Trying to use the smoke and dust to obscure my vision? How foolish. Beneath his mask, the three tomoe in Xuan's eyes swept the room, instantly pinpointing the opponent's exact location.
"Over here!"
Xuan spun around just as the chilling gleam of the longsword slashed through his body. "I'm tired of playing, old man. Wind Style: Wind Binding!"
The exact moment the sword passed through his intangible form, Xuan suddenly reached out and wove a single hand seal. Invisible currents of wind erupted outward, transforming into invisible shackles that lashed tightly around Akahane Sora's four limbs.
Xuan was naturally born with a pure Fire affinity. However, having redeemed the other natures from the System, he was now an all-affinity shinobi. Wind was the very first nature he had redeemed, making it his second most familiar affinity after Fire. However, this was the first time he had actually applied it in real combat, primarily because he rarely ever needed to.
He didn't know many Wind Style Ninjutsu, and the majority of the ones he did know had been copied using his Sharingan and were relatively useless. This Wind Binding, however, was a B-rank control-type Ninjutsu he had specifically redeemed from the System, and its restraining effect was highly potent.
Bound by the invisible wind, Akahane Sora's movements halted abruptly. With a sharp shout, his chakra flared violently, instantly shattering the annoying restraints.
Xuan obviously didn't expect a B-rank Jutsu to truly trap a Peak Jōnin, but that split-second hesitation was more than enough. "Giant Rasengan!"
A massive sphere of highly compressed chakra formed in his right hand as he thrust it toward the old man. Given their extremely close proximity, Xuan was absolutely certain the opponent could not dodge.
The Giant Rasengan spun violently, grinding the opponent's internal organs into a bloody pulp...
But abruptly, Xuan caught sight of a cold sneer curling on the old man's lips.
In a flash of blinding, freezing light, the longsword tore through the air. The right hand Xuan was using to hold the Giant Rasengan was instantly severed, the cut flawlessly smooth.
"In that split second of striking, you couldn't remain intangible, could you?"
The old man's voice echoed directly in Xuan's ear. The 'Akahane Sora' who had been struck by the Giant Rasengan dissolved into a wooden log with a soft poof. Substitution Jutsu.
"Actually, it's you who can't escape in this split second," a calm voice replied from directly behind the old man.
The 'Xuan' with the severed right wrist also dissolved into white smoke with a soft poof. Shadow Clone.
The very instant Xuan's voice rang out, Akahane Sora displayed the terrifying reaction speed befitting a Peak Jōnin. A streak of cold light flashed—so fast it was completely imperceptible to the naked eye. The Xuan standing behind him was instantly cleaved clean in half at the waist.
Poof!
White smoke billowed out as this Xuan also vanished. Another Shadow Clone.
"Wind Style: Rasenshuriken!"
From the left flank, a devastatingly fierce gale crashed forward. The razor-sharp winds sliced into Akahane Sora's skin. He barely had time to cast a single glance before he was entirely engulfed by the apocalyptic Jutsu. Faced with a technique created purely for absolute destruction, even a Kage-level powerhouse wouldn't be able to easily withstand it, let alone him.
Wait! Something's wrong!
Instead of rejoicing, an intense feeling of wrongness suddenly struck Xuan. Sure enough, the moment the thought crossed his mind, the Akahane Sora engulfed by the Jutsu dissolved into a charred, withered log with a soft poof.
Another Substitution Jutsu?! This old bastard anticipated all of this?!
Just as the thought crystallized, Xuan jerked his head upward. Suspended in the air directly above him, the old man radiated a terrifyingly oppressive aura. Gripping his sword with both hands, he brought it crashing down with apocalyptic force.
"Brat! Your Ninjutsu is excellent, and your tactical mind is exceptional! But this is the end of the line! While executing such a massive attack, you absolutely cannot activate your intangibility! Crimson Heart: God-Severing Slash!"
As the old man roared, his ultimate strike—condensing all of his spirit, energy, and will into a single blade—descended upon Xuan's head, the cold steel already grazing the fabric of his hood.
The right eye beneath Xuan's mask shifted slightly. The old man was right: he truly couldn't activate his intangibility at this exact moment. All of this had unfolded in a fraction of a microsecond. The Rasenshuriken in his right hand was still in the active process of grinding the wooden log into sawdust.
However, Xuan didn't panic in the slightest. The space-time Ninjutsu at his disposal were not limited to mere intangibility.
In one-thousandth of a microsecond, the two forces collided. Yet, under Akahane Sora's absolutely utterly disbelieving gaze, the black-cloaked figure's silhouette bizarrely and inexplicably vanished. He simply ceased to exist, completely without warning.
Immediately after, a blinding agony erupted throughout Sora's entire body. He could feel it—it was the power of wind. It was an unprecedented, apocalyptic Wind Style Jutsu that directly shredded his cells into microscopic dust. It was completely impossible to resist.
How... how exactly did he move? Carrying this final, unanswered question, Akahane Sora was violently smashed into the ground by an overwhelming kinetic force. A massive, three-meter-deep crater was blasted into the floorboards from the sheer impact. He didn't even have time to turn his head for one last look before the life faded from his eyes.
Although Akahane Sora had died, his final, desperate sword strike had indeed been fully unleashed. It simply struck the empty floor instead. The terrifyingly fierce sword energy erupted outward, completely cleaving the earth beneath the ancestral hall in two. The fissure snaked endlessly outward, eventually crashing into a massive, ancient tree in the distance with a deafening boom, toppling it instantly.
The ancestral hall, already groaning and teetering on the verge of collapse from their fierce battle, could finally endure no more. With an earth-shattering crash, the entire structure caved in. Massive clouds of dust and debris billowed into the air. Flames licked greedily at the shattered beams and splintered wood, crackling and popping aggressively. The ancestral tablets of the Akahane clan scattered across the floor, quickly swallowed by the growing inferno and reduced to absolute ash.
Xuan stood silently in the center of the collapsed ruins. Beneath his feet lay the mutilated corpse of Akahane Sora, completely unrecognizable, as if he had been subjected to the death of a thousand cuts.
"This technique is called the Flying Raijin: Second Step. Old man, you did not die an unjust death," Xuan muttered, looking down at the corpse, seemingly sighing in genuine admiration.
As Xuan spoke, the black cloak draped over his shoulders suddenly split perfectly down the middle, revealing his true figure and the spiral mask underneath. The cut was impossibly smooth. Caught by the night wind, the severed halves of the cloak drifted into the nearby flames and were quickly incinerated.
Xuan fell silent. He knew his cloak had been sliced open by the residual sword energy of that final strike. The exchange had simply been so blisteringly fast that the fabric hadn't split apart until now.
"Well done. You were just a hair's breadth away from actually wounding me."
Offering a rare word of praise, Xuan reached into his system inventory, pulled out a fresh black cloak, and draped it over himself. The night wind rustled the dark fabric loudly. Illuminated by the flickering light of the surrounding flames, he truly looked like a phantom crawled up from the abyss.
Xuan didn't leave. He simply stood there silently, waiting. He was waiting for either Akahane Akira or Akahane Yui to return. The only difference was that if Akira returned, Xuan would have to kill one more person before proceeding with his plan. If Yui returned, he could launch the plan immediately.
He didn't have to wait long. A loud commotion soon echoed from the distance as a large swarm of shinobi burst onto the scene. Leading the charge with an incredibly anxious expression was Akahane Yui. Close behind her were three Elite Jōnin—the two who had escorted her out of the bloodbath, and the one who had been left behind to guard the compound.
These three men were now the absolute last surviving Elite Jōnin of the entire Akahane clan.
"What is going on here?!"
Arriving at the scene, the very first thing they saw was the blazing, collapsed ruins of the ancestral hall, prompting cries of shock and horror.
The very next second, their eyes locked onto Xuan. Standing perfectly still amidst the roaring flames, his pitch-black cloak made him unmistakably, glaringly conspicuous.
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