Orochimaru's strike didn't injure Bunpuku, but it nearly shattered his sanity.
Bunpuku further transformed into a Tailed Beast, almost becoming a small, yellowish, chubby raccoon dog.
Bunpuku, in his Tailed Beast form, directly grabbed the kusanagi sword in his chest, intending to break it, but this level of Tailed Beast transformation couldn't break the divine kusanagi sword.
So, Bunpuku held onto the kusanagi sword tightly, gathering Chakra in his mouth, and launched multiple Renkudan in a 'pin' shape towards Orochimaru on top of Manda's head.
Orochimaru was currently holding the kusanagi sword in his mouth, but its tip was held by Bunpuku, making it impossible for him to dodge so many Renkudan attacks.
"Manda!" Orochimaru immediately urged the Manda beneath him, who was trying to make him suffer, to move, or else Orochimaru would choose to summon other snakes in the future.
"Hmph! How boring!" Manda lowered his body, and his tail directly deflected the Renkudan; however, Shukaku's Renkudan wasn't so easy to block, and these few hits directly shattered Manda's tail scales, leaving him bleeding profusely.
"Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet!" With the kusanagi sword still in his mouth, Orochimaru used Fire Release to unleash a fire dragon, which traveled along the kusanagi sword towards the Tailed Beast-transformed Bunpuku.
Unfortunately, facing the Tailed Beast most adept at defense among the Nine Tailed Beasts, Shukaku controlled a large amount of yellow sand to extinguish the Fire Dragon Flame Bullets.
Meanwhile, the yellow sand continuously formed Shukaku Spears, which Bunpuku threw towards Manda and Orochimaru.
The Shukaku Spears were extremely fast and almost indestructible, directly impaling Manda's body.
Blood splattered, and even Orochimaru's abdomen was pierced by a Shukaku Spear, causing him to cough up a mouthful of blood.
However, the cunning Orochimaru then spat out a new Orochimaru from his mouth, who was still holding the hilt of the kusanagi sword.
As for Manda, when he was struck, he immediately used his shedding ability and returned to Ryūchi Cave; for a few bites of meat, why risk his life? He ran away.
Orochimaru looked at the shed skin behind him with a chilling gaze, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes; that bastard Manda had escaped again, next time he would make him take the full damage.
"Wind Release: Sand Bullet!" The Tailed Beast-transformed Bunpuku opened his mouth wide again, unleashing the Ninjutsu that later injured even the newly resurrected Madara during the Fourth Great Ninja War.
In the strong wind, countless hard sand particles were scattered, moving as fast as sniper rifle bullets, and even Orochimaru dared not be careless.
"Earth Release: Earth Wall!" Orochimaru summoned an earth wall to block in front of him, but facing the One-Tail Jinchuriki's Sand Bullet, even the incredibly thick Earth Wall immediately became pitted and uneven.
Just like a block of earth continuously hit by a sandblasting gun, it quickly shattered, and Orochimaru's body behind the earth wall was immediately struck by a large amount of sand and gravel mixed with the strong wind.
Bunpuku, who had lost much of his sanity, didn't notice anything unusual until an Orochimaru emerged from the sand in front of him, and only then did he react.
Orochimaru's first move was an uppercut, directly hitting the small Shukaku's chin, sending the small Shukaku flying backward.
Orochimaru also regained the kusanagi sword; he held the sword in his right hand, and with his left hand, he used Evil Snake Arm, transforming his arm into a multitude of venomous snakes that extended and coiled around the small Shukaku in the air.
The fangs of numerous venomous snakes bit into the small Shukaku's body, but unfortunately, they failed to penetrate its defense and instead got a mouthful of sand.
Bunpuku then controlled the sand in the snakes' mouths to directly crush them, and soon these venomous snakes were reduced to minced meat.
Facing Orochimaru's sudden advance, the small Shukaku's tail directly transformed into a heavy hammer, sweeping Orochimaru away.
Orochimaru, holding his sword to block, was sent flying dozens of meters, carving a ditch over ten meters long in the sand dune; at this point, the sand around him began to sink, forming quicksand.
Even using the walking on water technique, he couldn't stand, and soon Orochimaru's lower legs sank.
The quicksand vortex had a diameter of over one hundred meters.
"It's really difficult to deal with the One-Tail Shukaku in the desert!" Orochimaru showed no signs of panic; instead, he stood his ground, facing the almost instantaneous Renkudan.
Orochimaru was actually not very good at dealing with opponents with strong defenses and who specialized in area-of-effect Ninjutsu; he simply had no means to break through Shukaku's defense.
Although Orochimaru was skilled in Five Release Ninjutsu, he was still somewhat inferior to his teacher Hiruzen Sarutobi; he currently didn't know offensive Ninjutsu like Five Release Great Combination Barrage or Water Severing Wave.
However, it was also very difficult to kill the cunning snake; facing the incoming Renkudan, Orochimaru's body immediately burst apart, transforming into thousands of venomous snakes, which then swam out of the quicksand's range.
Although most of the venomous snakes were killed by the Renkudan, one small snake still survived, and Orochimaru performed the snake-spitting-human technique, directly emerging from the mouth of this small snake.
Facing the cunning snake's outrageous move, Bunpuku was dumbfounded, somewhat unable to understand whether this was a person or a snake.
Bunpuku knew that using Renkudan and Sand Release couldn't kill Orochimaru, and at this moment, the Sand Shinobi's defeat was unstoppable, with only about a thousand people still struggling to escape.
And Ebizo, facing the encirclement of several Uchiha Jonin, also couldn't hold on much longer; the complete rout and pursuit of the fleeing enemy happened in an instant.
The small Shukaku opened its gaping maw, condensing Chakra in its mouth to form a small Tailed Beast Ball with a Yin-Yang ratio of two to eight.
Orochimaru's expression changed, and he unhesitatingly retreated over a hundred meters, then warily watched the Tailed Beast Ball, unsure if it was meant to explode on him or on the Konoha ninja army.
So, he didn't act rashly, but almost everyone on the front line saw the One-Tail Jinchuriki preparing to use the Tailed Beast Ball, and most people's faces turned pale.
The main reason was that whether they were Jonin, Chunin, or Genin, facing a Tailed Beast Ball, they had no means of defense; basically, a graze meant death, and a direct hit meant annihilation.
As the Tailed Beast Ball in the small Shukaku's mouth formed, its size wasn't very large, only about ten centimeters in diameter, but the compressed Chakra within it was extremely terrifying.
This Tailed Beast Ball was not aimed at Orochimaru, but under Shukaku's influence, it was aimed towards the Konoha army's direction.
As a circle of air current appeared, this Tailed Beast Ball transformed into a meteor and shot straight towards the Konoha army's direction.
Although there were still several hundred Sand Shinobi within the Konoha army's range at this time, Shukaku didn't care.
Orochimaru's expression changed; he had actually guessed the target of this Tailed Beast Ball, so he quickly moved in that direction as the Tailed Beast Ball condensed.
Upon reaching the designated location, Orochimaru crossed his palms, bit both his thumbs, and then directly used the Summoning Technique, slapping his hands on the ground.
"Five-Uncle, come fix the door!" Orochimaru was unsure how powerful this Tailed Beast Ball was, so he had no choice but to expend a significant portion of his Chakra to summon the Five-Fold Rashomon.
Furthermore, it was angled slightly, tilted towards the direction of the retreating Sand Shinobi forces; the plan was that even if the Five-Fold Rashomon couldn't block it, the angled deflection would guide the aftermath towards the Sand Shinobi.
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