The camp was silent.
"D-Danzo-sama what did you say?!"
Before Orochimaru could speak, an elite Jōnin nearby showed a look of disbelief and couldn't help but ask Danzo.
Several other elite Jōnin turned to look as well, their faces marked with shock and disbelief.
Danzo didn't respond.
He simply lowered his head again, picked up the scroll, and read through it carefully, his eyes scanning every line as if trying to imprint every word into his mind.
"…Hah."
After a few seconds of silence, Orochimaru exhaled slowly, his tone mixed with confusion and awe. "Was it Kaede who did this?"
"Yes." Danzo's eyes remained fixed on the scroll.
Orochimaru turned and walked toward the tent's entrance, pausing to glance at the darkening sky before slowly returning inside with a bitter smile. "This student of mine…"
A monster!
Even Orochimaru, often called a monster himself, felt that Kaede was the real freak. Compared to him, Orochimaru was nothing.
Graduated from the ninja academy at nine, promoted to Chūnin the same year, reached Jōnin by ten, killed Chiyo at eleven, then the Third Raikage, and advanced to elite Jōnin…
And in that same year, he single-handedly killed Amegakure's legendary Hanzō, the so-called "Demi-God of the Ninja World."
His rise was nothing short of miraculous.
The scariest part was that Kaede had stormed into Amegakure alone and assassinated Hanzō. Even imagining such a feat was nearly unbelievable.
Though Amegakure was a small ninja village, its defenses and barriers were thorough, and Hanzō himself was a top-tier ninja, a peak powerhouse in the shinobi world.
At this point, Orochimaru had no real measure of Kaede's strength.
All he knew was that he was no match for him anymore.
Orochimaru was at a loss for words, while Danzo remained silent, staring at the scroll. No one could tell what was going through his mind.
The elite Jōnin exchanged glances, their eyes wide with shock.
Alone.
One man had invaded Amegakure, killed Hanzō, and shattered the entire village!
What terrifying power was this!
Amidst their shock, they all silently thanked their luck that such a being was Whitefang's son, a ninja of Konoha!
If he belonged to any other village, just thinking about it would send chills down their spines.
…
News of Kaede's assassination of Hanzō and the collapse of Amegakure spread quickly.
Both the Iwa and Suna factions were deeply shaken, Onoki, the Tsuchikage, was stunned, and Rasa, the Kazekage, was profoundly shaken.
The Sand forces active near the border weren't recalled by Rasa, after all, they were his means of removing "troublemakers." But Onoki immediately ordered his front-line troops to pull back.
He dared not act rashly anymore.
With Amegakure in ruins, if Kaede joined the main battlefield, the front lines would suffer massive losses. Unless they managed to ally with Suna, continuing the fight would be impossible.
But Kaede's display of power had Onoki worried, this ninja was even more terrifying than a Jinchuriki!
An absolute weapon of war!
…
While the Sand forces strangely quieted down and the Iwa forces quietly retreated, Kaede did not return to the Konoha camp. Instead, he arrived at a canyon somewhere inside the Land of Rain.
"Looks like the Infinite Shadow Clone Jutsu still can't be used recklessly… it's been three or four days, and I'm still feeling some lingering mental fatigue…"
Kaede stood beneath a jagged rock, rubbing his forehead.
The Shadow Clone Technique passes all the pain and experience of the clones back to the original when they disappear. He had created over a thousand clones this time, an insanely large number. The mental backlash from their collapse was equally extreme.
He had seen Naruto use countless shadow clones and thought it wouldn't be a big deal, but after trying it himself, Kaede realized just how taxing it was. He couldn't fathom how Naruto endured the mental feedback from so many clones simultaneously.
It just didn't make sense!
The only plausible explanation was that Naruto's spirit was connected to the Nine-Tails, which absorbed most of the backlash, preventing severe damage.
In any case, Shadow Clone Jutsu was not something to waste recklessly. Next time, he should learn Water Clone or Earth Clone jutsu instead, they apparently didn't pass the clone's experiences back to the original.
After some thought, Kaede found a clean rock to sit on and pulled out a scroll containing secret Lightning Release techniques.
He didn't fully understand the situation with Sunagakure, but he had a rough idea of Iwagakure's reaction. Having single-handedly killed Hanzō and crushed Amegakure, Onoki would certainly hesitate to act rashly, likely ordering his forces to withdraw and ease the pressure on Konoha.
Kaede had no intention of pursuing the scattered Iwa forces.
Chasing them across the Land of Fire and Land of Earth required vast intel and would take too much time.
Instead of wasting time on a prolonged hunt, Kaede preferred to focus on further developing the Lightning Release techniques he had compiled earlier, refining and perfecting them.
Then, he would train according to these lightning techniques.
His physique wasn't as naturally suited to the Eight Gates as Might Guy, he had reached the fifth gate purely through training longer than Might Guy.
Though it seemed like he reached the fifth gate between ages nine and eleven, the actual time spent was more than double, over four years!
The difficulty of the Eight Gates increases exponentially with each gate; the sixth gate was almost as hard as the first five combined. At his current pace, he would need at least four more years of training.
Training like this was extremely tedious. Although Kaede's will was strong, he didn't want to drag it out this long. The seventh gate would take even longer, and the Eight Gate might be forever out of reach.
So he needed to change his approach.
With his ability to rewind time, Kaede could experiment endlessly with jutsu without worrying about his body suffering damage.
Using secret Lightning Release chakra techniques to refine and strengthen his body, he believed there was a good chance this would lower the difficulty of opening the gates and shorten the training time.
After all,
What he practiced now was no longer pure Eight Gates, but a Lightning Release version of the Eight Gates technique: the Eight Gates Lightning Release!
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