A Sage's Pursuit of Power

When Aoba saw Orochimaru and Obito working together, he was momentarily stunned. How did these two end up teaming up?

However, this was not the time to dwell on such questions, because Obito had seemingly mastered the Rinnegan.

This meant his threat level had skyrocketed. No matter what, Aoba could not ignore the danger posed by the Rinnegan.

Orochimaru's expression was also somewhat tense, because the young man who had used the Shadow Shuriken Jutsu had locked onto him.

For some reason, whenever Orochimaru faced this guy, he always felt an inexplicable unease. Perhaps it was because his techniques resembled those of his former teacher.

Meanwhile, Kakashi rescued Shin, keeping guard while allowing him time to recover. As for Aoba, he was left to face Obito alone.

Obito didn't actually want to fight Aoba here. He wasn't yet ready to fully declare war on Konoha.

If Konoha's strength had followed the original timeline, Obito would have already razed the village to the ground by now. But the Konoha of today was filled with powerful shinobi, and its mastery of sealing techniques and barrier jutsu was beyond imagination.

Its overall strength was so formidable that even with the Rinnegan, Obito dared not start a direct conflict.

His plan was to fix his body, gather the Tailed Beasts in secret, attain the true power of the Six Paths, and only then settle his score with Aoba.

But now that they had encountered each other, he couldn't just retreat without a fight.

At the same time, Aoba also did not let his guard down in the slightest. His own eyes had yet to recover, and while Kotoamatsukami might not work on someone with the Rinnegan, being without his eyes still posed a disadvantage.

Aoba flicked his right hand, and several Flying Thunder God kunai appeared in his grasp.

At the same moment, Obito activated Shinra Tensei (Almighty Push) without hesitation.

Both of them moved at extreme speeds. The instant Shinra Tensei was unleashed, Aoba's kunai were already positioned around Obito.

But Obito was well aware of the dangers of the Flying Thunder God Technique. He immediately used Shinra Tensei to repel all of the kunai, ensuring that Aoba couldn't teleport close to him.

Then, he swiftly formed hand seals.

"Hell Stab Chaos."

However, in the very next second, he saw something extremely bizarre, 

Aoba's body passed right through the wooden spikes conjured by Hell Stab Chaos, charging straight at him.

It was an odd sight, a sea of wooden spikes lunged at Aoba, but somehow, every single one missed him by a fraction of an inch.

He simply ran through the wooden trap without any defense, completely unharmed.

Then, he raised his hand and threw a kunai at Obito.

Obito instantly countered, launching a wooden spike to intercept the kunai midair. His primary battle tactic was simple, never allow a Flying Thunder God kunai to get close to him.

However, the kunai exploded midair, releasing a thick cloud of smoke that obscured Obito's vision.

Despite his immense strength, Aoba had never abandoned simple ninja tools like smoke bombs and explosive tags.

"Not good."

Obito immediately sensed danger and quickly retreated.

In that instant, he felt a distortion in space...

"Kamui... Kakashi!"

At some point, Kakashi had appeared behind him.

All of Aoba's previous attacks had merely been distractions, designed to draw Obito's attention away so that Kakashi could get close enough to use Kamui on him.

However, Kamui failed... The moment Kakashi activated Kamui, he was struck by an invisible force.

"Limbo: Border Jail."

Aoba frowned slightly. This was the second time he had seen Obito use Limbo, proof that Obito had fully mastered the Rinnegan.

However, he was using Madara's abilities, which felt strangely off to Aoba.

Regardless, Limbo was an extremely dangerous ability.

Kakashi reacted quickly, immediately phasing into intangible form upon being hit.

Yet, despite that, he still felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, at least two of his ribs had been broken.

And that was after he had reacted instantly, had it been someone else, that one attack would have been fatal.

Aoba immediately activated Sage Mode.

With his enhanced sensory perception, he could vaguely detect two fast-moving shadows nearby.

However, this was only possible because he was standing still and focusing entirely on sensing, in actual combat, this level of detection was useless.

Fortunately, he had already activated Elysium, an ability that makes him unreachable for a time.

Limbo clones could only inflict physical attacks, meaning they couldn't touch him for now.

Only now did Aoba realize something, people on the forums in his past life were right.

"Limbo: Border Jail is basically the gatekeeper of the Six Paths."

For anyone below Six Paths level, it was instant death.

For anyone above Six Paths level, it was insignificant.

Right now, he was definitely not at the Six Paths level.

Against Limbo clones, he was struggling to deal with them effectively.

However, the Limbo clones couldn't harm either him or Kakashi for now.

And more importantly, Limbo clones weren't infinite.

They had a time limit and consumed chakra.

What had started as an ambush battle had now turned into a war of attrition.

Aoba was fine with this, but Obito absolutely couldn't accept it.

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Currently on Chapter 325 - The Flying Thunder God Formation