The Cloud Village's movements still failed to escape the notice of the Akatsuki.
After all, more than eight thousand people had to reorganize the camp, pack up their gear, and then begin marching.
Just how slow that would be was obvious, and the massive commotion created during the process was even harder to conceal.
Especially Konan, meticulous as she was, had long since carefully laid out a large number of explosive tags around the Cloud Village encampment.
Naturally, the people of the Cloud Village could not possibly pretend they hadn't seen those conspicuously placed explosive tags.
After a brief discussion, they settled on the safest method of removal.
Tailed Beast Ball mine clearing.
And so, accompanied by one deafening explosion after another—BOOM! BOOM!— The original calm was instantly shattered by the detonations of the explosive tags, with billowing smoke shooting straight into the sky.
"The Cloud Village is moving!"
Konan, who had been closely monitoring the situation all along, immediately noticed the enemy's movement and sounded the alert.
Before this, the members of the Akatsuki had already conserved their strength and made full preparations for battle.
Upon hearing Konan's call, they quickly finished gearing up and moved out in full force.
Konan leapt lightly into the air, her figure graceful, like a butterfly dancing in flight.
Sasori flew alongside her while controlling his fearsome Third Kazekage puppet.
As for Kisame Hoshigaki and Kakuzu, the two of them sat steadily atop the clay bird created by Deidara.
For the Akatsuki, securing air superiority to a certain extent meant possessing absolute safety and high mobility.
When the Akatsuki members arrived near the battlefield, the scene before them made them pause in slight surprise.
They saw the Eight-Tails, Killer B, in his partial tailed beast form, continuously spewing out Tailed Beast Balls brimming with destructive power.
Every single Tailed Beast Ball that landed would flatten everything around it.
Any area blasted by a Tailed Beast Ball was naturally extremely safe. Although it was full of craters and inconvenient for marching, there was absolutely no chance of explosive tags remaining.
Killer B couldn't help but feel a bit of regret that he hadn't done this last time.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have been injured and slowed down the Cloud Village's progress.
"Konan, looks like your explosive tag traps got broken, huh," Kisame Hoshigaki shouted toward Konan.
However, faced with this situation, Konan showed not the slightest hint of frustration.
She knew very well that the reason they had managed to successfully ambush Killer B last time was entirely because that guy was thick-headed enough to insist on personally clearing the explosive tag traps himself.
As long as they advanced steadily, the jinchuriki Killer B was like a powerful artillery piece with infinite energy.
In this world, there was almost nothing that couldn't be solved with a single Tailed Beast Ball.
If there was, then two would do.
At this moment, Kakuzu was staring at the Cloud Village ninjas below, who were advancing slowly in neat formations.
A helpless expression crossed his face, like a rat trying to drag a turtle, not knowing where to start.
Earlier, Deidara had tried to launch a sneak attack under the cover of night, but his explosive clay had been effectively countered by the enemy.
Now, faced with this fully armed Cloud Village force advancing in an orderly manner at a slow pace, even Deidara, arrogant as he was, didn't dare to recklessly show off.
After all, he knew very clearly that if he charged in like this, he probably wouldn't have a chance to come back alive.
Although Deidara was still very young, he wasn't stupid. That kind of risky escape tactic from before could only be used occasionally and absolutely could not be attempted again.
A head-on clash was definitely not a wise choice, especially since they weren't the terrifying Pain.
Just as everyone fell into thought, Konan's mind suddenly began racing.
Her gaze swept quickly over every companion present before finally settling on Sasori.
The corners of her mouth lifted slightly as she asked, "Sasori, do your puppets need an upgrade?"
Hearing this, Sasori was briefly taken aback, but he quickly understood Konan's intention.
"Heh! That won't be cheap."
Konan replied indifferently, "It's fine. No matter how many get blown up, I'll replace them all with brand-new ones."
At these words, Sasori nodded without hesitation.
"Alright, no problem. I'm in."
"Judging by their current pace, it'll take about another hour or so for them to completely clear the area covered by my explosive tags."
After saying that, she turned to the others and continued arranging things.
"Sasori and I will go make some preparations first. You absolutely must not act rashly. If you get caught by the Raikage, that'll be real trouble."
After giving these instructions, Konan and Sasori immediately beat their wings and flew off toward the rear like a flash of lightning.
Leaving Kisame Hoshigaki, Kakuzu, and Deidara staring at one another.
After a moment, Kakuzu slowly spoke up.
"In my opinion, we should just rest properly for a while."
Clearly, Kakuzu had no intention of taking the initiative to stir things up.
After all, their mission this time was merely to slow down the Cloud Village's advance.
If they got impulsive and lost their lives here, that would truly be a terrible loss and a complete joke.
So the three of them each found a relatively safe corner, either sitting or lying down, and began to rest.
.
.
.
Finally, the long hour slowly passed.
At this moment, the Cloud Village forces were tightly gathered around Killer B, cautiously clearing out the entire area ahead that was filled with dangerous explosive tag traps.
Although their pace was somewhat slow, the process was at least extremely safe and reliable.
It was just that the road was a bit hard to traverse, with craters everywhere.
Of course, to ensure absolute safety, their reconnaissance unit and those ninjas with sensory abilities remained fully focused, constantly monitoring the surroundings.
After all, none of the Akatsuki members were ordinary. Every one of them possessed extraordinary skills and formidable strength.
Recalling the last time when Killer B had suffered a disastrous setback due to a moment of carelessness, everyone was even less willing to let their guard down.
Just then, a sudden shout rang out.
"Enemy attack! In the sky!"
The Cloud Village ninjas instantly became alert and all looked up.
They saw a black shadow streaking toward them like lightning. Looking closer, it turned out to be Deidara, riding atop his eye-catching clay giant dragon.
This clay giant dragon was enormous, far more imposing than the clay birds from before.
Not only that, its flying speed was also astonishingly fast.
When the clay giant dragon flew over the Cloud Village troops, it opened its gaping maw and suddenly spewed out countless dense spider bombs.
These spider bombs fell like goose-feather snow, fluttering down en masse, heading straight for the rear of the Cloud Village formation.
However, in the face of such a fierce assault, the Cloud Village side showed not the slightest panic.
That was because they had many experts skilled in Lightning Release among them, and they naturally had no fear of this kind of clay bomb.
Cee, who was positioned in the middle of the formation, immediately shouted loudly when he saw this.
"They're clay bombs! Everyone stay calm and use Lightning Release to destroy their activity!"
As soon as the order was given, he was the first to act.
"Lightning Release, Lightning Pillar!"
One dazzling bolt of lightning after another shot skyward, surging toward the spider bombs raining down from above.
In an instant, lightning and bombs collided.
A large number of spider bombs that would have landed near them turned into duds.
Even so, quite a few that slipped through still caused a large number of explosions.
The giant dragon Deidara was riding was clearly much faster than the clay birds.
He streaked across the sky like a bolt of lightning, dropping a wide swath of spider-shaped bombs before turning around and fleeing.
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