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"Fire Style: Dragon Flame Bomb!"
The instant Xuan's body reformed, his hand signs were already complete.
A massive fire dragon roared into existence, lunging fiercely toward Hyuga Koten.
A B-Rank Jutsu?! This brat...
Hyuga Koten dodged frantically, cold sweat dripping down his forehead.
The destructive power of a B-Rank Jutsu was enough to threaten a standard Jōnin, let alone a Special Jōnin like him.
If that hit him, he'd be roasted into a human husk on the spot.
"Sharingan, open!"
Since the fight had started, he had to go all out from the very first second.
This was Xuan's core philosophy.
Hiding your strength was a luxury meant only for when the power gap was massive; doing it now was just courting death.
"Three tomoe?! Impossible...!"
Koten caught a single glimpse of the three spinning tomoe in Xuan's eyes, and his mind reeled in shock.
How is this possible?
This kid is five years old at most!
He's already awakened a fully matured Three-Tomoe Sharingan?
What kind of monster is he?!
"Instead of wasting time being surprised, you should be worrying about yourself," Xuan stated flatly.
Before Koten could even process the warning, a searing wave of heat blasted against his back.
How did he make the fire dragon turn around?!
The thought flashed through Koten's mind.
But he was a battlefield veteran; his reaction speed was top-tier.
The moment his Byakugan flared, his 360-degree vision swept the area.
The Dragon Flame Bomb he had just dodged had pulled a hairpin turn and was lunging right back at him!
"8 Trigrams Vacuum Palm: Lion Roar!"
Koten hurriedly gathered Chakra into his palm and punched outward.
A roaring lion's head forged of pure Chakra crashed into the fire dragon.
With a deafening boom, the two attacks detonated against each other.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"
Spinning shuriken, instantly coated in Chakra flames, bombarded Koten from multiple directions.
And it wasn't over.
Xuan's hands blurred through more signs, unleashing three more Fire Style techniques in rapid succession.
"Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu!"
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
"Fire Style: Crimson Claw Jutsu!"
The overwhelming barrage of flames didn't pause for a fraction of a second.
Massive explosions chained together, completely swallowing Koten's figure in an inferno.
---
The absolute essence of being a ninja was maximizing your own strengths to ruthlessly target your enemy's weaknesses.
Idiots who deliberately clashed head-on against an opponent's specialty usually died on their very first mission.
Xuan knew exactly where the Hyuga clan's strengths lay.
Their Byakugan provided omnidirectional vision and the ability to see the flow of Chakra.
Furthermore, their Gentle Fist and 8 Trigrams techniques were strictly close-quarters Taijutsu.
Anyone who willingly engaged a Hyuga in a fistfight had either water for brains or a death wish; there was no third explanation.
Well, except for that meathead Uchiha Madara!
Xuan silently corrected himself as he glanced into the distance, watching Madara joyfully trading sword slashes with the Hyuga Jōnin.
The Uchiha clan's Fire Style was legendary throughout the Warring States period for its devastating firepower.
Even a C-Rank Jutsu posed a lethal threat to a Jōnin.
Because of this, Koten was forced to constantly dodge.
He hadn't felt this suffocated in years—and the fact that he was being pinned down by a five-year-old brat made his blood boil.
---
Xuan continuously retreated while relentlessly spamming Fire Style Jutsu.
He meticulously maintained a distance of at least fifty meters.
Even when Koten occasionally managed to counterattack with a ranged Gentle Fist strike, Xuan side-stepped it with ease.
Back before I transmigrated, I was a Frost Mage main in World of Warcraft.
Kiting enemies like this is a walk in the freaking park!
His Sharingan tracked his opponent's every twitch.
The barrage of high-level Fire Style never ceased.
Just as famous as the Uchiha's flames were their massive Chakra reserves.
Aside from the Senju, no clan in the ninja world could firmly suppress the Uchiha in terms of raw Chakra volume.
"Dammit!"
Koten couldn't help but curse as he narrowly evaded yet another wave of fire.
Facing such a shameless, cowardly fighting style, he was being driven utterly insane.
Gritting his teeth, he decided to risk taking a severe injury just to slaughter this damned brat.
"Body Flicker Jutsu!"
Koten's figure vanished, instantly reappearing twenty meters closer.
He vanished again, closing the gap to less than ten meters.
With one final flicker, he materialized directly in front of Xuan.
The "Body Flicker" was a general term for high-speed movement techniques.
It wasn't particularly difficult to learn, and most major clans had scrolls detailing it.
However, the Jutsu placed a tremendous physical burden on the user's body.
Unless you were a Jōnin specializing in Taijutsu, it was incredibly difficult to withstand the muscular tearing caused by such high-speed movement.
Thus, average ninjas rarely used it consecutively.
The fact that Koten was spamming the Body Flicker proved that Xuan had pushed him to the absolute brink.
He was willing to tear his own muscles just to drag Xuan into close-quarters combat.
"8 Trigrams Vacuum Slash: Mountain Crusher!"
The exact second he appeared, Koten unleashed his ultimate strike—one of the three A-Rank techniques he had mastered.
He frantically condensed all of his Chakra into his blade and slashed down in a fraction of a second.
Koten had absolute confidence in this strike; even a Jōnin would be cleaved neatly in two.
Xuan's expression turned solemn.
He couldn't dodge this blade.
But he hadn't planned to dodge it anyway.
The three tomoe in his eyes spun wildly.
He locked eyes with his opponent for a split second before his body abruptly changed.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
Koten's all-out strike merely cleaved through a flurry of black feathers.
The sickening feeling of throwing his ultimate, full-power strike into thin air caused a jarring backlash in his chest, leaving him violently nauseated.
The flock of crows converged once more, reforming into Uchiha Xuan.
---
"That meathead Madara said he could only hold off your boss for ten minutes. Seven minutes have already passed. If I don't finish you off now, I'll probably be collecting his corpse later. So, even though it's a shame to lose such a good target practice dummy, I have to kill you now."
Koten was utterly sickened by Xuan's kiting tactics.
His face twisted involuntarily into a savage sneer.
"Are you implying that you could have killed me at any time?"
Xuan shook his head.
This guy was definitely developing psychological trauma.
Then again, if Xuan were in his shoes, he'd probably feel the same.
He had experienced the utter misery of being permanently kited firsthand in his past life.
"Haven't you noticed how quiet it is over here? We're supposedly in the center of a battlefield, yet there isn't a single other sound!"
Prompted by Xuan's words, Koten finally realized that their surroundings were indeed eerily silent.
He glanced around, and a jolt of sheer terror struck his heart.
The Uchiha meeting hall was gone!
Instead, he was standing atop a mountain of blades.
A dense, terrifying forest of razor-sharp sword tips extended right to the soles of his feet.
He didn't dare take a single step.
"A Genjutsu?! Since when?!"
Koten instantly understood what was happening.
While speaking, he secretly condensed his Chakra, ramming it chaotically through his own pathways to disrupt the flow and shatter the illusion.
"Don't waste your energy," Xuan said lazily.
"You should have figured it out yourself. The exact moment you used the Body Flicker to charge me and locked eyes with me, you fell into my Genjutsu. This is an original illusion I created by combining two C-Rank Genjutsu—the False Surroundings Jutsu and the Sly Mind Affect Jutsu. I suppose that makes it a B-Rank technique now."
Xuan smiled.
"This is my first time using it on a person. I think I'll name it the Fox Beheading Jutsu. What do you think?"
Xuan is absolutely styling on this Special Jōnin!