Kai Gai had just finished roaring!
"Whoosh—Screech!!!"
An extremely sharp, fabric-tearing long sound instantly filled his ears.
A Kumogakure ninja beside him suddenly shuddered!
Without any warning, the Lightning Release Armor on his side rippled violently like water hit by a stone, then instantly shattered and vanished.
A hole, only as thick as a thumb and with extremely smooth edges, appeared on his waist.
There was no immediate bleeding because the incredibly high speed instantly carbonized the surrounding muscles and tissues.
He didn't even feel pain, only an intense burning sensation as if a red-hot iron skewer had instantly pierced him, and a sense of emptiness as if his body had been hollowed out.
The moment the arrow entered his body, the true nightmare began.
Terrifying kinetic energy and rotational force, like an out-of-control industrial drill, furiously released energy within his abdominal cavity.
His kidney turned into a bloody mist upon contact. His spine instantly shattered when grazed, and nerve signals were completely cut off.
His intestines were twisted, torn, and ripped apart by the rotating arrow, and his upper and lower body almost lost their mechanical connection at that moment.
The arrow's rampant kinetic energy sought an exit within his body. It deflected upwards along the path of least resistance, finally bursting out from beneath his right shoulder blade.
"Puff Boom—!!!"
The explosion here created a hellish contrast with the quiet entry point at his waist.
His right shoulder blade exploded violently.
It was no longer a small hole, but a huge wound, violently forced open and torn from the inside out, with a diameter comparable to an adult's fist.
Shattered shoulder blades, fragments of lung tissue, mangled muscle tissue, and a thick, gushing stream of blood mixed together.
It sprayed fiercely onto his comrades in front, as if a huge and cruel flower of flesh and blood had instantly bloomed behind him.
The enormous thrust caused his entire body to lurch forward violently, his eyes filled with extreme astonishment and bewilderment, not even having time to turn into pain.
The front of his body might still maintain a human form, but the back half of his body, from his waist to his shoulder, had been completely hollowed out.
After being buffered by the first body, the four-edged heavy arrow, though its speed had diminished, still contained terrifying kinetic energy.
It carried fragments of flesh and blood from the first target's body as it continued its trajectory.
It precisely, or perhaps fortunately, grazed the back of the head of another Kumogakure ninja standing diagonally in front of the first target.
"Crack!"
A crisp, scalp-numbing sound of a skull shattering.
The effect was not as explosive as hitting the body, but equally fatal.
It was like a heavy sledgehammer smashing a ripe watermelon.
Most of his rear skull instantly collapsed, shattered, and was carried away.
Brain tissue was exposed and completely destroyed in the next moment.
He didn't even have time to react, his face possibly still showing a horrified expression from his comrade's sudden burst of blood, and he collapsed forward like a puppet with its strings cut, without a sound, softly falling to the ground.
Red blood and grayish-white brain matter slowly flowed from the horrific defect in his skull.
As the first Kumogakure Special Jonin's body was helplessly kneeling forward, and as the second ninja's brain matter was just beginning to touch the ground.
Kai Gai was scared out of his wits, and his figure shot back towards the cliff.
Only after hiding behind the mountain wall did he dare to look at the mess on the ground where they had just been.
A hollowed-out corpse half-kneeling, a corpse with a damaged skull fallen forward, and a warm, salty, lingering blood mist.
The few Kumogakure ninja accompanying Kai Gai were now scared senseless, their faces ashen.
They were just Genin, entirely here to serve as Kumogakure's honor guard.
They never expected to encounter such a powerful attack.
"What should we do, Kai Gai?" The bewildered Genin could only ask their leader.
Kai Gai gritted his teeth: "Throw ropes, pull their bodies back."
He had just realized that any open position made them complete targets, and the enemy might still be aiming at that spot.
Going there would be extremely dangerous.
The Genin beside him lay on the ground and with difficulty threw the rope three times before it hooked onto their deceased teammates.
One must know, he was usually a master at throwing ropes, hitting his target every time.
The few of them crawled forward like insects on the ground for a while before finally standing up.
However, all of them had drawn their weapons and spread out.
"Totsui is still in place, let's hurry back. There are many obstacles in the forest, and without a high vantage point, he can't shoot us."
The Kumogakure ninja, who hadn't found the enemy, all dispersed and ran back into the forest... At this moment, Fukurou, who had scared the Kumogakure ninja out of their wits, stopped shooting.
He slightly stretched his aching muscles. The latissimus dorsi, trapezius, posterior deltoid, and biceps muscles he relied on for drawing the bow were all now fatigued to varying degrees.
No wonder one needs to improve their physique to upgrade weapons; he was already so tired after just a few shots.
Although his physical fitness had improved with the 'Badge of Peerless Strength' equipped.
However, the strength of his fingers hadn't increased as much, and now his three fingers on his right hand, which had drawn the string, felt numb and tingling.
He stored the wind splitter in his weapon space and took out a map from his ninja tool pouch.
He instructed Hayato:
"Hang back from a distance; one of them has a broken leg, so they won't be too fast."
"See which direction their retreat route is, and try to catch them all in one go."
"The new bow isn't quite as handy yet; I need to recover and adapt to it."
Hayato opened his mouth. Not a single one of those arrows missed, and he still called it 'not handy'?
He had just watched with his Byakugan as Fukurou pierced through three people with one arrow, and his heart was thrilled.
Having always diligently cultivated the Gentle Fist, he had never imagined such a tactic.
One second, Kumogakure was cheering for tricking Konoha and the Hyuga Clan, and the next, their leader, Tokijin, was directly pierced through.
Behind him, two Special Jonin, one dead and one severely injured.
The two subsequent arrows killed two more people, and Kumogakure hadn't even seen their faces.
"No problem, Fukurou, you rest first. I'll handle the tracking."
Fukurou, while sensing his body's recovery, slowly followed behind Hayato.
Hayato, meanwhile, energetically tracked the Kumogakure ninja.
Activating the Byakugan's long-range vision requires Chakra.
Moreover, prolonged use of the Byakugan is very taxing on the eyes.
Therefore, when tracking, the Hyuga Clan usually activates the Byakugan intermittently.
One of the reasons Aoran brought Hayato was also to alternate tracking with him...