Self-Introduction

This was a bloody mill that used ninjas as "raw materials," and it even relied on the most primitive production techniques.

From the casual description given by the ninja called Tsuchishi, Yuzhen could already roughly gauge his "level of scientific research."

Implanting a ninja's heart into a beast was meant to give an otherwise naturally gifted body the ability to produce chakra.

Replacing a beast's brain with a ninja's brain was because human intelligence was superior, allowing it to easily understand other people's commands...

It was easy to imagine that this head was definitely under the control of genjutsu or some kind of cursed seal.

Looking at this "take it out of here and stuff it in there" level of research, it was crude and brutal. Based on this guess, most of Tsuchishi's "products" were probably shoddily made as well. Not only was their quality worrying, but their service lives were also extremely limited.

As for Tsuchishi's fighting style—or, more accurately, his ability to subdue other ninjas—it was quite impressive.

On one hand, he used genjutsu to deprive you of your senses; on the other, he used special ninjutsu to deprive you of your chakra. Combined, the two techniques might not make him "invincible," but they could at least deal with the vast majority of ninjas who lacked an information advantage.

Unfortunately, he had run into Yuzhen.

Yuzhen knocked Tsuchishi unconscious, then waited until everyone and every beast in the underground space had nearly drowned before he finally "opened the floodgates."

He formed hand seals and once again used a Water Release ninjutsu: Water Wall.

The water surrounding Yuzhen's body started slowly, then rapidly. In the blink of an eye, a ring-shaped, cylindrical "waterspout" formed around him. It pushed away the surrounding water while spiraling rapidly upward.

The water took shape, like insect eggs awakening underground in spring, slowly forcing its way through the dead branches and fallen leaves overhead.

Under Yuzhen's control, the water easily tore through the coating above. After destroying the buildings on the surface, it "spiraled" upward until it reached the highest point.

The water level in the underground space rapidly fell, and a massive amount of water was directly flung into the town.

It was not that Yuzhen had any desire to damage a town where civilians lived. He was merely issuing a warning. Once the ordinary people in town saw this Water Release technique, anyone with a brain would immediately leave and seek shelter.

No one wanted to remain on a ninja battlefield.

So how many clever people were there in the town? The answer was that when faced with the danger of death, everyone was clever.

In the underground space, heavy breathing and violent coughing rose and fell in waves. They had, at least, managed to survive.

Yuzhen dragged Tsuchishi with one hand, letting most of the man's body remain submerged in the water, while he began walking around and observing the people locked inside the cages.

Because the caster had lost consciousness, the genjutsu controlling these prisoners had actually already been dispelled. On top of that, after being drenched in a large amount of cold water, they soon woke up.

There were more than thirty ninjas imprisoned here, so Yuzhen searched quickly. After glancing into only a few cells, he spotted a familiar face.

It was precisely the Hagane Chihori he had been looking for.

Fortunately, Yuzhen had found one of his clansmen. Unfortunately, she seemed to be the only one here.

Perhaps only she had been subjected to "human trafficking," or perhaps the other clansmen had already become expendable materials for those cruel experiments.

Chihori was a female ninja around seventeen or eighteen years old. At that moment, her face was deathly pale, and her gaze was somewhat vacant.

Yuzhen stood at the entrance to the cage. When Chihori realized that something was blocking the faint light in front of her, she instinctively raised her head.

Only after she saw Yuzhen's face did a glimmer of light appear in her eyes.

She was just about to speak when Yuzhen gently shook his head and stopped her.

There were still quite a few living people here. Out of instinctive caution, he would not reveal the purpose of his appearance here.

He would simply act as though he had not come specifically to rescue anyone, but to rescue everyone.

To be honest, according to the usual rules of conduct among ninjas, once the designated target had been rescued, all the remaining people should have been slaughtered.

After all, they had neither value nor the ability to resist. They were the same kind, but if they survived, they would only become enemies... No matter how one looked at it, it would be better for these people to be dead.

But Yuzhen did not want to do that.

It was not that he truly possessed kindness, or that he had a hypocritical, saintly side to his personality. He simply did not want to do it.

The ninjas here had no value to him. Whether he killed them or not made no difference.

The reason he did not want to act was merely that Yuzhen had a little bit of "mental cleanliness."

Compared to the man he was dragging along, he simply did not want to look like the same kind of person as him. That was all.

There were many paths one could take in troubled times. In this era where "if I do not kill others, they will kill me," Yuzhen did not reject becoming a ruthless killer, but he alone did not want to set foot on the road of losing his humanity.

Thus, this tiny bit of mental cleanliness preserved some of Yuzhen's bottom lines or principles as a human being.

If anyone else knew what he was thinking, they would definitely sneer first, then immediately interrogate him:

How stubborn did you have to be to think you were different from us?

In any case, because Yuzhen did not want to kill everyone here, he had to be a little more careful in how he rescued them.

Yuzhen pulled a string of keys from Tsuchishi. After successfully opening Chihori's cell, he first unlocked the shackles on her body. While signaling with his eyes for her to leave first, he said:

"You're free."

Chihori understood what he meant and left as quickly as possible.

Only then did Yuzhen begin freeing the other prisoners.

After having their restraints removed and regaining their freedom, these people first glanced at Yuzhen timidly. Then, as though avoiding a plague, they quickly moved away from him, squeezed out through the cell doors, and fled outside at top speed.

He could understand why they acted that way. It was not as though he could expect them to thank him gratefully after being rescued.

After releasing everyone here, Yuzhen's act of freeing Chihori no longer seemed abrupt, and no one would know his true purpose in coming here.

After everyone in this cell had fled, Yuzhen arrived at the entrance of the next one.

At that moment, a ninja inside the cell suddenly lost control of his emotions and began shouting wildly:

"Haha! I knew it! My clansmen definitely wouldn't abandon me! They would definitely assign someone to rescue me!"

Not only Yuzhen—even the other dazed ninjas were drawn to this person's outburst.

Tsuchishi, who had been unconscious the whole time, also woke up because of the sudden commotion. The expression on his face immediately became furious.

This man's neck had already been "blessed with extraordinary bones," yet his vitality was surprisingly tenacious. Not only were his cerebrum and cerebellum still obeying his commands, he could even launch an effective counterattack.

Yuzhen looked toward Tsuchishi, wanting to see what the man intended to do.

Then he saw Tsuchishi bring his hands together and form hand seals at top speed.

In the next moment, more than a dozen earth spikes suddenly shot out from the stone wall. The sharp projections were like spears, piercing straight through the shouting ninja and chilling him to the bone.

Yuzhen: "..."

That was something he had not expected.

"As expected, I shouldn't have attacked a ninja from one of the great ninja clans." Tsuchishi's voice was filled with regret.

"You're talking a bit too much... You're surprisingly persistent about staying alive, aren't you?"

That was a very good question. The only problem was that it did not sound much like human speech.

Actually, Yuzhen should have asked whether the man had been acting alone, whether he had organized a criminal group, or whether there was some mastermind behind him. However, the answers to those questions would not interfere with the purpose of his trip, so he did not care.

He did not ask, and the other man did not answer.

Yuzhen simply broke both of the man's arms.

He had noticed the moment the man regained consciousness and had prepared for a sneak attack. He just had not expected the man's target to be someone other than himself.

Although Yuzhen had destroyed Tsuchishi's "scientific research career," what the latter hated most was actually the person who had lured Yuzhen there.

In Tsuchishi's view, Yuzhen was merely "doing a job for money." The person who had summoned Yuzhen was the true culprit behind his downfall.

Now that someone had jumped out and admitted that he was the one who had summoned Yuzhen, he naturally became Tsuchishi's primary target for revenge.

Yuzhen looked at this man, who was about to be rescued yet was still desperately seeking death, and thought, There really are people in this world who cannot be saved, no matter what.

This man was from one of the great ninja clans? He was probably accustomed to arrogance.

Yuzhen looked at the dead man's forehead protector and saw a symbol of three semicircular curves supporting a sphere. He did not recognize which ninja clan it belonged to.

Although the man was already dead, he had given Yuzhen an excuse to distance himself from the matter.

"What great ninja clan? No matter how great it is, could it possibly have a greater reputation than me, Uchiha Izuna?

"I didn't come here because of anyone. I simply couldn't stand the way you acted, so I destroyed this place."

Yes, when one traveled the world, one had to keep one's name unchanged and one's word true.