Chapter 76: No Escape
Inside a small village near the Hidden Mist Village in the Land of Water.
“Huff, huff, huff...”
Heavy, ragged breathing came from a figure sitting in the gap between two houses. He was covered in mud and blood, with one arm missing.
“One part of the formation was destroyed. This bastard.”
The brown-haired warm-hearted man leaning against the wall growled in a low voice. That was something he had painstakingly arranged for a long time.
“Even if it’s destroyed, I can still make it again. Just try chasing me again.”
The warm-hearted man forced himself to stand despite the intense pain. He wasn’t actually worried about Su Xiao chasing him, because the Land of Lightning and the Land of Water were too far apart. He had sacrificed combat power to gain such strong mobility.
The warm-hearted man had long anticipated that the hunter would come for him. He had been preparing for a long time, but what surprised him was that the hunter appeared very late.
This actually relieved the warm-hearted man. The hunter finding him at this point wasn’t a big problem. He had already set up many spiritual nodes in the Naruto World. He could transmit to any of these nodes as long as he still had an image of the environment around those nodes in his mind.
After each transmission to a spiritual node, the warm-hearted man’s transmission ability had a 47-minute cooldown. Additionally, within 70 hours, he couldn’t transmit to the same node twice, as that would cause spiritual backlash, damaging his neurons and turning him into an idiot.
The warm-hearted man rested for a while in the gap between the houses. After changing his clothes, he stood up and walked deeper into the small village.
Two hours later, after treating his wounds and washing up, he lay down in a house to think about his next move.
The smell of blood filled the house. Three bodies lay in the living room—a whole family killed neatly.
With a creak, the old wooden door of the house was pushed open. A figure holding a long sword walked in, carrying a severed head that was still dripping blood.
“Found you.”
A smile appeared on the figure’s face as his gaze fixed on the warm-hearted man not far away.
The warm-hearted man’s mouth slightly opened. The scene before him was hard to believe.
“Empty Origin Realm.”
Spatial fluctuations mixed with even stronger spiritual fluctuations spread out. The figure holding the long sword, ‘Su Xiao,’ stomped on the ground and charged straight at the warm-hearted man.
Whoosh~
The terrified warm-hearted man disappeared. ‘Su Xiao’ stopped in place, his appearance began to change, taking on the form of White Zetsu. In other words, this wasn’t Su Xiao at all, but a White Zetsu clone disguised as Su Xiao.
White Zetsu could disguise his clones as Kisame and fight Killer Bee, so of course he could disguise himself as Su Xiao. However, this clone couldn’t use the abilities of the Shadow of Law Destruction. At best, it had 80% of Su Xiao’s physical attributes.
Unfortunately, Su Xiao couldn’t control the disguised White Zetsu clone like Kisame could, because Su Xiao didn’t have chakra.
Su Xiao couldn’t control it, but White Zetsu could. White Zetsu didn’t need to fight the outsider at all; he just needed to scare him away.
The outsider had already been frightened out of his wits by Su Xiao. He didn’t dare let Su Xiao get close. Having had his arm cut off by Su Xiao, he knew that if Su Xiao got close, within three slashes, today would be his death anniversary.
“This time it was two hours. According to the plan, next time it should be one hour and thirty minutes.”
The White Zetsu clone gradually sank into the ground. This was something Su Xiao had instructed. Su Xiao still couldn’t determine the cooldown time of the outsider’s transmission ability.
If the outsider’s transmission ability hadn’t recovered yet and White Zetsu appeared, the outsider might fight White Zetsu to the death. If that happened, the whole plan would fall apart. The White Zetsu clone was a paper tiger—it could only mimic Su Xiao’s aura. Its combat ability was decent, but it was no match for the outsider.
If the interval was too long, after the outsider transmitted to some spiritual nodes, the cooldown of the previously transmitted nodes would recover, creating a cycle. That would be troublesome.
White Zetsu had to keep probing, testing the cooldown time of the outsider’s transmission ability. As long as each transmission stayed within an hour and a half, there wouldn’t be a cycle of transmission nodes.
It was a good thing Su Xiao had set this up for so long. For a lone hunter, this outsider was almost impossible to deal with.
Unfortunately, Su Xiao had already set up an inescapable net around the spiritual nodes in various countries, waiting for the outsider to fall into the trap.
White Zetsu had already deployed clones near the known nodes. Once he found the outsider, he would immediately disguise himself as Su Xiao to scare him off.
After the outsider transmitted three more times, his trail suddenly disappeared. He had transmitted to an unknown node.
Su Xiao had anticipated this situation. He couldn’t possibly know all of the outsider’s nodes, but that no longer mattered. The outsider had been in close contact with White Zetsu four times. If White Zetsu couldn’t leave a Spore Technique on him by now, he might as well quit the Dawn Organization immediately. It was too embarrassing.
Not just White Zetsu’s Spore Technique, but also a large number of perception-type ninjas from the Impure World Reincarnation. Among them, Uchiha Obito’s father-in-law, Yamanaka Fu, and others showed the strongest reconnaissance abilities.
The Spirit Transformation Technique used by Yamanaka Fu could turn him into a living soul, flying in soul form, which was very suitable for reconnaissance.
Yamanaka Fu and Hyuga Hyuzu were responsible for the Land of Fire region, the Second Tsuchikage for the Land of Earth region, Nakajima for the Land of Water region, and Yamanaka Fu’s son, Yamanaka Fu, for the Land of Wind region. They all led a large number of perception-type ninjas.
Under this inescapable net, the outsider was chased until he was completely confused.
After the twelfth transmission, the outsider used a dagger to cut off a large piece of flesh from his waist. Before the flesh hit the ground, it turned purple. Nano-sized poisonous insects had corroded the muscle. This was a secret technique of the Yamanaka clan.
“Cough, cough, cough...”
The outsider no longer looked like a warm-hearted man. His clothes were tattered, and one of his pupils was bloodshot. This was damage from Yamanaka Fu’s Spirit Transformation Technique.
Su Xiao wasn’t just sending White Zetsu to scare him. Doing that would eventually expose the ruse. Yamanaka Fu, Yamanaka Fu’s son, and Hyuga Hyuzu were all decent combatants, not to mention the Second Tsuchikage.
As long as the outsider transmitted near these people, they would cooperate with the fake Su Xiao to attack the outsider.
“What the hell... is going on?”
The outsider greedily sucked air into his lungs. In the past ten-plus hours, he had been subjected to inhumane pursuit.
He had transmitted to almost every country: the Land of Fire, the Land of Earth, the Land of Wind, the Land of Lightning, the Land of Water, the Land of Iron, the Land of Waves, and so on.
No matter where he went, as long as an hour and thirty minutes passed, a large number of pursuers would immediately appear around him.
The outsider lay in a damp forest. Dead leaves stuck to his exposed skin. Heavy blood loss and Yamanaka Fu’s Spirit Transformation Technique had already made his mind start to blur.
“Maybe... I should just give up...”
As soon as this thought appeared, the outsider’s eyes suddenly widened.
“How could it end like this!”
The outsider barely stood up. Some willpower was keeping him going.
The pursuit of the outsider continued without pause. Su Xiao, meanwhile, went straight from the Land of Lightning to the Land of Fire. The Land of Fire had the most nodes. He was waiting for the outsider to become exhausted. This was not the time to be impatient.
The Land of Fire had the most spiritual nodes. Just near the Hidden Leaf Village, there were eleven nodes.
After rushing to the Land of Fire without stopping, Su Xiao chose to ambush near the Hidden Leaf Village. This place had the most nodes, so the outsider was most likely to transmit here.
Near the other spiritual nodes, there were escape routes, such as cliffs, valleys, rivers, and underground tunnels. But the nodes near the Hidden Leaf Village had none of these features.
It wasn’t that the outsider didn’t want to set up nodes near dangerous terrain, but the terrain around the Hidden Leaf Village was flat, leaving few options.
[Reminder: Your output must contain ZERO Chinese characters. Translate or transliterate everything.]