A-rank Fire Demon.
A powerful, demon-type chakra beast with high intelligence, destructive innate skills, inhuman strength way beyond the standards for the regular chakra beasts, lightning-fast reflexes, and an absurd regeneration speed.
With a chakra-reinforced punch, they could destroy a ten-meter-tall boulder like crushing eggs. Unless you also possessed great physical strength and superb control over your chakra, sufficient to reinforce your body to the limit, facing them head-on would be foolish.
Of course, Kaguya clan members from Kirigakure, Explosion Release users from Iwagakure, and Senju clan members from Konohagakure wouldn't care.
They could still fight these Fire Demons head-on and still come out unscathed thanks to their monstrous physique and secret techniques, such as Dead Bone Pulse (Shikotsumyaku), Explosion Release Taijutsu Techniques, and Chakra Enhanced Strength, respectively.
But for most ninjas, that wouldn't be possible.
They could only dodge and deflect the direct physical attacks from the A-rank Fire Demons unless they reached Quasi-Kage level at the very least in physical strength, Taijutsu, and chakra control.
Fortunately, the existence of various defensive artifacts made from various parts of powerful chakra beasts made it easier to confront them. These kinds of artifacts were another thing that didn't exist in the original Narutoverse.
However, just having these artifacts and powerful physical strength wasn't enough to deal with the A-rank Fire Demons.
Why?
That was because of their insane regeneration speed.
These cockroaches just wouldn't die even if you gutted them, separated their limbs, punctured their hearts, destroyed their lungs, or obliterated half of their bodies.
They would fucking regenerate everything within seconds.
The only way to kill these nuisances was to completely separate their heads from their torso and crush the heads into nothingness.
At the B-rank, you could still kill them after destroying their hearts.
But after they reached the A-rank, decapitating them was a must.
Of course, reducing them to ashes would also work. But how many people in this world had that kind of extreme firepower below the Elite Jonin level?
Truly…they were the cockroaches of the Shinobi world.
At least they weren't like the demons from the world of a certain gender-changing, blue spider lily-obsessed demon lord whose only weakness was the sun.
Otherwise, things could have turned very ugly real quick.
And Otsutsuki Seimei and Uchiha Sorata had now teamed up to deal with one such nuisance.
A fucking A-rank Demon, whom they needed to decapitate as soon as possible to destroy the command structure and unity of the chakra beasts of different species.
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When Seimei's real body finished instructing the shadow clones and rushed to help Uchiha Sorata, he immediately witnessed what it meant to make the opponents dance to your rhythm.
Although Sorata couldn't take the hits from the Fire Demon head-on, he used his Sharingan insights masterfully to dodge and deflect the attacks from the beast while counterattacking every time he found a gap.
If it were any other chakra beast, their body would have already been filled with numerous cuts and lacerations. But this was a demon. For it, what could be considered as the most grievous injuries for others were nothing but superficial scratches.
The battle had already fallen into a stalemate.
The demon couldn't hurt Sorata, and Sorata couldn't get a chance to decapitate it.
Uchiha Sorata's two-tomoe Sharingan spun as it was actively looking for opportunities to disrupt the Fire Demon and launch a fatal attack, whether with his sword or with Ninjutsu.
At that moment, the Fire Demon channeled a lot of fire chakra into its right fist and unleashed a devastating punch that produced visible shockwaves in the air.
Seeing this, Sorata's pupils constricted, and he hurriedly used the Substitution Technique to retreat backward while placing a human-sized wooden log in his previous location.
Boooooooom~~
The demon's fiery fist hit the wooden log and produced a terrifying explosion of scorching hellflame that turned the log into splinters and burned them to ashes.
At the same time, Seimei also appeared beside Sorata and asked, "You almost turned into roasted Uchiha, huh?"
Uchiha Sorata glanced sideways for a brief moment and replied, "Can't be helped. This demon's mastery over the fire element is too terrifying. Its close combat skills are decent, too."
Seimei nodded twice and said, "Then, let's douse him with some water first."
As soon as he said that, Seimei formed a hand seal and gathered a large amount of water around him.
Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique
Water that was gathered around him turned into a five-meter-wide, horizontal, vortex-like torrent and rushed toward the Fire Demon, attempting to engulf it, crush it, and wash it away.
Seeing the huge mass of rotating water coming at it with crushing momentum, the Fire Demon opened its mouth and used its innate skill, Flame Breath.
Flames came from its mouth and turned into a scorching horizontal column of condensed flame before smashing into the torrent of incoming water.
The water and fire fell into a brief stalemate before scattering with a terrifying explosion that enveloped the battle zone with thick mist, making it difficult to see things clearly.
However, it didn't hinder Seimei's vision in the slightest, who had Tenseigan.
Soon, the misty area was filled with scorching heat. Seimei could clearly see the Fire Demon preparing another one of its signature skills, Fire Burst, to erase the fog while injuring or killing everyone within a certain radius with an explosive burst of fire.
Although it would also be injured in the process, with its monstrous regenerative capabilities, it could heal all the injuries it sustained from the Fire Burst within a couple of seconds.
Its high resistance to flames also made it capable of withstanding many Fire Release techniques and intense heat better.
In the Fire Demon's calculation, once the fog went away and the humans were injured, it could strike them decisively. After all, the Fire Burst could severely injure them and make them incapable of fighting, if not outright kill them.
Even if those two humans left the blast radius, the Fire Burst could still serve the purpose of dispelling the mist.
But how could Seimei let this happen?
He formed a hand seal while saying, "Jonin Sorata, the Demon is 23 meters away in the two o'clock direction."
"I will restrict its movement. Take this opportunity to behead it."
Uchiha Sorata nodded and rushed forward while suppressing his chakra radiation. However, he didn't strike immediately.
At the same time, Seimei, who had just ended forming the hand seal, crouched down and placed his right palm on the ground.
Earth Release: Shackles of Gaia
This was yet another new A-rank Earth Release Jutsu he had invented in the last one and a half years that had incredible control and restriction capabilities.
Soon, the twelve dark brown, thick, linked chains with spear tip-like protrusions on the front erupted from the ground and rocketed toward the Fire Demon with the speed of a bullet from various unpredictable angles.
The speed of the accelerating chains, combined with the visual obscuration of the mist, rendered the Demon unable to react or dodge until it was too late.
One chain passed through the blazing fireball that the Demon was forming to cast the Fire Burst skill and penetrated its abdomen. The earthen chain disrupted the inner structure of the skill, causing the Jutsu to fail.
At the same time, the remaining eleven chains also penetrated the hands, legs, torso, and head of the fire demon before the spear tips exited from the Demon's back and penetrated the ground behind it, firmly locking the demon in one place.
"Now," shouted Seimei as he immobilized the Fire Demon.
As soon as his voice fell, Uchiha Sorata moved.
He immediately arrived in front of the immobilized Fire Demon, grinned, coated his blade with sharp wind chakra, and slashed it at the Demon's neck.
Squelch~
The blade passed through the flesh and bones of the Demon's throat like a hot knife passing through a solid block of butter, instantly separating the head from the body.
To avoid unforeseen circumstances, Uchiha Sorata even plunged the blade into the decapitated head of the Fire Demon and channeled a huge amount of Fire Release chakra through the blade.
Then, within a few seconds, the head of the powerful Fire Demon turned into ashes.
Seimei, who saw everything with his Tenseigan, also sighed in relief.
The Fire Demon was dead.
With wit and the use of proper Jutsu at the right time, the duo defeated a powerful foe, which could kill Elite Jonin-level ninjas, in less than one minute.
The battle here is over.
It's time to look for the AA-rank chakra beast and eliminate it as soon as possible.
But first, let's check on Shoji, Ginjo, and that samurai.
Seimei thought as he walked toward his injured comrades, who were receiving treatment from his shadow clone.
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