Thanks The_8th_king for the review, here are the 5 extra chapters allowing us to get to Chapter 147!!
IMPORTANT: For every 30 POWER STONES there will be an extra chapter!
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The stone walls rose, successfully trapping Ye Zi inside, but the coordinated assault wasn't over yet.
"Earth Release: Heavenly Stone Slam!"
A clear voice rang out, belonging to a dark-skinned female Iwa-nin in the group.
Sand and rocks gathered above the square rock prison, quickly forming a massive flat stone slab. The slab's size and shape perfectly matched the open top of the stone prison.
It was made entirely of rock, incredibly heavy, and once it fell, Ye Zi would undoubtedly be crushed into paste inside the stone prison.
The female Iwa-nin who cast the jutsu began panting, showing that it had cost her a significant amount of chakra.
"Die!"
Her cold eyes flashed as the square stone slab plummeted, slotting perfectly into the rock prison.
The stone slab loomed overhead, casting a shadow as it descended. Ye Zi didn't bother looking up. The ground beneath his feet had also turned to solid rock, with only the top left open to coordinate with the jutsu.
To avoid this attack, he had no choice but to use up a significant amount of chakra.
With no other options, Ye Zi channeled his chakra into lightning, wrapping his body and his blade, Raiga, in crackling electricity as he slashed through the stone prison and broke free.
With a deafening crash, the stone slab slammed into the rock prison, fitting snugly into place. However, with Ye Zi breaking through the rock, the coordinated Earth Release technique failed. The only thing it accomplished was draining more of Ye Zi's chakra and stamina.
From the beginning, the Iwa-nin squad never expected to take down Ye Zi so easily. Their opening barrage was just the beginning.
Stone spikes, kunai, and shuriken flew at Ye Zi as he escaped from the stone prison.
Clang clang!
Ye Zi swung his blade, deflecting the kunai and leaping sideways to dodge the projectiles.
The Iwa-nin squad's strategy was clear—they knew how dangerous Ye Zi was up close, so their focus was on keeping him at a distance with ranged attacks.
Realizing this, Ye Zi understood that trying to evade this squad was unlikely to succeed. His only option was to break through head-on.
His eyes locked onto the weakest link in the group—the female Iwa-nin. Exhaustion was setting in, and his chakra was running low. All of these disadvantages drove him to make a decision.
The chakra absorbed through his spirit transformation technique was limited and did nothing to restore his physical strength or stamina.
Many in Konoha saw Ye Zi as a monster who devoured humans, and they weren't wrong. The difference was that after the appearance of Shokui, it was Shokui who did the eating.
Some techniques, in desperate situations, must be used. There was no choice.
With one arm missing, even though Ye Zi could perform single-handed seals, his ability to use ninjutsu was severely limited, and their power was diminished. His only option was to rely on the technique he knew best: Lightning Release and the speed it granted him to break through.
Shadow Clone Technique!
Ye Zi advanced, creating a shadow clone.
The Iwa-nin squad's leader, a Jōnin named Tekiren Numa, was considered a dangerous figure in Iwagakure because of a certain trump card he possessed. Those who knew of his trump card never underestimated him.
Seeing Ye Zi making a move, Tekiren signaled his team, and the other three immediately backed off while he stood still, forming a tiger seal with his hands, not moving an inch.
Ye Zi stayed on guard, unsure of the Jōnin's technique, but he had no choice but to press forward. He needed to take down the weaker members of the squad first and then decide whether to fight or flee.
Lightning sparked across his body as he moved forward at high speed, like a bolt of lightning racing across the ground, one clone on the left, the real Ye Zi on the right.
Tekiren's eyes darted between the two Ye Zi figures. As they closed in, he swiftly changed his hand seals. The hard ground beneath his feet instantly transformed into a swamp, expanding outward with him at the center, perfectly timed to catch Ye Zi within its range.
The swamp wasn't large, but it was enough to entrap Ye Zi.
The lightning-enhanced speed he relied on was drastically reduced, but this alone wasn't enough to stop him.
The shadow clone charged at Tekiren while the real Ye Zi sprinted toward the three other Iwa-nin in the back.
Suddenly, the swamp churned, and five or six earthen tendrils shot out, aiming to ensnare both Ye Zi and his clone.
Lightning flashed.
All six tendrils were sliced in half.
Tekiren remained unfazed. The severed tendrils split into twelve and resumed their attack on Ye Zi and his clone.
Realizing how troublesome the tendrils were, Ye Zi let his shadow clone deal with them while he charged straight at Tekiren.
From the way Tekiren maintained his hand seals, it seemed that his technique required him to remain stationary, and this was Ye Zi's chance. However, Ye Zi seemed to have forgotten that the Iwa-nin squad still had three other members.
Kunai flew from behind Tekiren, aimed directly at Ye Zi.
Ye Zi frowned as the swampy terrain forced him to move in a straight line to maintain his speed. Faced with the kunai flying at him, he could only block them with his sword, causing him to be delayed for a moment.
The real issue was his lack of chakra, which meant he couldn't activate his Lightning Dragon Armor. Otherwise, he could have ignored those kunai entirely.
In normal terrain, his speed would have been too fast for the three Iwa-nin to handle.
After blocking the kunai, Ye Zi advanced a bit further, but his shadow clone was dispelled by the earthen tendrils.
Ignoring the situation behind him, Ye Zi threw his lightning-charged sword, Raiga, straight at Tekiren.
The short blade, wrapped in lightning, flew at Tekiren like a flash of light. Seeing this, Tekiren's expression shifted. If it had been a kunai or a jutsu, he might have been able to block it, but faced with a lightning-enhanced blade, he had no choice but to cancel his jutsu and duck to dodge it.
Raiga's target was the female Iwa-nin among the three.
Ye Zi wasn't about to abandon his weapon so easily.
Lightning Release!
His body flickered like a bolt of lightning, disappearing from sight. In the next moment, he reappeared behind Tekiren, moving in sync with the airborne sword. His lightning-wreathed hand grasped the flying blade, and in an instant, he was in front of the unsuspecting female Iwa-nin.
"…!"
Her dark eyes widened in shock.
Raiga pierced her throat, and Ye Zi drove her body backward a short distance. The two male Iwa-nin only realized what had happened after she had been struck, their eyes wide with fury.
Tekiren turned, his expression cold as he watched.
Raiga had penetrated the female Iwa-nin's throat, and as Ye Zi continued to advance, her body was carried forward until they stopped.
She hadn't died immediately. Her eyes were filled with hatred as she stared at Ye Zi in the glow of the lightning, but in the next moment, as her life began to fade, that hatred turned into fear.
Ye Zi's calloused hand released the black blade's hilt and instead reached into her abdomen, tearing through her clothing and flesh to extract a piece of her body.
As her eyelids grew heavy and darkness overtook her vision, the last thing she saw was the Konoha ninja in front of her, eating the flesh he had torn from her.
Eating… flesh.
In moments of crisis, this was the choice Ye Zi faced.
How difficult was it to make this choice?
Not difficult at all.
Human nature often reveals itself in the most intense moments.
Imagine two people adrift on a small boat in an endless ocean. As food becomes scarce, the painful hunger that grips them slowly pushes them toward death. In such a situation, the only way to survive is to eat the other person.
How hard is it to make that choice?
Not hard at all.
As the remaining Iwa-nin watched in disbelief, Ye Zi, expressionless, took large bites of the raw flesh, even though it was mixed with scraps of cloth.
As long as he could survive, such things didn't matter.
He reached out and gripped Raiga's hilt again, pulling the blade free and letting the female Iwa-nin's body fall to the ground.
"The rumors… are true?" one of the remaining Iwa-nin muttered.
The two male Iwa-nin, furious and shocked, lost control and charged at Ye Zi in a blind rage.
They had shared a close bond with the female Iwa-nin, and seeing her die this way, the only thing they could think of was tearing Ye Zi apart with their own hands.
"Both of you, fall back!" Tekiren shouted, his expression shifting.
But the two Iwa-nin didn't listen. They had no intention of stopping.
Ye Zi's lips curled into a cold smile.
He saw a clear path to survival.
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