At this point, it was impossible for Hyuga Akira to withdraw from the battlefield.
In any ninja village, desertion in the face of battle was uniformly judged as treason—punishable without regard for life or death.
Although he really did want to farm some Konoha "monsters," now was definitely not a good time to leave the village.
At the very least, he would need strength at the level of a Kage.
Otherwise, going solo now would make him an easy target for the other villages.
At that point, he wouldn't just be farming one faction—there was a good chance all Five Great Villages would chase him down together. That would be disastrous.
Until he had sufficient strength to back himself up, Akira had no intention of facing five villages at once.
For now, fighting under Konoha's banner meant the ninja world's hostility was directed at Konoha as a whole, not at a small "player" like him.
And he could still pick up plenty of benefits on the battlefield. This was not the time to leave Konoha.
Still, he needed to prepare an escape plan for critical moments.
If the battle line collapsed and he fled, that would be forced by circumstances. Konoha wouldn't be able to hold him accountable.
Returning to the newly rebuilt watchtower, he looked at his more than 110,000 experience points.
After some thought, he set aside sixty thousand, planning to keep two chances to restore himself to full condition if something went wrong.
That meant he still had over fifty thousand experience to spend.
First, he decided to max out Fire Release: Shiranui.
[Fire Release: Shiranui (Lv7) EXP (0/7400) Trait (None)]
[Fire Release: Shiranui (Lv8) EXP (0/14800) Trait (None)]
[Fire Release: Shiranui (Lv9) EXP (0/29600) Trait (None)]
[Fire Release: Shiranui (Lv10) EXP (Max) Trait (Choose)]
Ignite: Deals 70–410 true damage over 5 seconds (depending on enemy level).
Enchant: Adds fire-attribute damage to any attack.
Satan's Flame: Increases damage to the soul.
Akira studied the three traits.
Ignite… wasn't that basically the Ignite summoner spell from League of Legends? In a way it was practically a bug—ignite setting fire to a fire user. No one would believe it if you said it out loud.
Like a vampire draining a robot—was it drinking blood or gasoline?
Still, it wouldn't help him much. Enchant was essentially an enhanced version of Shiranui, but compared to the third option…
Satan's Flame.
That sounded far stronger.
Well… he guessed it was probably inspired by the protagonist's blue flames from Blue Exorcist. But the important part was that it could damage souls.
And more importantly—
It might let him see spirits.
In the game world, anything could be treated as a monster—even spirits.
In the Naruto server, there was a hidden dungeon called the Pure Land. The final boss didn't need guessing: the Sage of Six Paths.
But entering that dungeon required soul-related abilities and various other conditions.
Akira immediately chose Satan's Flame.
[Fire Release: Shiranui (Lv10) Trait: Satan's Flame]
A flood of memories entered his mind.
The structure of Shiranui changed—now it included a method of drawing upon soul energy. Reaching max level directly activated Akira's own soul power.
At the same time, it allowed him to see souls.
He opened his hand, and blue flames ignited in his palm. Shiranui could still enhance all attacks as before—
But now it burned not only the body, but the soul as well.
If someone were killed by him, they would be completely annihilated.
Even Edo Tensei would be unable to summon them back.
"…Would that give me two sets of experience?" Akira muttered, rubbing his chin.
He could test it later.
"This is even more useful than before," he said, snapping his fingers lightly.
A small blue fireball appeared in midair.
Originally, Shiranui only added fire damage to attacks and couldn't generate flames independently. Now it could produce fire on its own.
"This is my first max-level fire-style technique."
And it had taken quite a while. He still needed nine more before he could synthesize the true Fire Release skill.
"Experience…" Akira looked at the sixty-thousand-plus remaining and felt uneasy.
As levels rose, the experience gap only kept growing.
…
For a time, the entire battlefield became unusually calm.
The only real change was that the once-normal fireballs had turned blue.
That made them even more conspicuous—but not any easier to dodge. If someone failed to evade and tried to tank it head-on, a palm-sized blue flame would instantly expand into a massive fire dragon and reduce them to ash.
Not just genin and chunin—even jonin had little chance of escaping once caught.
But during this period, Iwa no longer launched large-scale assaults on Konoha's position. Instead, they constantly sent small teams to probe along the flanks, trying to find ways around the defenses.
This reduced their casualties, and the units they sent were mostly genin and chunin.
Akira was not pleased.
"This is a battlefield, not a playground. Why aren't they sending large forces?" he muttered, scratching his head as he checked his experience gains.
[EXP: 134242]
That was what he had gained over more than ten days. Previously, he could farm a hundred thousand in a single day.
Now it had taken over ten days to earn just that much. The pace had slowed dramatically.
It wasn't that he was throwing fewer kunai—there were simply fewer targets. Sometimes half a day passed without seeing a single jonin.
And when one did appear, they specifically guarded against him. The moment he threw, they dodged immediately, refusing to take his fireballs head-on.
Even Satan's Flame didn't give him double experience.
It was infuriating.
During this time, he hadn't seen Crow at all. Crow definitely wouldn't desert, but the Sarutobi-clan commander hadn't asked about him either.
Clearly, the commander already knew what Crow was doing.
Akira alone had no idea.
Looking into the distance, Akira saw no sign of Iwa forces. Their new trenches had already moved beyond the range of his Byakugan.
Konoha still didn't dare advance. The main reason was Ōnoki—like a ticking bomb whose explosion time was unknown.
Konoha's strategy was simply to hold their position, with no intention of pushing forward.
Akira looked up at the sky.
It was already deep into the night, the moon hanging high above.
"…Why are there two moons?" someone in the trench muttered, squinting upward.
Besides the bright moon, another glowing white sphere floated beside it—
Like twin moons in the sky.
"…That's not right!" another ninja suddenly shouted in alarm.
The Sarutobi commander looked up, confusion turning instantly to shock.
"That's Dust Release!"
A voice rang out from the sky.
"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!"
Within a transparent barrier, a white sphere radiated dazzling light.
The invisible field rapidly expanded outward—enveloping Konoha's entire trench line.
Akira himself was caught inside the white barrier.
He couldn't help murmuring:
"…A crown of earth descending from the sky."
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