Intel Was Wrong, Wiped Out

He did not even know Jiraiya had come, nor did he care in the slightest. Who would care what a piece of bread they had eaten was called?

Just because a piece of bread was the king of bread did not mean it could not be eaten, right? Who cared what a piece of bread was named or what identity it had?

And so, Jiraiya nearly getting himself killed without ever even meeting Uchiha Yue was simply covered up. What was more, no one could find fault with it. After all, human imagination had its limits. They knew Uchiha Yue was strong, but Jiraiya, as one of the Ninja World's top experts, was not weak either.

Having learned some information in advance and prepared himself, it was perfectly reasonable for him to fight Uchiha Yue for three hundred rounds, lose by a single move, and end up crippled.

Within the Dead Silence Domain.

This Sunagakure Jonin continuously refined the Chakra within his body as he ran at high speed. He sensed the Chakra constantly dissipating from within him and did some calculations, deciding the problem was not serious. He did not notice in the slightest that his face was growing paler and paler, while his speed was steadily declining.

In his mind, it did not matter if he could not find Uchiha Yue. As long as he escaped before his Chakra ran out, everything would be fine. He did not realize at all that, aside from his Chakra, the heat in his body, his bioelectric currents, and his chemical energy were also continuously diminishing.

But there was nothing he could do about it. Under normal circumstances, bodily changes such as weakness, sluggish thinking, and slowed movements would have been easy to notice. But now was different.

His intelligence had been drained away. At their core, humans were merely special machines made of flesh and blood. Their most important component was that brain, from which all their intelligence and every one of their thoughts originated.

Now that brain had lost sufficient energy to sustain it. Merely maintaining the operation of thought was already difficult; how could he notice the changes in his body as easily as usual?

At that moment, he was like someone under anesthesia, whose hand had been chopped off but who still thought it was there!

"Gah! N-no, something's wrong? My body, my speed, my strength... H-how could this be? I still have Chakra! The Chakra in my body hasn't run out yet! Why am I like this?"

The Sunagakure Jonin finally realized something was wrong. He slowly stopped moving, his body swaying as he nearly fell to the ground. With a confused expression, he raised a hand and tried to clench it into a fist. A movement that had been incomparably simple just moments ago now made his fist close in jerky increments, like a rusted machine.

"N-no, this place doesn't just absorb Chakra. It also absorbs the other energy in the human body? Cold, so cold. So weak... No! I can't stay here any longer! I have to get out!"

He raised his head and found his surroundings shrouded in darkness. Yet he still barely managed to calculate the distance to the exit. It was completely different from what he had imagined. By his calculations, the Chakra in his body should have been enough to support him running all the way to Konoha's gates and back, yet he had not even covered a tenth of that distance.

Humans might be compared to machines of flesh and blood, but they were not truly machines. Even real machines suffered a drop in efficiency when their energy supply was insufficient, let alone humans.

Very soon, after running along his original path for a while, his knees gave out and his entire body collapsed.

"Damn it, body, move already!!! Gah!!! I order you to move!!!"

He lay prone on the ground, frantically trying to drive his body, which had already lost its energy supply. But how could limbs without energy receive the brain's commands? How could they sense the brain's will?

Even if he possessed boundless determination, before such reality, he could only lower his head.

"Captain! This is bad, the captain's Chakra has run out!"

At the edge of the Dead Silence Domain, the Sunagakure ninjas panicked at the sight. After thinking for a moment, that Chunin made a rough calculation and decided that the captain was not far from them. As long as he went in, he could bring the captain back out.

With that thought, he rushed inside as well.

"No, don't come in, don't come in! This place is... hell! Gah! Don't come save me, get out of here!"

Seeing his teammate run in, the Jonin raised his head and summoned his last bit of strength to shout madly. After that cry, he lost all his strength and collapsed completely. If no one brought him out in time, it would not be long before he died here like the surrounding flowers and grass, becoming an eternal human specimen.

What he did not know was that his voice never reached his companion's ears. It dissipated the instant it left his mouth.

Sound, sound waves, were energy too.

"Captain, I'm here to save you!"

His companion ran over, intending to drag him away just as Konoha's ninjas had once rescued Jiraiya. After dragging him several steps, just when it seemed they would escape if they went a little farther—

"Captain, I'm sorry! I have no strength left."

Bang!

Their bodies fell to the ground.

Outside, the Genin stared at the last tiny stretch of distance and looked at one another. They were so close, only this little bit remained!

We can definitely save the captain and the others! We have to save them!

With those thoughts, they began using ninjutsu. Yet the moment their ninjutsu entered the Dead Silence Domain, it dissipated instantly. Seeing the captain and the others growing paler and paler, someone rushed inside in desperation.

"Just... just a little more... Hehe, I'll definitely... bring everyone... out alive!!! Ah!!!"

A hand slowly reached out from the edge of the Dead Silence Domain, then fell heavily to the ground.

All the Sunagakure ninjas who had come to carry out this mission had fallen within the Dead Silence Domain. The last Genin had tightly bound his companions together with their clothes. They were clearly only one final step away from bringing everyone out of that hell, yet that step was like an uncrossable chasm.

Huu—

A snowflake drifted down from the sky and landed on the Genin's head.

"N-no... Strength, come out, come out! How could we die so pathetically? I have to... have to..."

The intel had been wrong!

It had only said that this domain possessed the terrifying ability to absorb Chakra. It had never said that it could absorb other forms of energy as well!