Naruto: Cultivating to Immortality

Chapter 31 Post-War

As darkness fell, the battle between Konoha and Iwa ninja gradually turned into a war of attrition. The Iwa ninja also lost the possibility of quickly defeating the Konoha team.

"Bang!" A signal flare appeared in the already dark sky, exploded instantly, illuminating the sky before it quickly returned to darkness.

Upon seeing the signal flare in the sky, the Iwa ninja began an orderly retreat. Konoha was also unable to continue the pursuit. As if by unspoken agreement, both sides cleaned up the battlefield, bringing back their wounded or dead ninjas, and no further fighting occurred.

When the Iwa ninja who were besieging the Hyuga Kanan squad in the third battle saw the signal flare in the sky, they glanced at the Hyuga Kanan gate with some resentment, then began to collect the corpses of the surrounding Iwa ninja before retreating and quickly disappearing into the forest.

Hyuga Kanan activated his Byakugan and observed carefully for a while. After discovering that the Iwa ninja had indeed retreated, he made a hand gesture.

Upon seeing Hyuga Kanan's gesture, the group instantly collapsed to the ground, unable to rise again. Their bodies were covered in small wounds, and their clothes were tattered and torn, a dark red color completely obscured from their original appearance.

Even the mighty Jiraiya lay sprawled on the ground, utterly lacking the composure of a strongman, sprawled out in a disheveled manner, breathing heavily. Gekko Shinka, meanwhile, simply passed out without any reaction.

The slug had long since disappeared due to the exhaustion of its chakra, and now the team's wounds were still bleeding slowly without being bandaged.

Hyuga Kanan took out bandages from his ninja tool pouch, bandaged himself first, and then went to bandage Gekko and the others. He was the only one with some strength left to give them basic first aid and stop the bleeding. It wasn't that Hyuga Kanan was stronger than Jiraiya and the others; it was just that he had consumed a large amount of soul power to draw upon and refine natural energy to restore his own energy and stamina, making him slightly better off than them.

Feeling the depletion of his soul power, Hyuga Kanan was on the verge of tears. The soul energy orb he had absorbed and refined some time ago had been completely consumed again, meaning he was back to where he was when he first arrived on the battlefield. If he wanted to convert it into divine consciousness power, it would mean starting to accumulate soul energy all over again.

However, he absorbed a large portion of the soul energy orbs from the battlefield into the Qiankun Inheritance Jade during his rest. There were over thirty soul energy orbs in total. He abandoned the larger ones and only absorbed the medium-sized ones, taking a risk. If he had no chance to absorb any of them, the conversion of his divine sense power would be a long way off, and his chances of surviving on this battlefield would be extremely slim.

After helping them bandage up, Hyuga Kanan quietly found a tree, sat down cross-legged, and began to let the Qiankun Inheritance Jade refine the soul energy clusters that had been absorbed that day.

But the waves of drowsiness in his mind kept reminding Hyuga Kanan to go to sleep and rest.

From noon until now, around dusk, the Hyuga Kanan squad had been engaged in a high-intensity battle for a full six hours. Even though their physical strength recovered quickly, the long period of intense concentration during the battle had left them mentally exhausted, and even their powerful souls were feeling fatigued. This proved that they really needed to rest now.

Hyuga Kanan, who was still refining the soul energy orb, could no longer hold on and slowly lost consciousness, collapsing under the tree into a deep sleep.

Soon, a Konoha ninja squad arrived at the battlefield. They were surprised to see the three still unconscious and Jiraiya lying on the ground, panting heavily. However, after seeing the condition of the entire squad, they understood what had happened. Even Jiraiya had various injuries and was exhausted, lying on the ground. The other squad members were likely in even worse condition, their survival uncertain. But after quickly checking on them, they were relieved to find that the other three members were still alive, just severely exhausted and wounded, and had fallen into a deep sleep.

He carried all the members of the Hyuga Kanan squad on his back and quickly headed towards the camp of the third line of defense, so that they could get some rest.

At dawn, Hyuga Kanan woke up groggily, looked at his body and his surroundings, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found himself covered in bandages and new clothes. He then saw Moonlight Nobunaga and several other ninjas who had been responsible for blocking and surrounding the rear lying there, one of whom had lost an arm.

I was refining a ball of soul energy yesterday when I unknowingly fell unconscious. It seems I was taken back to the camp by Konoha ninjas.

Recalling the battle of yesterday, Hyuga Kanan couldn't help but feel a lingering fear. Especially the time they encountered a team led by a Jonin from Iwagakure—two Jonin-led teams in total. If it weren't for Jiraiya sacrificing his arm and using Katsuyu's healing abilities to forcefully kill those two Jonin, everyone else in Hyuga Kanan's team would probably have died there, except for Jiraiya who escaped.

I'm really lucky to be alive. Jiraiya fought really hard. You have to understand that Jonin are not easy opponents to deal with. Even Jiraiya is not so easy to defeat. If it turns into a war of attrition, the Iwa ninja squad will accumulate more and more, and in the end, the Hyuga Kanan squad may really be surrounded and killed.

After exhaling a deep breath, I pulled my wandering thoughts back to reality.

Hyuga Kanan sat up and began to refine the soul energy he had absorbed yesterday, since every bit of improvement he could make would increase his chances of survival.

Inside the camp command post, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade were listening to a statistician report on yesterday's battlefield situation.

Jiraiya's arm was still in a sling over his chest, not yet receiving immediate medical attention. After all, Tsunade had also expended considerable energy yesterday and was temporarily unable to treat him. Tsunade, on the other hand, wasn't seriously injured. Since their area was near the mountains, there weren't many Iwa ninja teams there; only a few teams had gone there. Under the attack of Tsunade's team, the battle was quickly ended.

Yesterday, she summoned a slug and used a lot of chakra to provide healing to Konoha, so her chakra consumption was greater, but she was not injured.

When Orochimaru heard that Konoha had lost nearly 200 ninja in just one day, and that over 80% of its supplies had been used up, he couldn't help but frown. Such heavy losses in just one day meant that if the Iwa ninja continued their offensive, Konoha might not be able to hold out for more than five days before being completely annihilated.

Fortunately, the Iwa ninja couldn't maintain such an offensive. Their casualties and losses were also considerable, and they wouldn't sacrifice more ninja for the Sand ninja. Furthermore, they lacked detailed intelligence support from Konoha. If Konoha could maintain this level of intensity, the Iwa ninja couldn't sustain it indefinitely.

So, the next step is the intelligence gathering battle. The Iwa ninja will likely soon be able to figure out Konoha's strengths and weaknesses. After all, Konoha has too few strong ninjas and can only rely on their three members taking turns to attack. They also can't afford to waste resources like they did yesterday. So, what Konoha can do now is to minimize or delay the leakage of intelligence.

In short, the Iwa ninja have indeed entered Orochimaru's planned scenario, the second pre-arranged battle situation. Now it remains to be seen when the Iwa ninja will react. The later it goes, the more time the Konoha's ambush can be delayed, giving the Konoha and Sand ninja more time to decide the outcome of their battle.

Orochimaru began to arrange the next task.

First, the first step is to project an image of strength, that is, to bluff, so that all the Iwa ninjas who come to gather intelligence will be kept behind and no information will be leaked.

The second step is that the Iwa ninja will definitely send more ninja to investigate. It's impossible to keep them all. At that time, some of the information from Konoha will probably be sent back, but which part will depend on Konoha's choice. Important information will be kept even if it means sacrificing many, while some unimportant or false information will be deliberately given to the other side. This will make the Iwa ninja suspicious and indecisive.

The third and final step is that the Iwa ninja will definitely send some powerful ninja units to probe Konoha. At that time, the enemy may find out about Konoha's situation. Therefore, Konoha must concentrate all its forces to attack the enemy's probe units as much as possible, killing as many as possible and trying its best to injure or repel the Iwa ninja probe units.

This would buy Konoha as much time as possible to hold off the Iwa ninja.

"What should we do after repelling the probing troops?" Jiraiya nodded in agreement after hearing Orochimaru's plans, but still wanted to know what Konoha should do after the final step.

"If Konoha's reinforcements haven't arrived by the time we repel the probing force, then you won't want to hear what happens next. All I'm asking of you now is to complete my plan, and then I'll inform everyone." Orochimaru reprimanded Jiraiya without changing his expression, ruthlessly ordering him to carry out the mission before leaving the command tent.

Tsunade glanced at Jiraiya with a grim expression. Seeing his pale face, she understood that he had thought of Orochimaru's final plan, but she didn't offer any comfort. She simply said, "Let's go back to the medical room. I'll treat you. We're about to go on a mission." Without looking at him again, she walked out of the tent.

In fact, they all knew that if no reinforcements were available in the end, Orochimaru would order all Konoha ninja to fight to the death to hold off the Iwa ninja, even if it meant total annihilation.

Hyuga Kanan silently cultivated on his sickbed until most of the soul energy orbs were refined, allowing himself to relax his tense nerves. He silently fused and absorbed the pure soul energy, strengthening himself.

Moonlight Nobunaga has also woken up and is silently recovering his chakra. After all, no one knows when the battle will start again, so it is most important to restore his fighting strength as much as possible.

Suddenly, a ninja appeared in front of Hyuga Kanan and informed him that he was about to embark on a mission.

Hyuga Kanan simply nodded silently, without saying a word.

Upon hearing the notification, Moonlight Nobunaga was slightly taken aback, then relaxed and whispered to Hinata Kanan, "Be careful! Stay alive..."

Hyuga Kanan smiled at the moonlight and walked straight out of the ward.