hanges began to slowly emerge in the shadows of the world, and those who had been sitting calmly on their Fishing Platforms, watching the world develop exactly as they had imagined, were the first to notice the strangeness.
However, what they failed to anticipate was...
The changes brought to the world by the single slash Aizen Sōsuke delivered within the Dragon Veins were far more rapid and intense than they had imagined.
"Ah, it's finally over."
"When I get back to the Village this time, I'm definitely going to have a good drink."
A burly man with a muscular physique, dark skin, and a Ninja Blade strapped to his back walked at the front of the team, loudly complaining while rubbing his bandaged shoulder.
On his forehead, he wore a Cloud Pattern Forehead Protector.
Clearly, this was a standard Kumogakure mission squad.
He walked ahead, looking displeased, shouting loudly, "It's those damned guys who lie about the mission rank again! How many times has it been this month?"
"If you ask me, we should just treat these bastards as enemies and kill them."
"Let's see who dares to lie about something so vital again."
"Eloi, right?"
"Hey, you big idiot."
Just as the dark-skinned man finished speaking, a shorter female Ninja next to him slapped his shoulder angrily and gave him a disapproving look.
Turning around, she saw the pale-skinned man behind them with his head slightly bowed, looking dejected and mournful.
The dark-skinned man glanced at him and shook his head slightly, "Sigh, youth..."
They had lost a teammate during the previous mission.
For a veteran Chunin like him, who had experienced the meat grinder of the Third Ninja World War and was long accustomed to life and death, similar events were commonplace.
He had long since accepted it.
But how could these young Ninja who graduated after the war have the same mindset?
Moreover, the one who sacrificed himself was the Chunin leader of this young man's team after graduation.
"I told you to keep it down."
The short woman beside him muttered discontentedly, then turned her worried gaze toward the young man behind them.
Although they were a hastily assembled squad, they had clearly gotten along quite well during their journey.
As teammates, they were naturally worried that this young man, who hadn't experienced much of the world, would get stuck brooding.
Just as they were walking toward the Village.
"Shh."
The dark-skinned man, who had always walked carelessly in the lead, suddenly stopped. His previously relaxed expression instantly tightened. As if sensing a threat, he raised his eyes like a beast, his hand resting on the hilt of the blade on his back.
"Kuroi?"
The short female Ninja instinctively frowned and called his name.
However, the other party did not reply.
Instead, he looked intently in a certain direction.
It wasn't just him.
Even the depressed young man at the back couldn't help but perk up slightly.
After a moment, the faint vibrating sound became increasingly clear in everyone's ears.
"Thump... Thump... Thump..."
From faint at first, to clear, and then to heavy, weighing on their hearts.
The dull thudding sound coming from the dark forest was like some giant beast slowly pacing. Just hearing the heavy noise made them involuntarily picture a massive body, yet they couldn't pinpoint the direction.
But immediately after.
As if it had also noticed their presence, the previously slow and heavy footsteps suddenly began to accelerate.
"THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP—!"
It suddenly escalated like a drum roll.
The dark-skinned Chunin, who had first noticed the anomaly, whipped his head around, looked to the rear-side, and shouted a warning: "Watch out! It's behind us!"
Almost the instant he shouted.
The Kumogakure Ninja suddenly turned their heads.
However, there was nothing there.
Everyone was momentarily stunned.
Immediately after, the dark-skinned Chunin, as if sensing something, turned his head back around at the fastest speed possible.
The next moment.
He saw a pure white, Skeletal Mask, nearly as large as his entire body, suddenly open its bottomless, bloody maw toward him.
"Sound?"
Only this single thought managed to flash through his mind.
Immediately after, he heard the grating sound of his own body being torn.
"Tear—!"
That terrifying giant mouth, like two closing guillotines, snapped shut with lightning speed, biting deeply into his body, connecting at the shoulder and lower abdomen.
"Ah!"
The dark-skinned Chunin only had time to let out a miserable shriek. His large feet remained firmly planted in the ground, his Ninja Blade barely drawn, wedged precariously in the creature's upper jaw, stuck between the teeth of the tough Skeletal Mask, while large sprays of blood erupted from his body.
"Kuroi!!"
The short female Ninja let out a cry of terror, her mind going blank for a moment as she finally saw the monster's full appearance.
What kind of monster was that?
Its entire body was a hard, bluish-gray color. Its four limbs were on the ground, but they all ended in five fingers like human hands. Its body length alone exceeded four meters, and its enormous head seemed intent on covering the dark-skinned Chunin's entire torso, slamming into him like a giant elephant.
When she turned her head, the monster's rear half was still vaguely translucent, clearly having been cloaked in invisibility just moments before.
Furthermore, its entire head was covered by a weapon-like Skeletal Mask, and there was a massive circular hole in its chest.
It looked nothing like a natural creation.
"What in the world is this thing?"
This thought flashed through the short Kumogakure female Ninja's mind in that instant.
But immediately following, under the monster's heavy impact, Kuroi's massive body was forcibly dragged backward a great distance by the creature's pushing and biting.
His large feet dug two deep furrows into the muddy ground.
Along with the tracks, his miserable shrieks were drawn out.
The pale-skinned Genin standing at the back of the squad froze instantly upon seeing this scene.
The Ninja courses he had taken had never taught how to deal with this kind of monster.
"Die!"
The short Kumogakure female Ninja, however, had summoned her courage, fiercely brandishing the Kunai in her hand and plunging it hard into the monster's back. Faintly visible on the Kunai's surface was surging Lightning Release Chakra.
After only a momentary resistance, the Kunai wrapped in Lightning Release plunged heavily into the monster's back.
"It works!"
Joy sparked in the female Kumogakure Ninja's heart.
But before she could relax, the monster seemed enraged. It violently lifted its head while biting the dark-skinned Kumogakure Ninja's body, then slammed it heavily onto the ground with a dull "thud."
With just that single impact, Kuroi, who was already severely wounded, instantly spat out a large mouthful of blood, and even his dark skin turned incredibly pale.
"Eloi! Move, now!"
The female Kumogakure Ninja, who had firmly embedded the Kunai in the monster's back, shouted loudly. But the already depressed young Genin seemed rooted to the spot, staring in terror at the never-before-seen monster, having forgotten most of his skills.
Before the female Kumogakure Ninja could say anything more, a tearing sound came from below.
The dark-skinned Chunin, who had been struggling to hold on, was suddenly bitten clean in half, staring dumbfounded at everything before him.
It wasn't just the young Genin.
Even the female Kumogakure Ninja behind the monster was stunned when she saw this, her eyes wide with disbelief.
"Kuroi!"
She cried out instinctively.
But immediately after, she quickly reacted, instantly pushing the Chakra output in her hand to the limit.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Blade!"
The Lightning Release Chakra already concentrated on the Kunai, maintained with full effort, instantly transformed into an extended blade of lightning.
Following the female Kumogakure Ninja's movement, while penetrating the creature's back, she also managed to laboriously sever half of the monster's forearm as she raised the blade.
"It works!"
Just as a glimmer of hope rose in the female Kumogakure Ninja's heart.
The monster suddenly turned its head, covered by the Skeletal Mask, toward her.
On its face, a highly human-like smile appeared.
A mocking smile.
The surging emotion in the female Kumogakure Ninja's heart instantly chilled.
Before she could move again, the monster suddenly extended the arm that had been severed.
Pale substance surged rapidly like a tumor from the stump, coalescing into a new arm that shot out and slammed shut, gripping her body.
"Damn it..."
The female Kumogakure Ninja cursed while using Substitution Jutsu to flip out and escape the grasp of that hand.
But before she could land, the creature's other arm had already extended, sweeping down like a rubber band, striking her body squarely.
"Bang!"
She was violently smashed onto the ground by this Flail-like Strike, her body twisted into an odd angle starting from her waist.
In just a few short seconds, a combination of a Chunin and a Genin had been defeated by the opponent.
Eloi remained standing frozen in place, having forgotten even to run. Trembling, he gripped his Kunai and watched the monster approach him step by step.
Until finally, their eyes met.
Suddenly.
From beneath the mask-covered skull, a familiar tone was painfully emitted: "E...loi..." The hoarse, pale sound wasn't like speech; rather, it was like some monster clumsily imitating an impression that lingered only in fragmented memories.
However, Eloi recognized the owner of that voice, which was trembling as if pleading, even laced with a crying tone: "T-teacher?"
That was the voice of his team leader, his teacher, who had just died in the previous mission.
"Heh."
Unfortunately, what answered him was not the hope of life.
But a laugh of extreme mockery and ridicule.
In an instant, the giant mouth opened.
And descended upon him.
"Pfft."
"Pfft!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi's pen tip slammed heavily onto the paper, leaving a deep ink mark that soaked through the thin page.
However, he had no mind to care about this trivial matter. Frowning, he looked at the reporter in front of him and instinctively asked seriously, "Another case has appeared?"
"Yes."
The Anbu Ninja kneeling on the ground lowered his head and quickly reported: "According to the report from Xiaoyuanmachi Town, the first sighting of the masked monster was at 11 PM the night before last, on the outskirts of the town. There were seven victims, all related."
"According to the mayor's investigation, a young man from that household went missing three days ago, suspected to have disappeared after encountering bandits while traveling for trade. Immediately after, news came that his entire family had been murdered."
"The patriarch of the house facing the street leaned out when he heard the screams and saw a monster with partial invisibility appear. After killing the family of seven, it quickly departed. There were a total of four witnesses, and their testimonies were consistent."
"In the following two days, five more people in the town were murdered. Panic has seized the town, and an emergency extermination mission, ranked B-class, has been issued to Konoha."
After listening to the Anbu's narration, Hiruzen Sarutobi frowned deeply, taking one drag after another from his pipe, his face grim.
Masked monsters again.
In just these ten days, the Village had received multiple emergency missions from various locations across the Land of Fire, but the targets were exactly the same.
They were all monsters sharing a unified physical characteristic—a Skeletal Mask—but with varied body shapes.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, having just dealt with the box of ultimate bliss, Satori, was still highly sensitive to the term "monster."
Furthermore, several squads dispatched by the Village in recent days had suffered varying degrees of casualties, making the situation very severe.
Up until now, they still hadn't figured out what these monsters were, and not a single squad had managed to bring back a complete corpse of one.
This unusual situation inevitably made Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had just experienced Ninja Village Internal Strife, start to overthink.
Could this also be a secret conspiracy orchestrated by certain ambitious individuals?
Almost immediately, he thought of Orochimaru, who had disappeared without a trace.
However, according to the reports from various squads, these monsters didn't seem ridiculously strong.
One four-person squad led by a Jonin easily drove the monster away, but failed to capture it because they didn't fully understand its habits, allowing it to escape.
"What exactly is going on?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi's Ninja intuition made him instinctively feel that something was wrong.
There was a high probability that an even greater conspiracy lay behind this.
But he couldn't pinpoint what the problem was.
The danger? The timing? The location?
No!
It's the universality.
That's it.
Hiruzen Sarutobi suddenly realized.
These monster attacks were spread across the entire Land of Fire, and the outbreak times were extremely close together, with no prior warning!
Most importantly, the random nature of these monsters' appearances!
They had no specific reason for killing, whether the victims were civilians or Ninja.
For him, the head of the nation's military group, this was like a sudden nationwide emergence of psychotic criminals triggered by random probability.
Extremely tricky to handle.
If that was the case.
Then, after a while, would these random killing monsters... also appear in Konoha Village?
In an instant, Hiruzen Sarutobi imagined this worst-case scenario.
Just as he was thinking this.
"Boom—!"
A sudden explosion roared from the direction of the Village center, startling a flock of birds.
Hiruzen Sarutobi abruptly stood up from his seat, looking toward the direction where the flames were rising.
It was Konoha Hospital.
In virtually the same instant, cold sweat streamed down the old man's forehead.
"Quick!"
"Go save the people!"