A few minutes earlier, deep in the forest, branches sliced the dim moonlight; together with the glow of lava and flames behind him, the ground was cast into one distorted, wavering shadow after another.
Orochimaru's figure flitted through the trees like a specter, his golden vertical pupils flashing a cold, urgent expression in the gloom.
"Going up against a Konoha junior and ending up fleeing in disgrace… hehe, how utterly humiliating," Orochimaru muttered to himself with a sinister face, his voice carrying its characteristic hoarse low tone.
To buy time, he did not hesitate—his hands moved in a blur of seals: Shadow Clone Technique!
[Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang…]
Dozens of puffs of white smoke exploded; dozens of identical Orochimarus with sinister gazes instantly appeared behind him and, like a splitting swarm of snakes, without any hesitation sprinted wildly in all directions, even running counter to the path of Orochimaru's true body.
Each clone kept moving as it sped away.
Some quickly scattered poisoned senbon, laying steel-wire traps that were hard to spot with the naked eye.
Some swiftly carved explosive seals on tree trunks and rocks.
Some even tore open scrolls to summon hissing swarms of venomous snakes, coiling themselves along the paths he expected his pursuer to take…
The whole forest seemed to become a huge, lethal trap; every corner lurked with cold intent to kill.
If an ordinary ninja walked into it, they would very likely soon meet their deaths, but all of Orochimaru's traps were only meant to delay Uchiha Keizumi's pursuit.
Because he knew those traps could not kill his opponent.
"Ten minutes… no, maybe only eight minutes!"
Orochimaru licked his dry, cracked lips, feeling the fiery sting in his lungs.
"As long as I can open up enough distance, he'll never catch up to me again."
As he spoke, a strong wave of vexation and humiliation welled up in his chest.
Orochimaru had thought that his many preparations would be enough to suppress or even capture this remarkably promising "vessel."
Yet the power Uchiha Keizumi had displayed far exceeded Orochimaru's worst estimates.
"Heh, I was careless… I completely misjudged how fast he'd grown…"
That all-too-familiar sense of defeat involuntarily made him recall the crushing failure from many years ago when he coveted that pair of eyes of the gods.
The overwhelming power brought by that Akatsuki leader's Rinnegan was so similar to this relentless kid's strength.
Their powers were both beyond reason.
Their thought processes were equally…
Obsessive and extreme.
"Heh… perfect. The Akatsuki are planning to hunt Uchiha Keizumi as well… let them turn on each other like dogs. Whoever wins or loses, I'll remain safely on the sidelines."
"Keizumi's corpse will ultimately fall into my hands; I need pay only a trivial price."
"And if that kid luckily wins, the Akatsuki will be badly weakened—an enormous boon for freeing myself from their grip."
In any case.
He would not lose out!
Although his present situation was somewhat messy, Orochimaru still felt he had won; he confidently concluded that Uchiha Keizumi's future plight would surely be far worse than his own now.
But at that moment.
[Whoosh—!!!]
Without warning, a piercing sonic shriek—sharp enough to burst eardrums—erupted from alarmingly close behind!
A lethal premonition shot up Orochimaru's spine like an icy spike!
That body of his, rebuilt countless times over, reacted within a thousandth of a second with a flexibility surpassing human limits—his entire torso bent backward in an eerie, boneless arc, his head snapping back at an impossible angle.
In the next instant, a half-transparent wind blade visible to the naked eye, wailing as it tore through the air, grazed past the tip of his nose and his flaring black hair—
—and slashed violently into the dense forest tens of meters ahead!
[Slash—slash—slash—slash!!!]
Like a hot knife slicing through butter, dozens of towering trees so thick several men would need to encircle them were cleaved cleanly in half, the cuts smooth as mirrors.
The upper halves groaned and came crashing down with a tooth-grinding rumble.
"This is… Wind Cutter Technique?"
Cold sweat streamed down Orochimaru's face.
However, the deadly sense of crisis did not fade—on the contrary, it clung to him like maggots on bone, attacking from behind once more.
The dense, freezing killing intent was so intense it seemed to congeal the very air.
Without the slightest hesitation, Orochimaru flipped his wrist—the Kusanagi Blade was again in his hand.
He didn't even have time to turn fully; relying purely on beast-like instinct, he poured chakra madly into the sword, its edge instantly cloaked in a layer of razor-sharp Wind Release chakra!
A cold arc of light flashed in the dim forest.
[Squelch!]
The muffled sound of a blade cutting through flesh echoed out. The Kusanagi Blade sliced with perfect precision across the neck of the pursuer behind him—Uchiha Keizumi's half head was cleaved off.
Yet the expected spray of blood did not appear.
From that severed "wound," there were no bones or muscle—only a thick, crimson substance flowing slowly, like molten lava from a volcano.
It radiated scorching heat; the grass it touched ignited instantly, and even the soil on the ground burst into flames.
Orochimaru's pupils contracted sharply.
His mind blared alarms.
The next second, a massive fist of pure magma—larger than a human head—was already enlarging rapidly in his vision, carrying heat fierce enough to melt steel and roaring wind pressure!
The air warped from the heat; he could even see the few strands of hair on his forehead curling and blackening in an instant!
"Hiss—!"
A bestial hiss tore from Orochimaru's throat as he dropped low in a pitifully awkward crouch, barely evading that devastating magma punch by a hair's breadth.
At the same time, his neck recoiled backward like an elastic cord—
—then whipped around at an angle that defied human anatomy, twisting like a hunting viper to coil past Uchiha Keizumi's magma-formed arm.
His fanged jaws clamped viciously toward what looked like his opponent's fragile neck.
[Szzzt—!!!]
No sensation of biting into flesh—only a shrill hiss, like a red-hot iron pressed against ice.
An unimaginable, flesh-carbonizing heat surged madly through his teeth, mouth, and jaw!
Orochimaru didn't even have time to feel the pain—his jaw, inner mouth, tongue, and the front of his throat all went completely numb the instant they touched the magma.
The nerves were killed instantly.
The tissue was burned to pure carbon!
All he could see was the part of his face below the lips, cracking and crumbling apart like charred wood, scattering in brittle fragments!
But in that split second of contact, Orochimaru's goal had already been achieved.
Countless writhing black curse marks, like living things, surged madly from the spot where Uchiha Keizumi had been bitten. Like ink dripping into clear water, they spread rapidly along his magma-like body.
"Got you!" A trace of vicious delight flickered in Orochimaru's heart.
He abruptly retracted his half-destroyed head, and without hesitation swung the Kusanagi Blade backward!
[Squelch!]
The sharp blade cleanly slit open his own throat.
Crimson blood spurted out like a fountain, dyeing the fallen leaves beneath his feet red.
However, from that gaping wound of gushing blood, a brand-new head—slick with mucus and plasma—struggled its way out!
Wet hair clung to his cheeks; the freshly regenerated skin was pale and bloodless. Orochimaru took a deep breath through his new mouth, inhaling the scorching air thick with the scent of blood and sulfur.
"Huff… huff…"
He slowly straightened his body, his movements carrying a faint trace of exhaustion.
Behind him, the headless, discarded shell of his former body collapsed soundlessly like a torn sack.
"Two molts…"
"The cost isn't small…"
He reached up and brushed aside the blood-soaked strands of hair from before his newly grown golden serpent eyes, his gaze locking tightly on the motionless Uchiha Keizumi ahead, seemingly frozen under the curse mark's power.
"Hehe… truly astonishing speed and perception."
Orochimaru's voice was raspy with exhaustion, yet still chillingly cold: "To think that even the First and Second Hokage, resurrected by the Impure World Reincarnation, were so powerless before you… Even my Shadow Clone misdirection tactic failed to stall you for even a moment—you locked onto my real body instantly…"
"It seems my technique truly remains far from complete. I couldn't even restore one-tenth of the two Hokage's peak strength. Otherwise… keeping you occupied for half an hour should've been effortless."
"In fact, killing you wouldn't have been impossible."
He licked his newly formed lips. "But you were careless…"
At that instant, Orochimaru's words abruptly stopped—as if an invisible hand had gripped his throat.
His golden vertical pupils shrank into a razor-thin line in sheer shock.
Before his eyes, Uchiha Keizumi's magma body—into which he had infused the curse mark's power—was melting away like wax, dripping unnaturally downward!
A portion of the magma covered in dense black curse marks separated from the main body, like filth being purged.
With a splatter, it dropped to the ground, forming a pool of searing magma that hissed and fumed with black smoke.
Meanwhile, Uchiha Keizumi's recondensed body was flawless and smooth, not a trace of the curse mark remaining!
Elemental separation?
He had controlled his Lava Release chakra to discard the very portion of magma that carried the curse mark?
"Damn it!"
A storm surged in Orochimaru's heart. This Uchiha brat's mastery and application of his kekkei genkai had reached an unfathomable level.
Purely physical attacks were useless—now even curse mark seals could be forcibly stripped away? What kind of joke was that?!
Did he even have a weakness?
Could it be that only truly overwhelming power could defeat him?
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