Grind is My Ninja Way

After killing all three Iwa-nin Jonin, Seimei scanned the rest of the battlefield, observing the situation.

In the last few battles last night, it seemed that the Iwa-nin's upper echelon had received orders to retreat early on, so their resistance wasn't very strong.

Without their leadership, the lower-ranking ninjas naturally wouldn't exert themselves.

Coupled with their superior numbers, the casualties in each battle were significantly lower than in the first stronghold battle.

Therefore, even now, they still had over four hundred people remaining.

On the contrary, although Iwagakure had gathered many people at this third-line camp, their total number was only around two hundred.

So, the battles on the field were still mostly in their favor.

Even among the Jonin, except for him fighting multiple opponents, the rest were outnumbered.

Although the Iwa-nin had gathered elites from the previous camps, they were still somewhat inferior compared to them.

After all, they had prepared in advance, and the elites they gathered were far from what Iwagakure could hastily assemble.

If not for this, the higher-ups wouldn't have confidently assigned them the subsequent containment mission. After all, it was obvious that the reinforcements Iwagakure was about to send would definitely not be weak.

If their strength wasn't sufficient, it wouldn't be containment but rather a suicide mission.

The command center naturally wouldn't let them die in vain, so the personnel allocation was exceptional.

And this was one of the reasons why the casualty rate was so low last night.

Various thoughts flashed through his mind. Seimei looked past the Jonin and finally locked onto the Iwa-nin Chunin with outstanding combat abilities.

Compared to the Jonin who were being besieged, these Chunin were the real trouble because no one could restrain them.

In just these ten minutes, many Konoha ninjas had died at their hands. Seimei had to slow down this trend.

It wasn't that he cared deeply about these Konoha ninjas, but they had another tough battle ahead, and the team couldn't afford too many losses.

After all, no matter how powerful he was, he was still just one person. He was counting on these people to draw fire when Iwagakure's reinforcements arrived, so he couldn't let too many of them die!

With this in mind, Seimei leaped out, heading straight for an Iwa-nin Chunin.

"What was that?"

Yamaguchi Ishihashi was fighting a Konoha Chunin when he suddenly felt a dark shadow flash past him. He instinctively wanted to look in that direction.

However, the next moment, an extremely dangerous feeling came from his side, sending shivers down his spine.

Almost without hesitation, he immediately dodged to one side, and then, in his peripheral vision, he saw a short sword thrusting through the air.

This made him break out in a cold sweat.

Judging by the position of the short sword, if he hadn't reacted quickly, it wouldn't have been air that was pierced, but his heart.

"Who was that?"

Yamaguchi Ishihashi wondered, turning his head to look in the direction of the sword, trying to find the wielder.

However, all that was left was a corner of a garment; the person holding the sword had already vanished.

Yamaguchi Ishihashi was about to continue searching.

The next moment, the familiar sense of crisis struck again.

"Oh no!"

Yamaguchi Ishihashi was terrified and quickly dodged.

*Slash~*

The blade grazed his arm, leaving an inch-deep wound.

"Ugh~"

Yamaguchi Ishihashi groaned, enduring the sharp pain, and thrust his kunai in the direction the sword had come from, his eyes also looking that way.

However, he saw nothing.

*Whoosh~*

Another sword thrust came from behind. Even though Yamaguchi Ishihashi desperately dodged, his flesh was still cut.

Yamaguchi Ishihashi counterattacked again, but there was still no one there!

Cold sweat dripped from Yamaguchi Ishihashi's forehead. He felt like this unknown enemy was like a ghost, only seeing its shadow but not its form.

This made him feel both terrified and frustrated.

If it were a fair and square fight, even if he lost, he would accept it. But what was this? Was he being toyed with like a monkey?

While he was still thinking, Yamaguchi Ishihashi was struck by another sword.

Finally, Yamaguchi Ishihashi erupted. He shouted and rapidly formed hand seals with both hands, seemingly preparing to use some ninjutsu.

However, before he could complete the hand seals, a short sword had already pierced his back, penetrating his heart.

*Pfft~*

A mouthful of blood spurted out.

Yamaguchi Ishihashi looked at the sword tip protruding from his chest, his face filled with unwillingness and disbelief.

Just now, he wasn't really planning to form hand seals and use ninjutsu but was trying to lure the enemy into attacking with this method.

Based on the speed of the previous sword strikes, he was absolutely confident that he could avoid the next attack, and he could take this opportunity to counterattack the enemy.

But he truly didn't expect the enemy's speed to increase so much, catching him completely off guard, turning the opening he deliberately left into a death sentence.

"I'm... not... reconciled..."

Yamaguchi Ishihashi struggled to utter these words.

Then, as Seimei pulled out the short sword, his entire body fell heavily to the ground, completely lifeless.

Until his death, he never saw Seimei, who had killed him, with his own eyes. No wonder he had so much resentment!

Seimei glanced at the corpse on the ground, said nothing, casually flicked the blood off the blade, and nodded at the stunned Konoha Chunin beside him.

Then he used the Body Flicker Technique and rushed towards another Iwa-nin Chunin.

In this way, within a short ten minutes or so, Seimei consecutively killed over twenty skilled Iwa-nin Chunin, greatly reducing the potential casualties of his own team.

During this time, some Iwa-nin Jonin tried to stop him, but they were all intercepted by the Konoha Jonin fighting them.

Although according to the unspoken rules of the battlefield, Seimei, as a Jonin, shouldn't actively attack lower-ranked ninjas.

But...

The Iwa-nin were at too much of a disadvantage. Even if they saw what Seimei was doing, they couldn't retaliate in the same way.

Naturally, this couldn't deter Seimei.

The battle continued, and Seimei was still targeting the Iwa-nin Chunin. Any who showed outstanding performance couldn't escape his deadly hands.

This made many Iwa-nin Chunin afraid to reveal their true strength even if they had it.

For a time, the battles between the Chunin and lower-ranked ninjas showed a one-sided trend.

But thinking about it, Konoha originally had the advantage in numbers.

Now, those Iwa-nin who dared to stand out were all dealt with by Seimei, so how could the situation not tilt in Konoha's favor?

After a few more minutes, there were less than a hundred Iwa-nin survivors.

Just as Seimei was about to switch targets and attack the Iwa-nin Jonin, a voice suddenly appeared in his mind.

No, not just in his mind, all the surviving Konoha ninjas on the battlefield heard this voice.

"Everyone, immediately execute Plan C!"

Seimei recognized this voice; it belonged to a Yamanaka clan Jonin in the team.

At this time, he was probably using the Mind Transmission Technique to connect with everyone and convey Nara Shikaku's, the mission commander's, orders.

And the so-called Plan C was to contain Iwagakure's reinforcements to support the all-out counteroffensive launched by the other strongholds.

'In other words, Iwagakure's reinforcements are almost here.'

With this thought, Seimei immediately followed the plan, rushing out of the battlefield and heading in the direction he had come from.

(End of Chapter)