Land of Water, in a small village near the Hidden Mist Village.

"Huff, huff, huff..."

A heavy breathing sound was heard. A figure was sitting between two residential houses, covered in mud and water, with bloodstains still visible on his face, and an arm already missing.

"A part of the formation diagram was destroyed, that bastard."

The brown-haired man leaning against the wall lowly growled. He had painstakingly set that up for a long time.

"Even if it’s destroyed, I can still fix it. If you have the guts, come after me again."

The man stood up, suppressing intense pain. He wasn’t really worried about Su Xiao chasing him, because the distance between the Land of Lightning and Land of Water was too vast. He sacrificed combat effectiveness for such high mobility.

The man had expected the Hunter to come knocking for a long time. He had been preparing, but to his surprise, the Hunter was late in showing up.

This allowed the man to breathe a sigh of relief. That the opponent found him at this timing wasn’t that big of a deal. He had already set up many spiritual nodes in the Naruto World, and he could transmit between these nodes at will, provided he still had images of the environments surrounding those spiritual nodes in his mind.

After transmitting to each spiritual node, the man’s teleportation ability had a 47-minute cooldown, and within 70 hours, he couldn’t transmit to the same node twice, as this would cause spiritual recoil, which would damage his neurons and turn him into an idiot.

The man rested in the gap between the houses for a moment. He had already changed clothes and began walking deeper into the small village.

Two hours later, the man had treated his wounds and washed up a bit. He lay inside a house, pondering his next move.

The smell of blood filled the house. In the living room, lay three corpses of a family, all dead in perfect order.

With a creak, the old wooden door of the house, left in disrepair, was pushed open. A figure holding a long knife walked into the house, carrying a blood-dripping human head.

"Found you."

A smile appeared on the figure’s face, and his gaze fixed on the man not far away.

The man slightly opened his mouth, the scene before him rendered him incredulous.

"Sky Primal Realm."

Spatial fluctuations combined with even stronger spiritual fluctuations spread, as ’Su Xiao’ stepped onto the ground and charged toward the man.

Whoosh~

The terrified man vanished, as ’Su Xiao’ stood in place. His appearance began to change, transforming into the likeness of a Bai Jue, or rather, this was not Su Xiao at all, but a Bai Jue clone with Su Xiao’s appearance.

Bai Jue could disguise his clones as Kisame Hoshigaki and fight against Killer Bee; naturally, he could also disguise as Su Xiao. However, this clone couldn’t use the abilities of the Shadow of Annihilation Law, but fortunately, it possessed 80% of Su Xiao’s physical attributes.

The pity is, Su Xiao couldn’t control a disguised Bai Jue clone as Kisame could, as Su Xiao lacked chakra.

Although Su Xiao couldn’t control it, Bai Jue could. Bai Jue didn’t have to engage with the foreigner; he only needed to scare him away.

The foreigner had been terrified by Su Xiao and dared not let him get close. Having had an arm slashed off by Su Xiao, he knew that if Su Xiao got near him, it wouldn’t take more than three slashes for his death anniversary to be today next year.

"This time was two hours; according to the planned schedule, next time it’s one hour and thirty minutes."

Bai Jue’s clone slowly sank into the ground. This was something Su Xiao had instructed; Su Xiao still couldn’t be sure of the foreigner’s transmission ability cooldown time.

If the foreigner’s transmission ability hadn’t yet recovered when Bai Jue appeared, the foreigner would likely fight Bai Jue to the death, which would ruin the entire plan. Bai Jue’s clone was a paper tiger, only capable of mimicking Su Xiao’s demeanor. Though its combat ability was decent, it was no match for the foreigner.

If the interval time was too long, the foreigner could transmit some spiritual nodes, and the previous nodes’ cooldown times would recover, forming a cycle, which would be troublesome.

Bai Jue had to continuously test, gauge the cooldown time of the foreigner’s transmission ability. As long as each transmission time was kept within an hour and a half, there wouldn’t be a case of cycling transmission nodes.

Thanks to Su Xiao’s prolonged setup, this foreigner was almost an unsolvable problem for a lone Hunter.

Unfortunately, Su Xiao had already set a trap around the spiritual nodes in various countries, waiting for the foreigner to fall into it.

Bai Jue had long stationed clones near those known nodes. Once they found the foreigner, they immediately disguised themselves as Su Xiao to intimidate him.

After the foreigner transmitted through three more nodes, his trail suddenly disappeared. He transmitted to a location near an unknown node.

This situation Su Xiao had anticipated long ago; it was impossible for him to know all of the foreigner’s nodes, but it was no longer important. The foreigner had engaged with Bai Jue at close range four times. If Bai Jue hadn’t managed to leave spores on the foreigner by now, he might as well leave the Akatsuki Organization, as it would be too shameful.

It wasn’t just Bai Jue’s spores technique; there were also numerous perception ninjas from the Edo Tensei. Among them, Aburame Shibi and Jia Tengduan exhibited the strongest reconnaissance abilities.

Jia Tengduan’s Art of Spirit Transformation allowed him to transform into a living soul and fly in soul form, making it ideal for reconnaissance.

Jia Tengduan and Hyuga Hikaku were in charge of the Country of Fire area, the Second Tsuchikage handled the Land of Earth region, Nakayoshi oversaw the Land of Water, and Aburame Shibi controlled the Wind Country territory, all accompanied by large groups of perception ninjas.

Under this kind of net, the foreigner was left bewildered by the chase.

After the twelfth transmission, the foreigner cut off a large piece of flesh from his waist with a dagger, and before the piece hit the ground, it turned purple. Nano-scale poisonous insects had eroded that piece of muscle, a secret technique from the Abura Clan.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

The foreigner no longer resembled the warm man. His clothes were tattered, and one pupil was bloodshot, injured by Jia Tengduan’s Art of Spirit Transformation.

Su Xiao wasn’t just having Bai Jue scare him. Sooner or later, this would backfire. Jia Tengduan, Aburame Shibi, Hyuga Hikaku were all good combat strength, not to mention the Second Tsuchikage.

As long as the foreigner transmitted near these people, they would cooperate with the fake Su Xiao to attack the foreigner.

"What the heck... is going on here."

The foreigner greedily inhaled the air into his lungs. Over the past dozen hours, he had been ruthlessly hunted down.

Country of Fire, Land of Earth, Wind Country, Land of Lightning, Land of Water, Iron Country, Land of Waves; he had transmitted almost everywhere.

No matter where he went, once the time exceeded 1 hour and 30 minutes, a large group of pursuers would emerge.

The foreigner lay in the damp forest, dead leaves clinging to his exposed skin. The massive blood loss and Jia Tengduan’s Art of Spirit Transformation left his mind beginning to blur.

"Maybe, I’ll just call it quits..."

As soon as this thought emerged, the foreigner’s eyes shot open.

"How could it just end like this!"

The foreigner struggled to stand; some intention was driving him to continue.

The relentless pursuit of the foreigner continued, while Su Xiao rushed from the Land of Lightning straight to the Country of Fire. There were the most nodes within the Country of Fire; he was waiting for the foreigner to become exhausted, now was not the time to be impatient.

There were the most spiritual nodes within the Country of Fire, including 11 nodes near Konoha Village alone.

Su Xiao rushed non-stop to the Country of Fire, choosing to ambush near Konoha, as there were the most nodes here, making it the most likely place for the foreigner to teleport to.

The other spiritual nodes were near escape routes, like cliffs, valleys, rivers, and underground tunnels, but not those near Konoha, which lacked such geographical features.

It wasn’t that the foreigner didn’t want to set Konoha’s nodes near dangerous places, but the terrain around Konoha was flat, leaving few options.