All-out assault!

Shuofang Si knew the Main God wanted to train warriors. If he kept avoiding battle, things would only grow harder.

The Main God wanted people who fought bravely, so it did not matter who lay in wait or hoped to profit from the fighting.

When it was his turn to fight, he would fight.

The battle over there was about to begin, Sasuke had yet to appear, and Raiga Kurosuki had been knocked back. This was the perfect chance to create an opening.

Tear into him.

Shuofang Si decisively unlocked his second-order gene lock. His eyes went blank as he unleashed a Heart-Destroying Palm.

The strike slammed squarely into the wrist Raiga Kurosuki raised to block it.

One of his Thunder Swords flew from his hand, spun several times through the night sky, and embedded itself at an angle in the soil a dozen paces away.

Raiga Kurosuki grunted. Fighting through the agony, he drove Shuofang Si back with the lightning flashing from his other Thunder Sword before he could press the attack.

A darkening palm print stood out clearly on his right wrist. His entire arm trembled involuntarily, and his fingers could no longer hold a sword steady.

Shuofang Si briefly evaded the arcs bursting from the Thunder Sword, but his feet never stopped.

His serpentine steps and nimble rolls traced an uncanny arc beneath the moonlight. Almost hugging the ground, he circled halfway around Raiga Kurosuki and lunged at him again from the side.

Shuofang Si lashed out with all five fingers. The force of his Nine Yin White Bone Claw became a cutting gust aimed straight at Raiga Kurosuki's throat.

Raiga Kurosuki's pupils contracted sharply.

There was no time to retrieve his fallen Thunder Sword. Holding the remaining blade in one hand, he compressed his chakra with all his strength.

In an instant, a dazzling blue-white light flared at the tip of Kiba. A ball of lightning formed there and blasted toward Shuofang Si's face.

Lightning Release: Lightning Ball.

The attack had been too rushed. The lightning ball was smaller than usual, and its light was nowhere near as brilliant as it normally would have been.

But Raiga Kurosuki was confident. At this range, the lightning ball's paralyzing effect would force any ninja back. No one would dare take a Lightning Release attack head-on.

But Shuofang Si was no ninja. He was an Aperture Opening Stage martial artist who cultivated the Eight-Nine Mysterious Art and practiced the Golden Bell Shield.

The lightning ball struck his chest. Blue-white arcs burst across him in a dazzling flash, instantly burning countless blackened holes through his upper clothing and exposing the skin beneath, which gleamed faintly gold.

The arcs scorched fine, dense marks across his skin. The Golden Bell Shield's protective force surged furiously, holding the invading Lightning Release chakra firmly outside his muscles.

Numbness stabbed into all four limbs like countless needles at once, and his movements did falter for a moment.

Before Raiga Kurosuki could breathe a sigh of relief, Shuofang Si had smashed through the lightning ball.

He had never intended to dodge. He took the Lightning Release attack with his body and kept charging toward Raiga.

Charred scraps of cloth fell from him. Though the skin on his right arm still bore the scorch marks left by the arcs, the force of the Nine Yin White Bone Claw continued gathering at his fingertips.

Finish him while he's hurt. Tear into him hard.

Raiga Kurosuki retreated frantically, swinging his Thunder Sword one-handed to weave streaks of electrified blade light before him.

But Shuofang Si's hand twisted and darted through the lightning. His five fingers slipped past the sword's edge and clawed into Raiga's chest, even as the Thunder Sword stabbed into Shuofang Si's arm.

Like five red-hot iron spikes, his fingers tore through the skin and muscle over Raiga's heart, leaving five gouges across his ribs deep enough to expose bone.

Had the lightning ball's paralysis not slowed Shuofang Si's arm for that instant, the claw strike would have ripped Raiga's heart out of his chest.

Raiga Kurosuki grunted and activated the Body Flicker Technique, hurtling backward. His toes tapped the ground three or four times before he regained his footing.

He glanced down at the wound on his chest, and his gaze abruptly grew grave.

Five claw marks stretched from his collarbone to the lower edge of his ribs. White bone was faintly visible in the deepest one, and blood welled along the edges of the wounds.

He was a ninja who had lived through the wars of the Shinobi World. He had taken countless lives and suffered plenty of wounds, but this was unquestionably the worst injury he had ever sustained.

Shuofang Si was suffering too. The Thunder Sword had opened a wound in his arm, leaving torn flesh curled back from its charred edges. Residual Lightning Release chakra still crackled deep inside it.

The lightning ball's paralysis made the muscles throughout his body tremble faintly. An ordinary person would already have collapsed.

But his gene lock was open. His eyes remained blank, and his muscles bulged as he suppressed both the pain and the numbness.

The same thought still filled his mind: Pursue. Tear into him. Don't stop until the enemy falls.

He lunged at Raiga Kurosuki again.

But Raiga Kurosuki had used that brief respite to flicker to the rogue ninja he had brought with him. He swept his hand out and roared at the men still standing there in a daze.

"Get in there! Buy me time!"

The rogue ninja stared at the savage man nearby, his muscles bulging all over, and their legs shook.

But their long-standing fear of Raiga Kurosuki outweighed their terror. Several rogue ninja steeled themselves, drew their weapons, and charged at Shuofang Si with howls.

As Raiga retrieved his fallen Thunder Sword, Ranmaru climbed out from behind his back. With trembling hands, he pulled emergency bandages from inside his clothes, hoping to stop Raiga's bleeding first.

But Raiga held his hand down. Clenching his teeth, he turned the Thunder Sword around and aimed the lingering arcs along its blade at the wound on his chest.

A sizzling crackle rang out. The sound of electricity searing flesh was especially harsh in the quiet night.

Raiga forcibly cauterized the heavily bleeding tears with lightning. Charred flesh sealed the ruptured blood vessels.

Ranmaru watched, his face deathly pale and his hands trembling slightly.

He had seen Raiga kill people and hold funerals, but this was the first time he had seen him so badly wounded.

"That guy has no chakra." Ranmaru's voice was subdued and full of disbelief.

Raiga Kurosuki's pupils contracted sharply.

"Are you kidding me? Is he a samurai?"

Panting heavily, he unstrapped Ranmaru from his back and handed him to the man beside him.

The man standing there was Keshi, who had recently come to join him.

The other rogue ninja had already rushed forward to occupy that monster. Only Keshi, a new recruit, had been so frightened by the bloody close-quarters fighting that he could not make his legs move.

But that very cowardice saved his life.

Up ahead, the fight was already over.

Shuofang Si had crushed those rogue ninja even faster than Raiga Kurosuki had expected.

These rogue ninja could only extract a little chakra and relied on a few half-baked Taijutsu moves to bully ordinary people.

Against them, an Aperture Opening Stage martial artist with his second-order gene lock unlocked was a freight truck in human form.

The Nine Yin White Bone Claw swept through them. Five corpses fell to the ground, each with five finger holes punched into its skull.

The remaining rogue ninja turned to flee, but Shuofang Si caught them. The penetrating force of his Heart-Destroying Palm shattered their organs through their clothes, and three more bodies fell.

Eight rogue ninja killed. Reward points: 400.

The Main God's cold voice flashed through his mind, but with his gene lock open, he paid it no attention.

Keshi's eyes widened, and his lips trembled violently.

"Ninja Art: Lightning Armor."

Raiga Kurosuki's voice came from up ahead, low and hoarse.

He brought his two swords together before his chest, and the arcs along their blades enveloped his body.

Blue-white lightning coiled around his torso and limbs like armor, shrouding him completely in a layer of dancing electricity.

Turning defense into offense and combining both, this was his ultimate Lightning Release technique, the trump card he held as a former member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.

"Close-quarters combat?" Raiga Kurosuki raised his head, revealing a smile made hideously savage by the lightning's glow. "I'm not afraid of you."