Although the Hyuga clan was also envious of Li Anshi's chakra refining technique, they were also very self-aware.
The Hyuga had once been powerful. In the Warring States period, Hyuga Tenjin, although not on the same level as Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju, was still one of the top ninjas of that era.
After his death, the strongest of the Hyuga today was only at the level of an elite jonin.
And there was only one such powerhouse: the clan head.
The elders of the main family also had many ninjas of jonin-level strength.
However, due to a lack of true life-and-death battles, even with the aid of the Byakugan, they were only considered upper-mid tier among the jonin.
In front of Li Anshi, the Hyuga clan was no different from any other ordinary ninja.
Therefore, although they were aware of his uniqueness, they only dared to secretly use their branch family members to research a new chakra refining technique.
However, his internal energy-chakra came from the memories of Li Xunhuan of the Little Li's Flying Dagger from the world of Wuxia. How could these ninjas possibly fathom the mysteries of internal energy?
Over the years, the Hyuga had crippled numerous branch family ninjas in their research of his chakra flow, causing the conflict between the main and branch families to escalate once again.
It was only because the main family possessed the secret technique of the "Caged Bird" that they were able to suppress the branch family's discontent.
Otherwise, the Hyuga clan would probably have been wiped out by an internal civil war even before the Uchiha.
After learning that Tsunade had requested Li Anshi to become Nawaki's supervising teacher, the Hyuga clan had been moved.
Coincidentally, they had previously sent Rin to the Ninja Academy out of spite towards the Uchiha.
After paying a considerable price, she had been successfully assigned to Nawaki's team by the Third Hokage, becoming one of his new subordinates.
As long as she received some guidance from him, the Hyuga might be able to reverse-engineer his chakra refining technique through some clues.
Of course, this could only be considered a casual move on their part.
Such a technique, in any clan, would be regarded as the most important secret of the family's heritage, wouldn't it?
Therefore, they did not have much hope that she would be taught it.
However, to their greater surprise, it was a case of "sowing flowers and getting none, planting willows and getting shade."
Under his command, she had indeed not yet been taught anything about chakra refining.
However, she had already obtained his ultimate and most powerful secret technique, the one that had made his name resound throughout the ninja world: "Little Li's Flying Dagger."
And she had already made considerable progress in her training of it.
It wouldn't be long before she completely mastered the first stage.
What they had lost on the swings, they had gained on the roundabouts.
For the Hyuga, this was an unexpected joy.
Therefore, the elders of the main family had not mentioned to her the purpose of secretly using her Byakugan to record the trajectory of his chakra flow.
As long as she successfully learned the flying dagger, then their clan would be great again, surpassing the Uchiha to become the number one clan in Konoha.
Before that, whenever he had been following behind them to protect them, the moment he had detected any sign of her activating her Byakugan, he would immediately use the Flying Thunder God Technique to teleport out of her field of vision.
When his figure had appeared in her line of sight, she had finally discovered just how terrifying his chakra was in the eyes of the Byakugan.
And it was different from ordinary ninjas.
For a normal ninja, after refining their chakra, even when using it to enhance their physical abilities, it would only appear as a few separate meridians in the Byakugan's view.
But he was different.
In the Byakugan's vision, his entire body was covered in a dense, web-like network of chakra meridians. There were flowing pathways of chakra in his blood vessels, muscles, and even his bone marrow.
The chakra in these meridians flowed ceaselessly like a river, keeping his body in a constant state of enhancement.
"How is this possible?"
Rin's pupils quaked.
This was not the first time she had activated her Byakugan.
Nor was it the first time she had seen a ninja's chakra.
But it was the first time she had seen a ninja's chakra reach such a state.
Even the Hyuga, who prided themselves on being able to see all the acupoints in the body and could release chakra from them to perform their absolute defense secret technique, the "Revolving Heaven," the number of acupoints involved was less than one percent of the chakra nodes on his body's surface.
This scene had made her completely overlook the amount of chakra in his body, which was comparable to that of a Tailed Beast.
"Rin, what's wrong?"
"Is Sensei Li here?"
Nawaki was the first to notice that something was wrong with her. He immediately stopped setting his traps and hurried to her side, grabbing her shoulders and asking.
"Huh?"
"Oh."
"Yes."
After a few unintelligible mumbles, she finally came back to her senses.
That's right, we're still being hunted by Sensei Li. I'll think about his chakra after we get through this training!
"Nawaki, Mikoto, Sensei Li has appeared."
"His speed isn't fast, but..."
Here, she hesitated for a moment. "The direction he's heading is on a direct line with our current position!"
In the Forest of Death, the paths were not straight, but winding and curved like any other mountain range.
If one were to only look at the path he was taking, it would surely lead to some other direction.
However, she had, after all, followed behind him with the others, crossing mountains and rivers to return to Konoha.
Therefore, she judged his direction of travel not by the path he was on, but by the direction he was moving.
Sure enough, in her field of vision, he was not following the path, but had jumped onto the trees and was heading towards them from the treetops.
"Huh? How can this be?"
Mikoto had just emerged from the trap she had set when she heard Rin's words and couldn't help but cry out, clutching her head.
"Damn it, is our camouflage that bad?"
"Sensei Li figured out our escape route without even having to search?"
"No."
Rin shook her head. "We followed the road for a while."
"If he was tracking us by the traces we left, he should have followed the same path we did."
"But the feeling I get from him now is that he knows where we are, so he's taking the shortest route to us."
"Don't think about it."
Hearing her words, Nawaki finally figured something out and said in a low voice, "It doesn't matter how he determined our direction."
"What matters is that we now know he can lock onto us. This means that no matter where we run, we can't escape a direct confrontation in the end."
"So, Mikoto, Rin. From now on, let's not waste any more time and energy trying to evade him. We'll rest here and get ourselves in good condition to meet his arrival!"
"Okay."
Mikoto and Rin looked at each other and nodded in agreement with his arrangement.
Indeed, with their position locked on, their escape would only waste their stamina and chakra.
Rather than being easily "killed" by him due to exhaustion, they would be better off resting here and meeting his "attack" in a more perfect state!
…
"Not stupid."
In Li Anshi's perception, the location of the three of them had not moved for a long time.
From this, it was not difficult for him to guess what they were doing.
As for the possibility of them not having discovered him?
That thought had not even crossed his mind.
What a joke.
Did they really think the Byakugan's reputation as the number one insight in the ninja world was false?
The Mist Village's "Hiding in Mist Technique" could not even be seen through by the Sharingan.
But in front of the Byakugan, it was completely useless.
It could be said that as long as a Konoha team had a ninja who could activate the Byakugan, then any so-called "ambush" or "surprise attack" from the other villages was just a joke.
In fact, they might even be ambushed in return.
Although he knew they were waiting for him, he had no intention of speeding up.
In the wars of the ninja world, sometimes, death was not the most devastating thing.
The waiting for war, the waiting for death, was the main reason why many ninjas' minds broke.
Once a ninja's mind broke, their strength would be reduced to less than a tenth of what it was.
If a normal ninja had a one-in-ten chance of survival on the battlefield, then a ninja with a broken mind had a zero-in-ten chance!
Because for them, when the battle began, they would not take any action to protect themselves, but would just charge forward recklessly.
During this time, they would either be killed by an enemy's kunai or shuriken.
Or they would die taking an enemy with them.
Or, when their side had the advantage, they would separate from their unit and go too deep into enemy territory and be focused down...
In short, if a ninja's mind broke, death had already sent them an invitation.
What Li Anshi was doing now was slowly approaching them, letting the three of them experience this feeling of "waiting for death."
Only when they had gotten used to it and could ignore it would he be at ease letting them join the battlefield.
Sure enough, when he appeared before them, he could clearly feel the three of them let out a sigh of relief.
"Sensei, you've come."
"Yes, I've come."
Li Anshi looked down at the three of them, who had already taken their positions at the base of the large tree.
"So, Nawaki, Mikoto, Rin... Are you prepared to die?"
Boom!
With that, a powerful killing intent erupted from his body.
For a moment, the three of them felt as if they had been plunged into the depths of hell.
With him at the center, a seemingly endless river of blood surged towards them, like a tsunami, threatening to crush them.
"Such terrifying killing intent!"
"Under his killing intent, I can't even move..."
Nawaki's pupils quaked, his heart filled with horror.
Ninjas were also human.
Under extreme terror, even with a ninja's control over their body, it was inevitable that they would "tremble."
This was the body's instinctive reaction to a crisis.
Take Sasuke, for example.
The first time he had encountered Orochimaru in the Forest of Death, he too had been paralyzed by his killing intent, his whole body trembling, unable to move.
But Nawaki's current situation was that he felt his body didn't even dare to "tremble."
It seemed that if his body made even the slightest move, it would be instantly crushed by the giant waves in this sea of blood.
Not a single trace of his body or will would remain.
This was not strange.
Since it was "killing intent," it was naturally related to the slaughter a ninja had experienced.
The stronger one was, and the more people one had killed, the stronger one's killing intent would be.
Although he rarely moved about in the ninja world, the number of ninjas he had killed was beyond most people's imagination.
To date, in his three wars, he had killed over three thousand ninjas.
If it were a time of peace, to call him a "mass murderer" would be an understatement.
In terms of killing intent alone, no one in the ninja world could compare to him.
Even Madara Uchiha, known as the "Asura of the Ninja World," had probably not killed even half as many ninjas in his entire life.
If he wanted to, his "killing intent" itself was a very powerful genjutsu.
A ninja with a weak will, enveloped by his killing intent, would probably break down, accept the fact that they were being swallowed by a sea of blood, and thus die a physical death.
Of course, he had no real intention of killing the three of them.
Therefore, although the display was grand, the killing intent that was actually pressing down on them was only a fraction of his total.
Under his exquisite control, this killing intent was right at the limit of their endurance, but did not cause them any actual harm.
Seeing them stunned by his killing intent, he leaped down from the treetop. With a flick of his hand, a dagger slid down, and he caught it between the index and middle fingers of his right hand.
Then, he raised his hand and slowly thrust the dagger towards Nawaki.
"Damn it, move! My body, move!"