In general, something strange was going on with the demon worshippers — there were too many of them for a small hidden village, and most of them were outright scum that even a genin could handle — a Konoha genin, of course, not a local one — if they didn't shoot their mouths off.
And their age was... not suitable for recent graduates of the shinobi academy, even if it was a low-level training program. It felt like they had gathered a bunch of trash, opened their chakra, spent a couple of months teaching them how to use it and which side of a kunai to hold, then gifted them with a demon, increasing their strength by a couple of orders of magnitude, and then sent them out into the field under the guidance of real genin and a few rare chunin.
After the upgrade, the latter turned out to be at the level of Tokubetsu Jonin and Jonin, tough and capable of causing problems even for me, with the right preparation and surprise, of course, but there were already far too many of them for a local hidden village.
Finally, after several hours of searching, I discovered a group of enemies accompanying a dozen research subjects moving toward the front, and I hurried to intercept them, picking a convenient place for an ambush.
There was enough open space around this section of the road to maneuver, and at the same time, sparse but dense thickets of bushes and tall grass allowed me to hide without burying myself in the ground.
Creating a clone for each shinobi from the three teams, I distributed them so that the surrounded enemy squad would not have time to get their bearings, losing all their ninjas in the first moments of the attack, if not dead, then too busy to give orders to the golems. I needed to assess their independence.
About an hour later, stone giants appeared in the distance, stomping loudly along the road, surrounded by small figures of shinobi, who didn't even think to send out scouts or keep an eye on their surroundings, as if they were completely confident of their superiority even in the event of an attack.
Amazing self-confidence, for which the idiots would soon pay dearly. Tense with anticipation, I even closed my eyes slightly, not looking in the direction of the shinobi so as not to alert them with my gaze. I doubted that there were any veterans among them, but why take the risk?
As soon as the demon worshippers were in position, the kage bunshin rushed forward, some into hand-to-hand combat, others creating ninjutsu. I kept up with them, forming hand seals, but my target was the golems.
"Doton: Yomi Numa (Earth Release: Hell's Quicksand)!
Under the stone giants, the ground and the road softened into sticky mud, and the multi-ton warriors sank under their own weight almost instantly. No demonic chakra could help against simple physics!
Now ten to twelve meters deep, these golems would not get out so easily. More precisely, all except one, left behind for experimentation. And the first result was not long in coming — almost instantly identifying the main enemy, the stone golem, shrouded in demonic chakra, headed towards me, ignoring the clones and their allies being crushed by them.
Aware of the enemy's relatively low speed, I jumped forward, concentrating my chakra in my left hand, deciding to start with the natural elemental choice against a doton.
"Chidori Eiso (Chidori's Sharp Spear)!"
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