Li Anshi's actions were intended to use his life to threaten his brother.
If he died, his brother, the Third Raikage, would be enraged, but in that rage, he would regain his senses and use every means possible to utterly annihilate Li Anshi.
It couldn't be helped; the threat of the Little Li Flying Dagger, Li Anshi, was simply too great.
This battle had shown that with Li Anshi alone, even if the Cloud threw their ninjas' lives at him, as long as he had daggers in hand, it was a bottomless pit.
If, during a war, one or two ninjas could help Li Anshi buy time to unseal his scroll and replenish his daggers, then he was virtually invincible.
Blue B suspected that as long as Li Anshi had enough daggers, killing more than ten thousand ninjas would be no problem for him.
For example, right now, in less than five minutes of contact between the Cloud side and Li Anshi, their casualties had already approached a thousand.
Such a casualty rate was terrifying.
Perhaps not even the First Hokage had such a killing efficiency.
Of course, this wasn't to say that Li Anshi's current strength could compare to the First Hokage's, but in terms of killing speed alone, Li Anshi was indeed the best in the entire ninja world.
It was only because he had seized the opportunity to fire a Tailed Beast Bomb at Li Anshi earlier. Although it hadn't caused much damage, it had successfully destroyed all the daggers in Li Anshi's sealing scroll.
Otherwise, if Li Anshi had been given a few chances to replenish his daggers, the more than three thousand Cloud ninjas who had come to besiege him this time wouldn't have even dreamed of returning alive.
"B!"
Seeing Blue B hit by Li Anshi's dagger, the Third Raikage was furious.
In his mad charge, the Third Raikage disregarded the fact that his body had not yet adapted to the higher intensity of the "Hell Stab," directly bending the little and ring fingers of his right hand, jumping from the "Four-Finger Nukite" straight to the "Two-Finger Nukite"!
Moreover, because the index finger of his right hand had already been severed by Li Anshi's dagger, this "Two-Finger Nukite" looked very similar in shape to the "One-Finger Nukite."
Ferocious lightning gathered on the Third Raikage's right hand, increasing his forward speed by a large margin.
Wisps of blood scattered, only to be vaporized by the lightning outside his body.
The wound on his index finger had been torn open by the chakra, and fresh blood gushed out, soaking his palm.
From a distance, it looked as if his right hand had become a "blood hand."
Of course, what slightly eased the Third Raikage's mind was that he could still sense Blue B's aura.
That red chakra was the Eight-Tails, working hard to repair Blue B's body.
Although even if a Tailed Beast was killed, it would revive somewhere in the ninja world after a period of time.
But it was unknown whether the consciousness of the revived Tailed Beast would still be its own.
The Eight-Tails didn't want to gamble.
If it didn't want to die, it had to save Blue B.
At the very least, it had to prolong his life until the Cloud Village found a new Jinchuriki and transferred it to another's body.
"Lord Raikage!"
The momentum of the Third Raikage's Lightning Release Chakra Mode was not small. Coupled with his charge across the battlefield as a streak of lightning, many Cloud ninjas saw him rushing in Li Anshi's direction. Immediately, these ninjas grew anxious, desperately squeezing their bodies to refine chakra and bursting forth at their fastest speed to provide support.
The Raikage was the core pillar of the Cloud Village.
Especially now, when the Raikage's successor had not yet matured, the Third Raikage's significance to the Cloud was even greater.
And this was with the Cloud Village's ninja clans being loyal to the Raikage, assisting in the growth of the Fourth Raikage.
If these ninja clans had any ulterior motives, the Cloud Village might very well have fallen apart.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard these Cloud ninjas tried, their speed could not match the Third Raikage's. They could only watch as he rapidly approached Li Anshi.
"Kill!"
The Third Raikage roared, his entire body like a conical streak of lightning, assailing Li Anshi.
"Well met!"
Seeing the Third Raikage approach, a smile appeared on Li Anshi's lips.
Hadn't he left Blue B with a breath of life precisely to draw the Third Raikage out?
The Cloud ninjas, whose will he had previously crushed, had been fully restored by a few words from the Third Raikage, and had even been stirred to a greater fighting spirit.
This let Li Anshi know that in this battle with the Cloud, if he didn't deal with the Third Raikage first, it would only end when he had killed every last one of them.
Before, when he had enough daggers in his sealing scroll, Li Anshi could have taken his time to deal with the Cloud ninjas.
He knew that as long as the number of Cloud ninjas he killed exceeded the limit the Cloud Village could bear, then even the Third Raikage would have to bow his head to Konoha.
Originally, that was the plan Li Anshi had wanted to use.
It would have both greatly damaged the Cloud's morale and created a generational gap in their legacy.
These three thousand-plus ninjas—it would take the Cloud at least fifteen years for the next generation of ninjas to mature and for them to recover their strength.
But now, the daggers in his sealing scroll had been destroyed by the Eight-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb. The number of daggers in his hand was simply not enough to support him in killing the remaining two thousand-plus Cloud ninjas. He had no choice but to target Blue B, to see if the Third Raikage would come to his rescue.
Swish—
A white light shone in Li Anshi's hand.
As long as the Third Raikage entered his hundred-meter range, Li Anshi could instantly lock onto him and complete his attack.
Once the Third Raikage was dead, with the remaining daggers on his person, he could once again crush the Cloud ninjas' will to fight.
At that time, there would be no one left to restore their fighting spirit.
However, before the Third Raikage had even approached within a hundred meters of Li Anshi, an intense sense of life-and-death crisis assaulted his heart.
Looking in the direction from which the crisis came, a torrent of red chakra was assailing him with the speed of lightning.
BOOM!
A violent explosion erupted with Li Anshi at its center.
The terrifying chakra caused immense destruction to the surrounding environment.
The mushroom cloud from the explosion rose more than ten meters from the ground.
It was a Tailed Beast Bomb!
"B!"
Amidst the roar, the Third Raikage bellowed, forcefully changing his direction mid-charge, from rushing toward Li Anshi to rushing toward Blue B.
In just a few seconds, the Third Raikage had arrived at Blue B's side.
At this time, Blue B was on the verge of death.
Earlier, it was he who had forcefully mobilized the chakra the Eight-Tails had been using to heal him to unleash his final Tailed Beast Bomb.