Starting with the Uchiha clan, they began cultivating demonic arts.

Chapter 194 The Illusion Enveloping the Entire Rain Country

In the end, Nagato agreed to Deidara's request to go to the battlefield with him for direct combat.

Anyway, it's something that can be solved with an illusion. Deidara likes to cause explosions, so let him blow up to his heart's content in the illusion!

The surrender of Iwagakure did not cause much trouble for the other four great nations and four great ninja villages. The only one who cursed was probably the Daimyo of the Land of Earth—he had ordered Iwagakure to suppress the rebellious Akatsuki organization, but Iwagakure bowed down and has now become the Akatsuki's branch in the Land of Earth.

What about his position as Daimyo? According to the Akatsuki's political agenda, the Five Great Nations and the Five Great Shinobi Villages should be merged—the ninja hierarchy is based more on strength, so even if a Kage-level ninja couldn't become the former Kage of a village in a unified nation, they could at least secure a high-ranking position.

However, his position as the daimyo of the Land of Earth is entirely based on bloodline inheritance. Although he has always proclaimed that his bloodline is noble, he doesn't think he is much better than ordinary people. In the end, a fallen phoenix is ​​no better than a chicken, and he might just be killed!

However, the daimyo of the Land of Earth soon didn't need to worry about that anymore. Uchiha Hiyu directly descended upon the capital of the Land of Earth and used a set of genjutsu to capture all the high-ranking officials and nobles of the Land of Earth, including the daimyo himself.

The Daimyo of the Land of Earth then remained silent, but instead showed strong support for the policies of the Hidden Stone Village and directly announced that the Land of Earth had joined the Akatsuki's plans.

The events that have occurred during this period have left ordinary ninjas and civilians in the ninja world overwhelmed with a dizzying array of strange and unusual occurrences.

The Akatsuki organization, which had always insisted on so-called dialogue, exchange, and peace, was now preparing to unify the world. The four great ninja villages and the four great nations were preparing to join forces against the Akatsuki. The Land of Earth's 30-strong army was completely wiped out when facing the Akatsuki leader; no one was seen alive or dead. The Hidden Stone Village surrendered without even a fight...

With so many messy things happening at once, the surrender of the Land of Earth seems almost insignificant compared to these events.

The shadow of war quickly loomed over the entire ninja world. However, it would take a considerable amount of time for the armies of the four great nations and the four ninja villages to unite. Even though Nagato had already spent more than a month in the Land of Earth, the four great nations had not yet fully assembled their forces.

During this time, Uchiha Tou's Otsutsuki pureblood clone was also constantly absorbing the "nutrients" brought by the 30-strong army, and its strength once again increased by leaps and bounds.

The chakra within the 30-strong army is not particularly strong. The difference in the amount of chakra between people in the ninja world can be enormous. Naruto Uzumaki alone has more chakra than thousands of Jonin, tens of thousands of Genin, or more than 10 chakra soldiers.

Even more monstrous than him are the Nine-Tails and Hashirama Senju, whose chakra is no less than that of an army of 30. So, all that chakra combined is at most a minor supplement to the Uchiha Touya Otsutsuki clone.

However, the amount of soul power and blood energy in these soldiers is by no means small. As soldiers selected from ordinary people, although their chakra talent is terrible, after rigorous military training, the will and physique of these chakra soldiers far exceed those of ordinary people.

Even though the main body consumed the majority of the soul power and blood energy, the remaining small portion was enough to make the Otsutsuki clone's physique even more terrifying.

While the four great nations were preparing, Uchiha Touyu was improving himself. By the time the four great nations finished preparing, Uchiha Touyu's strength had also been upgraded.

And so the Ninja World War has finally begun, with the armies and ninjas of the four countries having already invaded the Land of Rain.

However, even though the Land of Rain has developed quite well in recent years thanks to the Akatsuki organization and the nationwide chakra plan, in the end, due to environmental factors and its small land area, the entire Land of Rain only has a few million people.

This sudden influx of an army of one or two million, whose numbers alone account for nearly a third or a quarter of the entire country, made the destructive impact on the Land of Rain unimaginable.

This army of one or two million people all needs to eat, drink, and relieve themselves!

Especially for ordinary soldiers who are not ninjas, not only do they need more resources, but the transportation of supplies is also far less efficient than that of ninjas, so it is naturally easiest for them to eat the enemy.

In just a few days, the entire Rain Kingdom was thrown into chaos. Many citizens of the Rain Kingdom moved their families away from the garrison area to avoid becoming targets of robbery.

Meanwhile, the Akatsuki, Iwagakure, and even Amegakure of the Land of Rain, also set up a defensive line around the Four Nations Alliance. Although it was not very effective, it at least comforted their hearts and prevented some ordinary chakra soldiers of the Four Nations Alliance from running rampant and destroying the entire Land of Rain.

"They've finally all gathered... These troops are moving way too slowly!"

At the very top of the four-nation alliance, Nagato stood thousands of meters above the ground with his arms crossed, the surrounding air distorted and obscured by his control.

The reason he didn't act immediately during this period was because the actions of the four-nation alliance were dragging on, and it wasn't until today that all the troops had finally gathered.

"Now, it's time to serve the real main course!"

He took out a Sharingan crystal ball from his hand. The Land of Rain had already been modified by Uchiha Touya himself. The entire country had been transformed into a giant illusion array. It was only missing this array eye that would activate the entire illusion array instantly, pulling all the ninjas in this land into the illusion array.

Unless one possesses the mental strength to resist genjutsu-type Mangekyou Sharingan, even a Kage-level ninja would absolutely be unable to withstand this small-scale Infinite Tsukuyomi genjutsu. According to Uchiha Tou's calculations, although there were many ninjas and chakra soldiers who came to the Land of Rain, there were hardly any truly strong individuals among them.

The few ninjas who could resist Uchiha Tou's genjutsu were all his own people, so there was no need to worry about them.

A pale red light rapidly spread out, enveloping the entire Land of Rain. In the eyes of all the ninjas, chakra soldiers, and even ordinary people in the Land of Feathers, the three-comma symbol appeared.

Standing in the sky, Nagato channeled his chakra into the Sharingan crystal ball in his hand, sensing all the ninjas controlled by his chakra. Suddenly, he raised an eyebrow slightly and gave a soft "hmm."

"Huh!? I didn't expect there would actually be some that slipped through the net?"

As a puppet of the Six Paths controlled by Touma Uchiha, Nagato's current perception ability is only slightly inferior to Touma's own. Through the Sharingan crystal ball, he clearly sensed that, apart from a few ninjas who originally belonged to Touma Uchiha, there was also a ninja in the direction of Amegakure who had broken free from the control of the genjutsu.

Feeling something was amiss, Uchiha Hiu immediately turned his attention to the Land of Rain through Nagato Uzumaki, who acted as a conduit.

The Land of Rain, the Village of Rain Ninja.

A pale red light flowed down from the sky, and almost all the ninjas who remained in Amegakure were instantly controlled. Only in the central tower, inside a large, dark cocoon, did a white-haired ninja with his eyes closed suddenly open them.

"Huh!? What's going on? Such strong mental power... Is someone using illusion magic?"

"Hmm... thankfully this mental fluctuation woke me up... otherwise, I'm afraid I would have died from complete exhaustion without even realizing it..."

With a tearing sound, the black cocoon was ripped open by a large hand emerging from the inside, revealing a naked, rather muscular, middle-aged ninja.

This middle-aged ninja is none other than Hanzo the Salamander, the current leader of Amegakure!

As for why he looks much younger than his age, and the scene of him breaking out of the black cocoon and being reborn, it is naturally due to the butterfly effect brought about by Uchiha Touyu.

Uchiha Touyu once went to Amegakure to inquire about the Akatsuki organization. Before leaving, he had a sudden idea and gave Hanzo of the Salamander a portion of the poison techniques inherited from the Book of Demonic Path.

Besides the original inheritance, those inheritances also included some of Orochimaru's improved ideas. One of them was to learn from the cocooning and rebirth habits of certain poisonous insects and modify oneself to have the ability to form cocoons, thereby completely reconstructing one's own body structure and transforming the deadly poison in the body into spiritual medicine.

Undoubtedly, Orochimaru's idea was inspired by Tobi Uchiha, since there are many different kinds of Heavenly Silkworm Techniques in martial arts novels, and many of them are related to medicine.

However, the fact that even Orochimaru himself did not adopt this training approach shows just how small the chance of its success is. Not to mention that it was just an inspiration and framework for Orochimaru, and there were still many problems to be solved.

However, for Hanzo the Salamander, no matter how many problems need to be solved on this path of poison-based martial arts, he has little choice.

As a poison person who had been transplanted with the venom glands of a salamander since childhood, Hanzo the Salamander was already experiencing a continuous decline in strength due to his age and the long-term presence of the venom glands. The poison scroll left behind by Uchiha Hiu was arguably his only way out.

Relying on his knowledge as a Kage-level ninja, his understanding of various poisons, and the meager accumulation of knowledge from Amegakure, Hanzo of the Salamander stumbled along the path of poison mastery.

Fortunately, his constitution was naturally different from that of ordinary people, which was a perfect match for his poison skills. With a few coincidences and luck, he did not die prematurely, but instead reached the final step.

Having reached the point of breaking free from the cocoon and being reborn, Hanzo of the Salamander's life form had surpassed that of an ordinary ninja. Coupled with his original Kage-level strength, after undergoing a rebirth, he finally gained the ability to resist this wide-area genjutsu.

However, if it weren't for the mental interference of this small-scale Tsukuyomi illusion, Hanzo the Salamander might never have been able to break free from his cocoon and be reborn, but would have died silently inside the cocoon. In this respect, he was really lucky.

And it was precisely because of this that his performance caught the attention of Uchiha Touyu. Uchiha Touyu sent four Chaos Treasure Boxes to Uzumaki Nagato, who controlled the puppet to manipulate the illusion array and harvest within the Land of Rain. After a spatial fluctuation, he himself went directly to Amegakure.

At this moment, Hanzo of the Salamander had just finished his tour of Amegakure and was becoming increasingly surprised. Although the actions of the Amegakure ninjas were not strange, Hanzo of the Salamander had already discovered that these ninjas had long been trapped in an illusion. However, the illusion and reality were completely integrated, so it appeared normal.

"What terrifying illusion magic... It's controlled the entire Rain Village... No, it might be the entire Land of Rain..."

Hanzo the Salamander's expression grew increasingly serious. Just then, his gaze shifted, and he saw a ninja emerging from the tower.

The tower in Amegakure is where Hanzo of the Salamander lived. Ninjas who could enter and leave the tower could not be of low status. The ninja who came out at this moment was one of Hanzo of the Salamander's lieutenants, a rare elite Jonin in Amegakure, and an elite Jonin who was proficient in genjutsu.

"Has Nanami been controlled too? Let's see if we can break the illusion for him!"

Hanzo the Salamander stretched out his hand, and a wisp of purple smoke shot out like an arrow, directly piercing his lieutenant and entering his body in an instant.

This is a poison created by Hanzo the Salamander through his toxic chakra, which damages his own blood and energy but greatly enhances his spiritual power.

The saying goes that every medicine has some degree of toxicity, which can also be interpreted as all poisons can be used as medicine. As long as the proportion of poisons is properly controlled, even highly toxic substances can be transformed into useful medicines.

"Uh...uh...ah!"

A strange toxin penetrated his body. The ninja named Nanami widened his eyes, clutched his throat, and groaned in pain. His eyes were wide open, and his skin began to turn red. After trembling for a moment, it turned deathly pale.

At the same time, his previously somewhat listless eyes suddenly shone brightly, veins bulged on his forehead, and he covered his head, as if he was about to break free of the illusion.

However, at that moment, three magatama suddenly appeared in his eyes. After spinning for a moment, the magatama disappeared. Nanami, who was almost breaking through the illusion, was stunned for a moment before returning to his original state.

The only slight difference from the previous situation is that this Nanami ninja is now weak all over, and even his walking is a little shaky.

"Even Nanami couldn't break through the genjutsu? With the mental power stimulated by the poison just now, Nanami in her explosive state is equivalent to a Kage-level expert specializing in genjutsu. Moreover, the poison chakra entering her body is equivalent to external intervention disrupting her chakra... If she can't even regain consciousness under these circumstances... Is there anyone in the entire Land of Rain who is still conscious?"

(End of this chapter)