Chapter 104: Hundred Miles of Bloody Road
The dust explosion at Gourd Mountain Pass lasted for more than ten seconds. The semi-enclosed environment triggered multiple chain explosions, and the after-effects set off countless sonic explosions in the gorge. Even with the powerful perception of his sonic radar, Sasuke lost all vision of the interior until the conflagration completely subsided.
After the explosion, the rock walls had been calcined, leaving layers of red and black crystals. The effect was equivalent to hundreds of multiplied explosive tags, an S-level ninjutsu in terms of destructive power that lasted for more than ten seconds and covered the entire pass.
"Huh? There are people who survived, and quite a few!" Sasuke discovered as he examined the remnants of a broken puppet array. Beneath it, a dozen Sunagakure ninjas were still alive.
Among them, Ebizo's face was extremely pale. Coughing blood, he was already trembling. At the critical moment, he had released the Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets to protect his subordinates, but the force of the explosion had gravely injured him, leaving him almost unconscious. The survivors were not much better; their combat power had been reduced to less than half.
"Master, are you alright?" asked a red-haired kunoichi, Tessai, as she supported him.
"Tessai, retreat... and make sure to take them back," Ebizo whispered before fainting.
"Retreat!" Tessai exclaimed with a resolute gaze. She hid Ebizo in a puppet and used two others to cover their escape.
Upon seeing this scene, Sasuke's shadow clone gave the order for pursuit. He carefully guided Yeshan's battalion and his own through the dangerous pass, filled with shattered corpses and poisoned puppet fragments. Utane's battalion had not yet arrived, so he didn't wait. Although almost 80% of their 68 men were genin, the numerical suppression was absolute. Fifty genin throwing kunai at once was not as powerful as a Shadow Shuriken Clone Technique, but it was no weaker than a B-rank ninjutsu.
To slow down the Sunagakure ninjas' retreat, the real Sasuke, riding on Shirotaka, unleashed another barrage of shuriken from the sky.
"This puppet user Tessai is undoubtedly an elite jonin!" Sasuke thought, impressed. The red-haired kunoichi single-handedly resisted the critical blow of his A-rank jutsu. However, this delay allowed the Konoha troops to close the distance.
Thus began a long war of attrition. Sasuke only had 0.15 "cards" of chakra left, but with his Taotie Technique, he could quickly recover and launch attacks again and again. The Sunagakure ninjas, on the other hand, could not constantly use chakra to defend themselves. They tried to scatter, but Sasuke's hidden shadow clones hunted them down, forcing them to maintain a tight formation.
After more than half an hour and tens of kilometers, the exhausted Sunagakure ninjas were about to cross a river that served as a natural barrier.
"Is it mist?" Tessai frowned. She wanted to stop, but with their pursuers at their heels and Konoha's hawk circling overhead, they had no choice but to keep moving forward. They maintained formation and entered the mist.
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