"How many people can escape the barrier?"

This was the second time Shuimu had seen the Four Purple Flame Formation during this period. The lethality of this barrier was average, but the restrictive ability was very strong. The key point was that it was extremely difficult to break from the outside. From the inside, there was basically no need to worry about it being destroyed before the chakra of the person who set up the barrier was completely consumed.

This kind of barrier environment is really suitable for use as a trap, and this time, the method of the "Akatsuki" organization is very planned. Through various coincidences and calculations, most of the combat power of the three parties can be concentrated to catch them all in one fell swoop. This is the ideal situation. The captured Deidara must be rescued and the Jinchūriki must also be captured, and they will not hesitate to expose more cards to achieve this.

"The combination of the Four Purple Flame Formation and the Mirror Attacker Technique is really an idea. This time-delaying consumption tactic, coupled with the strength of Kakuzu and Hidan, and their immortal bodies' super continuous fighting ability, is this a harvesting tactic to be used when there are not enough people but super strength?"

By the time Shuimu got close, it was already too late. Except for a few people, basically no one could escape.

"Mizuki Jonin, you are finally here..."

As soon as they approached, Yura from the Sand Village, Kurotsuchi from the Iwagakure Village, and Hyuga Neji from the Konoha Village, the only three people who had escaped the blockade of the Four Purple Flame Formation, came forward, and Yura, who had the highest status, complained to Mizuki as soon as they met.

"It's a shame that we fell into a trap. It would be better if there were more powerful ninjas."

"Really?" Mizuki didn't comment on Yura's words, and turned to Hyuga Neji and asked, "What's going on? Is there a trap that can escape your Byakugan's observation?"

No matter what kind of trap or ninja approaches, as long as there is a chakra reaction, nothing should be able to escape from the Byakugan.

"It's not that the Byakugan didn't find them, but they didn't know they were the enemy's backup." Hyuga Neji explained, "There were two traitors in the Iwagakure Village and the Sand Village respectively. They activated the barrier when we met up..."

"Was the defense line breached from the inside first?"

After hearing Hyuga Neji's explanation, Mizuki was also quite troubled. The original intention of this mission was to eradicate the traitors, but he didn't expect that so many loopholes would be exploited during the implementation. Fortunately, the actual situation has not been leaked. Only the captain and a very few people know the true situation of the mission.

This situation is not the fault of war, and no one can be blamed. The original purpose of bringing Hyuga Neji and Aburame Shino was to prevent this kind of situation from happening, but I didn't expect that it didn't work in the end.

Looking at the somewhat anxious Hyuga Neji, Mizuki comforted him: "This is not your fault. I was not thoughtful enough and made a mistake. Don't take it to heart..."

"Yeah." Neji nodded somewhat unwillingly. It was his first S-rank mission. Besides the initial nervousness and excitement, he now also felt frustrated at his own powerlessness.

"I don't know how Shino and the others are doing."

"Don't worry too much." Shuimu said, "Yamashiro Aoba is quite strong, so there shouldn't be any problems in the short term. Shino is an insect manipulator, so he usually won't fight head-on, and he has a strong ability to protect his life. What we need to do now is to break this barrier."

The Four Purple Flame Formation is a very serious problem. Unless you remove it yourself, it is too difficult to break it with external force. It is not to say that it is impossible. Find a few powerful jonins and use powerful ninjutsu to attack in turns. They can always use up the chakra of the caster, but this is a bit slow. And time is exactly what is in short supply. If you have the strength of the Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen, you can use the five-attribute ninjutsu to break it directly. However, what the Third Hokage in his prime can do, the people present are far behind. Even Mizuki, who is in Sage Mode, is not easy to break it. It is not that the strength is absolutely insufficient, but the key problem is that there is no powerful ninjutsu to break the barrier. The only fire escape technique he is good at is really not enough to deal with the same fire-attribute barrier technique. It is unknown how long it will take for Mizuki to break the barrier, and everyone inside may die.

"How come someone related to Konoha ninjas knows this kind of troublesome barrier technique? Isn't this unique skill too widely spread?"

Mizuki, who is familiar with the power of barriers, knows the dangers of spreading such things too widely. Although barriers are sometimes used in actual combat due to limitations in qualifications and the environment of the ninja world, they lack flexibility, so not many people are interested in developing in this area, and even fewer are proficient in it.

It's normal for Orochimaru and his subordinates to do this, as this kind of thing originally came out of Konoha, so it's reasonable for the Akatsuki organization to know this. They already have the legacy of Uchiha Madara, one of the founders of Konoha, and Uchiha Obito, who got most of Uchiha Madara's wealth. Obito can even create more powerful sealing techniques in the future, so the Four Purple Flame Formation is certainly not a problem.

During the Chunin Exam, there was the powerful Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen, but now it is Mizuki who has to deal with this troublesome matter.

"Fortunately, this time there are many people trapped, and the barrier is relatively large. Accordingly, the barrier's protective strength may be appropriately reduced. However, for such a large-scale Four Purple Flame Formation, it seems that only a few ordinary ninjas are maintaining the barrier. They must have used special methods to stimulate their bodies to overdraw, otherwise they would not be able to sustain such a large consumption."

At this time, Heitu, who has always been casual and even eccentric, was also very worried about the difficulties faced by his compatriots.

"Mizuki Jonin, how can we break this barrier? I heard that you are also a jonin who is good at sealing techniques and barriers, right? Isn't there any way?"

Mizuki glanced at Kurotsuchi and replied calmly, "Almost every ninja knows that by fusing the chakras of two attributes, one can obtain a bloodline limit, but how many people can do it?"

"So you don't have any good solution?" Heitu suddenly felt very disappointed.

"Of course there are methods, but I am not the one who can use them. Besides, they are not necessarily safer than breaking the barrier."

The simplest method that Shuimu mentioned is, of course, to release the One-Tailed Shukaku. Shuimu also knew that the Four Purple Flame Array barrier, no matter how powerful it was, could not restrain the tailed beasts for the time being. However, once Shukaku came out, it was hard to say which one would be killed first. By then, the situation would be a mess and it would be really difficult to deal with.

"Hey, please don't ignore me." Yura, who was standing by, saw that Mizuki didn't answer her question and looked indifferent, so she had to remind him again to show her presence, "I am also a jonin of the allied ninja village after all..."

"Allies?" Mizuki seemed to have just remembered that there was someone beside him, and turned to Yura and said, "Yura Jonin, am I right? I'm curious, how did you avoid the trap barrier?"

It's OK for Hyuga Neji to be able to dodge the barrier. The characteristics of the Byakugan allow him to be alert and react as quickly as possible. Protect himself to the greatest extent and avoid various traps. This is also the Byakugan's favorite ability among teammates when they are on a mission together.

Mizuki didn't know why Kurotsuchi was able to escape. Maybe it was pure coincidence, or maybe he had some hidden abilities that had not been discovered yet. After all, he was a strong man who could become the Tsuchikage ten years later, so this person could still be trusted.

And Yura made Mizuki alert. One or two things could be just coincidences, but more would be too unbelievable.

"So it's obvious that this time, Yura played a big role in this?"

Although Mizuki didn't figure out why this happened, it didn't prevent Mizuki from confirming that Yura, the Sand Ninja Jonin who was controlled by the Red Sand Scorpion, had played a role in it.

"I don't know either. They are really surprising enemies. Not only are they powerful, but they also have a plan and created such a large barrier. We were too careless. And there are those traitors..."

"Really? You're really lucky. Thank you for your hard work."

At this time, Shuimu had no intention of exposing it directly. The art of subconscious sand manipulation was extremely concealed. Without active exposure, no one would suspect it. Naturally, no one would think that Shuimu had already known this confidential information in advance and might have made some appropriate arrangements by taking advantage of the intelligence gap. Shuimu, who knew this information, might gain some unexpected benefits in the subsequent intelligence advantage.

While Mizuki was still talking to Yura and the other three, the belated Scorpion finally arrived.

"How is it, Mizuki, the jonin of Konoha Village?" As soon as the Red Sand Scorpion appeared, he couldn't wait to say to Mizuki, "Do you want to admit defeat? I said so much before, but you were indifferent. Now you have seen the situation clearly, right? How about you think about it carefully?"

"No need. I think we still have a chance of winning, and you guys are not certain to win."

"If that's the case, I can't just stop now." Scorpion of the Red Sand was helpless about not being able to achieve his goal. "I didn't expect that you wouldn't give up under such circumstances. I don't know whether to admire you or waste my time. Don't you want to do something more meaningful? You are obsessed with the village and your companions. Is this all you can do?"

"If what you mean by magnanimity is to abandon everything that makes you a human being, then what is the meaning of what you have gained? Is this world of a person so fascinating to you?"

"How could it be just one person? Don't I have a lot of puppets here?"

"Puppet?" Shuimu smiled. "It seems that you, who have transformed into a non-human being, simply cannot understand many things."

"So, let's have one last fight? But it looks like your companions can't hold out for much longer."

"How could that be? That's not the case. Don't underestimate those people."

"I didn't underestimate them, but you underestimated Kakuzu and Hidan's strength? Seeing their current strength, do you think that's all they have? You don't understand at all. Even for me, it is quite difficult to kill them."

"Don't you know? Just treat it as such..."

Shuimu didn't say anything more. The Four Purple Flame Formation had not been broken yet and there was still a strong enemy outside, so Shuimu had no time to care about what was happening inside the Four Purple Flame Formation.

"It seems that if we don't repel the Red Sand Scorpion, we won't be able to help the people in the Four Purple Flame Formation."

Although I thought this mission would be difficult, I didn't expect it to be this difficult. I originally thought that I would be an outsider who fished in troubled waters, but I didn't expect that I would be targeted by the Red Sand Scorpion. The Akatsuki organization actually had such great ambitions, which also surprised Shuimu. But if you think about it carefully, it's not without reason. So far, Akatsuki is actually still in a period of considerable shortage of manpower, and its strength is not much stronger than three years later in the original work. In this case, even if the leader is the legendary child of destiny, it is limited by the limited organizational structure of the Akatsuki organization, and there is actually mutual distrust and contradictions between each other, and the subordinates are also a group of unruly people. Since the start of the operation, the successive failures have greatly hit the reputation of the Akatsuki organization. So far, the Akatsuki organization is still active in various battlefields in the form of mercenaries. Now it has finally started a major operation, but it has been so long, but nothing has been achieved. This situation is also a great blow to the members of the organization. After all, it is not impossible for even its own people to doubt the organization.

At present, an organization that still adheres to secrecy is needed. If its own people have doubts about the organization, it will be even more difficult to win people's hearts in the future. Therefore, Pain urgently needs a successful action to establish his prestige, and then use the actual results - the tailed beasts, to face the strength of the organization and make his subordinates believe that he is still the man of destiny who is favored by fate.

The battle between Mizuki and Sasori continued. For safety reasons, Mizuki refused the help of Kurotsuchi and Yura, and asked them to attack the barrier with ninjutsu to consume the chakra of the caster. Hyuga Neji asked him to watch the changes inside the barrier. Notify me if there is any problem. Mizuki himself began to fight in some ways that save chakra, abandoning the fire escape ninjutsu that consumes huge amounts of senjutsu to enhance, and instead directly manipulated the giant hand formed by natural energy, just like Uzumaki Naruto used the long arm formed by the nine-tail chakra to attack flexibly after he turned into a tailed beast. From the sky and the ground, he kept trying to catch Sasori or the third-generation Kazekage's human puppet.

Not long after Shuimu and Xie finished their battle, suddenly, a huge incarnation of the raccoon sand appeared in the Four Purple Flame Formation, and then Shazi swung his arms and punched at the curtain wall of the barrier, and was about to break the Four Purple Flame Formation.

Shuimu was also stunned by the change in the situation.

"How could this happen? The situation changed so quickly? You can't hold on for just a little while? If the One-Tailed Shukaku appears, I'll be the one in the most danger, you bastard..."