Chương 32: New Players Enter the Game

History proves that having the advantage of foresight makes situational judgments accurate, but even without it, Dongye Zhen would never have believed that Kirigakure would remain a "good neighbor" forever. Among the Five Great Hidden Villages, Sunagakure has puppets and poison; Iwagakure has numbers and group ninjutsu; Kumogakure has brute force and "zero-dollar shopping" raids; and Konoha... Konoha has a deep foundation where god-like figures inevitably emerge at critical moments.

What does the final village, Kirigakure, have? They have psychopaths who are exceptionally skilled at killing their own. As the most mysterious of the five villages, very little information ever leaked out due to their long-standing policy of extreme isolation. However, according to limited intelligence, they had been practicing the "Village of the Bloody Mist" policy internally.

The pressure resulting from their cruel infighting was on the verge of exploding; rather than letting it blow them apart from within, they chose to let it explode outward. At this moment, their four rivals were all scarred and exhausted by the war, their hands empty of cards. It was the perfect time to throw a bomb, double down, and reap the harvest. Finally, in August of Konoha Year 49—one month after the Battle of Kannabi Bridge—Kirigakure decided to join this pleasant game of slaughter.

They landed on the eastern coast of the Land of Fire and launched a brazen invasion. In an instant, the eastern coastline defenses collapsed. Civilians were killed or displaced, and towns were destroyed; the situation was critical. These lunatics displayed an unparalleled desire for slaughter, as if their invasion wasn't for profit, but purely to vent their bloody urges. However, Konoha could no longer mobilize enough shinobi forces from the other fronts.

The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, convened an overnight meeting with the major clans and presented the final solution. Close the gates and unleash the Uchiha. To use the Uchiha, masters of Fire Style, against the Mist, masters of Water Style—the Uchiha expressed total indifference. For the strongest shinobi clan, this was the perfect opportunity to earn merit. As for elemental disadvantages? What was that?

Thus, a force primarily composed of Uchiha shinobi, supplemented by the Hyuga and the hidden reserves of other clans, was urgently assembled and sent to the Eastern Front. To secure enough manpower, the village squeezed the commoner shinobi once more and even thrust many "fledglings" who had only graduated a few years prior onto the battlefield. Aside from leaving behind a basic force to guard the village itself, every bit of available manpower had been extracted.

Fighting a multi-front war had left Konoha's military strength severely depleted. Ultimately, to balance the competition between Konoha's two great noble houses, the Third Hokage was forced to assign the command of the Eastern Front to Orochimaru. Although Iwagakure had agreed to sue for peace under pressure, they had not yet signed a formal treaty. Coupled with Kumogakure's ongoing offensive, Jiraiya and Minato Namikaze simply could not leave their posts. Orochimaru had seen through everything long ago.

Although his heart was no longer in the war, he did not refuse; on the contrary, he was happy to take up the burden. Compared to the singular variety of Sunagakure, the Hidden Mist possessed far too many types of Kekkei Genkai. The Shikotsumyaku of the Kaguya clan, the Ice Style of the Yuki clan, the Hydrification secret techniques of the Hozuki clan, the man-shark physiques of the Hoshigaki clan... They were all excellent experimental materials. Subarashii!!

The entry of the Mist caused the once-clarifying war situation to become shrouded in mystery again. Not only that, while invading Konoha, they simultaneously deployed troops in the southern seas. Using the peninsula of the Land of Tea as a springboard, they set their sights on the prosperous southern coastal regions of the Land of Wind. In a previous life, Naruto fans speculated that the Mist had crossed the ocean from the other side of the planet to invade Sunagakure, leading to war between the two.

But that was unrealistic; the distance was too great. The Earth where the Shinobi World was located was not small, and the Five Great Nations along with the various minor countries were almost all concentrated in one small region. For the Mist to invade Suna, they only needed to travel west across the Sea of Rainbows and establish a base in the Land of Tea, which lacked its own hidden village. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

The Land of Tea was a vassal of the Land of Fire, but Konoha currently had no time to protect them. As for traveling east across the other side of the planet, it was not only distant but also required bypassing two other continents—one large and one small—that were vast and desolate. Those two continents were practically barren, with very few humans living on them, and their power systems and cultural customs were entirely different from the mainstream world.

The Shinobi World was not the ancient past; with advanced maritime technology, they were naturally not strangers to those places. It was simply because those continents offered so little profit that no nation was interested. As for why such a situation existed, the people of the Shinobi World did not know. Curious explorers had gone there in the past to study it, but they never figured out the reason. Likely, only Kaguya Otsutsuki and her three sons who had lost their human forms knew the beginning and end of it.

Dongye Zhen had studied the geography of the Shinobi World and had vaguely guessed the answer. It was undoubtedly sucked dry by the God Tree. The region where the major and minor nations of the Shinobi World were located was the last bastion of life on the planet. Even so, the vast majority of the Land of Wind—the largest in area—was a boundless desert. Otherwise, why do you think the Otsutsuki clan came to this world to plant trees? For reforestation?

Facing the Mist's senseless attacks, Sunagakure was also furious. They immediately deployed manpower with Pakura as the commander, delivering a head-on blow to these lunatics. I might not be able to beat Konoha, but I can't beat you, Mist? Fire Style countered by Water Style? Pakura declared that since she used Scorch Style, she guaranteed a one-stop "sauna-to-mummy" service for them all. In an instant, countless Mist shinobi experienced a level of dry crispness they had never felt in their lives.

The Third Great Ninja War, which had previously shown signs of stabilizing, descended into chaos once more. The chaotic war continued. The Hidden Mist Village initially thought Konoha was exhausted and unable to handle their sudden invasion. However, their joy lasted only a few days before they were soundly thrashed by Konoha forces led by the Uchiha and Hyuga. Attribute disadvantage? Uchiha shinobi demonstrated that as long as you are strong enough, attribute disadvantages do not affect the big picture.

The Hidden Mist Jutsu obscured vision? The Hyuga clan showed that before the Byakugan, there was nowhere to hide. The Mist shinobi immediately grew to hate these "X-ray hackers" as much as the other villages did, yet they also coveted the power. Consequently, they began surreptitiously plotting against the Byakugan, searching the battlefield for any members of the Hyuga Main Branch. To reclaim the momentum of the war, they unleashed their strongest trump card: the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.

Seven powerful shinobi, each with distinct appearances, personalities, and wielding bizarre weapons, began to hunt at will on the Eastern Front. They neither respected nor obeyed one another, instead competing amongst themselves, treating the war entirely as a delightful game. Even when encountering a squad of Konoha fledglings, the seven would play with them like cats with a mouse for half a day, often turning on each other over the question of who the prey belonged to. Killing efficiency? The Mizukage's orders?

To hell with all that. Then, they encountered a "weirdo" Genin wearing a green one-piece spandex suit. They were beaten into the "Auspicious Three," with some fleeing and others defecting. October, Konoha Year 49: Might Duy died in battle. The Konoha high command was momentarily overjoyed, never expecting such a stroke of luck. Trading the life of a single Genin for four members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen was a massive profit.

Simultaneously, they began to value the forbidden technique known as the Eight Inner Gates. After research, they discovered that this was truly not something a normal person could train in. it required an immense amount of time, extreme talent in Taijutsu, and ultimate endurance. Decades of training might not even yield results, and it was easy to train oneself to death. It lacked all universal applicability. Fortunately, as the successor of this technique, Might Guy received significant attention from the village.

Might Duy had used his life not only to greatly alleviate the pressure on the Eastern Front but also to kick a future open for his son. Time raced forward through the flames of war, soon entering a new year. The Mist, refusing to give up and manipulated by certain wills, quietly prepared a massive scheme. They intended to release the Three-Tails into Konoha. The result was yet another failure. Aside from the death of a "worthless" female medical ninja from Konoha, they achieved nothing.

Not only that, the Mist temporarily lost the Three-Tails and sacrificed nearly all their elite ANBU experts. A massive loss. But these people did not know that, under the arrangements of a mastermind, they had personally destroyed the light of an Uchiha youth, causing a kind child to darken completely. From then on, he would become the chief operative of the "Circle-within-a-Circle" Conspiracy City. Late February, Konoha Year 50: Konoha shinobi Rin Nohara died in battle.

The person who killed her was: Konoha shinobi Kakashi Hatake. The sliver of light that had just dawned was shrouded in darkness once more. He knew his teammate had used his hand to commit suicide to thwart the Mist's plot. Yet, it was precisely this that made him suffer even more; even Rin, whose strength was average, possessed a firmer conviction and greater courage than he did.