A ninja's physical endurance far surpassed that of ordinary people. They weren't as fast as modern high-speed trains, but compared to a regular train, they weren't much slower.
The Konoha force had departed in the morning, and by dusk they had already covered nearly half the distance to the front.
However, since they were heading toward an active war zone, traveling through the night was out of the question. After covering half the journey, Orochimaru issued the order for all ninja to halt and set up camp.
With practiced ease, the various squads used tents and ninjutsu to erect a temporary encampment. A portion of the force remained on watch while the rest prepared to rest.
Uchiha Feiyu had also intended to rest—only to be summoned by Orochimaru. With a helpless sigh, he made his way into the main command tent.
The moment he stepped inside, Feiyu paused.
In addition to Orochimaru and over a dozen jōnin, there stood a blond young man with exhausted eyes and a haggard expression. Even so, when he noticed Feiyu entering, he still offered a polite smile.
"Feiyu," Orochimaru drawled, "let me introduce you. This is Jiraiya's student—Namikaze Minato. If not for him, those Cloud ninja would have already stormed deep into the Land of Fire."
"Right now, he's earned quite the reputation on the battlefield. The Cloud ninja call him the Golden Flash."
Minato let out a weary, bitter smile and shook his head.
"What Golden Flash? The entire Cloud front has already been annihilated. All I could do was harass them and slow their advance a little…"
"If brutally slaughtering over eight hundred Cloud shinobi in three days counts as 'slightly slowing' them," Orochimaru replied coolly, "then if Konoha had two or three more 'delay specialists' like you, Cloud would already be wiped out."
His tone was cold as always, but Feiyu—who knew him well—could clearly hear the astonishment hidden in it.
And he understood why.
Three days, eight hundred Cloud ninja.
Unless every single enemy was a low-level genin or Chunin, Feiyu himself couldn't guarantee achieving that. Not to mention Minato had been acting alone, while the enemy force included the Third Raikage and the AB Brothers.
If Feiyu had run into that lineup, he would've vanished on the spot. Who had the guts to stay and play guerrilla warfare with that?
It was painfully clear: someone like Minato, equipped with Flying Thunder God, was a true god-tier individual combatant. Making him lead a large army was a waste—his power was meant for independent operations.
Assigning him to command the front lines originally had been a tactical blunder.
"This time, Minato-kun is here to brief us on intelligence…"
Orochimaru continued, detailing Cloud's troop movements and strategy, but Feiyu only listened with half an ear. As a lone wolf fighter, he had zero interest in battlefield command.
However, when Orochimaru shifted the topic to Cloud's top elites, Feiyu immediately focused. Those were the only threats that concerned him.
"Among Cloud's powerhouses, the most troublesome is, of course, the Third Raikage. Minato-kun, you should explain this part."
Everyone turned toward Minato. He let out a weary sigh and spoke.
"The Third Raikage… how should I put it? He's a completely different kind of shinobi."
"Unlike most ninja, who hide their abilities, probe for openings, and aim for a decisive strike… the Third Raikage doesn't conceal anything."
"In battle, he cloaks himself in a Lightning Release armor formed by the Lightning Chakra Mode, and then uses pure taijutsu to kill. His characteristics can be summed up in three points—"
"Overwhelming attack power. Overwhelming speed. Overwhelming defense."
"His offense is so high that layered defensive walls—Water Walls, Earth Walls, even stacked seven or eight deep—are pierced in a single strike."
"His defense is so strong that combined ninjutsu from over ten shinobi failed to leave even a scratch."
"And speed—his movement is equivalent to constantly using Body Flicker. Aside from me, no one in Konoha can keep up with him."
Silence fell over the tent.
Everyone knew the legends—the strongest spear and the strongest shield.
Even an S-rank Wind Release Rasenshuriken, a natural counter to lightning, had failed to pierce him in the original canon. His only known weakness was himself—his "strongest spear" piercing his own "strongest shield."
He was simply absurd.
After Minato finished, the tent was dead silent. Even Orochimaru's expression had darkened.
But Minato wasn't done.
"Also… the Third Raikage may possess space–time ninjutsu."
The tent erupted in whispers. Feiyu's eyes widened.
Since when does that monster know space–time ninjutsu?! Don't tell me he's a transmigrator too?!
"Minato-kun, you're sure?" someone asked. "There's never been any record of him showing talent in that area!"
"He's already monstrous enough. If he can use space–time techniques, how are we supposed to fight him?"
Minato forced another bitter smile.
"I can't confirm whether it truly is space–time ninjutsu. But the first time he attacked us, he appeared in the center of our camp in a sudden flash of light, then began a massacre."
"It was precisely that completely unannounced strike—combined with Cloud's full-scale assault—that caused our line to collapse and nearly wipe out our entire force."
"Thinking carefully, aside from a space–time technique, there's no other explanation. I also distinctly felt spatial distortion at the time."
After those words, the entire tent sank into grim silence.
Only Uchiha Feiyu let out a subtle breath of relief, as if he had just confirmed a suspicion.
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