Because the black-clad man had been mysteriously stripped of a portion of his chakra earlier, after controlling his severed arm to pierce Yūshin's abdomen, he immediately retracted the arm before Yūshin could react further.
In an instant, the black-clad man and his severed arm completed their "reconnection" with incredible smoothness.
Yūshin instinctively looked up and indeed found a very obvious centipede-like old scar on the man's shoulder... No wonder his attack was ineffective—the enemy's arm position was originally an "interface" for the Earth Grudge Fear.
His recent attack had at most severed some Earth Grudge Fear tentacles.
The Earth Grudge Fear secret technique, simply put, transforms the user into a "tentacle monster," generating countless hair-thin elongated tentacles within the body, greatly increasing the user's attack power, vitality, and resistance to damage.
Most importantly, this secret technique grants the user the ability to steal other ninjas' hearts and directly gain different chakra nature transformations based on them.
It could be said that Earth Grudge Fear users could become ninjas proficient in all five chakra nature transformations without relying on their own talent or training level, purely through others' selfless "contributions"... In some ways, this was similar to Yūshin's "learning path."
Regardless, Yūshin had encountered a ninja whose strength far exceeded his own.
"You know about Earth Grudge Fear... It seems your origins are indeed extraordinary." The black-clad ninja didn't ignore Yūshin's murmur.
Earth Grudge Fear was an extremely secretive technique—those who could see through its origins at a glance were definitely few and far between.
This technique couldn't even be said to be passed down within a ninja clan; it was more like being passed down within a single family, with each generation's teaching system limited to just a few family members.
"I didn't expect a small local power leader to spare no expense for his safety, hiring such a ninja as a bodyguard..."
Yūshin wanted to say this, but given his current throat condition, he couldn't speak such a long sentence.
Needless to say, the cost of hiring such a ninja would definitely be much greater than hiring the entire Fūma Clan.
But looking on the bright side, such a strong ninja would most likely be the only one here—there almost certainly wouldn't be a second one.
Seeing Yūshin barely breathing, the black-clad man knew his opponent's silence wasn't due to stubbornness but because he simply couldn't speak.
So he removed his cloak, directly revealing his muscular body.
Since the enemy had seen through his secret technique, there was no need to hide anymore.
Yūshin carefully observed the enemy nearby and found his body was indeed covered with dense centipede-like wounds. He knew that once these wounds opened, they would spew out large amounts of black tentacles.
"My name is Ryo of the Earth Grudge Fear..."
"You have great interrogation value."
This person calling himself "Ryo of the Earth Grudge Fear" once again confirmed Yūshin's upcoming fate.
Ryo's eyes observed Yūshin's abdomen and noticed something spreading toward the nearly front-to-back pierced wound, after which the wound achieved hemostasis.
This was somewhat beyond imagination.
Normally, after suffering such severe trauma, a person would only have a lingering existence left.
But this guy seemed to still have fighting strength.
Yūshin didn't know whether "Earth Grudge Fear" was a surname or if this person simply put the technique name before his name, but he knew he absolutely couldn't die here so simply.
He wasn't a sensory ninja—previously, he wasn't sensitive to chakra reactions, as those attack precursors were at most equivalent to a breeze weaker than breathing brushing across skin.
But now seemed different.
In this half-disabled state, Yūshin was extremely sensitive to all external changes—at least equivalent to having a layer of medicated oil applied to his skin, making even the slightest wind highly stimulating.
Almost purely on instinct, he sensed danger behind him, then without any consideration, instinctively rolled to the right.
Bang!
Boom!
The next moment, the wall behind him broke open with a large hole, followed by a huge fireball shooting out from the hole.
The fireball barely grazed Yūshin's body before crossing the entire space and exploding violently in the room's opposite corner.
Yūshin glanced at the wall with his peripheral vision and saw a pale mask surrounded by a mass of black hair in the center of the broken opening.
The flames were being spewed from the mask's mouth.
Yūshin finally understood why the Mayfly Technique couldn't work earlier—there was one of these things hidden in the wall.
Regardless, the "medium" the Mayfly Technique could penetrate definitely didn't include Earth Grudge Fear mask clones.
Such clones consisted of two parts: a large number of Earth Grudge Fear tentacles and a heart contributed by another ninja.
The heart was hidden beneath the mask, capable of producing elemental chakra and releasing escape techniques under the main body's control.
Hidden in the wall was obviously a "Fire Release mask," pre-concealed for intrusion warning and preventing intruders from escaping.
In the operation to break through the Tsugawa Clan village, Yūshin had only leaked trivial intelligence about his abilities, but the consequences were very serious.
Actually, the enemy no longer needed to be so cautious, because to a large extent, Yūshin's Mayfly Technique was a "disengagement skill"—it couldn't be activated during intense combat.
Yūshin only knew the Mayfly Technique, not Kamui. If he wanted to penetrate walls or floors, this "merging" process would take at least four to five seconds, during which he'd be equivalent to a sitting duck.
Four to five seconds was enough time for this powerful enemy to kill him seventeen or eighteen times.
It seemed a hard battle was unavoidable. After the initial tension from the sudden severe injury, Yūshin calmed down again.
As time passed, his breathing became increasingly smooth.
The heart in his chest was still beating powerfully.
"Excellent recovery ability."
Ryo of the Earth Grudge Fear constantly monitored Yūshin's changes, having long realized this intruder held tremendous intelligence value. Since their strength levels weren't even comparable, he decided to extract all this "value."
Earth Release: Earth Spear
Ryo formed hand seals, then his arms turned a dull black ink color.
Simultaneously, Yūshin suddenly threw a kunai at his opponent, with seven or eight explosive tags attached.
The dark indoor environment was enough to conceal the kunai's trajectory, leaving only a sharp whistling sound.
However, when the weapon reached Ryo, he simply caught the kunai with one hand.
Then he noticed the explosive tags on the kunai.
Large amounts of chakra suddenly overflowed from his palm, and the high-density energy instantly destroyed the jutsu formulas on several explosive tags, but several others managed to escape the enemy's chakra impact and stubbornly remained at their posts.
Boom!
A fierce explosion sounded again, and Ryo was engulfed in flames.
"Effective?"
The answer was no.
Before the flames and explosion smoke cleared, a "black hand" lightly brushed them aside, revealing Ryo's figure again.
Such close-range explosive tag impact had no effect whatsoever.
This was rather disrespectful, wasn't it?
Not disrespectful to Yūshin or the explosive tags, but to the Senju Clan... These explosive tags could have killed five Nawakis.
The next moment, the enemy rushed to Yūshin's front again, delivering a simple, straight thrust with his hand blade.
But for some reason, this time Yūshin could see his opponent's movements clearly—Ryo's speed seemed diminished.
Yūshin crossed his arms in front of his chest, trying to clamp down on the opponent's hand blade.
But the opponent's arm was as hard as steel, with unstoppable force.
Yūshin could only grit his teeth. His arms struggled upward while bending his knees and dodging sideways, barely creating half a body's width of space.
This made the attack aimed at his chest barely hit his left shoulder area.
Ryo's five fingers and most of his palm sliced into Yūshin's shoulder almost without obstruction.
Immediately after, Yūshin tried to drain the opponent's chakra again, but this time the opponent withdrew more decisively.
Hit and run—Yūshin suffered severe damage while the enemy had no losses.
But Ryo's attack wasn't over. The wall behind Yūshin was broken through again, and though he sensed it, he couldn't react in time.
The next moment, the Fire Release mask hit his back with another Fire Release.
Yūshin had nowhere to dodge. A fireball struck his right side directly, violently blasting him away.
The intense pain nearly made Yūshin faint immediately, but things weren't quite that bad.
Yūshin rolled to extinguish the flames on his body, and his White Zetsu form began rapidly repairing the burn marks.
However, this attack was somewhat unexpected—not because the enemy's Fire Release was too powerful, but because it was too weak.
If it had been a technique on the scale of Fire Release: Great Fireball, he would have been carbonized or half-carbonized by now.
Yūshin then understood why the opponent's speed and ninjutsu power had greatly decreased—this person was testing his recovery ability.
In ninja battles, instead of pursuing quick kills, they were starting to play cat and mouse... Yūshin had to admit that having strength really meant being able to do whatever you wanted.
The opponent didn't take him seriously at all, but Yūshin was helpless. Ryo wanted to see his recovery ability, and he could only perform for him.
"Silent infiltration techniques combined with chakra absorption abilities... I have to say, these are quite good as auxiliary abilities, but your basic strength is too poor, making these valuable abilities into mere circus tricks," Ryo said.
The words were harsh but true.
Yūshin couldn't go head-to-head with a real powerhouse.
He ignored the opponent and simply focused on forming hand seals.
The enemy was deliberately testing and wouldn't interfere with his seal formation.
Then Yūshin stopped his hand movements and half-turned toward the side-rear.
Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet
He faced forward again and continued his technique.
Fire Release: Karura
Under the sudden impact of one Water Release and one Fire Release, large holes were opened in the walls on both sides of the room, seemingly trying to create escape possibilities for himself.
However, when he looked again at Ryo, who seemed to have been standing in place all along, he found all these actions were futile.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Seven additional masks appeared beside Ryo. Combined with the one in the wall and his main body, Yūshin now faced a one-against-nine situation.
Yes, theoretically, Earth Grudge Fear users only needed four masks to complete all five chakra attributes, but what harm was there in having more masks?
One more heart meant one more chakra generation point, one more clone, one more layer of combat power.
As for why he suddenly displayed his abilities, it was because Ryo was truly afraid.
He was genuinely afraid of letting Yūshin escape.
Considering Yūshin's overall strength, among his ninjutsu arsenal, only Water Severing Wave truly exceeded normal specifications, since his Rasengan couldn't be instant-cast and thus couldn't be used in high-speed combat.
But the enemy had already seen Water Severing Wave—relying on just one technique to defy fate was impossible.
He could use Water and Fire Release, while the enemy could presumably use all five elements.
Moreover, Yūshin's chakra was nearly depleted. Though he hadn't released many techniques, most of his chakra had been used to repair wounds and barely maintain his lifeline.
So the current Yūshin could be said to be unable to fight or flee—he had reached a dead end.
Yūshin felt he had only one last card, but this card had only existed in theory—he'd never actually played it...
Facing clusters of Earth Grudge Fear elemental masks, Yūshin felt like he was in a barbershop that had operated all weekend without ever cleaning the floor.
His arms dropped powerlessly.
Just when Ryo thought Yūshin was giving up due to the desperate power gap...
He suddenly spoke hoarsely:
"Honestly, your technique sequence is flawed—you showed your hand too early."
"If I hadn't identified you as an Earth Grudge Fear user, and you had prioritized using five elemental techniques, I might have mistaken you for Sarutobi Sasuke. In that case, I wouldn't have struggled desperately but would have chosen to surrender directly..."
Sarutobi Sasuke of the Sarutobi Clan was one of the top powerhouses in the current shinobi world, a famous master of all five elements, with comprehensive strength definitely far above the so-called Earth Grudge Fear.
After all, natural nobility was superior to ninjas who relied on heretical methods to complete elemental transformations.
Yūshin was quite skilled at taunting—he was essentially praising the genuine five-element master in front of the knockoff version. Who could stand that?
Ryo, who had been acting rationally, had emotion break through reason's restraints for the first time.
He momentarily forgot about capture and interrogation plans. Lightning suddenly erupted from his body, and he appeared at Yūshin's side in an instant, delivering a horizontal leg sweep that directly hit Yūshin's neck.
Yūshin only managed to instinctively raise his arm to block his neck, but still couldn't change the result of being whipped into the ground by the enemy's leg.
Undoubtedly, this strike was aimed to kill.
However, when Yūshin's body collapsed weakly on the ground, what emerged from him wasn't crimson blood.
But...
Scorching steam.
...
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