Alone and Infinite

Got it, it's pretty much a consolation prize from the hall of fame.

After putting away the reward, Li Xia looked around and forced a smile, saying:

"Let's go! Get out of here—"

Startled, it quickly realized what was happening and grabbed the shoulder straps of the Dark Guard's soft armor with its two short paws.

Li Xia's gaze swept across the arena, but suddenly stopped, squeezing out a little more strength from his already exhausted body.

He flicked his toes to grab the decapitation sword in his hand, looked at it, and then simply put his arm through the round hole at the end of the sword, carrying it like a basket.

Only then did he nod in satisfaction at Awoo.

With a tender yet majestic roar, it swayed its body and pulled Li Xia towards the azure sea.

As their figures gradually disappeared into the distance, the small village, which had lost its original appearance, was once again shrouded in a light mist.

Only those white bones, not yet completely corroded, stare blankly at the sky with their dark, hollow skulls.

A while later, several masked figures suddenly appeared.

They cautiously surveyed their surroundings, their eyes widening in disbelief. Even the seasoned Shadow Squad, experienced in numerous missions, had never witnessed such a horrific scene.

If I remember correctly, this used to be a nice village with a large population, and many fishermen from the surrounding area liked to come here to trade.

But where is there even a trace of life in the scene before us?

The soil had an unsettling dark red color, and only a few ruins remained of the houses, even these remnants were covered with disgusting foam.

There was a feeling that it could collapse at any moment, and the surrounding vegetation and trees had also disappeared, as if someone had used a spoon to dig a piece out of the entire map.

"What...what happened?"

An undercover agent jumped up, desperately trying to find something familiar in his memory from his surroundings.

"Damn it, where are the villagers? Were they all killed?"

Another ninja slammed his fist into the ground, creating a deep dent in the damp soil.

"Hiss—" A sharp burning pain rose from his knuckles, and the ninja who had slammed his fist into the ground let out a low cry, enduring the excruciating pain as he turned his hand over.

The palm that touched the ground looked like it was ulcerated, with flesh turning into a disgusting pus that dripped down the edge of the palm.

The leader of the dark forces narrowed his eyes and rushed to the side of the injured team member.

As he took out medicinal powder from his ninja tool pouch and sprinkled it on his teammate's palms, he hissed:

"Don't touch the soil! Damn it, let's retreat. This is beyond our control!"

"But Captain... Lord Mizukage of the village..."

The team member helped the ANBU ninja, who was convulsing in pain, to his feet and said hesitantly.

Although he didn't say it aloud, everyone knew what he meant.

The Fourth Mizukage, Yagura Karatachi, was originally a very good Mizukage, but in recent years his behavior has become increasingly strange.

Even the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, who were tasked with carrying out difficult missions for the Mizukage, fled the village.

If it were reported, the Mizukage probably wouldn't care at all.

The commander of the secret service pondered for a moment, gritted his teeth, and said in a low voice:

"We'll report this to Lady Mei Terumi; she'll definitely take action! Whoever committed this crime must be avenged!"

"Yes!"

The battle took place only three or four hundred kilometers from the location of the Mist Shadow. This area is considered the outermost or innermost perimeter of the ninja village's perimeter.

If it's just about fighting with physical skills, the commotion might be minimal.

However, a ninjutsu of Zabuza's scale could very likely trigger the alarm barrier.

Therefore, staying in place would likely lead to them running into the Fog Shadow Village security forces who come to check the situation.

Li Xia thought of this, and so did Ao Wu.

After getting far from the coastline, Aowu took out a compressed lifeboat from his personal space.

After unfolding the clothes, they carefully laid Li Xia down, looking at her with some alarm as she looked at how her skin had almost peeled off.

"Boss, shouldn't we apply some medicine?"

Li Xia shook his head, tied the decapitation sword to the rope, and simply threw it into the water as an anchor.

Looking at the notification on the panel, "[Abyss Resistance +1]", he reluctantly said, "Enduring it will pay off."

At this moment, he had several negative status notifications displayed on the panel, something that had never happened before.

[Abyssal Toxin], [Abyssal Corrosion], [Self-Healing Reduction], [Continuous Bleeding], [Ulceration].

Even its health points stubbornly remained stable at 24.6%, slowly increasing at an extremely slow pace.

Li Xia dared to endure this because his health was still increasing; otherwise, even if he made a gain, he would have to take medicine.

He has been able to hold on until now without taking any medicine, all thanks to the powerful passive primordial chaos of the Eight-Nine Arcane Arts.

[Unified Primordial Chaos: Reduces non-physical attack damage by approximately 45%, and increases abnormal status resistance by 60%]

Unable to meditate and enter a state of deep concentration in his current condition, Li Xia could only endure the pain. He carefully found a suitable posture and chatted with Aowu about the battle they had just fought.

When this was mentioned, Aowu immediately recalled the moment that directly caused the battlefield to become unbalanced.

Faced with Zabuza's Great Waterfall Technique, Li Xia leaped up to dodge, but was instead smashed into the water.

He was eventually trapped by Zabuza's Water Prison Technique.

Li Xia pondered for a moment, then said softly:

"Water Mirror Technique"

Aowu doesn't know much about Naruto, but as long as someone watches the anime, it's fine.

But we can't fill in all the gaps; this was agreed upon beforehand, because sometimes understanding the plot can actually trap us in its trap.

This is the obstacle of perception.

"The Water Mirror Technique is a relatively rare ninjutsu, and its usage is also different."

The Fourth Mizukage's Water Mirror Technique, for example, creates a mirror made of water. The person reflected in the mirror is identical to the enemy and can use the same ninjutsu as their opponent, with the same power.

Li Xia paused for a moment: "As for Zabuza, that has to do with the boy he adopted, Haku."

Haku's ice shield is a combination of wind and water release techniques. He can create multiple mirrors and move back and forth between them.

"Haku only has the Blood Sacrifice Limit of Ice Release, but no corresponding ninjutsu inheritance. His ninjutsu was basically developed for him by Zabuza."

Therefore, I speculate that Zabuza's Water Mirror Technique has a completely different effect from that of the Fourth Mizukage.

Ninjutsu varies from person to person; it is not fixed or unchanging.

When Li Xia leaped into the air to dodge the waterfall technique, he clearly sensed Zabuza underwater.

Almost instantly, he moved above Zabuza's head, and water splashed and dissipated beside him.

Li Xia didn't care, but instead focused all his attention on how to deal with the crisis. Now that he thought about it carefully, it was very likely because of the Water Mirror Technique.

"Holy crap—that's some serious combat intelligence!"

After listening to Li Xia's explanation, Aowu opened his mouth wide. Given the speed of their battle, the time they had to think was extremely short.

In that short time, Zabuza managed to come up with the following plan.

The Great Waterfall Technique—the intense corrosiveness and the surrounding environment forced Li Xia to leap.

Water Mirror Technique – This technique utilizes the splashing water from a great waterfall to condense into a thin, transparent water curtain high in the air.

Instant Kill in Water – Using his superior swimming ability, he quickly swam to Li Xia's feet and drew his attention to him.

Water clone – At the same time, a massive amount of water is used to condense a water clone to hide.

Water Prison Technique – Using the Water Mirror Technique to quickly traverse and knock Li Xia down, a hidden clone is then imprisoned in the water prison.

This combination incorporates movement restriction, environmental changes, preemptive moves, prediction, and continuous control.

Especially the last few items, which are considered true combos in the game. Once Zabuza pushes someone into the water, anyone who comes will be hit by one of them!

"hiss----"

Aowu thought about it more and more and felt it was amazing. After thinking about it carefully, it seemed that none of the powerful enemies the boss had encountered so far had low combat intelligence.

They were all incredibly cunning. Even the Dragon Strike General, who was only driven by instinct, had a terrifyingly high battle IQ. For the first time, he even managed to force the boss to use his Senzu Bean.

Without the Senzu Bean's incredible regenerative properties, I would definitely have died there.

On the contrary, some of the cuties in the arena are so silly that it's hard to bring yourself to bully them.

Especially those core seeds of certain unknown top guilds who occupy the top spot in the arena.

"Hey, boss, how did you break free from that water prison spell?"

Aowu suddenly realized the blind spot again. After Li Xia was trapped by the Water Prison Technique, he was already at a complete disadvantage. The failure of the Water Prison Technique was definitely beyond Zabuza's expectations.

This caused him to lose his rhythm, and Li Xia seized the opportunity to restrict his hands and take him down in one fell swoop.

"this."

If Black Charcoal were here, it would definitely guess that, as a die-hard anime fan, even though the cat is a fan of One Piece, it's all for the sake of arguing with the online fire brat.

The kitten has thoroughly studied the original work, just like Li Xia previously went head-to-head with HP Cloud Kid and never lost.

Because his research was so in-depth, he even considered writing fan fiction.

"Rasengan - what I'm actually using is the principle of Rasengan."

The first stage of Rasengan training involves popping a water-filled balloon.

How similar is it to the water prison technique?

Li Xia was silent for a moment, then frowned and said in a low voice:

"It's quite a coincidence. If I hadn't learned the Rejuvenation Technique from Hyuga, I would never have been able to control the True Qi to make the water flow at high speed."

But I happened to learn how to turn the tide.

Reversal of Fortune - High-Speed ​​Energy Rotation Technique - Water Prison Technique - Rasengan - Breaking the Water Prison - Counterattack

It was so coincidental, it seemed like it was all arranged on purpose.

For a moment, the small boat fell silent, with only the sound of waves crashing against it.

"Your Highness—"

The howl was soft, yet unusually firm:

"No one can dictate your destiny; that's the meaning of 'lucky 0'."

Li Xia looked into Xiao Long's serious eyes and nodded thoughtfully.

This was followed by the sentence:

"Unless... this is the fate I want?"

As fingers traced the cold, sharp sound of the gun, the weapon capable of shattering fate grumbled in discontent.

It was clear that it hadn't been fed properly before.

A vague, yet persistent thought surfaced in his mind: "Just now... stinky tofu... didn't have any gas!"

Li Xia chuckled to himself. Good heavens, in the eyes of the Unlucky Ones, the Old Gods are like snail rice noodles, and Zabuza of the Abyss is like stinky tofu, right?

"Okay, let's not talk about this anymore."

Li Xia waved his hand lightly, skipping the topic. Trying to figure out what destiny is at the early stage of the third tier was obviously a bit premature.

It wasn't just this fateful coincidence; there were even some less obvious issues, but Li Xia didn't bring them up.

For example, the sword demon you face in the second stage is clearly an 'Apostle of the Void', but Zabuza is an 'Apostle of the Abyss'.

"Boss, when are we going back to Konoha?"

Aowu simply followed Li Xia's example, skipping over those problems that would only cause more trouble, and instead started thinking about the next step of the plan.

Li Xia closed her eyes, enjoying the tranquility of drifting on the azure sea.

"In a few days, after becoming a special Jonin, it will be difficult to have the opportunity to leave Konoha and act alone."

This is a rare opportunity for free time!