Sarutobi Hiruzen flashed through several hand seals and inhaled deeply.

His chest swelled until with a strong exhale, a powerful jet of water spewed out soaking the barrier of sand, weighing it down, impeding its revolution.

Orochimaru immediately followed up with Earth style Mud flow technique which caused the wet sand to slough off and make the barrier thinner.

Unlike the Konoha ninja, Hanzo had never worked together with them but his vast battle experience meant that he knew just the right time to make his move.

When he was motionless, his presence was nearly non-existent but when he attacked, the effects rent the earth and made the world lose colour.

Leaping on top of his salamander, he ran through several hand seals slamming his hands onto it’s forehead.

Man-beast fusion: Salamander of the Rain.

Just like the Inuzuka clan fusion jutsu with their dogs, it was an advanced form of the transformation jutsu.

But with the salamander cells already within his body, his jutsu was even more perfect.

The dark bluish-purple skinned salamander seemed to melt as it seeped into his body and his body underwent momentous changes.

He grew to 3 metres in height and his muscles inflated crazily. His hands turned into sharp claws and his teeth became pointed.

His skin became jet black in colour with purple markings all over it becoming visible as his clothes became shredded with his transformation.

His eyes were a shining yellow with vertical slit pupils.

Poison style: poison lance.

Toxic purple mist rose from his body and condensed into a javelin in his right hand and his muscles bulged as he threw with all his might at the weakened part of the barrier.

*chi*chi*chi*

The barrier of sand sizzled as it melted from the extremely corrosive toxins.

Jiraiya and Gamabunta nodded and the massive frog spewed out a huge quantity of toad oil while Jiraiya lit it with his fire style.

A huge burning wave of oil welled up towards the dome of sand.

Wind style: great breakthrough.

Danzo attacked at the appropriate time causing the flaming oil to burst explosively as it combusted extremely speedily.

A huge chunk of the dome was blown out revealing the sight inside the interior.

There, curled up into a ball covering his head with his arms was Lin Feng as he struggled with the tribulation within and his anger.

Emboldened by the sight, Manda shot forwards towards him slithering extremely fast on the sand in a s shaped pattern, leaving trails on the sand.

Hiruzen had Enma transform into the adamantine staff which he pointed at Lin Feng and had it extend shooting towards him with blistering speeds.

The staff was faster than the snake and it soon reached the curled-up man.

With a huge shockwave, the staff crashed against an invisible barrier.

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Hiruzen narrowed his eyes as he unloaded the force of the recoil through his body onto the ground, causing the sandy ground to form a bowl -shaped depression around his feet.

Manda stopped his charge, hissing in apprehension as he saw that even the nearly indestructible adamantine staff had cracked where it had come into contact with the invisible barrier around the man.

It was Lin Feng’s Void Force passively protecting himself.

The tribulation had unbalanced his soul causing him to become extremely angry but his willpower was still strong and he knew which was more important.

He needed to defend until he could overcome the tribulation.

Then... then they would all die.

But now with their unremitting attack, they were successfully distracting him and now, it meant that he couldn’t concentrate on the tribulation and it was wreaking havoc in his mind.

He looked up, his eyes were red like that of a bloodthirsty monster.

Even Manda who was actually a monster hissed and recoiled from his hate-filled glare.

Instead of attacking, he forcefully restrained himself and ordered the sand to close up again and the gap was filled.

He had tried to teleport but the space had been locked with sealing formations carried by Sarutobi and Jiraiya.

Hanzo said, his voice a strange hissing rasp as he moved his elongated tongue aroung his sharp teeth, “His defence is impeccable, inexhaustible. As long as he is in the desert, he can repair his barrier at no cost while we burn chakra in a futile effort.”

Just as Hiruzen was about to reply, his eyes widened.

“Don’t stop! Attack!” he shouted before using a wind style technique to attack and abrade the sand.

Everyone was elite and they noticed what he had seen.

The more the time passes, the more the sand accumulated, growing thicker and thicker.

If they wanted to succeed then they had to continuously attack or risk losing all progress.

But, as Hanzo said, the more they attacked, the more chakra they wasted while Lin Feng had home game superiority.

As Kage level ninja, they were extremely strong in destructive power but Lin Feng’s defence was a bug in the desert specially with 3D formations active.

Suddenly all of them stopped and turned towards a direction where three extremely strong chakra signatures were catching up.

Soon, the three of them came in sight. The Mizukage, the third Raikage and Onoki the Tsuchikage.

Sarutobi and his companions looked at them warily after all they were the allies of the Kazekage at least nominally.

Soon, behind them several people came up.

The jinchuriki and the kage level ninja of their respective villages. It was no place for anyone lower in the food chain.

Hiruzen asked, “What is the meaning of this?”

He was internally thinking of how to use Hanzo and to escape this situation.

But Onoki’s words surprised him. “I want to ally with you to kill the Kazekage. We can resolve our dispute later.”

He shot a meaningful look at Hanzo. “We can discuss the division of the spoils of war from the Kazekage later.”

Hiruzen soon recovered. He knew that there was no such thing as an eternal ally, only eternal benefit.

This Lin Feng clearly had several techniques that allowed him to dominate ninja… like that invisible barrier and the method to seal more than one bijuu.

If Konoha could have him… or even just his dead body, they could reverse-engineer the techniques and learn to ascend to the sme heights.

Maybe even he could break through his bottleneck and advance to the same range as Hashirama and Madara.

Onoki, the sly old thing was surely covetous of the Kazekage’s secrets and thus wanted him dead.

Not to mention that if the man succeeded in fusing the Kyuubi, there would be no stopping him.

Maybe they had been ambushing here all along, only getting teleported with reverse summoning when their scout noticed that the Konoha forces were losing.

Before Hiruzen could even speak, Hanzo first stated his opinion. “I can cooperate but I want the totality of any knowledge that might be in his brain.”

The Raikage opened his mouth to speak but suddenly three men in their battle lines suddenly collapsed on the ground with purple skin.

It was clear that they had been poisoned by Hanzo.

“You want your scouts to live then don’t speak any more useless words. If I want to leave, none of you can stop me.”

The third Raikage bristled with anger lighting up with a coat of lightning.

“I want to see you try!”

Hiruzen narrowed his eyes. It looked like Hanzo had realised the spies and had hidden them from the rest of the group. He hadn’t underestimated Lin Feng and decided that they alonemight not be enough to kill him.

Thus, he had let the scouts carry their information off so they could bring in more forces so they could focus their offensive on Lin Feng.

As the one closest to reaching a higher realm, he knew how hard to deal with such men could be.

He cared little for the war within the elemental nations his goal had always been to get stronger however he could.

If he had to sacrifice Rain country he would do it in a heartbeat.

The forces came into a deadlock and it seemed that a war might be set off at any instant.

Suddenly a massive aura burst through the sand dome which had grown even stronger in the meantime.

Everyone turned to look at it and as if with prior agreement, they all attacked it at once.

No matter their problems, Lin Feng was too much of a threat.