The Iwagakure Envoy covered half of his face.
Dragging his broken right leg, he stumbled and staggered forward on the Kitsuchi road.
The cloth shoes were worn out long ago. Large blisters formed on the soles of my feet, which burst and then scabbed over with black scabs.
He fled all the way back to Iwagakure.
The Tsuchikage Building sits atop the tallest rock pillar in the village.
The messenger climbed the stone steps using both hands and feet, his panting like a broken bellows.
"Bang."
He slammed the heavy granite door open.
The door panel hit the stone wall, shaking off a layer of loose soil.
The messenger collapsed onto the stone floor of the office, his knees slamming down with a dull thud.
He ignored the pain in his legs; his hands were trembling.
He held the dark parchment scroll high above his head.
" Lord Tsuchikage..."
The messenger's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper; he couldn't utter a complete sentence.
The fine hairs on the back of his hands were covered in filthy, bloody mud. Muddy water dripped down between his fingers.
In the office.
The Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, was floating in mid-air, drinking water from a rough ceramic cup.
The water had just entered my mouth.
A pungent, foul stench from the sewers, mixed with the smell of dead moss, assaulted his nostrils.
Ōnoki gagged.
Half a mouthful of saliva sprayed directly from his nostrils, splashing onto his short beard.
He quickly wiped his mouth with his sleeve and lowered his body by half a meter.
"Did you fall into a cesspool?" Ōnoki stared with his small eyes, his face full of disgust.
The messenger kowtowed his head on the stone slab.
" Konoha... protest letter..."
Ōnoki flew down to the ground.
He pinched the edge of the dirty crumpled paper between two fingers and pulled it from the messenger's hand.
It's very soft. The paper is soaked through with dirty water and is dripping foul-smelling liquid.
Ōnoki suppressed his nausea and slowly unfolded the parchment.
Beside him, the Second Tsuchikage Mu sat on a high-backed stone chair.
His entire body was wrapped in white bandages. He had no eyebrows or eyes; only a deathly aura emanated from the gaps in the bandages.
The parchment was fully unfolded.
On the crumpled paper.
Bottom right corner: a large red clay seal and the autographs of two Tsuchikage.
It was completely covered by a piece of blackened mud.
Amidst the mud, half of the pattern on the sole of a military boot, stained with excrement and urine, was clearly imprinted.
Ōnoki was stunned.
He stared intently at the shoe print for a full two seconds.
He took a deep breath.
Ōnoki's wrinkled face instantly turned a deep purplish-red.
He was so angry that a wisp of white smoke rose from his head, and a few sparse hairs stood on end.
His hands, which were gripping the parchment, trembled violently.
Dirty water smeared on his clean brown cuffs. He didn't even notice.
"You bastard!"
Ōnoki roared, his voice splitting open and echoing through the stone house.
He lifted both feet off the ground and abruptly raised his body.
It floated directly to a height of two meters in the air.
He clenched his right fist. A thick layer of earthy-yellow Chakra instantly enveloped his joints.
Ōnoki crashed down like a meteorite.
He slammed his fist hard on the solid stone table in front of him.
"Boom!"
A one-foot-thick granite table was blasted in half right down the middle.
Pebbles flew everywhere, clanging as they struck the stone pillars.
The messenger was so frightened that he covered his head and lay face down on the floor.
" Shu Shiraishi is too arrogant!"
Ōnoki floated back and forth in mid-air, his short, thick arms flailing wildly, spittle flying everywhere.
"Use my official letter to wipe the mud off his feet! Does he really think he's the overlord of the Shinobi World?"
He did not stand up. He put his hands behind his back.
"He just wiped out five thousand vanguard soldiers from Kumogakure and captured the Raikage alive."
A muffled voice came through the bandages, devoid of emotion. "It was naturally confident."
"That brainless brute, Raikage!" Ōnoki roared.
He paused in mid-air, pointing to the mountains outside the window.
"The plains of Kumogakure offer no natural defenses. Does he think that by creating a few fire-breathing iron pipes and building a few iron lumps, he can become invincible?"
Ōnoki sneered, his face contorted with grotesque grimaces.
"Our Land of Earth is all high mountains and deep valleys, all rock!"
"His wrecked tracks couldn't even get him up the slopes along the border! The heavy machine guns couldn't hit a single target in the mountains!"
He put his hands on his hips, trying to straighten his chest.
"Ouch."
Ōnoki suddenly contorted. He quickly reached for his lower back with his left hand.
I strained my back from hitting the stone table too hard.
He sank half a foot in mid-air, hissing in pain and hunching over in agony.
He walked over and reached out to support Ōnoki's back.
"Close the border." Wu's tone was completely flat.
"The army retreated into the mountain defenses, holding the high ground and commanding the enemy."
He looked at the two halves of the broken stone table on the ground.
"If he dares to drive those cumbersome machines into the valley, my Dust Release will reduce them, man and metal, to ashes."
Konoha, Hokage Building.
The operations conference room is on the fourth floor.
The curtains were drawn tightly. The room was dimly lit, and there was a strong smell of tobacco in the air.
In the center of a huge mahogany table sat a sand table.
The sand table was filled with undulating mud hills, with a small red flag representing Iwagakure planted in the middle.
Shu Shiraishi was wearing a black jacket with the zipper open.
He sat in front of the sand table, a lit cigarette twirling between his fingers.
Kagami Uchiha stood at the corner of the table, holding a test report.
" Lord Hokage, the hill-climbing test for No. 1 Mecha Battalion is complete."
Jing swallowed hard, her brow furrowed.
"The aircraft is too heavy and has a low chassis."
"When encountering steep slopes exceeding 30 degrees, the tracks lack sufficient traction. Forcing the vehicle uphill will cause the engine to stall due to overload, and there is even a risk of rollover."
He laid the report flat on the table.
"And there's Heavy Machine Gun Battalion." Jing pointed to the ravine on the sand table.
"Machine guns and conventional artillery have limited elevation angles. The best strategy is for Iwagakure to build bunkers on the mountaintop or hide behind the mountain."
"Bullets and shells can only hit the rocky slopes; they can't reach their core positions at all."
Shu Shiraishi looked at the sand table.
The muddy mountain, hundreds of meters high, rises in layers.
An absolute fortress defense line in the era of cold weapons.
Conventional straight-line firepower and shallow parabolic firepower are indeed a dead end in this terrain.
We can't drive in. We can't hit it with artillery.
Ōnoki had calculated this precisely, which is why he dared to stay hidden in the mountains and make such threats.
Shu Shiraishi broke the cigarette in two.
The tobacco spilled out and fell onto the muddy hill in the sand table.
He stood up, kicked the chair beside him with his military boots, making a loud "bang".
"To pin down a large army on the plains and wait for them to come down from the mountains—that's primitive thinking."
Shu Shiraishi turned and walked towards the door.
I'm going to the arsenal.
Machine Tool Workshop No. 1.
Deep inside the workshop, a small room was partitioned off with thin sheet metal.
It smelled strongly of engine oil and toner.
Orochimaru lay sprawled on a greasy iron plate table.
He fell asleep.
His head was pressed against a stack of blueprints for improving mech tracks. His breathing was heavy.
A trickle of drool dripped from the corner of his mouth, wetting a small patch of the edge of the drawing.
For the past two weeks, he's only slept three hours a day; his brain is practically dried up.
The iron gate was pushed open. The hinges made a dry creak.
Shu Shiraishi walked in.
He walked to the metal plate table and looked down at Orochimaru was fast asleep.
Shu Shiraishi reached into his jacket pocket.
He pulled out a folded piece of parchment.
He didn't call out to anyone.
He pinched the edge of the parchment with his right hand and aimed it at the empty metal plate next to Orochimaru's head.
A heavy slap.
"Smack!"
A crisp, loud popping sound.
Orochimaru shuddered and sprang up from the table as if he'd been electrocuted.
His head snapped back up.
"Bang!" It crashed into the metal tool rack above.
He knocked over a cast iron wrench. The wrench fell and hit the back of his foot.
Orochimaru winced in pain, but he ignored his foot.
He hastily wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his white coat.
"Master Xiu... Lord Shu." He opened his bloodshot eyes, his face full of confusion.
Shu Shiraishi didn't waste any words.
He pointed to the parchment he had just slapped on the table.
It was a rough ballistic sketch drawn with charcoal pencil.
The drawing on the paper depicts a long cylinder with four slanted metal tail fins.
Next to the cylinder.
It draws a high parabola.
The lines crossed over a simple, line-drawn mountain and landed on the other side.
"The machine gun can't reach the back of the mountain."
Shu Shiraishi stared at Orochimaru's snake-like eyes, which were not yet fully focused.
"Then let's build flying bombs."
Orochimaru was stunned.
His gaze slowly moved downwards, landing on the lines of the drawing.
Flying bombs?
In the Shinobi World, throwing Explosive Tag relies entirely on arm strength. They can only throw them a few dozen meters at most; they can't even get them over a mountain.
"This iron cylinder is filled with Chakra fuel."
Shu Shiraishi finger slid down the parabola, finally touching a red cross at the end.
"Add a propulsion nozzle."
"Let it fly up into the sky on its own. Let it go over that mountain."
Shu Shiraishi leaned forward, pressing his hands on the edge of the iron table, which emitted a slight creaking sound.
"Range."
He stared into Orochimaru's eyes.
"Cover up the Tsuchikage Building in Iwagakure."
Orochimaru opened his mouth wide, his jaw freezing in mid-air.
The lingering sleepiness in my mind was shattered by those few words.
He looked down, staring intently at the cylinder on the blueprint.
Several tons of high explosives were stuffed into an iron pipe and then lit.
Let it fly hundreds of kilometers on its own.
Ignoring mountains and terrain, it crashed directly onto the head of another country's shadow.
What's this called?
This is called a long-range strike that extends beyond visual range.
Orochimaru's breathing instantly became erratic.
His chest heaved violently. His thin shoulders beneath the white coat began to tremble.
He gripped the edge of the metal table tightly with both hands, his fingernails scraping against the metal with a piercing sound.
He stared intently at the blueprints.
In those slightly sunken eyes.
The red veins spread like wildly growing vines, instantly becoming congested and covering the entire white of the eye.