Orochimaru Descends!

After eating and drinking their fill, the Forest of Death, which had once seemed so gloomy and terrifying, became a little more lovable in everyone's eyes.

Especially for the two cannon fodder from Team 11, Tanaka Ichiro and Sato Jisuke. With warm roasted centipede meat in their stomachs, they were no longer trembling so badly. Following closely behind Team 7 and their own seemingly unassuming big shot, Ye Tian, they even felt as though they were on a spring outing.

"Ye Tian, this forest doesn't seem as scary as Examiner Anko made it sound." Sato Jisuke even reached for a brightly colored flower by the roadside.

"Don't touch it."

Ye Tian suddenly stopped walking, planting his cane heavily against the ground with a crisp thud.

The sound was not loud, yet it was like a clap of thunder, instantly freezing the relaxed atmosphere.

"What is it, Ye Tian?" Naruto, who had caught up by then, asked carelessly. "Did you find something tasty again?"

Ye Tian ignored Naruto. He tilted his head up slightly, and his perpetually half-lidded eyes suddenly opened wide, a gravity unlike anything before flashing through their depths.

The wind stopped.

Even the insects and birds that had been chirping noisily moments ago fell completely silent, as if the entire forest had been muted.

An indescribable sense of oppression surged in from all directions like thick black oil, seeping into every pore.

"Such a powerful soul fluctuation..."

Ye Tian marveled inwardly. Within the range of his Divine Sense, a massive source of energy, pitch-black as ink and radiating an extreme coldness and evil, was approaching from not far ahead at a pace that seemed slow but was actually incredibly fast.

That aura was filled with greed, death, and desecration of life.

"This level of soul strength... has long surpassed the so-called Kage Level."

Ye Tian lightly rubbed his fingers against his cane as he rapidly assessed it. "If translated into cultivation realms, this level of Divine Soul pressure is at least Peak Foundation Establishment! No... it has even touched the threshold of Half-Step Golden Core!"

This was a true Great Demon-level existence!

"Scatter!"

Ye Tian suddenly shouted.

Before his words had even faded, a foul gale rose from the ground!

Boom!

The tranquil forest exploded in an instant, countless towering trees snapped in half. A gigantic brown python several times larger than the centipede from before opened its bloody maw and swept toward them like a train charging out of hell, carrying the force to destroy everything in its path.

"Waaah!"

Naruto, at the front of the group, did not even have time to react before the enormous snake head sent him flying. Along with great clumps of dirt and branches, he was either swallowed by the giant snake or hurled into the distance, vanishing in an instant.

"Naruto!" Sakura screamed in terror.

Yet the next second, her scream caught in her throat.

Within the shadow cast by the coiling giant snake, a long-haired figure wearing a Grass Ninja forehead protector slowly emerged.

He made no unnecessary movements. He merely stood there, lifted his eyelids, and looked at Sasuke and Sakura with his golden snake eyes.

Bzz—!

In that instant, Sasuke's world turned blood-red.

It was no longer the real forest, but a hellish slaughterhouse. Sasuke clearly saw his own image of death—his throat slit open, blood spraying everywhere, his head rolling across the ground, his eyes bulging from their sockets.

Overwhelming killing intent!

This was tangible murderous intent forged only through traversing mountains of corpses and seas of blood, through slaughtering thousands upon thousands of living beings.

"Can't... move..."

Sasuke's entire body stiffened, cold sweat instantly soaking his clothes like a waterfall. His brain desperately issued commands to "run" or "draw his sword," but his body seemed no longer his own. He could not even move a finger.

It was the absolute terror of a creature facing its natural predator.

Sakura collapsed directly onto the ground, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face as she even forgot how to breathe.

As for Tanaka and Sato? The two unlucky fools had rolled their eyes and begun foaming at the mouth the instant that Grass Ninja appeared, passing out stiff as boards.

The only one still standing was Ye Tian.

"Interesting."

Standing not far behind Sasuke, Ye Tian felt the killing intent crashing toward him. Rather than fear, he felt a trace of long-lost excitement.

"So this is Orochimaru? As expected, although this soul power is mixed and dark, filled with signs of being stitched together from countless parts, its sheer scale is indeed impressive."

Ye Tian looked at Sasuke, who was trembling so hard that he had started dry-heaving, and helplessly shook his head.

"That mental fortitude still needs training. If Orochimaru can shatter his Dao Heart with one look, how is he supposed to become a stepping stone for that cheap disciple of mine later?"

He could not keep playing dead.

If Sasuke got broken here, the good show later would be impossible to stage.

Ye Tian sighed and dragged his body, which seemed liable to fall apart at any moment, step by step toward Sasuke.

Within that almost tangible storm of killing intent, Ye Tian's pace was slow but exceptionally steady, as though he were taking a stroll through his own backyard.

He walked up behind Sasuke, extended his pale hand, and gently placed it on Sasuke's trembling shoulder.

"Stop shaking, young master of the Uchiha."

As Ye Tian spoke, a stream of incomparably pure Pure Yang Spiritual Energy flowed through his palm and instantly entered Sasuke's body.

Like the warm sun in winter, the Spiritual Energy instantly dispersed the cold killing intent that had invaded Sasuke's Meridians. Sasuke felt his heart violently thump, and the illusion of impending death receded like the tide as sensation returned to his stiff limbs.

"Ha... ha... ha..."

Sasuke gasped for breath, like a drowning man finally breaking the surface. He turned back in horror and looked at Ye Tian standing behind him.

Though Ye Tian still looked sickly and frail, his figure seemed infinitely tall in Sasuke's eyes.

Then Ye Tian turned and looked toward Orochimaru in the distance.

A phantom of a golden vertical pupil flashed faintly through his eyes.

[Divine Ability: Dragon Might]

Though it was only an exceedingly faint trace of aura, not even one ten-thousandth of true Dragon Might, the absolute suppression stemming from the hierarchy of life was real.

It was the gaze of a dragon looking down upon a snake.

Boom!

Two invisible auras collided in midair. Orochimaru's all-encompassing killing intent was forcibly pushed back by that seemingly weak trace of aura, even stalling for an instant.

"Hm?"

For the first time, Orochimaru's expression, which had been filled with mockery and cruelty, changed.

He slowly shifted his eyes, his gaze passing over Sasuke before locking tightly onto Ye Tian.

There was no longer merely the disdain of a hunter looking at prey in his eyes. It now held the frenzy and curiosity of someone discovering rare experimental material.

"How interesting..."

Orochimaru extended his unnaturally long tongue and licked his lips, his voice hoarse yet magnetic. "Since when did Konoha produce such an interesting little brat? That aura just now... it wasn't Chakra, nor was it a Kekkei Genkai..."

"Your eyes don't look like prey's."

Facing this legendary Sannin, the infamous mad scientist of the Shinobi World, Ye Tian did not answer. Instead, he covered his mouth and coughed violently several times before slowly lifting his head and revealing an expression full of disdain.

"Cough, cough... Uncle."

Ye Tian pointed at the unconscious Tanaka and Sato on the ground, then at Sakura, who had collapsed in fright, and complained with a straight face.

"I know villains like you have to strike a pose when making an entrance, but could you at least pay a little attention to your image?"

"You're too ugly, and you smell too fishy... You scared my teammates unconscious. Does that count as a workplace injury?"

The air froze once more.

Sasuke, who had only just regained feeling in his body, nearly went weak at the knees and dropped to the ground again.

He stared at Ye Tian in horror, with only one sentence frantically repeating in his mind: This guy... is he insane? He's provoking a monster!