Naruto: From Novice to Grave

Chapter 318 - The Great War Part Four: The War Suspended

Then another ninja found a corpse in the shattered ground.

This guy was really unlucky. I don't know what position he was in on the ground, but he was cleaved in two by a single swift stroke of the blade. He was tragically cut in half at the waist and died before he could even write a few words about his misery.

With him, there are eight people in total, which seems to be two standard four-person teams.

I don't know what these people were thinking. Eight people dared to sneak up on the wounded behind the Allied Forces' rear. Did they really think there were only medical ninjas and wounded people here?

At that moment, a ninja shouted, "Lord Hayate, we've found something!"

As Jifeng and Vice Commander Wenya walked over, they saw the enemy he had cut in half at the waist. After they dragged him up and pieced him back together, the White Zetsu prosthetic body he was wearing was still trying to regenerate.

But within the severed wound, there seemed to be some force preventing it from healing.

The underdeveloped White Zetsu has little independent consciousness, only simple instincts to cooperate, but now it has broken away from the ninja it was protecting, and a painful expression appeared on its pale face.

So this thing can feel pain too.

Wenya comes from Iwagakure and is one of Onoki's few capable subordinates and an elite Jonin.

He asked疑惑地问道, "Strange, could it be caused by your Sage Mode power, Gale?"

Jifeng did not answer. He checked the seven wounded again and found that their external white-clad bodies could not heal, nor could they help the humans inside heal their wounds.

"It seems so. Sage Chakra is very effective against this kind of thing."

Hayate and Higashino Makoto grew up together and were like brothers. He was also among the first to begin cultivating natural energy.

However, this guy doesn't have Minato's talent, nor does he have the ancestral cheat code that Naruto and Sasuke have. His cultivation progress has never been very fast. After so many years, he still hasn't entered the normal Sage Mode of the third stage.

Fortunately, I became very proficient in the second stage.

Just now, upon discovering the enemy, he instantly entered standard Sage Mode, using the power of Sage Chakra from the True Sage system.

After so many years of diffusion and transformation, secondary white natural energy has spread throughout the ninja world. Among all types of natural energy, it accounts for a larger proportion than the three holy lands and is currently ranked second, only after the natural energy eroded by the Divine Tree.

Wenya: "This is truly amazing. Is this the power that Higashino Makoto created?"

This skilled ninja from Iwagakure was genuinely envious of his colleagues born in Konoha.

It should be noted that his strength was among the top in Iwagakure, yet he couldn't even touch Hayate's clothes. As far as he knew, Hayate Gekko's strength was not even in the top tier in Konoha.

In other words, his famous Iwagakure Bunga is just a nobody in Konoha in terms of strength.

Thinking about it this way, Konoha now is truly terrifying!

Hayate didn't hide anything: "That's right, this is the Sage Mode of the Konoha True Sage System."

Wenya: "Are there many people in Konoha who know Sage Mode? If so, the battle will be much easier."

"Not many, but Konoha's True Sage system is quite special. As long as you have cultivated natural energy, even if you can't enter Sage Mode, the chakra in your body will have this special property to some extent."

After answering, Hayate immediately made a decision and ordered the intelligence team: "Immediately notify the front line and the remaining combat units, and have them fight around the Konoha ninja."

In fact, without Hayate's order, the Allied ninjas fighting on the front lines had already spontaneously implemented this strategy.

Ninjas excel at observation and analysis during battle.

Many people have noticed that after being wounded by certain Konoha ninjas, many enemies sank into the ground without their wounds fully healing. When they returned to battle, the wounds were still there, only smaller.

As time went on, more and more enemies began to deliberately avoid confronting the people of Konoha, focusing their attacks on the people of the other four major ninja villages.

Now they understood that the power used by Konoha ninjas had a special damage bonus against enemies.

Many people have had the same thought: we are all ninjas, and we all train in chakra, so why is Konoha so much better?

Oh, you're cultivators? That's alright then.

I can understand, but I'm also envious!

But it's too late to learn now; all we can do is cling to the coattails of the Konoha ninjas and keep fighting.

So, on various battlefields, without orders from above, people began to gather around the nearby Konoha ninja.

At this moment, the ninjas on the battlefield, regardless of their village affiliation or hatred, regrouped and formed teams with Konoha ninjas as the main attackers.

The battle, which had initially begun to tip in favor of the opposing side, saw the situation reverse even more rapidly.

This made matters worse for the White Zetsu cybernetic legion, whose situation was already precarious.

Led by Konoha ninjas whose strength was clearly superior, the allied forces swept away the chaos and advanced triumphantly. The White Zetsu prosthetic army switched from offense to defense and suffered repeated defeats on the vast semi-circular battlefront, putting up a bitter resistance.

It wasn't until the Five Kage, who were following behind the fighting forces, appeared on the southern battlefield that the enemy's morale finally collapsed from one point and then spread to the entire front line.

At this moment, what is more important than one's own life than any grand belief in changing the world?

More and more people gave up resistance and fled to the base, some even throwing away their weapons and sliding to their knees to surrender.

This is when you can see how steadfast their faith in Nagato truly is.

Those who surrender are the shallow believers, those who flee are the ordinary believers, and those who fight while watching are the true believers.

Those who continue their frantic attacks, completely disregarding their own lives, are the fanatics.

These men, employing an even more reckless fighting style than before, tried their best to slow down the Allied advance, buying time for their fallen comrades.

Not only that, they also killed their comrades who knelt down to surrender.

They'd even curse him before killing him.

"Shameless bastards, you have failed God's teachings."

"You are no longer believers in God, die!"

"I, in the name of the angels, will destroy you!"

The Akatsuki organization does indeed have an angel, namely Konan, who flies with paper wings every day.

Upon seeing the kunai flying towards them, the man who had surrendered was furious.

If we keep fighting, I'll die, so I surrendered. But if I surrender, you'll kill me again. Then what the hell was the point of my surrender?

These people were afraid of death, and in order to survive, they had no choice but to pick up their weapons again and attack their former comrades. This time, they fought much more fiercely for their own lives than before.

The problem is, for the Allied forces, you are a prisoner only if you surrender, and an enemy if you take up arms. They don't care which side you're on now.

The poor surrenderers, caught between two sides, fell one after another under the combined attack of both sides.

After eliminating the traitors whom neither side agreed with, the battle continued, but the fanatics were too few in number and were soon either killed or captured.

On the battlefield, smoke filled the air, the ground was in disarray, and there were traces of ninjutsu damage everywhere.

The fighting has temporarily ended, and the allied forces have unsurprisingly achieved victory.

To the south of the Akatsuki base, the Allied Forces' Second Combat Unit is responsible for this area, commanded by Darui, a trusted subordinate of the Fourth Raikage.

At this moment, he led half of his main force to pursue the enemy and eliminate potential security risks in the surrounding area, while the rest of the troops cleaned up the battlefield and dealt with the prisoners.

The wounded were taken to the medical station for treatment, including wounded enemy soldiers.

The bodies of the Allied soldiers were carefully collected and sorted out, and will be claimed by the villages later.

As for the enemy's corpses, they were piled up together, with a small number of prisoners standing nearby, and the guarding ninjas collecting White Zetsu prosthetic bodies.

These creatures were not fully conscious, but they were indeed living beings and posed a certain danger, so they were all killed directly, with only a small number left alive to be distributed to various ninja villages for research.

The place reeks of blood, and fresh blood continues to flow from the pile of corpses, almost forming a river.

The prisoners stared blankly at those who had once been their friends, classmates, and companions, now all dead.

This is war.

War is never without bloodshed, and many people from the five great ninja villages also died.

The five Kage are here now. They look at the tragic scene before them, their hearts filled with sorrow for the departure of the village's ninjas, but their faces show little emotion.

Everyone experienced the Ninja World War, so we're used to seeing these things.

The Tsuchikage Onoki even experienced all three Shinobi World Wars after the founding of the ninja village, while Rasa, the Fourth Raikage, and Minato experienced two.

Even the youngest, Mei Terumi and Makoto Higashino, participated in the Third Shinobi World War.

On the battlefield, death is the most common thing.

Every surviving ninja would reflect after the battle on how to end this tedious killing game.

But they often die in missions or in the next war before they find the answers.

Onoki is right, nothing can be changed without bloodshed.

But sometimes, no matter how much blood is shed, it doesn't matter, because the rules of the game that run this world haven't changed.

The blood of ninjas is merely an important sacrifice for the rules of this game to continue.

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