rose again.

"Qian Ye, you useless trash, where the hell were you hiding just now?"

Uchiha Yan pointed at Qian Ye and cursed furiously.

"If this young master hadn't risked his life to hold them back, you would've died a hundred times over already!"

Qian Ye turned his head and looked at Uchiha Yan as though he were an idiot.

Was this guy missing part of his brainstem?

The Tempest Kick just now had caused such a huge commotion. Had he really not seen a thing?

Hyuga Tianfeng could not stand it any longer.

"Shut up, Yan."

Tianfeng's voice was weak, but his tone was extremely stern.

"Qian Ye saved us."

Uchiha Yan froze.

He looked at Tianfeng, then at the severely wounded masked leader lying nearby.

The expression on his face was worse than if he had swallowed a fly.

Qian Ye could not be bothered with this idiot blessed with Conqueror's Will.

He walked over to Yi, who had been caught by the Tempest Kick.

The wound across Yi's chest was deep enough to expose bone.

Blood had already dyed the surrounding soil dark red.

Qian Ye raised his foot and stepped on the edge of Yi's wound.

"Talk."

Qian Ye looked down at him from above.

"Who sent you?"

Yi's entire body convulsed in pain.

But his eyes beneath the mask remained lifeless.

"I will never betray Lord White Fang!"

Yi gritted his teeth and forced out the words through the gaps between them.

"Lord White Fang is Hidden Leaf's true savior!"

Qian Ye rolled his eyes.

These Root ninjas were truly dedicated.

Even when they were about to die, they still remembered to recite Danzo's lines for him.

"Enough. Save your strength."

Qian Ye pressed down slightly with his foot.

"If Sakumo Hatake had loyal suicide troops like you, he'd already be sitting in the Hokage's office smoking a pipe."

"How would it still be Danzo's turn to hide in a basement all day, growing mold like some old scheming bastard?"

At the mention of Danzo's name, Yi's pupils abruptly shrank.

Qian Ye pretended not to notice.

He had only been testing him casually. He had not expected such a strong reaction.

It really was Danzo's handiwork.

That old bastard would truly stop at nothing to sabotage the peace talks.

Just then, a message suddenly popped up in Qian Ye's mind.

The Cross-Border Mutual Aid Group lit up.

[Zhao Hai]: "Old Qian! I just got some real combat experience!"

[Qian Ye]: "Weren't you training at Marine Headquarters? Who did you fight?"

[Zhao Hai]: "Old man Garp took me out on a naval patrol, and we happened to run into a pirate crew that didn't know its place."

[Zhao Hai]: "The Quick Blade Pirates. Their captain was Buck the Guillotine."

[Zhao Hai]: "Old man Garp said that guy was considered a real tough one in the first half of the Grand Line, with a bounty of fifteen million Berries."

[Zhao Hai]: "Guess what happened?"

Qian Ye curled his lip.

[Qian Ye]: "You one-punched him?"

[Zhao Hai]: "No, I used Iron Body to take his full-force slash head-on."

[Zhao Hai]: "His huge cleaver chipped right away, and I didn't even break the skin!"

[Zhao Hai]: "Then I hit him with a Finger Gun and punched a hole in his stomach."

Qian Ye looked at Zhao Hai's description, then couldn't help glancing at Jia beside him, whose right shoulder had been crippled.

Why did this plot feel so familiar?

So the two of them had both been playing the bare-handed blade-catching game today.

[Qian Ye]: "All right, stop showing off. I just finished my fight too."

[Qian Ye]: "That chakra method of stimulating acupuncture points was indeed useful, but it really burned through my legs."

[Zhao Hai]: "Hehe, just eat more Sea King meat to replenish yourself. Old Man Garp called me over to move cannonballs again. Talk later!"