The losses were truly devastating!
The bases Orochimaru had been forced to abandon and destroy were not merely places to conceal his identity, but fully equipped laboratories and residences housing vast amounts of research material.
That did not even include the ninja and civilians Orochimaru had captured for all manner of cruel experiments.
An endless succession of pursuit squads relentlessly hunted Orochimaru, determined to capture him.
If the pursuers had come from just one shinobi village, Orochimaru would not have cared in the slightest!
The problem was that the ninja hunting him this time had been sent by three shinobi villages!
Then there were the wandering ninja drawn by the enormous bounty. They could not be underestimated. Although most were cannon fodder, a handful possessed astonishing strength.
Moreover, Orochimaru had keenly noticed that some deeply concealed organizations in the shinobi world had also begun participating, searching everywhere for traces of him.
Akatsuki, for instance!
Orochimaru himself was a traitor to Akatsuki. Actually, that was not entirely accurate, since he had harbored ill intentions from the moment he joined.
He had coveted Deva Path Pain's Rinnegan, but only after joining had Orochimaru realized how slim his chances of taking it were.
Then Uchiha Itachi had joined Akatsuki. Unable to restrain his greed, Orochimaru had attacked him, intending to steal his Mangekyō Sharingan. Instead, Uchiha Itachi had defeated him, and only then had he defected from Akatsuki.
Since he had never possessed any loyalty to begin with, Orochimaru did not consider his betrayal an insult to Akatsuki.
At the time, Orochimaru had obediently gone into hiding to escape Akatsuki's pursuit.
Only after discovering that Akatsuki had stopped focusing on him and begun pursuing other plans had Orochimaru breathed a sigh of relief.
But now, with the Three Great Shinobi Villages putting him