Game Merchants Starting from the Ninja World.

Chapter 23 Yakushi Kabuto's Defection

Asuma clutched his injured right arm, his eyes fixed on Yakushi Kabuto.

The dark clouds hung lower and lower, and large raindrops pelted the eaves of the houses on both sides of the street, making a crackling sound.

"Kabuto Yakushi, have you betrayed the village?"

Asuma tried to reach into his ninja tool pouch, but before he could act, two shuriken flew over and interrupted him.

With the protection of chakra, a ninja's body, while not as hard as rock, is certainly stronger than that of an ordinary person.

only,

When Kabuto throws a kunai, he adds throwing enhancement and poisoning skills.

This led to the iron tools, which were often used as stepping stones and had little killing power, becoming the fangs of highly venomous snakes.

Asma could feel his right arm gradually going numb, but he dared not make any rash moves.

The antidote is in the ninja tool kit.

But his intuition told him that if he showed even the slightest weakness, Kabuto would continue his attack.

"betray?"

Kabuto looked at Asuma, his teammate in the game, with a smile in his eyes, and said, "You could say that. After all, the word 'betrayal' isn't that hard for me to accept."

Ninja

Regardless of their strength, they all had a sense of belonging to the ninja village, to varying degrees.

Even a rogue ninja who has been wandering for years would not be as unresponsive as Kabuto Yakushi when he hears the words "betrayal of the village".

puff.

Asma, trying to find a weakness while he was speaking, quickly pulled out the antidote from his ninja tool pouch and stuck it into his right arm.

at this time,

Kabuto, who was standing still, suddenly disappeared and reappeared, having jumped behind Asuma.

Shadow Strike.

A sharp, short dagger pierced through his waist and abdomen.

Asma endured the pain, crimson mist emanating from his shoulder, and swung his fist behind him.

Flaming Fist.

The tip of his fist swept across Yakushi Kabuto's chest, but he narrowly dodged it.

But the scorching flames enveloping his fist instantly burned through his clothes, and even the flesh underneath turned charred black.

If it were a full-force strike, it could probably shatter Kabuto's internal organs.

The distance has increased.

Stealth fighters are known for their stealthy assassinations and quick strikes, so they naturally wouldn't stick close to a boxer for close combat.

The pharmacist broke out in a cold sweat, glanced at the charred chest, and laughed, "That was close. This is a skill that Captain Asuma awakened; it's truly terrifying in its power."

First, launch a sneak attack with poisoned kunai, then take advantage of the opponent's momentary lapse in detoxification to inflict a fatal wound.

The objective has been achieved.

Asuma's fighting strength has been severely weakened.

Ignoring the flowing blood, he stared intently at Kabuto Yakushi and said, "Can you tell me why you betrayed me?"

"Because, Captain, the Ghost Banner in your hand is a treasure that Lord Scorpion values ​​highly!"

Kabuto chuckled calmly, "I know you're stalling for time. Unfortunately, I deliberately chose this time. This street is very secluded, and I've cast a wide-ranging illusion spell to keep everyone who might interfere with us out. No one will notice that Captain Asuma has been attacked."

"scorpion?"

Asuma recalled that he seemed to have heard of this title before; it referred to a ruthless and bloodthirsty wandering ninja who had attacked several small countries.

As expected, it was all for the [Ghost Banner], a purple-quality piece of equipment.

At the same time, he was also somewhat relieved.

Although this equipment is valuable, it's a good thing that it can lure out the lurking traitor. Although the cost is high, allowing the enemy to continue to infiltrate will only cause greater losses to the village.

Asuma said coldly, "I will not show mercy to traitors!"

He didn't say anything to make Yakushi Kabuto surrender. The other party was prepared and obviously wouldn't be swayed by his few words.

Kabuto's smile remained unchanged. After removing his glasses, he carefully placed them into his ninja tool pouch and said, "Captain, don't underestimate my strength, or you'll suffer a great loss."

"Yeah?"

Asuma remained noncommittal, holding two chakra ring swords in his hands.

The nature transformation of wind-style chakra imbued the ring blade with a layer of chakra wind blades.

Aura of flames.

A powerful, burning flame ignited and adhered to the fist, trailing a long, narrow tail of flame under the influence of the chakra wind blade.

It looks like he's wielding a pair of flaming swords.

"The aura of fire can imbue the fist with the power of fire; it is a passive ability of the fire fist master."

Kabuto calmly analyzed the situation, saying, "To achieve this effect, has the captain's passive skill been upgraded to level five?"

The skills in the game of reincarnation are extremely powerful.

After becoming a professional, you can awaken a professional skill every 5 levels. To master other skills, you need to learn skill scrolls.

But so far, unless some outstanding skills are revealed, everyone's focus is still on professional skills.

There is no other reason.

It's purely because of the nature of reincarnation games—a blatant money grab.

After awakening the initial skill, you need to continuously upgrade it to unleash its full power.

Each time you upgrade a skill level, you not only need to continuously use the skill and increase your proficiency, but you also need to spend reward points.

Skills also have quality; the higher the quality of a skill, the more reward points it will cost to upgrade it.

For example, Asuma's [Flame Aura] passive skill was awakened to blue quality by sheer luck. The first upgrade required a hefty 100 reward points, and subsequent upgrades required even more, such as 300 or 500 reward points.

The pharmacist has two professional skills, one white and one green.

Therefore, they were no match for Asuma in direct combat, which is why they chose to launch a sneak attack, leaving Asuma with low health before engaging in battle.

"If your poisoning skill could be upgraded to level five, I might not be able to stand up anymore."

Asma felt extremely fortunate.

The skills in the Samsara game are too powerful; a level 1 white skill is already comparable to the power of a C-rank ninjutsu.

Even more terrifying is that upgrading skills will continuously increase their power.

If Kabuto Yakushi upgrades his poison skill to level 5, he will gain a passive status effect called Deadly Toxin, which can render him incapacitated by just the kunai he was attacked with.

"Infiltrators, what a despicable and astonishing profession."

Asuma took a deep breath, slammed his forefoot into the ground, and shot off like an arrow.

Quick fight.

Everyone was a member of the Konoha team, and they were all very clear about each other's strengths and weaknesses.

If they can close the distance, a melee-class boxer can even kill Kabuto Yakushi in one hit.

Flaming Chain Punch.

Countless fiery red fists coalesced in front of Asuma, and together with him moving at high speed, they pounced towards Kabuto Yakushi.

Shadow Step.

Kabuto didn't dodge; he precisely timed the moment before the fiery fist struck, activating his skill.

His entire body seemed to be shrouded in shadow, and he actually passed straight through the flames and appeared behind Asuma.

"Lord Scorpion is determined to obtain the Ghost Banner, and for this he is willing to sacrifice two high-quality puppets and give me the research funds to purchase skill scrolls."

Kabuto wielded a short dagger coated with purplish-black toxin and stabbed it into Asuma's back of the heart.

At the same time, he kept implying that the mastermind behind this operation was the rogue ninja, Sasori of the Red Sand.

After all, the [Konoha Crush Plan] is about to begin, and as a good subordinate, I probably shouldn't cause trouble for Lord Orochimaru.

According to the original plan,

He needed to infiltrate Konoha until the collapse plan began before betraying Konoha.

However, the allure of the Ghost Banner was too great for Lord Orochimaru, so much so that he was willing to activate his own deeply hidden pawn in advance in order to obtain it.

(End of this chapter)