Madara winced, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth as he clutched the bleeding gash on his left arm. "Charge in my ass," he grumbled, his earlier bravado completely deflated. "I can't beat him, alright?! I just charged in to test his weight! My baseline combat strength is actually still a hair below a true Jōnin. I do have an ultimate move that should be able to instantly kill a Jōnin... but I have no idea how effective it would be against an Elite Jōnin."
I have an ultimate move too, Xuan retorted silently. I could instantly delete a Peak Jōnin right in front of you—assuming he stands completely still. Keeping his internal complaints to himself, Xuan's three-tomoe Sharingan rapidly tracked the subtle shifts in the enemies' stances. "Fight or flee?" he asked concisely.
"Flee!"
Madara didn't hesitate for a single second. When faced with such an overwhelming disparity in raw power, choosing to fight wasn't brave; it was suicidal. And Uchiha Madara was many things, but he was not an idiot.
"Go!"
The moment they reached a consensus, they moved with absolute synchronicity. Madara violently slammed two smoke bombs into the dirt. A massive, thick cloud of grey smoke violently erupted, completely obscuring the courtyard. Simultaneously, Xuan's hands blurred through a sequence of seals. "Fire Style: Majestic Destroyer Flame!"
A colossal, roaring wall of fire erupted from his mouth, forming a towering, impenetrable barrier of absolute heat to cover their retreat.
Under the cover of the flames and smoke, the two boys blurred into shadows, fleeing into the night at terrifying speeds.
"Vacuum Slash!"
Hyūga Akikaze swung his longsword with explosive force. A crescent blade of highly condensed chakra violently sheared the towering wall of fire cleanly in half. "Pursue them! Do not let either of them return alive!"
Taking the absolute vanguard, Akikaze shot forward like a fired arrow, with the Hyūga Jōnin and the two Yomu Jōnin closely trailing behind him.
When fully unleashed, the movement speed of a high-level shinobi is truly terrifying. The Land of Fire was heavily forested, and since the Yomu compound was located on the outskirts of town, Xuan and Madara were able to plunge directly into the dense, endless sea of trees—the absolute perfect environment for shinobi evasion.
As the two Uchiha prodigies bounded effortlessly through the canopy, they constantly left presents behind. They slapped paper bombs onto tree trunks, strung nearly invisible chakra tripwires between branches, and utilized every dirty trick in the book just to shave a fraction of a second off their pursuers' speed.
Thanks to the Flying Raijin Jutsu, Xuan had absolutely zero doubt about his own ability to escape. But simply surviving wasn't enough this time.
First, his mastery of the Flying Raijin was currently limited to its first stage; he couldn't teleport other people yet. If he abandoned Madara here, the eight-year-old would almost certainly die. Unless his own life was truly backed into an inescapable corner, Xuan refused to sell out his teammate.
Second, he vividly remembered the System's quest conditions. 'Sabotage the Hyūga Clan's Grain Hoarding Operation and assassinate the Hyūga Jōnin.' The penalty for failure was a brutal deduction of 10,000 points. He had successfully incinerated all the grain, yet the System hadn't issued a completion notification. That meant he absolutely had to kill the Hyūga Jōnin to clear the quest. Right now, he only had the 6,000 points he earned from killing the three Tokubetsu Jōnin. If he failed the quest, the 10,000-point deduction would throw his balance into the negative—meaning the System would instantly obliterate him.
BOOM! BOOM!
Muffled explosions periodically echoed from the forest behind them. The hastily placed traps were indeed causing minor annoyances for their pursuers. However, the sheer gap in raw physical stats meant the enemy's baseline speed was still vastly superior. Despite all the traps, the distance between the two groups was slowly but inevitably shrinking.
"Fire Style: Dragon Flame Bomb!"
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
Sensing the enemy closing the gap, Xuan and Madara simultaneously twisted in mid-air, unleashing two massive Fire Style Ninjutsu directly behind them. The pursuers violently shattered the flames with their own Jutsu, but the brief clash successfully stalled their momentum, allowing the boys to widen the gap once more.
"Eight Trigrams: Empty Palm!"
"Eight Trigrams: Lion Roar!"
"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"
"Wind Style: Gale Palm!"
As the distance closed again, the pursuers unleashed a devastating barrage of long-range Ninjutsu. Xuan and Madara were forced into frantic, evasive maneuvers, causing their own speed to plummet.
A cruel smile stretched across Akikaze's face. He was inches away from catching them.
Suddenly, a faint silver glint caught the moonlight directly in his path. Several paper bombs materialized right in front of his face.
Paper bombs attached to chakra wire!
The exact second Akikaze realized what it was, the tags violently detonated. The concussive blast forced him to halt his advance, and the distance widened once again.
The agonizing chase dragged on. Neither side knew exactly how much time had passed. Narrowly dodging another massive Wind Style blade, Madara cursed furiously. "Those damn Hyūga dogs! Am I their father?! Why the hell are they chasing us this desperately?!"
Xuan calmly slapped another paper bomb onto the branch he had just leaped from. "This isn't working. The distance is still shrinking. It's only a matter of time before they catch us."
Madara glanced back, spitting another fireball to cover their tracks. "Split up," he ordered grimly. "Focus on your own survival. We rendezvous at the Third Elder's outpost."
"Catch. I take the left, you take the right." In a life-or-death situation like this, Xuan kept his words short and precise.
Madara reached out, catching the object Xuan tossed to him. Glancing down, he saw a custom kunai densely carved with incomprehensible sealing formulas. "This is... the tool you use to trigger that space-time Ninjutsu?"
Xuan nodded. "Yeah. Do not throw it away like a normal kunai. Also... can you really stall that Elite Jōnin on your own?"
Madara's eyes instantly lit up. He immediately grasped the underlying implication. "You mean...?"
Xuan flashed a cold, predatory smile. "Exactly. We split them up, divide and conquer. Just like last time, we team up and assassinate that Elite Jōnin."
Madara threw his head back and laughed wildly. "Good! I absolutely love the way you think!"
"Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu!" Madara violently spun around, unleashing a massive, roaring dragon of fire directly at Hyūga Akikaze. "Am I your father or something?! Stop clinging to me so tightly!" he roared mockingly.
Before the flames even dissipated, Madara abruptly shifted his momentum, violently branching off to the right. Xuan gave a sharp nod and instantly dove to the left.
"Lord Akikaze, they split up," the Hyūga Jōnin reported.
Akikaze sneered coldly. "Do they really think splitting up will save them? I will personally hunt down the one on the right. You three pursue the one on the left. Hunt him to the very ends of the earth!"
Before his voice even faded, Akikaze pushed off a thick branch with explosive force, blurring into the pitch-black forest as he relentlessly chased Madara.
"Shall we, gentlemen?" the Hyūga Jōnin sneered in a distinctly mocking tone.
The two Yomu brothers silently ground their teeth. Unfortunately, their lives were currently held hostage by the Hyūga's absolute power. Left with no other choice, they followed the Hyūga Jōnin, plunging into the forest to the left.
The frigid night wind howled past Xuan's ears. He glanced over his shoulder, his three-tomoe Sharingan tracking the pursuing chakra signatures. All three standard Jōnin came after me. In that case... hm.
As he bounded through the canopy, Xuan casually tossed marked kunai into the trees along his path. He leaped forward for two straight minutes, then abruptly took a hard right turn, continuing to silently drop his kunai. Two minutes later, he took another sharp right turn.
"His escape route is incredibly bizarre," the Hyūga Jōnin frowned.
Yomu Kichikawa nodded in agreement. "Indeed. It's almost as if he's intentionally running in a massive circle. This defies all logic. If he keeps running like this, he'll never actually escape."
"He stopped," the Yomu Jōnin announced.
All three pursuers immediately halted their advance, landing on a massive, thick branch.
A short distance ahead, bathed in the pale moonlight, Uchiha Xuan stood perfectly still on a branch, the night wind violently whipping his black robes. The three tomoe spinning in his blood-red eyes were exceptionally conspicuous in the dark. He stared at them with a freezing, emotionless gaze—the exact look one gives a dead man.
"Given up on running, brat?" the Hyūga Jōnin taunted, his voice dripping with pure killing intent.
"Idiots."
Xuan casually raised his hand. Six shuriken, each trailing a live paper bomb, shot toward the three men.
"Do you really think a cheap parlor trick like this can touch us?!" The Hyūga Jōnin condensed a massive surge of chakra into his fist and punched forward. A violent shockwave of wind howled through the air. BOOM! The shuriken were violently intercepted and detonated mid-flight.
Having suffered immensely at the hands of Xuan's spatial Ninjutsu during their first clash, the Hyūga Jōnin was absolutely determined not to let a single projectile get anywhere near him.
____
PLEASE SUPPORT ME ON PATREON:
Patreon.com/IndifferentVillain
Early Access and + 60 chapter ahead of webnovel monthly, ur support keeps me motivated...thanks and enjoy reading
Chapter 180 is out on patreon
_______________