Seeing this, Yechen gave a sly smile, stepped up to the opening, and dropped lightly down.
The other three followed close behind.
The instant he landed, several whistles cut through the smoke and dust. Yechen was delighted. There was still someone alive-then they could hardly blame him!
With his sword in his right hand and a kunai in his left, he swung repeatedly, knocking away the incoming shuriken.
At the same time, he pinpointed the Rock Ninja's position. Using the Flash Teleportation Technique, Yechen appeared right in front of him.
There was no one else beside the Rock Ninja. The scent of blood in the air told Yechen that the other three Iwagakure genin had already died in the first two attacks.
What a waste!
Yechen winced at the loss. Those were all evolution points!
But there was still one survivor, and he couldn't let him get away.
Looking at the Rock Ninja within arm's reach, Yechen's lips curled upward. His opponent instinctively swallowed, crying out inwardly, How did this guy get here?!
"Bye-bye."
Yechen brought his sword down. The Rock Ninja used the Substitution Technique and escaped death, but could he really get away?!
Obviously not!
A kunai shot through the air. The chunin hadn't made it far before he instinctively stopped. Staring down at his pierced chest, he cried out with difficulty,
"Impossible."
When he saw Yechen's eyes, his pupils abruptly contracted. He finally understood why, then collapsed in bitter resentment.
Yechen deactivated his Sharingan, walked over expressionlessly, and picked up the man's ninja tool pouch.
The other three caught up and saw this scene, at a loss for words. We haven't even done anything, and he's already finished the fight again. He's making us look completely unnecessary.
"Stop dawdling. Find the supply warehouse, then blow it up."
Fukuda Iharu was the first to snap out of it and immediately gave the order.
After confirming that all the enemies had been eliminated, the four wasted no more time. They found the Rock Ninja supply warehouse behind a door.
It was an underground space of roughly three hundred square meters. Supplies filled the shelves and covered the floor: food, medicine, ninja tools, and everything else a ninja could need.
To their delight, there were over a hundred explosive tags inside, which would save them plenty of trouble.
"Captain Fukuda, you three go ahead. Leave this to me."
Yechen gathered all the explosive tags and placed them throughout the warehouse.
Knowing that Yechen was faster than them, the other three didn't linger and quickly left.
It wasn't that they felt comfortable leaving Yechen alone. They needed to guard the entrance above and prevent reinforcements from coming.
Yechen had his own selfish reason for volunteering, too. With so many supplies here, he'd be doing himself a disservice if he didn't take some.
Once the other three were gone, he selected various supplies and packed them into his system space.
Food, medicine, ninja tools-all were essential. Even if he couldn't use some of them, selling them would still earn him a tidy sum.
Yechen used only half the explosive tags for the entire underground space. Naturally, he kept the rest.
After leaving the underground space and rejoining the others, they put a few safeguards in place. Once they were sure everything was ready, the four slipped away without a sound.
The explosive tags would detonate in one minute. By then, they would already have withdrawn. With so many tags exploding at once, even a jonin nearby might not survive.
As they left, Fukuda Iharu fired a signal flare, both to signal the retreat and to let the Rock Ninja know their target. If the Rock Ninja approached when the tags exploded, the consequences were easy to imagine.
The minute passed quickly. Before they had even made it out of town, an enormous explosion roared behind them.
Crimson flames burst through the ground, lighting up the entire sky.
The blast also engulfed the whole village. The ground collapsed, cracks spread rapidly in every direction, and violent tremors shook everything within several kilometers.
Seeing this, the Konoha Ninja on the outskirts knew their mission was complete. They stopped prolonging the fight and organized their withdrawal.
But the Rock Ninja chased them as if they had gone mad, ignoring the village's condition. Perhaps they also knew that returning would be pointless. With that kind of destructive force, the stronghold was already beyond saving.
They might as well fight the enemy to the death.
If they were going to suffer, they wouldn't let the enemy get off lightly either.
One side fled while the other pursued, plunging both into a desperate, deadly battle.
In the end, the chase inflicted even greater casualties on both sides than the earlier melee.
The third squad was inevitably caught up in it as well. Fortunately, with Fukuda Iharu's sensory abilities, they could skirt the stronger enemy squads in advance, but fighting was still unavoidable.
By the time they escaped, their four-man squad had dwindled to three. One chunin had fallen into an ambush and lost his life.
There was nothing they could do. This was war-how could there be no deaths?
It was well past midnight when Yechen and the other two finally returned to their base.
Only then did Yechen realize that their losses in this operation had exceeded anything he had imagined. More than half the camp's ninja were missing, and everyone wore a grim expression. His heart sank at the sight.
Had something happened to them, too?!
Yechen hurried toward Team 7's tent. The first person he saw was Ito Miyuki standing outside, her eyes red as though she had been crying.
He stopped, a sense of foreboding rising inside him.
"Miyuki... are you okay?"
Before you continue