No matter how the Village Hidden in the Mist troops tried to conceal themselves using thick mist and terrain, once locked onto by the Byakugan, the next moment, accompanied by the sound of specially made Flying Thunder God Kunai slicing through the air, that Yellow Flash would arrive right on time.

Kaede Yuki and Fuguki Suikazan, despite their attempts to organize effective counterattacks and interceptions, achieved very little. The entire rhythm of offense and defense was completely controlled by the enemy.

They could only watch helplessly as that streak of golden light continuously moved across their camp's left and right flanks, harvesting lives like a starving wolf that had entered a flock of sheep.

The flank formations rapidly disintegrated, and the front lines continuously collapsed.

And once the flanks collapsed, if they did not retreat immediately, the entire force would face the risk of being split apart, surrounded, and annihilated one by one by Konoha's ninja troops.

After an emergency discussion, Kaede Yuki and Fuguki Suikazan ultimately had no choice but to make the decision to abandon the forward positions they had established and voluntarily retreat.

Thus, the Village Hidden in the Mist's full-scale offensive on the first day ended in total defeat.

Inside the command headquarters, there was complete silence.

Yagura Karatachi still stood before that enormous map, his back facing everyone.

No one could see his expression at this moment, but the slightly clenched hands hanging at his sides already revealed the unrest within this young commander's heart.

"This battle..."

After a long time, Yagura finally turned around. He slowly swept his gaze across everyone present before speaking.

"The fault lies with me."

"Yagura..." Kaede Yuki frowned slightly, wanting to say something.

Yagura raised a hand and gently pressed downward, stopping him.

"Everyone has worked hard. Go back and rest well first. Summarize the gains and losses from this battle yourselves. If there's anything else, we'll discuss it tomorrow."

"Yes."

Everyone looked at one another. After a moment of silence, they responded one after another before turning and leaving the headquarters.

The sound of footsteps gradually faded, the curtain dropped, and only Yagura remained inside the command room.

He slowly sat down in the main seat. His face still showed little expression as he once again picked up the battle report spread before him, his gaze landing on the name that appeared most frequently throughout it, Shinichi Higashino.

"Shinichi Higashino..."

Yagura muttered the name to himself.

He had long known that the boy from Konoha was strong. Ever since the guerrilla campaign in the Land of Lightning that had turned the Village Hidden in the Cloud's rear lines upside down, he had been studying the other party's tactical thinking.

But he had not expected things to unfold this way, nor for the other side to teach him such a profound lesson on the very first day.

The offensive he had prepared for so long and repeatedly simulated had been completely seen through by the other side. Even the four carefully selected landing points had been precisely predicted by Shinichi Higashino, who then laid deadly traps at the critical nodes.

"Incredible..."

Yagura had no choice but to admit it. Whether it was battlefield command or strategic prediction behind the scenes, this opponent was far stronger than he had anticipated.

In this first exchange, he truly lost.

But war had never been something decided in a single day.

Yagura took a deep breath, suppressing that brief sense of frustration into the depths of his heart before once more shifting his attention to the map.

The first day's offensive had suffered complete setbacks, but the war still had to continue.

The problem now placed before him was, what should they do next? A forceful assault?

Yagura considered the thought, but quickly rejected it.

A forceful assault was impossible.

A large-scale frontal assault would result in far too many casualties.

In the normal course of wars throughout ninja history, forceful assaults were usually desperate measures taken only after both sides failed to achieve breakthroughs and the battlefield had fallen into a stalemate.

Unless one side possessed an overwhelming advantage in strength, it would merely become a meat grinder battle where the enemy lost a thousand while you lost eight hundred. No one would gain anything good from it.

Village Hidden in the Mist was famous for the brutal traditions of the Bloody Mist, where coldness and indifference were the means of survival for many.

However, unlike many of the village's cruel-hearted ninjas, Yagura cared deeply about the lives of every single comrade in the village.

Unless absolutely necessary, he was unwilling to send his fellow villagers into that kind of battlefield meat grinder where lives were exchanged for lives.

Unfortunately, Yagura did not understand the principle that mercy cannot command an army.

The more one cherished subordinates' lives, the easier it became to hesitate at critical moments, ultimately leading to even greater sacrifices.

The scales of war would not necessarily tilt because of merciful wishes.

Yagura's gaze slowly moved across the map, sweeping along the long coastline of the Land of Fire as he considered the next strategy.

A moment later, an idea gradually took shape in his mind.

Break the whole into scattered parts. Abandon the combat model of large-scale corps landings and instead spread out widely in small squad units, infiltrating multiple points along the Land of Fire's long coastline, stretching the battle line, and forcing Konoha into constant emergency responses, dispersing their forces and attention.

This way, there would always be a chance to find a weak point and open a breakthrough.

Thinking of this, Yagura immediately picked up a pen and rapidly wrote down his ideas and tactical priorities on paper.

Unfortunately, Yagura did not know that his current line of thought was exactly what Shinichi had been hoping for all along.

If Shinichi learned that Yagura intended to adopt this tactic, he would probably burst out laughing.

The elastic defense system Shinichi proposed had been designed from the very beginning precisely to deal with this kind of multi-point scattered harassment tactic.

Controlling the broader battlefield through key points, using speed against speed, using mobility against dispersion, and finding local advantages within dynamic movement were the core principles of this system.

If the Village Hidden in the Mist dispersed their forces for harassment operations, although it would indeed place enormous pressure and exhaustion upon Konoha's defenses, it would also mean losing the ability to concentrate strength for a decisive breakthrough.

All Konoha needed to do was withstand this continuous, scattered pressure, use the elastic defense layers to delay and wear down the enemy, and wait for the right opportunity.

Either they would form a local counterattack advantage somewhere, or they would wait until the Village Hidden in the Mist itself began exposing flaws through this inefficient war of attrition.

The original purpose of elastic defense had been precisely to deal with this seemingly flexible but actually fragmented style of offense.

By comparison, if the Village Hidden in the Mist instead gathered all their forces for one massive frontal offensive, Konoha, whose total troop count was already at a disadvantage, would suffer tremendous pressure. Even if they ultimately managed to hold the line, they would definitely pay an extremely heavy price.

And the seemingly prudent decision Yagura made at this moment was precisely the path Shinichi most hoped they would take.

But the prerequisite for all of this was that Konoha could endure, that they could survive this prolonged harassment war without collapsing first.

For Konoha, this was undoubtedly a test of endurance.