Kotetsu and Izumo were stunned by Morpheus's words. Where did this lunatic come from, claiming he'd take over Konoha? Utterly absurd.
Kotetsu slammed his pen down and glared. "Konoha doesn't welcome you. Get lost."
If not for maintaining appearances, he'd have beaten this guy senseless. What a madman.
Morpheus just smiled. He didn't expect two gatekeepers to understand his ambitions.
With a snap of his fingers, Kotetsu and Izumo's eyes fluttered shut, and they collapsed, snoring loudly.
Hypnosis was just too convenient.
Having dealt with the gatekeepers, Morpheus strode boldly into Konoha.
The scene didn't go unnoticed. Hidden ninjas leaped out to stop him, but before they could get close, they swayed and fell, fast asleep.
Those who kept their distance paled in fear, unable to comprehend how Morpheus was doing this. It was unthinkable, unbelievable.
"Quick, inform the Hokage!" someone shouted.
Others fled, while those farther away began forming hand seals to unleash ninjutsu. But halfway through, they too collapsed, snoring.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!" The cries of fleeing ninjas echoed through the village.
More and more ninjas rushed to the scene.
Morpheus, unhurried, strolled toward the Hokage Tower.
Every ninja who came near him fell asleep before they could act.
Soon, the Ino-Shika-Chō trio appeared.
Nara Shikaku, Yamanaka Inoichi, and Akimichi Chōza stood atop a building, observing Morpheus and the sprawled, sleeping ninjas. They sensed trouble.
This ability to remotely hypnotize was outrageously overpowered.
Any ninja within a hundred meters of Morpheus lost consciousness, impossible to wake. Worse, while ninjas could attack from a distance with ninjutsu, few could project their techniques beyond a hundred meters—only jōnin could manage that.
This meant ninjas below jōnin level posed no threat to Morpheus.
Where did this monster come from?
Shikaku rubbed his temples but couldn't let Morpheus advance unchecked. He turned to a nearby ninja. "Deploy the ninjutsu squad. We need to stop him."
"Understood."
The ninja left, and soon a squad of about a hundred ninjas assembled, half casting Fire Release and half Wind Release.
The wind fueled the flames, creating a roaring tornado of fire that surged toward Morpheus.
But in the next instant, Morpheus vanished.
He reappeared behind the ninjutsu squad.
Before they could react, their eyelids grew heavy, overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to sleep. One by one, they collapsed.
Shikaku, Chōza, and Inoichi's faces paled. "Flying Thunder God? No, it's not. Flying Thunder God requires markers, but this guy used nothing. It's a spatial ninjutsu even more advanced."
Inoichi clicked his tongue. "This is bad."
A spatial ninjutsu superior to Flying Thunder God, paired with a mysterious technique that induced sleep within a hundred meters—this enemy was terrifying.
You'd fall asleep just getting close, and with spatial ninjutsu, you couldn't even stop him from approaching.
How do you fight that?
Spatial ninjutsu's strength lay in its unmatched mobility. Whether attacking or retreating, it granted invincibility.
If it weren't so formidable, Minato Namikaze wouldn't have outshone Orochimaru to become the Fourth Hokage.
Now, with Minato gone, Konoha faced an enemy wielding spatial ninjutsu. Even Shikaku, brilliant as he was, didn't know how to counter this.
If this continued, Konoha would fall.
"Youth is a battle without regrets! Here I come!" A spirited voice rang out.
A figure in green flashed by at incredible speed.
Konoha's ninjas recognized him instantly: the Konoha Noble Green Beast, Might Guy.
Morpheus, too, knew the roaring figure charging at him. Guy was a laughingstock in his youth, able to refine chakra but unable to use ninjutsu, relying solely on taijutsu.
To most Konoha ninjas, that was a joke. A ninja who couldn't use ninjutsu? Could taijutsu alone kill enemies? Could it withstand the myriad ninjutsu techniques? They looked down on him.
Konoha's culture, tied to its system, dismissed taijutsu. Like mages, ninjas were high-offense, low-defense glass cannons. Even the strongest taijutsu ninja could die to a single ninjutsu hit.
Unlike the One Piece world, where you could fight for days and bounce back from heavy injuries, that was impossible here.
Taijutsu ninjas were deemed futureless.
That perception held until Guy's father, Might Dai, used the Eight Gates to decimate the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist in the Third Shinobi War, flipping the paradigm.
Taijutsu ninjas could be that powerful.
From then on, Konoha valued Guy, promoting him to jōnin—unlike his father, who died in battle as a mere genin despite a lifetime of training.
***
Bonus Chapter:
100 Power Stones = 1 BC
300 Power Stones = 2 BC
500 Power Stones = 3 BC
700 Power Stones = 4 BC
1000 Power Stones = 5 BC
***
If you want to read up to 50 chapters ahead, don't hesitate to visit our patron: pat reon . com / XElenea (removespace)