Ryūchi Cave

In the darkness, an eye stared straight at her through the crack in the door.

On a night this eerie and terrifying, the sight would have been enough to make most people scream.

Uzumaki Mito was frightened too. She even held her breath for several seconds without realizing it.

Fortunately, she wasn't an ordinary person. Her first reaction to the shock was to attack.

Golden chains shot out with a roar, easily smashing through the door and lashing the lurking monster outside.

The slit pupil visible through the crack clearly didn't belong to a human. A single glance between them had been enough for her to realize that.

So she had no qualms about attacking.

Against the formidable Adamantine Sealing Chains, the monster was completely restrained in just two exchanges.

Forget fighting back—it could barely even hope to escape.

Seeing how easily she had subdued the intruder, Mito slowly let out a breath. With a thought, the chains flipped off the cloak draped over its body.

"What is this..." The girl's eyes widened despite herself.

Beneath the cloak was a humanoid monster—or rather, a deformed creature that was half human and half beast.

Its left eye was a slit pupil, glaring viciously at her. The right side looked human, but the faint malice in its gaze was the same.

Mito had an excellent memory. She quickly recognized the man from the human half of his face: he was one of the villagers who had warmly welcomed her earlier.

A monster hiding among the villagers?

Or was the whole mountain village a nest of monsters?!

The ominous thought had barely crossed her mind when cries rose and fell, suddenly tearing through the silent night.

From what Mito could sense, the villagers who had seemed perfectly normal were beginning to transform en masse. The clearest sign was that a strange kind of chakra had abruptly appeared inside them.

"What on earth is going on?!" Feeling the pack of monsters closing in, the Ponytail Princess gritted her teeth. Her chains swept around her like a long whip.

That single strike destroyed half the village, and countless monsters were sent flying by the chains.

"They're not shinobi. They're just monsters driven by the instinct to kill."

At her current level, Mito could control the Adamantine Sealing Chains for less than half a minute. Once that time was up, she would immediately be left completely drained.

Fortunately, the enemy had no combat skills. They could only charge and bite with brute force. That was enough to deal with ordinary people, but they were no match for her.

In less than ten seconds, Mito had knocked down every living thing.

After using Sealing Techniques to restrict their movements, the Ponytail Princess dusted off her hands and decided to wait for her companion to return.

Sosuke had gone to the back of the mountain on his own, so he must have discovered something. They could decide what to do with the transformed villagers after learning the truth about the village.

As for her companion's safety, Mito didn't think there was much cause for concern. Now that he had mastered Space-time Ninjutsu, no one in the world could stop him from leaving if he wanted to.

"Ah, if only I could do that too." The Ponytail Princess clearly envied him from the bottom of her heart.

The Flying Thunder God technique let him come and go as he pleased. However she looked at it, it was far more useful than her chains.

Sosuke had once told her that she hadn't yet discovered the real joy of using her chains. Even now, she still didn't understand what he meant.

"How is that anything but boring?" Mito tried to think it through.

Boom!

A violent tremor suddenly jolted the girl from her thoughts.

Mito hurriedly looked around and realized it had come from the direction of the back of the mountain, where her companion had gone.

She kept reassuring herself, but he still hadn't returned, and she was growing restless.

Glancing at the villagers bound nearby, she hesitated briefly before deciding to investigate on her own.

She told herself she wasn't worried, but he had been gone for so long that Mito thought she needed to make sure he was safe.

The Flying Thunder God technique was convenient, but what if that guy Sosuke didn't have time to use it?

Besides, she needed to investigate the source of that rumble. She couldn't put her mind at ease without taking a look.

"Right. I'm not worried about him at all."

Making a flimsy excuse for herself, Mito ventured alone into the pitch-black forest.

Perhaps she hadn't even noticed that the fear weighing on her heart had vanished the instant she heard the explosion from the back of the mountain.

At the back of the mountain, Sosuke—who had been gone for quite some time—was nimbly leaping and twisting through the trees.

Not far behind him, a white serpent dozens of meters long coiled among the mountainside, its slit pupils fixed coldly on the human.

"You can't escape."

The serpent opened its mouth, and a hurricane roared toward him like a shock wave. Trees along its path were as fragile as weeds.

There was no way to block an attack this terrifying. Fortunately, Sosuke had already placed Flying Thunder God Kunai as he moved. Otherwise, he would have had no choice but to activate State Two and endure it head-on.

Boom!

Another explosion rang out. The Great White Snake's Wind Release attack was truly horrifying.

"What a terrifying creature." Sosuke's voice came from the other side. He seemed to have no intention of hiding himself.

The White Snake slowly turned its enormous head and stared at him with golden slit pupils. A distinctly human look of confusion crossed its eyes.

This was the second time.

Each time she thought she had the human cornered, he would instantly appear somewhere else.

After thinking in silence for a moment, the White Snake suddenly spoke. "Was that Space-time Ninjutsu you just used?"

"Yes." Sosuke nodded, still making no move to attack.

Seeing him admit it without hesitation, the White Snake fell silent, seemingly losing the will to keep fighting.

Space-time Ninjutsu was an ability that existed only in legend. The White Snake had never seen it before, and had no idea how to counter it.

As time went by, the smile on Sosuke's face gradually widened.

Just moments ago, he had gone alone to the back of the mountain and unexpectedly discovered a cave that gave off a strange aura.

He had come here because he had noticed that Nature Energy was unusually active within a ten-kilometer radius.

The seemingly warm villagers had all been storing considerable amounts of Nature Energy inside their bodies.

The Cursed Seal alone showed how destructive Nature Energy could be to the human body. Prolonged exposure could even affect one's mind.

Sosuke had come to the back of the mountain to search for the source of the Nature Energy.

Relying on the Sharingan's perceptiveness, he had eventually found the culprit inside the cave.

A white serpent over seventy meters long, capable of speaking with ease.

At last, Sosuke understood who he was dealing with.

Ryūchi Cave, a place of inheritance separate from the Ninja World. It was home to a vast number of snakes and a White Snake Sage who had lived for thousands of years.

It was said that everything happening in the Ninja World reached the White Snake Sage's ears. She had witnessed the rise and fall of the Ninja Sect with her own eyes.