Chapter 60: Both Sides Suffer

The Sand Ninja were defeated, without a doubt, because the Fourth Kazekage had been defeated at the hands of Orochimaru.

A Shadow in a ninja village is generally a position that only the strongest ninja in the entire village can hold, or at the very least, one of the strongest.

In the eyes of the ninja from the various Great Ninja Villages, a village Shadow and a Shadow-level powerhouse are two different concepts; the defeat of the latter would cause ninja morale to plummet, but the defeat of the former would cause morale to collapse entirely!

If the one who had defeated the Fourth Kazekage were the Third Hokage, the blow dealt to the Sand Ninja might not have been so great; after all, the Third Hokage had a well-established reputation, and it would be normal for the Fourth Kazekage, who had succeeded to the position in haste, to be unable to defeat him.

However, the one who defeated the Fourth Kazekage was Orochimaru; although Orochimaru also held the title of one of the Legendary Sannin, he was ultimately not the strongest ninja on the surface of Konoha, and the title of Legendary Sannin itself indicated that there were two other ninja in Konoha who stood on equal footing with him.

If the Fourth Kazekage, the most powerful ninja of Sunagakure, could not even defeat one of the Legendary Sannin, then how could their own ninja village possibly defeat Konoha?

With morale having completely collapsed, even though Chiyo had used poison gas at the start to trap many Leaf Ninja and thoroughly disrupt the battlefield, it ultimately only served to ensure the Sand Ninja's defeat was not quite as unsightly.

At the same time, Uchiha Feiyu also learned why Pakura had not been with Chiyo; it was said that after the Fourth Kazekage was beaten into unconsciousness by Orochimaru, Pakura had stepped forward and barely managed to hold off Orochimaru, allowing the entire Sand Ninja force to complete their retreat.

It was also because Orochimaru had consumed a significant amount of chakra during his battle with the Fourth Kazekage and was not in a good state himself; otherwise, this Scorch Style User, who was already injured, would definitely have been on a path to certain death.

After hearing this news, a glimmer of excitement flashed in Uchiha Feiyu's eyes, and after bidding farewell to several Leaf Ninja, he hurried toward the gathering point they had indicated.

The entire defensive line at Kikyo Pass had been almost completely smashed, but when Uchiha Feiyu arrived at the location, he saw a house constructed using Earth Release, and some Leaf Ninja who still bore wounds on their bodies saw the arriving Uchiha Feiyu and immediately revealed looks of joy.

"Is that Feiyu-kun? Please, come in, cough, cough, cough..."

In Orochimaru's low voice, there was quite a sense of being short of breath, and he ended up coughing several times.

When Uchiha Feiyu walked through the door, he saw Orochimaru, whose complexion was slightly tinged with a greenish hue; he sniffed slightly and spoke:

"Senior Orochimaru, you've been poisoned?"

"Cough, cough, that's right. Rasa's Magnet Release is quite a bit inferior to the Third Kazekage's, but the poison coated on the gold dust is even more troublesome than the Third Kazekage's Iron Sand."

With Orochimaru's various methods of self-preservation and the Orochimaru-Style Substitution Technique, ordinary injuries only required the expenditure of chakra to heal; only the most extremely troublesome toxins could make Orochimaru suffer a setback.

"But in the end, you still won, didn't you, Senior Orochimaru?"

Hearing Uchiha Feiyu's words, the corners of Orochimaru's mouth curled up slightly:

"Hehe, this is also thanks to you, Feiyu-kun! The Silver-Scaled Poisonous Snake cultivated using the secret formula you gave me truly had astonishing results."

"That Fourth Kazekage was struck by the poison of the Silver-Scaled Poisonous Snake; he must be in a state ten times more miserable than mine right now!"

Uchiha Feiyu was slightly stunned and said in surprise:

"You've already cultivated that Silver-Scaled Poisonous Snake! It's only been half a year, that's so fast!"

With a light chuckle, Orochimaru hooked his hand, and a burst of silver light instantly erupted from the sword scabbard beside him; upon closer inspection, it was a silver sword that looked quite bizarre.

The appearance of this sword was like the Gold Snake Sword from the movie *Sword of the Golden Snake*, only the form was silver; however, after Uchiha Feiyu took a careful look, he was shocked in his heart:

"This is actually the Silver-Scaled Poisonous Snake? This really exceeds my expectations!"

Yes, the silver sword before him was actually nine Silver-Scaled Poisonous Snakes intertwined to form the blade; seeing its shimmering silver appearance, Uchiha Feiyu had initially thought it was metal.

Orochimaru lightly swung this Silver Snake Sword, and with a *shhh* sound, it sliced a table corner into two pieces, which immediately left Uchiha Feiyu speechless.

Even though Uchiha Feiyu had long known that the bodies of the Silver-Scaled Poisonous Snakes were impervious to blades and spears, and that they would become even tougher after being modified by chakra in the Naruto World, he still felt the performance of these snakes was somewhat exaggerated.

He could even sense quite powerful chakra from these nine silver snakes; looking at the chakra alone, each little silver snake was almost on par with an average Special Jonin.

It stood to reason that the Fourth Kazekage had been bitten by this Silver Snake Sword, which was how he was defeated by Orochimaru; I really didn't expect that the battle between these two Shadow-level powerhouses would end in both of them being poisoned.

"Hehe, having been struck by my poison, Sunagakure will have to replace their Kazekage once again this time; the war will likely end very soon."

Although Orochimaru's tone was arrogant, Uchiha Feiyu did not feel there was anything wrong with it.

Don't look at how Sunagakure has great achievements in toxicology; the Silver-Scaled Poisonous Snake is a highly toxic creature that is qualified to compete for the title of the world's number one strange poison in the *Legend of the Condor Hero* trilogy world, and Uchiha Feiyu really didn't think Sunagakure would be able to cure it.

"By the way, what about that Pakura? How is the situation now? And didn't Senior Akimichi Torifu say he would help hold one of them back? How did it end up being Chiyo and Pakura fighting me alone?"

Hearing Uchiha Feiyu's words, a wry smile appeared on Orochimaru's pale face:

"That Scorch Style User had already arrived by the time I was poisoned, but her state wasn't very good either; after the two of us fought for a little while, we both couldn't hold on, and in the end, we both retreated."

"As for Senior Qu Feng... he was ambushed by Chiyo's puppets and was also poisoned!"

"Well then... after one battle, three out of six Admirals are poisoned... this is truly speechless."

Uchiha Feiyu muttered a complaint; naturally, things that could be used by people like the Fourth Kazekage and Chiyo were not ordinary poisons, and general Medical Ninjutsu could only barely suppress them; to cure them, one would have to recuperate slowly.

Unless Tsunade, that medical saint, returned, Orochimaru and Akimichi Torifu would likely only be able to exert about half of their Power Level in the short term.

Of course, the other side might be even more miserable; Chiyo lost an arm, and although she might use the Puppet Technique to make a prosthetic limb in the future, for now, she could only control five puppets with one hand—her puppet count was cut in half, and her Power Level might be reduced to only thirty percent.

The Fourth Kazekage was even more in danger; what he should be considering is not whether he can fight, but whether it's time to prepare his funeral feast.

Only Pakura was left without much of a problem; she would recover to her peak state after recuperating for two or three days—wounds are easy to recover from, it's mainly the excessive blood loss that needs some time to replenish.

"Wait... looking at it this way... the only Shadow-level powerhouse in his prime on this battlefield right now is me!"

(End of chapter)