Chapter 74.2- One Thousand Hands

Thankfully, the rain of obelisks seized once they made a few more steps forward. From what Cee could discern, they had some sort of contraption— maybe a shinobi with a jutsu but he would bet it was something more mechanical because if they had a shinobi with that kind of power on their hands, why were still hiding. Such a person would give the Raikage a fight for the ages. One the Raikage would won of course. Nothing had ever broken through the Raikage’s lightning armour, but the fight would still be something to see. Back to it. It was some sort of contraption that took massive towers of stone— most likely compacted and created with earth release and prefilled with explosive tags to add oomf to the attack, and sent them flying into the air. A parabolic arc most definitely. So it went upwards first and then landed.

That meant that it would be impossible to use the weapon once they got within a certain distance of the weapon. He expected such a weapon to be mounted on their village walls so that meant the village was relatively close-by. He looked at the Raikage’s broad back as he walked in front of the army, leading them with his unshakable confidence. Some would have called it callous. He might even have made such a mistake, but he knew these same calculations in his head must have run through the Raikage’s. The safest place for them to be was back in Kumo. A close second would be close to Iwa. They would not set landmines so close to their own walls and weapons like this one would be less useful in close range.

They had expected the costs choosing this route. This was the only flat route to Iwagakure their scouts had managed to find. Was it any surprise that it was trapped and scouted to the nines. More landmines exploded, but they all continued regardless. It was a background drone. They know not to clump together. Now it was common for landmines to only manage to take one or two where they used to take dozens. In an army of thousands, this loss was acceptable. Even the losses from the Obelisks were acceptable. Their strongest weapons remained on the table.

The Raikage could take a village on his lonesome. Everything else— the rest of them— were ancillary. No one, not even the entire army together was worth the Raikage and that was a thought he hoped each of his men had in their minds. They better know just what they were doing this for. The Glory of Kumo. The Glory of Kumo was Ay the Third Raikage and it would be hard to convince Cee otherwise, and so he ignored the screams of the dead and dying, the wounds their chakra left as their life-forces were snuffed out to his led and to his right and he continued to march. This is what it meant to be Kumo, to be a Son of the Clouds.