Blue lightning and purple-blue blade winds interwove, instantly crushing the incoming ninjutsu and ninja around them.
"You're that so-called Moon Sword Demon Kokushibo, aren't you?"
The Third Raikage split an incoming fireball with a palm strike, kicked away an Hidden Stone Village ninja rushing at him, and took the chance to shout toward Akashō a few meters away.
"What are you doing here? Came to save me?"
"Heh."
Akashō let out a cold laugh as he beheaded two Hidden Stone Village ninja.
"Save you?"
"I guess so. First I save you, then I kill you."
"Hahahaha!"
The Third Raikage was blasted away by dozens of ninjutsu, tore apart a whirlwind midair, and landed steadily.
"If you want to kill me, just do it. Saving me first? Pointless."
Akashō sliced off his own left arm, which was being restrained by three Hidden Stone Village ninja at once, regenerated it rapidly, and cut all three of them down in a single motion.
"I'll do whatever the hell I want. It's not your place, old man, to tell me otherwise."
Seeing the arm regenerate completely in less than three seconds, a strange glint appeared in the Third Raikage's eyes.
"So that's the legendary immortal body? Paired with your swordsmanship, that's enough to qualify as Kage-level."
"But don't think that kind of recovery makes you invincible. No matter how trash these guys are, ten thousand of them are still ten thousand. If you can actually survive this battle, I wouldn't mind sparring with you."
As he spoke, the Third Raikage leapt up and used a hand chop to cut down several ninjutsu flying toward Akashō.
"Tch."
Akashō swung out a blade wind, cutting down a Hidden Stone Village ninja who had lunged from behind the Raikage.
"That's something you should be telling yourself!"
It wasn't that Akashō didn't want to fight the Third Raikage right now—it was that the surrounding hyenas were too annoying. Once they started fighting, one thing was certain: the Third Raikage would definitely die.
And if the Third Raikage died, Bertholdt Hoover's reputation points would lose tens of thousands for nothing. That was a high-quality resource.
So for now, Akashō could only choose to team up with the Third Raikage and beat this cannon-fodder army into fear and retreat.
Then came step two: under the Kokushibo template, personally defeat the Third Raikage and harvest him. Step three: in Bertholdt Hoover's state, harvest the reputation points from both sides.
Though thinking it through, collecting both sets of reputation points from the Third Raikage would be difficult, but harvesting the ninja army's reputation points wasn't hard at all.
As for the Third Raikage, it was just a bonus. Success would be great; failure wouldn't matter much.
After all, as long as he harvested the two sets of reputation points from the ninja army, Akashō's total would be enough to unlock the third template.
An S-rank template dealing with a single Third Raikage shouldn't be a problem.
After that, it would just be a repetitive harvesting process. At the very least, in Akashō's plan, during this Third Great Ninja War, he should be able to unlock the fourth template of the third tier.
"Moon Breathing, Fourteenth Form, Catastrophe, Tenman Crescent Moon!!!"
Akashō wildly swung the Evolution Blade in his hand, unleashing dozens of meter-long purple wind blades in all directions, instantly shredding the incoming ninjutsu and the Hidden Stone Village ninja who failed to dodge into pieces.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!!!"
Amid the deafening battle cries, the moon shifted position once more. The ground, pitted with craters, was littered with scattered corpses.
"Pfft…"
Akashō dropped to one knee, his long blade stabbed into the ground, and spat out a mouthful of blood.
At this moment, his body was covered in wounds as numerous as stars. Under this seemingly endless cycle of injury, Kokushibo's Demon Body had finally reached its limit.
Fatigue, hunger, pain—Akashō gasped heavily. He could clearly feel it: the speed of his recovery had significantly slowed, and his stamina recovery was no better.
In the end, Akashō lacked sufficient battle experience and had misjudged the situation.
Quantity cannot make up for quality?
That statement wasn't entirely accurate. The premise was that the quality had to be high enough. Among the current strong figures of the ninja world, aside from a very few who specialized in large-scale combat, not a single one had reached a level where they couldn't be suppressed by ten thousand ninja.
"Kid!?"
Not far away, the Third Raikage, whose blue aura had dimmed somewhat, saw Akashō suddenly collapse and couldn't help shouting in alarm.
As a veteran ninja with rich combat experience, he understood clearly that the moment he chose to come alone for the sake of his village, his death had already been decided.
After all, he was a close-combat type who wasn't suited for large-scale battles and was heavily countered by human wave tactics.
And the elite ninja still fighting on the front lines wouldn't be able to return in a short time. All he could do was hold on as long as possible until the frontline forces came back to reinforce.
The longer he endured, the greater the chance of his village's safety.
Yet only a few hours into the battle, that recently infamous Moon Sword Demon suddenly appeared.
Though he didn't know the man's purpose, the sheer courage to face an army of ten thousand ninja was enough to earn the Third Raikage's admiration.
Whether Kokushibo was simply a fearless rookie or arrogantly overconfident, the fact that he dared to step onto a battlefield that most Kage-level fighters would fear was enough to command respect.
But no matter how much he admired Akashō, in a situation where he himself was barely holding on, how could he offer help?
"Get the hell up! Didn't you say you'd kill me!? If you collapse now, I'll look down on you for the rest of my life!!"
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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