At this point, it was impossible for Hyuga Arin to withdraw from the battlefield.
No matter which ninja village it was, any ninja who fled in the midst of battle would be uniformly classified as a missing-nin—kill on sight.
Although he really wanted to farm some Konoha "mobs," now was absolutely not the right time to break away from Konoha.
At the very least, he would need Kage-level strength.
Otherwise, if he went solo right now, he would easily become a target of the other villages.
At that point, it wouldn't be one faction farming him—it would very likely turn into all Five Great Ninja Villages hunting him down. That would be disastrous.
Before he had sufficient strength and confidence, Hyuga Arin had no intention of facing all five villages at once.
As long as he participated in the war under Konoha's banner, the hostility of the ninja world would be directed at Konoha as a whole, not at him, a tiny individual "player."
He could even pick up quite a few benefits on the battlefield. This was definitely not the time to leave Konoha.
Still, preparations for escape at a critical moment had to be made.
If the battle line collapsed and he chose to run, there would be no issue.
That would be forced by circumstances, and Konoha would have no grounds to hold him accountable.
He returned to the newly rebuilt watchtower and looked at his more than 110,000 experience points.
After some thought, he kept 60,000 in reserve. If anything went wrong, he would have two chances to fully restore himself.
That meant he still had over 50,000 experience points he could spend.
First—max out Unknowing Fire.
[Fire Release · Unknowing Fire (Lv.7) — EXP (0/7,400) — Trait (None)]
[Fire Release · Unknowing Fire (Lv.8) — EXP (0/14,800) — Trait (None)]
[Fire Release · Unknowing Fire (Lv.9) — EXP (0/29,600) — Trait (None)]
[Fire Release · Unknowing Fire (Lv.10) — MAX — Trait (To Be Chosen)]
[Ignite: Deals 70–410 true damage over 5 seconds (based on enemy level)]
[Enchantment: Adds fire-attribute damage to any attack]
[Satan's Flame: Increases damage dealt to souls]
Hyuga Arin looked at the three traits.
Ignite—wasn't this straight out of League of Legends? The summoner spell Ignite that even sets Brand on fire?
On some level, this thing was basically a bug. Ignite setting fire to a fire mage—no one would believe that if you said it out loud.
Just like how vampires can drain robots—he was really curious whether they drank blood or gasoline.
But this wouldn't help him much. Enchantment was basically an upgraded version of Unknowing Fire, but compared to the third option—Satan's Flame—it still fell short.
After all, that was Satan—the lord of hell.
Alright.
He guessed it was probably inspired by the protagonist's power from Blue Exorcist. Still, being able to damage souls made it a solid skill.
Most importantly—
This trait would likely allow him to see souls.
In the game world, everything could be a mob. Even soul entities counted as a type of monster.
In the Naruto server, there was a hidden dungeon called the Pure Land. The final boss didn't even need guessing—it was the Sage of Six Paths.
But entering that dungeon wasn't easy. You needed skills related to souls, plus a variety of additional conditions.
Hyuga Arin directly chose Satan's Flame.
[Fire Release · Unknowing Fire (Lv.10) — MAX — Trait: Satan's Flame]
A massive flood of memories surged into his mind.
The new structure of Unknowing Fire now included a method for drawing upon soul power. A max-level skill directly activated Hyuga Arin's soul energy.
At the same time, it allowed him to see souls.
Hyuga Arin spread his hand. Blue flames burned atop his palm. Unknowing Fire could still be applied to all attacks.
And it didn't just burn flesh—it didn't spare the soul either. Anyone killed by Hyuga Arin would be truly dead.
Even Edo Tensei wouldn't be able to summon them back.
"Then could I get double experience?" Hyuga Arin stroked his chin thoughtfully.
He could test that later.
"But this is way more useful than Unknowing Fire." Hyuga Arin snapped his fingers lightly, and a blue fireball appeared out of thin air.
Originally, Unknowing Fire only added fire-attribute damage to attacks.
It couldn't independently form flames—but now, it could generate fire on its own.
"This is my first max-level fire-attribute ninjutsu."
This one alone had taken quite a while, and he still needed nine more before he could fuse a Fire Release skill.
"Experience…" Hyuga Arin looked at the remaining sixty thousand-plus experience points and felt a distinct lack of security.
As his level increased, the experience gap was growing larger and larger.
…
During this period, the entire battlefield could be described as calm and uneventful.
The only change was that the once-normal fireballs had turned blue.
They were more eye-catching now, but not any easier to dodge. The enemy could only choose to evade. If they tried to tank it head-on—
A palm-sized blue fireball would rapidly expand into a massive fire dragon, reducing everything to ashes.
Not to mention chūnin and genin—even jōnin had little chance of escaping once they were caught, and could only die with regret.
Yet during this time, Iwagakure stopped launching frenzied assaults on Konoha's position. Instead, they continuously sent people to both flanks, trying to break through Konoha's lines.
This reduced their casualties, and the ones they sent were mostly genin and chūnin.
Which made Hyuga Arin very unhappy.
"What is this, a battlefield or a children's game? If you're not sending large numbers, what are you even doing?" Hyuga Arin scratched his head and glanced at the slowly increasing experience counter.
[Experience: 134,242]
This was the experience he had gained over more than ten days on the battlefield.
Originally, he could farm a hundred thousand in a single day.
This time, it had taken over ten days just to reach a little over a hundred thousand. The speed had slowed to a crawl.
It wasn't that Hyuga Arin was throwing kunai less often—it was that the enemy was sending fewer people. Half a day could pass without a single jōnin appearing.
And when a jōnin finally showed up, they specifically guarded against him.
The moment he dared to throw a kunai, they would immediately dodge. No one would take his fireballs head-on.
Satan's Flame, evolved from Unknowing Fire, also couldn't give him double experience.
Absolutely infuriating.
During this time, he hadn't seen Crow at all. That guy definitely wouldn't choose to become a missing-nin—but hadn't the Sarutobi-clan commander said anything either?
Obviously, he must know what Crow was up to.
Only Hyuga Arin himself had no idea.
He looked into the distance and saw that there were no Iwagakure ninjas in sight anymore. Their new trenches had already moved beyond the range of the Byakugan.
Konoha's side still didn't dare to advance. The main reason was that Ōnoki was like a human-shaped time bomb—no one knew when he would explode.
Konoha's choice was to hold fixed positions, with no intention of pushing forward.
Hyuga Arin raised his head and looked at the sky.
It was already deep into the night. The moon hung high above.
"Why are there two moons?" someone in the trenches squinted up at the sky.
In the heavens, besides the bright, familiar moon, there was another round moon emitting white light beside it.
Like twin moons alternating.
"No—something's wrong!!!" a ninja cried out in alarm.
The Sarutobi commander, who had looked up in confusion, turned pale.
"That's Dust Release!!"
A calm voice echoed from the sky.
"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!"
Within a transparent barrier, a white sphere radiated blinding light.
The transparent barrier rapidly expanded outward, actually enveloping Konoha's entire trench line within it.
Even Hyuga Arin wasn't spared—he too was caught inside the white barrier.
He couldn't help murmuring:
"The sky bestows a crown of earth."
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