Sage of Six Paths (3K)

"Konoha has many more ninjas whose eyes are glowing with that golden light!"

Ōnoki frowned deeply. He had no idea who in Konoha had developed this new technique. All he knew was that every ninja whose eyes shone with golden light had grown vastly stronger and seemed no longer afraid of death.

This had prevented their attacks on Konoha from making much progress. Empowered by this technique, even Konoha’s ordinary ninjas had become difficult to deal with.

"Have the people from Kirigakure and Sunagakure not arrived yet?"

Ōnoki asked. He had originally intended to wait until those two villages arrived, so that he and the Raikage would no longer need to keep each other in check and could free their hands to break Konoha. Yet the ninjas from those two villages had still not appeared, making him sense that something was wrong.

"Intelligence reports say that great chaos seems to have broken out in the Land of Water… Kirigakure has also suffered a major upheaval. They probably will not intervene in this war."

After asking, Ōnoki found that the intelligence was ambiguous. It only stated that Uchiha Shisui of Konoha had likely attacked Kirigakure earlier, causing casualties among important personnel there.

However, because of the chaos in Konoha, the news had not been taken seriously at the time. Thinking about it now, two of the Five Great Ninja Villages had been attacked one after another. It was extremely strange.

Kitsuchi, clad in armor, suddenly darted in from outside. His expression was grave as he spoke to his father.

"Intelligence has just arrived. The capital of the Land of Fire was attacked, and the daimyo has been killed!"

Ōnoki looked shocked. Someone had attacked the daimyo?!

In the world of ninjas, regardless of where the major ninja villages stood, they had always remained loyal to their countries and daimyo.

The daimyo and their nations supported the ninja villages, while the villages existed as the nation’s most powerful military institutions, the embodiment of a country’s armed strength.

Other than those infamous rogue ninjas, few ninjas would target a nation’s capital or its noble officials for assassination. Once such an act occurred, the ninja village would inevitably hunt the culprit with all its strength.

Yet now, someone had actually struck so brazenly and killed the daimyo of the Land of Fire?!

The next moment, another figure hurried in. After glancing at the others, he said,

"Lord Ōnoki, the Fourth Raikage, A, seems to have just rapidly left the front lines with several squads!"

"What direction did they go?!"

Ōnoki vaguely caught onto something, but he was still uncertain, so he pressed for an answer.

The man thought for a moment before replying,

"Probably… toward Kumogakure and the Land of Lightning."

Ōnoki’s mind exploded. The thought that had just been impossible to grasp suddenly became perfectly clear.

He swiftly flew into the air, then landed atop the table.

"This is bad. It’s the group that attacked Konoha. They’re hunting down the upper ranks of every nation!"

Hyuga Hiashi’s body was wrapped in bandages. He had been seriously injured when Mercenary Tao shattered his Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven with a single blow. Although the medical ninjas had done their best to treat him, he still could not participate in battle, and could only remain in the village’s combat command room.

He remained wary of that mysterious woman and therefore had no intention of accepting the so-called Golden Grace.

But there was no denying that everyone who accepted that grace had their physiques strengthened at a visible rate. The genin and chunin in particular had seen a tremendous increase in their average combat strength under the power’s blessing.

That was why Konoha had been able to hold on despite being attacked from both sides by two great ninja villages.

Suddenly, Hiashi rose to his feet as though he had seen something unbelievable.

"What is it? Is there a new development?"

Jiraiya, temporarily serving as Konoha’s battle commander, was tense. These past few days, he had needed to direct the village on one hand. At a time like this, the various clans had many different voices within them, and he had to repeatedly step forward to soothe and coordinate them.

On the other hand, Jiraiya also had to personally join the battle alongside Uchiha Shisui to hold back the strongest fighters of the two villages.

Heaven’s Will leaned against the window. She was not looking outside the village, yet she seemed to know everything. With a light laugh, she said,

"Two days are up. We won this defensive battle."

Jiraiya still found it hard to believe her, but Hyuga Hiashi indeed spoke hesitantly.

"The Raikage and the Tsuchikage seem to have both left the front lines. The ninjas from the two villages are also withdrawing from Konoha’s barrier in retreat formations!"

Before long, the village’s intelligence ninjas and Anbu came one after another with reports confirming that the two villages’ ninjas had begun retreating.

Jiraiya finally relaxed. No matter what, they had defended Konoha in the end.

Heaven’s Will looked toward the faint golden radiance emanating from the back mountain and thought that she had indeed borrowed a great deal of Mercenary Tao’s momentum this time. But one day, that madman would demand this gift back with interest.

Before then, she had to prepare a way to deal with it.

When facing an abnormal existence like Mercenary Tao, Heaven’s Will did not think directly becoming his enemy was a good choice. The other party grew at an incredibly fast rate and seemed to possess some kind of Strong Luck. Every person who thought themselves stronger than him had ultimately been hunted down by Mercenary Tao while trying to hunt him.

In a place like the Infinite Dimensional Space, friends were always far more valuable than enemies. The woman fell into thought.

She looked extremely relaxed by the window, as if she was not worried in the slightest that someone might come assassinate her. This left Leren, standing on the other side with his sword in his arms, somewhat puzzled.

At that moment, Leren’s eyes also shone with a golden glow. He had accepted the blessing of the Golden Order. Even if he would become a Tarnished in the future, this ability to gain additional attributes through the blessing was already powerful enough.

To a certain extent, it already possessed effects similar to the Space.

But he knew very well that introducing another power system into a mission Derivative World would cause enormous disturbances in the world line. Moreover, such disturbances could not produce high-tier Singularities and would cause Reincarnators to incur the World Will’s hostility, making them hunted by the powerful Plot Characters of the mission world.

He could not understand why Miss Heaven’s Will seemed completely unconcerned about anyone coming to kill her.

Unless… the one who had planted the Erdtree and borne the Golden Order was not her…

Special Trial: Utmost Benevolence and Goodness, Stage One completed

You have unlocked Stage Two of the Special Trial: Utmost Benevolence and Goodness

Stage Two: Find Hiranaka Minoru, who spread the intelligence, within three days, and ensure that he is not killed before the mission ends

Note: Plot Character Hiranaka Minoru has undergone a tremendous change. The difficulty of this mission has changed. If this trial fails, Card of Virtue will not be lost from your Backpack

Bai Cangshu looked at the Space prompt refreshed before him. This was the second time the Space had proactively proposed reducing a mission’s penalty since Black King Luffy had intruded into the One Piece World.

From another perspective, this also reminded Bai Cangshu that the difficulty of Stage Two of this Special Trial had been raised to a terrifying level. In the Space’s judgment, even he, a Concurrent Extreme-tier Reincarnator with exceptional combat strength, was very likely completely incapable of completing the mission.

Only in such a situation would the Space alter the penalty due to its conflict with the fundamental Space rule that impossible, guaranteed-death missions could not exist, giving the Reincarnator additional consideration.

Bai Cangshu looked at Shimura Danzō, who was tied to the back of a Summoning Beast not far away, and understood that this trial mission had changed again.

The Hiranaka Minoru mission line, which had originally been expected to connect with Konoha or the Uchiha faction, was no longer about rescuing him or killing some powerful Plot Character on his behalf. It had become a mission to ensure that he would not be killed.

The wording here was equally subtle.

Ensure that he would not be killed. There was no object specified, nor was it stated who would kill him. Would it be new Reincarnators, Konoha’s ninjas, or some Plot Character?

And judging by the difficulty, for the Space to believe that even a Concurrent Extreme-tier Reincarnator with exceptional combat strength was very likely entirely incapable of completing it…

There were most likely only two possibilities.

Either the High-tier Reincarnator being deployed again had a rating close to Fierce-tier, or had already fully reached Fierce-tier.

Or the truly top-tier powerhouses who had not yet appeared in this world—the Six Paths-level Plot Characters beyond Kage-level, capable of raising this world’s combat ceiling—were involved.

"I’d say it’s about time you gave up on trying to kill me."

Bai Cangshu lowered his head and looked at the beautiful woman. She was slowly, and what she believed to be covertly, trying to pull a blade from beneath her skirt.

Because of his enormous size, Bai Cangshu’s mere act of lowering his head carried terrifying pressure, turning the woman’s face pale as paper.

The ninja who had tried and failed to assassinate Bai Cangshu from behind with a kunai was already engulfed in flames. Struggling, he fell from the Summoning Beast’s back and went still.

"You cannot kill me."

Bai Cangshu told her calmly, without a trace of boasting or smugness. He was merely stating a fact she refused to believe.

Even if Bai Cangshu simply stood there without any defense, ordinary humans no longer had any way to kill him. Whether blades or deadly poison could affect him, his regenerative ability and immortality would allow him to recover.

The only feasible way for ordinary people to kill Bai Cangshu was probably to trap him in some environment he could never escape, then starve him to death. Once his body lost all nourishment, his cells would gradually lose their vitality, and his regeneration and immortality would eventually be exhausted until he died.

Bai Cangshu grabbed the woman and casually threw her toward the crowd. Amid cries of alarm, she crashed into and knocked down a large group of people.

Now, such purely ordinary people could barely provide him with any rewards. Whether Dimensional Points or Satsui no Hado, it was extremely difficult to gain anything from such individuals.

Bai Cangshu had originally been interested in continuing to play with these ordinary people, letting these humans witness the gap between true Supernatural Beings and ordinary people. But the update to Stage Two of the Special Trial had robbed him of that interest.

Bai Cangshu had realized what Heaven’s Will’s true method of controlling him was.

She had actually made an originally ordinary Plot Character of this world, Hiranaka Minoru, the bearer of the Golden Order!

Bai Cangshu turned around and met the eyes of Hiranaka Hana, who sat atop the Summoning Beast with a somewhat helpless expression.

"Your husband really did something remarkable…"

Bai Cangshu’s cruel smile sent a chill through Hiranaka Hana’s entire body. She did not know what her husband had done, but she knew very well that once he angered Mercenary Tao, even the important figures among those ninjas would meet no good end.

Minoru, what exactly did you do… Where exactly are you…?

At the border of the Land of Fire, the Fourth Raikage, A, was rushing back toward the capital of the Land of Lightning when he suddenly saw a peculiar figure. Beneath the full moon, the person wore a set of unusual black armor and carried an excessively enormous blade on his back.

More importantly, specks of golden radiance emanated from his body.

A had not intended to pay him any attention, but for some reason, he felt that this golden light resembled the glow in the eyes of those Konoha Hidden Village ninjas. He suddenly felt an instinctive dislike toward the man.

Hiranaka Minoru sensed something at the same time. He turned around, the golden rings in his pupils glowing as he saw that group of ninjas—and an elderly man in white, faintly visible as he floated in the air behind them. The old man held a black staff, and black magatama marked the chest of his white robe.

That was… the Sage of Six Paths!