Hyuga Arin was killing himself into a frenzy.
5467 / 868 / 1457 / 689 / 13546…
Black-blue flames wrapped around his entire body. Every swing of his blade unleashed boiling black-blue slashes of fire.
In Arin's hands, the flames were like extensions of his own limbs—something he could manipulate at will.
Hand seals were completely unnecessary now.
All he needed to do was convert chakra into fire.
Essence was being consumed continuously. Large numbers of Cloud ninja fell at Arin's hands. The Cloud ninja were known for their mobility—but what if they were compared to Arin's Substitution Technique?
Now, Arin could use flames themselves to perform substitutions.
Even Cloud Village jōnin could only barely evade his attacks. Anyone else who encountered him met only one outcome—
Death.
"Someone stop him!!" a Cloud ninja screamed in terror.
This Konoha brat's flames weren't just absurdly hot—they wouldn't go out.
They even exploded.
A black-blue fireball slammed heavily into the ground, and boiling flames rapidly expanded outward.
The Cloud ninja who had shouted hurriedly retreated beyond the spreading flames.
Suddenly, he lowered his head.
A wisp of black-blue fire was quietly burning at the hem of his clothes.
Despair filled his face.
As long as that flame touched you—even a little—it already meant one thing…
Death.
The fire spread rapidly across his body, swallowing him whole. Amid his screams, he turned into a black-blue man of flame.
Nearby Cloud ninja fled in panic.
Boom!
The flaming Cloud ninja exploded, the fire scattering outward as fireballs that continued charging toward others.
Arin himself wasn't overwhelmingly powerful. Any jōnin could, in theory, fight him head-on.
But those flames were simply too terrifying.
Once they touched you, they wouldn't extinguish. They spread rapidly across the body—and then exploded.
A black-blue fire dragon coiled around Arin as he dropped to one knee, panting heavily.
Once Fire Release had fully taken shape, he no longer worried about his clothes burning. Even the extreme heat of these flames would not actively harm him.
"This chakra really burns fast…"
Arin was slaughtering relentlessly, but the chakra cost was enormous. Even his essence had begun to bottom out.
The last bit of essence was now completely gone, and his chakra was reaching its limit.
"Level up!"
[Name: I'm Hyuga Arin]
[Class: Hunter]
[Sub-class: Doctor]
[Level: Lv42 (0/41500)]
[Chakra/Nen: 11110 / 9110 +1000 +500 +500]
[Essence: 0]
[Experience: 254312]
After this round of slaughter, his experience—once reduced to only a few tens of thousands after upgrading Fire Release—had surged past 250,000.
"I can keep going."
Arin directly opened the system's furnace.
A pill-refining furnace wreathed in flames appeared on the battlefield.
No one else could see it.
Only Arin could.
"Roar!!"
The fire dragon beside him let out a thunderous roar. Black-blue flames surged as additional heads began forming one after another on its body.
Fire Release · Nine-Headed Dragon Technique.
The nine-headed dragon guarded Arin, blocking all ninja who tried to approach him.
This time, however, Arin did not attack.
Instead, he began picking up the items dropped on the ground.
"Champion's Belt—this one stays."
[Champion's Belt: +100 Strength, +100 Agility]
"Basic Hand-to-Hand Combat—useless. Smelt it."
"Niko Style—no use right now. Smelt it."
"Stamina Supply—not as good as essence. Smelt it."
Arin sifted through items like a scavenger.
The Cloud ninja only saw Arin crouching down, seemingly picking things up.
But aside from corpses, there was nothing there.
Some Cloud ninja vaguely thought they saw items appear in Arin's hands—only for them to vanish in the next instant.
Not only Cloud ninja saw this. Konoha ninja did too.
And the Hyuga clan members saw it even more clearly—objects constantly appearing in Arin's hands, then disappearing again.
Arin didn't care.
As long as they didn't understand the value of what he was collecting, there was nothing they could do to him.
At this point, he was a genuine elite jōnin—albeit one with relatively low chakra reserves.
Unless Hiruzen Sarutobi, Danzō Shimura, or Sakumo Hatake personally made things difficult for him, no one else posed much of a threat.
And even if he couldn't win—
Couldn't he still run?
He tossed large quantities of items into the furnace, keeping only a small number.
[Skill: Demon Brain]
A god-tier skill for farming experience at home.
[Demon Brain (Lv1) EXP (0/100) Trait: None]
[Skill: Breath of Thunder · First Form]
[Skill: Breath of Wind · First Form]
These breathing-style skills…
He had killed so many Cloud ninja, yet only managed to gather seven Thunder Breathing sword forms. All duplicates had been thrown into the furnace.
He immediately fed all Thunder Breathing skills into the system.
The seven Thunder Breathing sword forms appeared in the skill list, then vanished, replaced by a flood of swordsmanship memories.
A new skill emerged.
[Breath of Thunder (Lv1) EXP (0/500) Trait: None]
Five basic breaths could fuse into the supreme technique—Breath of the Sun.
Unfortunately, the other breath styles were far too incomplete.
Water Breathing: missing six out of ten.
Flame Breathing: missing three out of nine.
Wind Breathing: missing five out of nine.
Stone Breathing: missing two out of five.
Despite the massive death toll, drops were riddled with duplicates.
There was plenty of equipment too—but aside from one Champion's Belt, only two items were usable.
[Champion's Muscles: +100–200 Attack, +100 Strength]
Who would believe this thing counted as an off-hand weapon?
He could even replace his Nen blade with it.
[Champion's Bandages: +100 Movement Speed, +100 Strength]
These bandages were actually shoes.
So all martial-arts gear was this absurd, huh?
Arin tossed both his Nen boots and Nen blade into the furnace.
After smelting most of the items, he gained over a hundred thousand essence.
[Essence: 104587]
"Time to spend another round."
Arin lifted his head, looking at the Cloud ninja, and grinned.
Black-blue flames once again boiled through the crowd.
But then—
He glanced toward another part of the battlefield.
Why had things suddenly gone quiet over there?
B was kneeling on one knee.
Before him stood Orochimaru, Tsunade, and Jiraiya, all battered and wounded.
But B was in even worse condition.
One hand covered his eye, both eyes filled with struggle.
Whenever he weakened, the Eight-Tails would seize the opportunity to intrude.
His relationship with the Eight-Tails was far from good.
B looked toward the distant, raging black-blue flames and said to the three of them:
"This time… Konoha wins."
He had heard the screams of the Cloud ninja from that direction.
With the Eight-Tails interfering, he could not defeat the three before him. Worse, he was already showing signs of losing.
And over there, Konoha had produced another monster.
Cloud Village could not continue fighting.
They had only just recovered from the First Great Ninja War. They could not afford further losses.
"But don't think Konoha will keep winning forever."
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