Chapter 79: The Curtain Rises
Boom! Boom!
In the afternoon in Konoha, smoke was rising everywhere!
The Sound ninja, disguised as tourists and foreign spectators, upon receiving the order, all tore off their disguises, put on their Sound ninja forehead protectors, and gathered to launch a surprise attack on Konoha. The Konoha ninja were horrified to find that an endless stream of ninja wearing the Sound Village's forehead protector were popping out from every corner, attacking them with a death-defying spirit!
The peaceful afternoon in Konoha instantly boiled over.
From the streets to the insides of buildings, from the bustling downtown area to the Hokage Rock, ninja tools and explosive tags flew everywhere, arrows as dense as a swarm of locusts, like a series of stormy waves. All sorts of ninjutsu clashed and bombarded each other like a tempest, for a moment, the earth shook and the mountains swayed, and the sound of battle filled the sky!
After the probing with ninjutsu and ninja tools, the Sound and Konoha ninja engaged in an even bloodier and more direct hand-to-hand combat!
The sounds of explosions, whistles, shouts, and screams came from all over.
The Konoha ninja were both shocked and angry. To think that Orochimaru had brought such a large number of Sound ninja to participate in the Konoha Crush plan!
How did he do it?
On the surface, besides the three Genin participating in the exam and their team leader, Orochimaru could at most bring two more guards into Konoha.
But secretly, a large number of Sound ninja had quietly infiltrated Konoha.
In order to bypass Konoha's strict inspections, these Sound ninja had actually swallowed a secret medicine with endless side effects, forcefully suppressing the chakra fluctuations in their bodies and disguising themselves as powerless civilian tourists, successfully infiltrating Konoha. However, first taking a forbidden drug to suppress their chakra, and then immediately having to fight at full strength—the price for this was also huge: after this battle, the bodies of this batch of Sound ninja would suffer permanent damage, and in serious cases, they might even be unable to use chakra for the rest of their lives!
They were true cannon fodder, disposable items with no value after being used once.
Whether they were bewitched, forced, or had volunteered to sacrifice themselves out of a strong admiration for Orochimaru... regardless of whether they were willing or not, in short, the Sound ninja launched a fanatical and bloodthirsty offensive!
Relying on this life-or-death posture and a local numerical advantage, the unprepared Konoha immediately suffered heavy casualties. For a time, the Sound ninja, with an aggressive posture, beat the Konoha ninja into a retreat on several small battlefields!
However, the Sound ninja had only gained a temporary upper hand by relying on an unexpected sneak attack. Konoha, as a large village, had a foundation far stronger than the Sound Village, and the power it possessed was also far greater than the Sound ninja's. The Sound had merely caught Konoha off guard and had formed a superior force in a local area. Once Konoha had stabilized its footing and reinforcements arrived, the small waves stirred up by the Sound would inevitably be quickly quelled.
However, the invaders were not just the Sound ninja.
At the same time as the Sound ninja launched their surprise attacks from all over Konoha, with the intelligence support provided by Orochimaru, the Sand ninja, who had successfully found a loophole in Konoha's defense system and had infiltrated the vicinity of the village, also launched a powerful assault, preparing to coordinate with the Sound ninja from the inside and out, leaving Konoha unable to defend both its front and rear!
BANG!
Taking advantage of the attacks launched by the Sound ninja in other places to attract Konoha's attention, a squad of Sound ninja launched a powerful assault on the Konoha walls. After several probing clashes, the Sound ninja finally found a suitable opportunity and used the summoning scroll that Orochimaru had prepared for them in advance. Braving the attacks of the Konoha ninja, they forcefully summoned a giant python on the Konoha walls!
The wooden walls, dozens of meters high and several meters thick, reinforced with ninjutsu, were Konoha's proud steel barrier. Its very existence was enough to extinguish the desires in the hearts of most ambitious men. But today, they faced a powerful challenge. The challengers were equally massive and despairingly large giant pythons, and their master was a Kage-level powerhouse who had once guarded this wall—Orochimaru.
The giant pythons writhed, coiling around the walls.
Their torsos, each one as thick as ten men hugging, made the three-to-five-meter-thick Konoha walls seem so small in comparison! SWISH—! With a whistle, the giant pythons swung their tails and fiercely lashed at the wooden walls. The two behemoths crashed into each other with a悍然 force!
CRACK.
A long, chilling groan came from the wall!
The Konoha ninja who were still fighting frantically all changed their expressions upon hearing this sound. They hastily stopped their movements and withdrew from the battle, their eyes fixed on the source of the sound. They couldn't believe that the extremely resilient Konoha walls had actually been cracked by the brute force of the giant pythons!
"Stop it!" the leading Konoha Anbu shouted, his face ashen, throwing away his broken mask!
Dozens of Konoha ninja tacitly formed hand seals at the same time, wanting to cast the most powerful ninjutsu they could. However, the giant pythons' movements were faster than the ninja's hand seals. They raised their tails again and swung them at the wall with boundless power—
The wooden wall exploded with a roar. Wood chips instantly scattered in all directions like bullets, leaving the Konoha ninja on the other side, who were about to cast their ninjutsu, in a sorry state. At this moment, the leading Konoha Anbu's face was deathly pale. He paid no mind to his battered comrades, no mind to the backlash from the forced interruption of his ninjutsu, just stared deadly at the wall.
Staring at the wall that had been breached by the giant pythons.
Figures flickered, and the Anbu's heart sank infinitely towards the abyss.
"Damn it...!" the Anbu muttered.
He watched helplessly as, through the breach, ninja wearing the Sand Village's forehead protector poured in one after another, effortlessly breaking through Konoha's final line of defense.
Konoha's soft underbelly was laid bare to the Sand.
The main force of the Sand ninja had broken into Konoha!
A more cruel and fierce battle had just begun.
As the saying goes, a flower blooms in two parts, each telling its own story.
Let's not look at the scenes of attacks, tearing apart, life-and-death struggles, or the moving and tragic scenes that were happening or about to happen in Konoha village. Outside this rain of bullets and smoke, far away from Konoha, a squad temporarily composed of Genin had also encountered their own enemies.
However, at this moment, the young girl running through the forest was all alone.
The black-haired girl was moving in the usual ninja way, leaping lightly on the branches of the large trees in the forest.
A faint blue light shone from her feet. It was the glow of condensed chakra. The girl was controlling it finely and accurately to assist her advance. Under the enhancement of chakra, the girl's long and slender thighs only needed to exert a little force to erupt with astonishing power, allowing her to easily cross a distance of several dozen meters with each step. And the chakra attached to the bottom of her ninja shoes could perfectly allow the girl to step on the tree trunks without either crushing the branches due to excessive force or slipping on the moss.
Compared to running on the ground where one might encounter various obstacles that needed to be avoided, this method of leaping forward was actually a more stamina-saving and faster way for a ninja to travel. Therefore, this was also a compulsory course for a ninja. However, to reach a state of such ease and freedom as the black-haired girl was not something an ordinary ninja could achieve.
Unless one had practiced for many years, or was as skilled in chakra control as the girl, it was simply impossible to reach such a level of proficiency.
If someone were watching from a distance, they would definitely be able to feel the smooth and rhythmic rhythm in the girl's light steps, a contraction and expansion, as natural as breathing.
As if even in her leaps and bounds, there was a captivating beauty.
Suddenly, the girl seemed to sense something, and her expression changed slightly. Then, without hesitation, she abruptly stopped, turned around, and looked gravely at the forest behind her.
A clear breeze blew, shaking the leaves in the forest, making a rustling sound.
No, this was not just the wind rustling the leaves. The girl keenly sensed an unusual frequency in that rustling sound.
Not the sound of the wind, but the sound of a person! she determined.
She focused her gaze on that patch of woods, the source of the unusual sound.
A small, fair hand reached out from between the dense leaves, pushing down the branches and twigs that were obstructing the path. With a light turn of her wrist, a graceful figure walked out with measured steps.
"Phew, I finally caught up to you, Hinata-chan!"
The pink-haired, emerald-eyed girl said with a charming smile, looking up at Hinata in the tree.
Her radiant smile carried a trademark confident air. Who else could it be but Sakura?
Hinata immediately breathed a sigh of relief, and the expression on her face also relaxed. She leaped lightly down from the tree and landed beside the girl.
"You finally caught up. You must be tired!"
"Hn, hn. By the way, Hinata-chan, where are the others?"
Sakura responded to Hinata's greeting casually, and then, noticing that Hinata was alone, she tilted her head cutely and asked, looking behind her.
Hinata shook her head.
She walked in front of Sakura, her mouth open as if to speak.
In an instant, Hinata's figure exploded forward. She twisted her waist and threw a punch. The glow of her chakra burst forth, and a violent, heavy punch fiercely struck the girl in front of her!
The force pierced through her back, deep into her bones.
Hitting the girl in the chest, Hinata could feel that her power had completely penetrated the girl's defense, being unleashed into her body without any waste. The force of the punch permeated her body, churning her internal organs like a blender.
Her five viscera are all shattered, right? She's... deader than dead.
Thinking this, Hinata took two steps back, her Byakugan flaring ferociously as she looked coldly at the girl before her, who was collapsing to the ground with a look of disbelief on her face.
"Where is Sakura?"
She said the words that had been pressed in her throat just now.
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