Not to mention Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence. It was Hashirama Senju's exclusive Wood Release, and no one else in the world knew that Ninjutsu.
"Looks like I still can't let my guard down. First, I'll raise my Armament Haki to Ryuo..."
Glancing at his system panel, he noticed that his Basic Armament Haki was just a little short of maximum proficiency. He could consider upgrading it to Advanced Armament Haki: Ryuo.
As for the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, its proficiency was only at 95%. It looked close to Awakening, but its progress was rising very slowly.
After a major battle with the Uchiha Clan Head, his Rumble-Rumble Fruit proficiency had only risen by 3%. Still, Ziyun wasn't in a hurry.
Even if his Devil Fruit Awakened now, he couldn't use its powers too freely without a Perfect Sage Body. The most important thing was to lead the Hidden Cloud Village to victory in the Second Shinobi World War first.
Ziyun then prepared to go into the Land of Fire and find a few Konoha Ninja for some "combat practice."
After all, once proficiency rose above 80%, further training produced very slow gains. To keep raising it, he had to rely on actual combat.
Fortunately, Basic Armament Haki didn't require him to fight anyone too powerful. Fighting Jonin was enough.
About three months later, the fighting between Konoha and the Three Great Shinobi Villages came to an end.
Just as Ziyun had expected, Konoha defeated the Three Great Shinobi Villages, but its own victory was a costly one.
The casualty ratio was close to :1. Calling it a pyrrhic victory wouldn't have been an exaggeration.
The real reason Konoha had won was that it had too many top-tier fighters.
Hatake Sakumo, the Uchiha Clan Head, the Uchiha Grand Elder, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Orochimaru, Tsunade and Jiraiya, whom Ziyun had already dubbed the Konoha Sannin, as well as Danzo Shimura—there were simply too many Kage Level and Quasi-Kage Level fighters.
Konoha could field that many powerful fighters even after the Senju Clan had fallen out with the Konoha High Command.
By contrast, the Three Great Shinobi Villages had only a handful of Kage Level fighters: the Third Kazekage, Chiyo, Ōnoki and Hanzo of the Salamander. Although they had three Tailed Beasts between them, the Three Great Shinobi Villages didn't dare release them.
The Uchiha Clan was the natural bane of Tailed Beasts. As soon as the Three Great Shinobi Villages released theirs, the Sharingan would take control of them. Releasing the Tailed Beasts would only have done Konoha a great favor.
So, with its overwhelming advantage in top-tier fighters and the Three Great Shinobi Villages unable to use the power of their Tailed Beasts, Konoha ultimately won the war.
In fact, even if the Three Great Shinobi Villages had managed to release their Tailed Beasts, they wouldn't have had much chance of winning. Konoha had the Nine-Tails, the strongest of all the Tailed Beasts.
The other eight Tailed Beasts combined were probably only a match for the Nine-Tails alone. As long as Konoha was willing to go all out and release the Nine-Tails, victory would surely be theirs.
He couldn't help marveling at how deep Konoha's foundations ran. That was also the real reason Ziyun felt there was no way to occupy Konoha at present.
To truly occupy Konoha, he would have to count on his Konoha F4 to do their part!
"We won, but there's still the Hidden Cloud Village waiting for us..."
On the day of the victory, there was little joy on Hiruzen Sarutobi's face.
Defeating the Three Great Shinobi Villages was something he had expected.
If Konoha couldn't beat those three villages with all its forces combined, Hiruzen Sarutobi might as well stop being Hokage and bash his head in.
Besides, the victory hadn't been so overwhelming. Konoha had suffered heavy losses as well.
After this battle, Konoha probably had fewer than ten thousand registered ninja left.
Hiruzen Sarutobi really wasn't very confident that those ten thousand could defeat the Hidden Cloud in a head-on clash.
And Konoha couldn't possibly commit all ten thousand to a fight to the death with the Hidden Cloud. If it did, Sunagakure, Iwagakure and the Land of Rain would probably start getting restless again.
"Anyway, let's give it a try first... Doesn't the Hidden Cloud Village only have the Third Raikage and Yeyue Ziyun as its Kage Level fighters? Though both of them are at Peak Kage Level."
Hiruzen Sarutobi consoled himself. The main Konoha force then rested for a month, preparing to face the Hidden Cloud Village once more.
A month later, Hiruzen Sarutobi led Konoha's forces to a camp fifty kilometers from the Hidden Cloud Village.
To be safe, Hiruzen Sarutobi had brought only Hatake Sakumo, the Three Sannin, the Uchiha Clan Head and a few other Kage Level fighters, plus three thousand Konoha Ninja. The others, including Danzo and the Uchiha Grand Elder, had stayed behind to guard Konoha.
"Uchiha Clan Head, you have the Mangekyo Sharingan. Take the lead."
"I'm not deliberately singling you out. It's a reasonable arrangement. If there's any danger, I'll come to support you immediately."
After surveying the people he had brought, Hiruzen Sarutobi gave the Uchiha Clan Head his orders, looking a little awkward.
This wasn't really Hiruzen Sarutobi acting out of self-interest. The Hidden Cloud Village had been stationed here for months, so there were bound to be plenty of ambushes set up nearby.
Having the Uchiha Clan Head, who was exceptionally capable of protecting himself, take the lead was actually quite reasonable.
It was just that Hiruzen Sarutobi had done too many guilty things. He was afraid the Uchiha Clan Head would read too much into it and think he was trying to get him killed, so he explained himself.
Everyone around them was speechless.
It would've been fine if you hadn't explained, but now it sounds like you really are singling out the Uchiha Clan Head.
"Lord Hokage, I understand." The Uchiha Clan Head was a little embarrassed too.
It seemed his suspicion that Hiruzen Sarutobi had often targeted the Uchiha Clan in the past had been confirmed. Otherwise, he wouldn't have explained himself like that.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on it. The Uchiha Clan Head hoped to use this war to improve the Uchiha Clan's image among Konoha's people.
So throughout the war, he had been fairly cooperative with Hiruzen Sarutobi's orders.
The Uchiha Clan Head then prepared to lead two hundred Konoha Ninja to scout the situation, only for them to discover that the Hidden Cloud's main force had attacked ahead of time.
Yeyue Ziyun and the Third Raikage, one on the left and one on the right, led the Hidden Cloud's main force in an attack on Konoha's troops.
The two were so fast that they left the Hidden Cloud troops far behind and charged straight in.
"Quick, kill those two first!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi was somewhat delighted. He hadn't expected the Third Raikage and Yeyue Ziyun to charge in like a pair of reckless brutes.
When they charged into the Konoha Ninja's ranks, the Hidden Cloud's main force was still a long way off.
Hiruzen Sarutobi had spent so long fighting Sunagakure, Iwagakure and the Land of Rain that he hadn't adjusted his thinking. They had mostly fought cautiously, and he had never seen this kind of fight-to-the-death approach. Weren't they courting death?
Hiruzen Sarutobi quickly formed Hand Seals and used his Summoning Technique to summon Enma, who transformed into the Adamantine Staff. He then went after the Third Raikage.
He hadn't gone after Ziyun because he had heard that Ziyun could defeat the Mangekyo Sharingan. So he had deliberately chosen the Third Raikage, hoping to leave Ziyun to the Uchiha Clan Head.
After all, Hiruzen Sarutobi wasn't confident he could beat Ziyun. If Ziyun defeated him in front of the Konoha Ninja, it would disgrace his reputation as the "strongest Hokage."
"Hell Stab: Three-Finger Nukite!"
The Third Raikage didn't hold back either. A single strike sent Hiruzen Sarutobi flying. Only by planting Enma into the ground to absorb the force did Hiruzen Sarutobi avoid serious injury.
"Third Raikage, take this! Amaterasu!"
The Uchiha Clan Head wasn't stupid either. He wasn't about to go after Ziyun.
In his last fight with Ziyun, he had used the Uchiha Clan's secret technique, Izanagi. Only at the cost of one Mangekyo Sharingan going blind had he managed to save his life.
Now he had only one Mangekyo Sharingan left. If he couldn't beat Ziyun with two, he had even less chance with one.
So he too chose to go after the Third Raikage, leaving Ziyun to the others, and used his Dōjutsu, Amaterasu.
Black flames that could burn anything to ashes. Their only flaw was that they were practically useless against people; they couldn't burn anyone to death. How funny.
Unfortunately, he was too slow to catch the Third Raikage. Instead, the Third Raikage sent him flying with a Hell Stab, leaving him badly injured.
While the Uchiha Clan Head and Hiruzen Sarutobi schemed against each other as they chose their opponents, the honest Hatake Sakumo and the Three Sannin had no choice but to face Ziyun.
The Three Sannin wanted to face Ziyun because they really had benefited quite a bit from the title "Three Sannin."
Some time ago, the news that Yeyue Ziyun had defeated the Uchiha Clan Head's Mangekyo Sharingan had shocked the Shinobi World, and the three of them had risen in status along with him.
On the battlefields against Sunagakure, Iwagakure and the Land of Rain, many ninja had lost their nerve before fighting them just from hearing that the three had been dubbed the "Konoha Sannin" by "Yeyue Ziyun, who defeated Susanoo."
So Orochimaru, Tsunade and Jiraiya chose to face Ziyun, with Hatake Sakumo joining them.
It was worth mentioning that, while fighting the Hidden Sand Village, Hatake Sakumo had repeated his one-against-three feat from the original story and killed Sasori's parents. He too had become famous, earning the title of White Fang of Konoha.
"Why is it always a case of outnumbering your opponent whenever I see you? Is that a Konoha tradition?"
Ziyun looked at the four before him with amusement, then sent them scrambling to dodge with a single Divine Judgment.
Without another glance at them, Ziyun charged into Konoha's main force.
At a time like this, the right thing to do was to kill more Konoha Ninja who would die in one hit. After all, Ziyun had heard that fewer than ten thousand Konoha Ninja remained. Every one killed was one fewer to fight.
If he fought those four, Konoha's main force might take the opportunity to retreat again.
Transforming into lightning, Ziyun darted through Konoha's main force, flashes of electricity constantly blazing like a god of death harvesting lives.
Amid the roar of thunder, a single bolt carrying tens of millions of volts could often claim more than a dozen Konoha Ninja.
In just a few minutes, over a hundred Konoha Ninja had died horrible deaths beneath Ziyun's lightning.
"Damn it..."
Hatake Sakumo, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Orochimaru and the others could only watch helplessly from the side.
Even if they wanted to pursue him, they couldn't match Ziyun's speed.
Even if they caught up, they couldn't hit Ziyun's body.
They really had no way to deal with him.
"Teacher, let's retreat... If this goes on, sooner or later all three thousand of these people will die here."
Seeing that the Hidden Cloud's main force was already close, Orochimaru had no choice but to ask Hiruzen Sarutobi for permission to retreat.
Once the Hidden Cloud's main force arrived, the battle would immediately turn into a one-sided slaughter.
"What? The four of you can't handle Yeyue Ziyun?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi was at a loss for words. Hatake Sakumo and the Three Sannin together were worth at least two, perhaps even two and a half Kage Level fighters. He had thought they could at least hold Yeyue Ziyun off for a while.
"Can you and the Uchiha Clan Head handle the Third Raikage?"
Orochimaru very much wanted to say that, but unfortunately he didn't dare. So he could only urge Hiruzen Sarutobi to make a decision quickly.
"Retreat!"
After looking over the battlefield, Hiruzen Sarutobi had no choice but to give that order. The situation really was terrible.
Just then, Ziyun suddenly appeared beside Hiruzen Sarutobi.
"You're retreating when we've only just begun? So this is Konoha's 'strongest Hokage'? It seems you're nothing special."