The Land of Wind front

"Huh?"

Obito Uchiha froze at those words. Had he misunderstood?

"Obito, Gen is operating alone because his strength is already on par with a jonin's. To make the most of our combat strength, Shibi applied for permission for Gen to operate independently."

Beside them, Minato Namikaze looked at the dumbfounded Obito Uchiha and helplessly explained.

"Idiot."

Kakashi delivered his usual insult to Obito.

"Huh!!! Gen is already as strong as a jonin?!! No way!!!"

But faced with Kakashi's routine "insult," Obito Uchiha completely ignored it this time. All that remained in his head was the fact that Uchiha Gen had jonin-level strength.

"It's true. So you need to work hard too, Obito. You're both members of the Uchiha clan, and I believe you'll grow quickly too.

"Still, Gen's talent really is astonishing. To have that kind of strength at such a young age... I imagine he'll soon receive an exceptional promotion to jonin."

Minato Namikaze answered Obito Uchiha's question for Uchiha Gen.

"My strength still has a long way to go."

Uchiha Gen merely shook his head lightly at that.

He was not being modest. Uchiha Gen truly believed his current strength was nowhere near enough. After seeing the underhanded tricks Minato Namikaze had displayed today, he dared not imagine what other Kage-level fighters might have up their sleeves.

At the very least, with his current strength... he had no confidence he could evade those Flying Thunder God marks that were all but impossible to guard against.

Marking someone from a distance, then teleporting them directly.

That kind of move was downright underhanded.

Just imagine teleporting someone straight into lava or the deepest reaches of the ocean...

Tsk.

Disgusting.

The war continued, and the Land of Wind front was far less smooth than Konoha High Command had anticipated.

In terms of individual ninja strength alone, Konoha already held a solid advantage over Sunagakure.

But after driving the enemy beyond the Land of Fire's borders, Konoha struggled to gain an advantage under the environmental conditions of the Land of Wind. The boundless desert terrain completely reversed the balance of advantages between the two sides.

Yellow sand filled the sky and obscured their vision, while the open terrain offered no cover. Sunagakure had introduced unknown toxins into the windblown sand that could disrupt the Konoha ninjas' chakra flow at any moment. On top of that, the sandy environment was exceptionally well suited to the Puppet Technique and Sunagakure's Wind Release Ninjutsu.

Konoha's advance began to stall, and they even began losing ground.

This desert, where generations of Sunagakure's people had lived, was the perfect home ground for its ninja.

And that was not all.

The most unexpected variable in the battle came from Rasa, the newly appointed Fourth Kazekage.

This young Magnet Release ninja had single-handedly held back the combined advance of three Konoha jonin squads in a head-on confrontation.

No one had expected the Fourth Kazekage to take the field himself.

Others might not have known, but Orochimaru understood all too well.

Just how powerful Magnet Release could be... if used properly.

Unfortunately, Sunagakure's useless fools seemed especially keen on using it to control iron sand instead of developing it in another direction. Heh, what a waste.

Even so, Rasa's mastery of Magnet Release had long since surpassed the bounds of an elite jonin and reached the level of a Kage.

Having a Kage-and a Kage-level ninja who specialized in fighting groups, at that-operating directly on the front lines like this was undoubtedly a thorny problem.

And that was not all... Sunagakure also had an old woman skilled in poison.

Huangsha swept across the ravaged battlefield.

Large patches of dark blood soaked the gullies between the dunes, layered over the sand.

Broken puppet limbs and shells lay scattered everywhere, along with shattered mechanical components.

After only a few days of back-and-forth fighting, the entire desert had already been battered into a wreck by the war.

Amid the howling wind and sand.

Chiyo's aged voice rang out.

"Orochimaru, you alone aren't qualified to take this old woman's life."

The threads at Chiyo's fingertips trembled lightly. Ten exquisite puppets surged forward in concert, a web of coldly gleaming blades instantly spreading across the sand.

The Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu attacked together. Their sharp blades flashed past, slicing straight through the massive brown snake that had lunged out from behind Orochimaru.

Foul-smelling slime mixed with shredded flesh splattered across Huangsha.

The severed snake's body abruptly twisted and turned insubstantial. Orochimaru's real body stepped slowly out through a gap in the phantom image, his face utterly grim.

The prewar tactical projections had been clear.

He would personally engage Chiyo of Sunagakure head-on, pinning down their top combatant.

As long as Chiyo remained occupied and unable to break away, Konoha's frontline forces could sweep through the Land of Wind's defensive lines, tear apart Sunagakure's deployment, sever the connection between its front and rear, and collapse its entire front.

The plan should have been foolproof.

But no one had anticipated it.

The Fourth Kazekage Rasa had appeared out of nowhere, becoming the variable that completely disrupted the entire situation.

A Kage-level fighter wantonly attacking large numbers of ninja weaker than himself completely disregarded the unspoken rule of "soldiers against soldiers, generals against generals."

Such conduct was practically aimed at creating an irreconcilable blood feud.

"Old hag, whether I'm qualified isn't for you to decide."

Orochimaru licked the corner of his lips sinisterly and sneered.

With that, Orochimaru lightly raised a hand.

Hum-

A low mechanical vibration sounded in the air.

Three pitch-black floating cannons with hard, angular edges and barrels covering their bodies instantly flew over to hover behind Orochimaru, circling within three meters of him.

Snake-Mech Floating Laser Cannon!

A casual creation of Orochimaru's.

They could hover and follow him, lock onto enemies automatically, and fire lasers with extreme penetrating power.

To Orochimaru, they were a decent source of supporting firepower.

The three laser cannons rotated slowly, their muzzles all aimed at Chiyo and her ten puppets in the distance. High-energy beams stood ready to fire, faint blue light flickering and dancing inside the muzzles.

The next instant.

Bzzzt-!

Three intensely concentrated azure lasers instantly tore through the air!

The beams instantly ripped through layer upon layer of windblown sand and shot straight across a hundred meters with incomparable precision, respectively targeting the core mechanism, power hub, and chakra reception point of three puppets at the front!

As Orochimaru's technological creations, how could they possibly lack something as basic as weakness scanning?

Where the beams passed, they scorched dazzling trails through the air, their heat evaporating the windblown sand completely.

Faced with the incoming lasers, Chiyo merely raised her eyes calmly, the threads at her fingertips vibrating at extreme speed.

Clack, clack, clack!

The three airborne puppets instantly changed positions. Their outer gilded armor snapped shut, and their internal Wind Release chambers spun into rapid operation.

All three puppets raised their hands at once, revealing objects resembling cannon barrels.

In an instant.

An enormous ring-shaped wind barrier appeared.

Wind Release: Myriad-Blade Wind Wall!

Violent blue-green winds piled up in layer upon layer, forming a thick, rotating ring of wind that stood firmly in front of the puppets.

The azure lasers slammed into the wind wall, instantly setting off dazzling bursts of light across the sky!

The scorching beams and violent Wind Release collided fiercely. A thunderous roar shook the entire desert, and the shock waves stripped away the surface of every surrounding dune, sending yellow sand soaring into the sky.

The lasers kept burning and piercing through the layers of wind, while the gales kept slicing apart and dissipating the beams.

The explosive aftershocks of the clashing energies spread in expanding rings, grinding all the loose stones and puppet fragments on the ground into powder.