Chapter 217 Hell on Earth
Facing the swarm of Cloud Village ninja, a thunderclap suddenly exploded in the night sky. Sasuke's purple lightning drew deep purple arcs, forcing three Cloud Village ninja back five meters.
"A kunai trajectory appeared at twelve o'clock!" Neji's Byakugan glowed blue in the darkness, his Eight Trigrams Staff wielding with ferocious power, repelling those attempting to break through his side.
In Sasuke's Sharingan, three tomoe swirled in crimson light. A Cloud Village ninja directly in front of him was almost instantly caught in Sasuke's genjutsu. The next second, purple lightning sliced through the neck of the Cloud Village genin blocking his path like a hot knife through butter. The scorching lightning instantly turned the wound black, and not a single drop of blood flowed until the Cloud Village genin clutched his neck and collapsed helplessly.
After the three rushed forward for dozens of meters, sixteen bolts of lightning descended from the sky like a cage. Chains wrapped in lightning intertwined in the treetops, trapping the three within a ten-meter radius of scorched earth.
Eight Cloud Village Jonin emerged from the shadows, their Lightning Release chakra pulsating across their skin like flowing armor.
"That's enough, Konoha brats," the leading Cloud Village Jonin said, forming the Snake Hand Seal, the lightning on the chains intensifying suddenly, "Pay the price for your arrogance."
Purple plasma surged between the chains, the air thick with the smell of ionized ozone.
As the encirclement tightened, Sasuke threw seven shuriken, the metal colliding with the lightning and creating blinding flashes. "A lightning release barrier? Too bad I'm not like my teacher, able to control the enemy's lightning release at will."
Neji planted his Eight Trigrams Staff in the ground, pushed his palms out, and the chakra vortex of the Rotation Rift deflected all the incoming lightning bolts. His Byakugan veins bulged, and he turned to Sasuke. "The barrier's core is on the female ninja in the northwest corner, the one with the headband around her neck! Her chakra is maintaining the barrier's balance!"
"Can you give her a shot?" Sasuke asked.
"I'll try." A summoning jutsu on Neji's right wristband lit up, and a uniquely shaped sniper rifle appeared in his hand. After infusing chakra into it, Neji fired, a chakra bullet whistling towards his opponent.
However, just as the bullet was about to hit, the barrier in front of her suddenly condensed a bolt of lightning that struck the bullet, bursting into a blinding white light in the air.
"No, it will take a long time to charge up if we want to break through the barrier's defenses." Seeing this, Neji put the chakra sniper rifle that Tenten had developed for him back into the scroll on his wrist, and then shook his head and said.
"Leave it to me!" Sasuke, wielding his purple lightning, charged towards the direction Neji indicated, his Chidori screaming as it tore through the night sky.
Purple lightning ripped through the darkness, his Sharingan precisely locking onto the pulsating chakra pathways beneath his headband. However, four bolts of lightning suddenly blocked his path—the reinforcements from Kumogakure had arrived.
Three ninjas wearing lightning beast masks descended from the sky, their lightning blades carving scorched grooves into the ground. Sasuke was forced to turn, his purple lightning colliding with the lightning blades, creating blinding arcs of electricity.
Fortunately, Neji suddenly entered the fray, his Eight Trigrams Staff darting out like a serpent, striking the lightning blade ninja's vital point on the waist. In the instant the chakra was blocked, Sasuke's left hand instantly condensed a Chidori that pierced the opponent's right shoulder, blood mist rising amidst the lightning. The
Kumogakure Jonin, controlling the barrier, sneered upon seeing this, slamming his palms heavily on the ground: "Lightning Release: Earth Walk!"
Yellow electric snakes rapidly spread towards the three along the damp moss.
"Naruto!"
"Understood," Naruto nodded heavily, his hands rapidly forming hand seals. Three howling gusts of wind swept in all directions, instantly shattering the incoming lightning snakes.
However, the next moment, five lightning arrows suddenly attacked from the side, aimed directly at Naruto. In the nick of time, Sasuke swung out a steel wire, wrapping it around Naruto's lower back and pulling hard. Relying on his Sharingan's predicted trajectory, Naruto barely avoided a fatal attack.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke couldn't help but scold him. "Concentrate on the fight!"
"Sorry..." Naruto said apologetically.
"Hold them off for me, I'll go take care of that guy." Sasuke didn't say anything more.
"Okay." Naruto took a deep breath, focused his mind, and with wind-style chakra swirling around him, he and Neji went to confront the remaining two lightning blade ninjas who had appeared to block Sasuke.
Sasuke, meanwhile, withdrew his purple lightning, his hands gathering a raging current of electricity, a sharp crackling sound like the cry of a thousand birds.
"Chidori!" Sasuke transformed into lightning, his hands gripping the purple current as he charged towards the female ninja maintaining the barrier. Although Sasuke had mastered Chidori long before, after learning Uchiha Touko's more advanced Lightning Release techniques, he only used a simplified version as a finishing move in close combat. He hadn't used the full version of Chidori in a long time. However, at this moment, the penetrating power of the full version, and the speed boost it provided while in Lightning Release ninjutsu mode, were exactly what Sasuke needed.
The female ninja maintaining the barrier only saw a blinding white light flash before her eyes; the next instant, Sasuke had pierced her chest, and the Cloud Village ninja collapsed helplessly.
"Asayi!" The companion beside the man Sasuke had killed cried out in disbelief upon seeing this.
Sasuke expressionlessly shook his hand, the lightning in his hand drying the blood on his skin. With the person maintaining the stability of the barrier's chakra gone, the barrier blocking the three's path disappeared. Neji used the Heavenly Rotation to repel the Cloud Village Jonin who was fighting him and Naruto, then shouted, "Now's the time, let's go!"
The two accelerated one after the other to rejoin Sasuke and rushed out of the encirclement. At this moment, Deidara, flying in the air, timely dropped a series of explosives, delaying the Cloud Village ninjas from reorganizing their encirclement.
However, after the previous bombardment, Deidara's chakra was almost depleted. After several rounds of bombardment, seeing that his three little brothers still hadn't broken through, he planned to lower his flight altitude and take them with him. However, he had only descended a little when shuriken with lightning flew like a rainstorm, forcing Deidara to take off again.
Just as the Cloud Village's encirclement was about to close again, suddenly, a green signal flare exploded in the northeastern night sky.
The howls of the Inuzuka clan pierced through the thunder, and the swarms of Aburame clan insects obscured the moonlight like dark clouds.
"Our reinforcements have arrived!" Sasuke finally breathed a sigh of relief after shattering the chains of lightning that were binding him with a single strike.
The nearest border troops rushed over immediately upon hearing the commotion.
Seeing this, the Cloud Village commander had no choice but to temporarily abandon the encirclement of Sasuke and his companions, gritting his teeth as he met the Konoha ninja army that had come to their aid. Under the cover of night, the two sides clashed instantly.
"Fire Release: Great Fire Dragon Technique!"
The raging flames illuminated the entire night sky, and a huge fire dragon roared as it attacked the Cloud Village. The Cloud Village's formation quickly developed a gap under the impact of this violent fire dragon, and at this moment, a team of Hyuga clan members, led by three branch family Jonin, charged into the Cloud Village's ranks.
Then, a team of Uchiha clan ninjas, led by their Jonin, charged in. Under the onslaught of the two clans, the Cloud
Village's formation quickly crumbled. It was hard to imagine that these two powerful clans, who were considered bitter enemies just a few years ago, could now cooperate so seamlessly.
Tenten's vision-sharing ninja tool proved exceptionally effective. The Hyuga clan's Byakugan's vast field of vision and the Uchiha clan's Sharingan's ability to track movement were combined, allowing the assault team to move through the Cloud Village's defenses with ease. After eliminating enemies along the way, they reached Sasuke and his companions.
"Young Clan
Leader."
The assault team members nodded to their respective young clan leaders. Sasuke then naturally took command of the team. "Let's go! Together with our comrades outside, take care of these people!"
"Yes!" Neji and his clansmen nodded in unison.
Only Naruto stood there, bewildered, watching everything around him. The blood and fire of war were so close to him now.
Compared to the previous battles, the brutality of war was revealed to Naruto in just a few minutes after the two armies began to clash.
Burning trees twisted into fiery serpents in the night wind, and screams of agony rose and fell from the thick smoke.
A Konoha ninja, half his body scorched by lightning release, was still mechanically stabbing the ground with kunai; a Kumogakure ninja had a gaping hole in his abdomen, but after simply stuffing his intestines back in and roughly stitching them up with chakra threads, he continued to charge at the Konoha ninjas before him.
Kunai and lightning wove a deathly tapestry through the forest. The third wave of Cloud Village ninja leaped over the charred corpses of their comrades across the trenches. Suddenly, the steel wire mesh pulled by the Konoha ambush team sprang up from the decaying leaves, instantly slicing twelve Cloud Village assault team members to pieces. But the splattering blood and flesh conveniently concealed the hand seals of the Lightning Release team behind them—seventeen lightning snakes lashed out along the wire, incinerating five Konoha ambush soldiers in the treetops.
At this moment, both sides' ninjas seemed to have transformed into ruthless killing machines. Stimulated by the blood and fire of this battlefield, almost everyone had lost their reason, their eyes fixed only on the enemy before them.
The Inuzuka clan's ninja dogs sensed the disturbance underground. Just as the seven dogs howled in warning, the Cloud Village's explosive tag squad surged forth from the ground, hundreds of explosive tags exploding in the heart of Konoha's ranks.
Twenty-three ninjas, including this suicide squad, were completely obliterated in the explosion. The shockwave slammed eight medical kits into tree trunks, and flying scalpels pierced the throats of three Cloud Village ninjas who were forming hand seals.
"This...this..." Naruto's hands trembled slightly as he looked at the battlefield before him, which had been transformed into a living hell in just a few minutes.
Read 100+ advanced chapters ahead on Patreon!
patreon.com/Horizons685
(End of Chapter)