Chapter 133: Second Hokage vs Orochimaru

Orochimaru and Senju Tobirama were indeed geniuses who were very similar, and because of this, they admired each other, but for the same reason, they were also wary of each other.

Both of them were very clear that once the Living Corpse Reincarnation was roughly perfected, that would be the moment when both sides would completely turn against each other!

And now, whether it was the Second Hokage or Orochimaru, both had already obtained the perfected ninjutsu they had in mind, so naturally, it was time to start slaughtering each other.

Orochimaru could not tolerate the existence of the Second Hokage because he knew very well in his heart that the Second Hokage had definitely prepared ninjutsu specifically targeting him; even if Orochimaru's life-saving skills were excellent, he absolutely could not withstand the targeting of this Forbidden Technique master, Senju Tobirama.

As for why Orochimaru was certain that the other party was involved in such ninjutsu—because Orochimaru had also developed targeted ninjutsu against Senju Tobirama!

The white snake's gaze collided with Senju Tobirama's sharp eyes, and in almost an instant, both sides saw the killing intent in the other!

With a gentle opening of his mouth, *whoosh*, Senju Tobirama seemed to spit out a mouthful of saliva; however, the tiny water droplets had just left his mouth when they transformed into transparent thin needles, piercing through the white snake's head.

Water Release: Heaven Weeping!

This move was not considered a very sophisticated ninjutsu, but it had remarkable effects when used in battle, embodying the Second Hokage's extremely high combat intelligence (insidious and cunning).

Compressing Water Release into tiny water needles, it required no Seal movements and could even be sprayed out in the instant of speaking to pierce an enemy's throat.

Back in the day, Senju Tobirama had used this move to kill many powerful ninja; rather than saying the opponents died under this ninjutsu, it was better to say they died under Senju Tobirama's schemes.

The white snake with its head pierced fell to the ground with a *thud*, blood slowly seeping out, its abdomen gradually swelling, and then, from its mouth, Orochimaru crawled out with a cold sneer.

"Finally have the courage to face me? Junior!"

Facing the black blade thrust over by the Second Hokage, Orochimaru also drew a Grass-Cutting Sword and blocked it casually—even if that black longsword composed of Evil-Breaking Qi could harm the Soul, it had to hit Orochimaru first.

"I don't want to waste too much time with you, Lord Second Hokage; let's reveal our trump cards early!"

This was precisely the evidence of the cold-blooded, heartless nature of the Second Hokage, who did not care about human life... but after hearing this, Orochimaru just gave a strange laugh:

"Yes... this kind of cold-blooded and heartless heart is probably something inherited from the roots of our lineage—don't you agree, Lord Second Hokage... or should I say, my grandmaster."

As soon as the words fell, the walls of the entire room suddenly lit up with a pale purple light; the Second Hokage raised his eyebrows slightly, discovering that he could no longer feel the Flying Thunder God coordinates he had left behind.

Senju Tobirama looked at Orochimaru and spoke coldly, while Orochimaru cracked his mouth, his long tongue gently licking his lips:

"After all, you are the Lord Second Hokage I admire most; naturally, I had to make full preparations before daring to have a decisive battle with you."

The black and white longswords clashed together, golden snake pupils and pitch-black, dead eyes met for a moment, and then both of them jumped away.

Dense, countless Sealing Formulae emerged from all over his body, yet Senju Tobirama still had a stern expression and spoke indifferently:

Orochimaru said in a ghostly, cold voice, and then reached out and directly performed a hand Seal:

"Secret Technique—Heart-Soul Sealing Technique!"

Hearing this, Senju Tobirama was a bit speechless; if one were to talk about a direct lineage, then he and Orochimaru were definitely the most orthodox master-disciple succession, and even if all the ninja of the Hidden Leaf were brought out, Orochimaru was the one most like him and the one who had inherited the most of his ninjutsu.

A strange sealing pattern immediately flowed out from the Second Hokage's Reanimation body; although the Second Hokage had broken free from the manipulation of Orochimaru's Reanimation Jutsu, as the person who summoned the First and Second Hokage, there was still some inseparable connection between the two.

Orochimaru did not feel that he would be any worse than the Second Hokage, and even facing the Second Hokage without Space-Time Ninjutsu, he felt that he should be the one with the upper hand.

"That's right, it is time to reveal our trump cards; let me show you the ninjutsu I developed specifically for you!"

And as the summoner, Orochimaru was undoubtedly in a high position in this connection; by doing a little something, he could control the Second Hokage.

This farce of the pot calling the kettle black finally ended with Senju Tobirama directly raising his hand and stabbing Orochimaru with his sword; the two most famous Forbidden Technique masters of the Ninja World launched a life-and-death duel in this secret room of the underground base.

With the Second Hokage's talent, the time for this control might need to be calculated in seconds, but in a battle where every second counted, a few seconds or a dozen seconds were enough for Orochimaru to use other methods to completely seal the Second Hokage.

Just from the way the Evil-Breaking Qi was strengthened, one could see how cruel this energy was; without the bodies and souls of several hundred people as sacrifices, it was impossible to strengthen enough Evil-Breaking Qi.

"It is said that the Third Raikage was killed by your disciple; it seems that your disciple has gone further on the path of the Soul than you... but in terms of being cold-blooded, heartless, and indifferent to human life, you are indeed of the same lineage."

After this flying knife was thrown out, why did it turn around and stab his own head? Well... speaking of being cold-blooded, heartless, and disregarding human life, he seemed to have indeed done quite a lot.

"The academic name for this sword should be the Evil-Breaking Sword... the strange energy collected from the corpse of that former Third Raikage must constantly absorb the power of souls and flesh to grow and develop; I spent a long time to strengthen that sliver of collected energy to a usable level."

However, Senju Tobirama felt no surprise at this, even feeling it was only natural—if Orochimaru couldn't even restrain the Flying Thunder God Technique, how would he have the guts to turn against him?

And likewise, Senju Tobirama had long since prepared ninjutsu to deal with Orochimaru; his body trembled, emitting a strange light, and finally condensed into a black chakra sword in his hand.

"In fact, the greatest effect of this energy is not just that it can invalidate defenses formed by chakra, but that it can harm the Soul!"

As soon as the words fell, the Second Hokage twisted the black sword in his hand and stabbed it into his own heart; the pitch-black sword body turned into a fluid-like state, instantly wrapping around his Reanimation body.

Subsequently, a pitch-black shadow directly left the Reanimation body, and the Second Hokage's original body was instantly covered with all kinds of Sealing Formulae, becoming completely controlled.

Watching the Second Hokage's soul floating in mid-air like a mass of black smoke, Orochimaru's expression changed slightly:

"Spirit Transformation Technique!?"

"This is not just the Spirit Transformation Technique, Orochimaru! After the chakra shell of the Spirit Transformation Technique absorbs the Evil-Breaking Qi, its lethality to the Soul has skyrocketed several times over!"

As soon as the words fell, the Second Hokage had already turned into a phantom, directly piercing into Orochimaru's body; Orochimaru let out a painful muffled groan, and his original physical body appeared with cracks, *crack, crack*, gradually shattering completely.

With the shattering of the physical body, a giant snake with eight heads and eight tails, snow-white all over, and blood-red eyes expanded out from Orochimaru's body.

Only on this giant snake, there were countless black patterns like fire burns, which were constantly eroding the flesh of the Eight-Branches Technique.

"Damn it, get out of my body... ughhh!!!"

"Give up, Orochimaru; your soul strength is indeed shockingly strong. If it were a normal Spirit Transformation Technique, I'm afraid it really couldn't deal with you, but after condensing the Evil-Breaking Qi, even if you condense your own soul into the Eight-Branches Technique, you cannot withstand the damage of this power!"

"Hahaha... hehehe... ugh! As expected of Lord Second Hokage... but if you think you can win like this, then I can only say... you underestimate me too much..."

The snow-white body of the Eight-Branches Technique suddenly collapsed, turning into countless tiny white snakes, and the black patterns on the giant snake instantly transformed into black flames, burning fiercely.

The tiny white snakes suddenly pounced on the black flames; although they were completely scorched by the black flames in an instant, they also left a Sealing Formula in the black flames.

More and more tiny white snakes entered the black flames; although more and more white snakes were scorched, the momentum of the flames gradually subsided, returning to the appearance of the Second Hokage's soul.

On the shell of the soul, countless white Sealing Formulae were still wandering; those were the seals set by Orochimaru's white snakes using their souls.

Although the Second Hokage's soul appeared to be sealed, Orochimaru was not having an easy time either; not only was his physical shell completely shattered, but even the white snakes representing his soul were mostly dead, leaving only a dozen tiny white snakes to condense together, finally turning into the pale-faced Orochimaru.

"Orochimaru brat, I underestimated you; I didn't expect you to be so ruthless to yourself, even modifying your soul!"

"Are you a human now, or a white snake?"

"Hehe, just a bit of white snake DNA; even the First Hokage's Wood Release cells have a large amount of plant DNA, so what's the problem with me mixing a little white snake DNA into my own body?"

Orochimaru spoke with a light laugh, but when he discovered that the Second Hokage's soul shell was gradually shattering and then detaching from the seal like a cicada shedding its skin, his original smile froze on his face.

The soul shell of the Spirit Transformation Technique was actually made of a layer of pure Yin Release chakra; the Second Hokage was a genius, and he had mixed in Evil-Breaking Qi to greatly enhance its lethality.

But to put it plainly, this was still just a shell; even if the shell shattered, the damage to the soul was minimal—if it were truly a pure soul, the Second Hokage wouldn't have dared to mix Evil-Breaking Qi into it.

The Soul, having detached from its outer shell, returned to the interior of the Reanimation body almost in an instant, and the Sealing Formula that had been coiled around the outside of the Reanimation body began to shrink rapidly once the Soul had returned.

Orochimaru had never intended for the Sealing Technique he cast through the connection of the Reanimation Jutsu to control the Second Hokage for very long, so its sealing effect was strongest at the start and gradually diminished thereafter.

Not to mention that Orochimaru had just used a large number of white snakes as expendable materials in an attempt to seal the Second Hokage—one must know that those white snakes were fragments of Orochimaru's own Soul; a small number of deaths would be one thing, but the death of so many was, for Orochimaru, an absolutely massive, grievous injury.

Under the circumstances of his Soul being grievously injured, the power of the Sealing Technique he cast would naturally weaken proportionally, which resulted in the Second Hokage breaking free of a portion of the seal the moment he returned to the Reanimation body.

"I can't let you succeed so easily!"

At this critical juncture, Orochimaru had nothing left to say; he suddenly formed Seals with both hands, and a large number of Sealing Formulae suddenly began to roam throughout the entire room, emitting a strange light.

Having broken free of a portion of the seal and already possessing the ability to move, though unable to mobilize chakra, the Second Hokage felt a sharp pain in his Soul under the illumination of this strange light and immediately collapsed to the ground:

"This... this is... what kind of ninjutsu is this..."

"Hehe... if I had to name it... this ninjutsu should be called the Mixed Origin Treasure Box Technique... Mmm... it took me quite a lot of effort... to successfully remodel this room..."

"I originally didn't want to use... this move... this is a technique I imitated... from a treasure that one of my students... gave to me..."

Orochimaru's already pale face now displayed a deathly gray hue, his body trembled, and sweat dripped down from his forehead.

Seeing Orochimaru's reaction, the Second Hokage gritted his teeth and let out a cold snort:

"It seems this ninjutsu... should also cause you a bit of harm!"

"Can your Soul... still withstand... the damage of this ninjutsu right now?"

"Hehe... there is no need for you to trouble yourself... with that, Grandmaster! Although... I also have no way... to be completely immune... to the environmental damage of this room... I, who have long been prepared... can certainly withstand more than you."

Furthermore, if it really came down to it, Orochimaru would just swallow his pride and go ask his disciple for some Soul Pills to eat.

Over the past two years, Orochimaru had obtained quite a few Soul Pills through his dealings with Uchiha Feiyu; otherwise, he wouldn't have had the ability to transform into the Eight-Branches Technique, nor the sheer power to forcibly withstand the Soul shell that sealed the Second Hokage.

Because of this, he was well aware of the effects of the Soul Pills; as long as his Soul wasn't shattered to the point of being unable to maintain cognitive function, he could be saved by a large quantity of Pill, and it was precisely with this confidence that he dared to disregard his own Soul and risk his life against the Second Hokage.

After all, he was that guy's teacher, and most importantly, his own research capabilities were still very useful to Uchiha Feiyu; at worst, he would just shoulder a few decades of research debt. Anyway, once Living Corpse Reincarnation was fully developed, his lifespan would be infinite; as long as he could win, anything was negotiable!

However, even so, Orochimaru was secretly complaining in his heart—his Soul was now tattered and broken, far worse off than the Second Hokage's, so even if the ninjutsu caused him very little damage, it remained an unknown as to who would be able to hold out until the end.

(End of chapter)