Takizawa Dan's Second Battle!

Takizawa Dan was grumbling to himself when he suddenly noticed a black shard fall from Jirobo.

Knowing the system had just rewarded him, Takizawa Dan quickly bent down to pick it up.

The moment his fingers touched the black shard, a stream of light surged into his mind!

Whoosh!

[ Ding! Congratulations, host. You have acquired an ability: Cursed Seal Power ]

[ Cursed Seal Power was developed by Orochimaru and can rapidly increase the host's strength! The Cursed Seal usually has two stages. Stage One grants the host three times their normal strength, while Stage Two grants them ten times their normal strength! ]

[ P.S. The Cursed Seal is an evil thing. However, the system has determined that its method of strengthening the body would be of great help to the host, so it has automatically evolved and upgraded it into an ability with even greater effects and no harmful side effects for the host. ]

[ New Cursed Seal Power ability: The host's physical strength can reach twenty times its normal level for a short period! ]

[ Duration: twenty minutes ]

[ Cooldown: sixty minutes ]

[ Note: Cursed Seal Power can be used together with other abilities and stacked! ]

When Takizawa Dan first saw this system notification, he was completely dumbfounded.

What was going on? Had he actually stumbled into acquiring the power of the Cursed Seal?

He had planned to refuse it. After all, the Cursed Seal was an incredibly evil thing, and acquiring it would be tantamount to becoming Orochimaru's slave. That was something Takizawa Dan couldn't accept.

But after reading the description, he immediately changed his mind.

The system's ability was ridiculously powerful. It had completely removed the Cursed Seal's drawbacks and domineering influence, and even upgraded it!

With this new Cursed Seal, he could activate it directly, and its power was twice that of the conventional Curse Mark Stage Two!

This discovery alone was enough to astonish Takizawa Dan, but what delighted him even more was the sentence that followed.

This Cursed Seal Power could actually be stacked with his other abilities!

What did that mean?

The unique muscle-control method he had just learned from Tsunade could become even more powerful with the Cursed Seal's boost!

And if Takizawa Dan's guess was right, the effects multiplied rather than added together!

The Cursed Seal alone could raise his strength twentyfold. Add to that the method he'd learned from Tsunade, which could raise his physical strength to four times its normal level...

For twenty minutes, he alone could wield eighty times his normal strength!

And that was only because he had just learned Tsunade's method. This skill required constant combat and all kinds of life-or-death battles to improve. It clearly couldn't be replaced by natural talent alone.

Once he mastered the method of exerting one hundred percent of his strength, wouldn't that mean he'd have a hundred times his normal power?

A hundred times his strength... Just imagining it made Takizawa Dan's blood boil with excitement!

By then, even a Kage Level fighter would never dare take one of his blows head-on!

It would make the perfect trump card for catching someone off guard.

"Hahahahahaha!"

Takizawa Dan burst into hearty laughter, leaving Sakon and Ukon, Tayuya, and Kidomaru utterly astonished.

"Hey, boss, did that guy take such a hard hit that he went crazy?"

Tayuya looked at Sakon and Ukon uncertainly.

"Well..."

Sakon and Ukon had clearly never encountered a situation like this before. He rested a hand under his chin and fell silent.

"Hmph, who cares? We just have to take him back to Lord Orochimaru. The rest is none of our business!"

Kidomaru snorted and stepped forward, then suddenly spat a strand of web at Takizawa Dan, intending to tie him up completely.

And indeed, Takizawa Dan had a tree at his back and was surrounded by the others. There was nowhere for him to retreat!

However...

Takizawa Dan had caught the web Kidomaru had fired in one hand!

"What... You caught my web?!" Kidomaru cried in shock. But before he could do anything else, Takizawa Dan suddenly yanked it!

Whoosh!

His immense strength dragged Kidomaru, still connected to the web he'd spat out, into the air and sent him flying toward Takizawa Dan!

Then, as Kidomaru stared at him in terror and confusion, Takizawa Dan suddenly threw a punch!

Thud!

A heavy fist slammed into Kidomaru's stomach with a muffled thump!

"Ugh..."

Kidomaru's body convulsed twice. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed on the spot, unconscious and motionless!

Ironically, he fell in exactly the same spot as Jirobo had. After the way he'd mocked Jirobo as a useless fool, his own downfall was downright laughable.

If he were really so strong, how had Takizawa Dan knocked him down in the exact same place?

"You..."

Seeing this, Tayuya and Sakon and Ukon both stepped back, their eyes glittering with uncertainty as they stared at Takizawa Dan.

If Takizawa Dan's earlier victory over Jirobo could still be written off as luck—or as Jirobo letting his guard down—

then the fact that he had now defeated Kidomaru as well was proof enough that Takizawa Dan truly had the strength to do it!

"Who are you, really? Why have you been hiding your strength all this time?"

Tayuya began to demand.

She suddenly remembered a rumor she'd once heard: Takizawa Dan was nothing more than a weakling who couldn't even hurt a fly, but had suddenly displayed extraordinary strength during the Chunin Ninja Exams.

Had he been holding back all these years?

Takizawa Dan said nothing. He raised his head coldly.

The moment they saw Takizawa Dan's face, Tayuya and Sakon and Ukon felt their minds go blank.

Takizawa Dan's entire body had turned bronze, and a black mark crossed his face. His eyes had turned a bloodcurdling red!

It was the sign that the Cursed Seal had activated!

Yet the bronze color made him look solid and healthy, filled with strength. The mark looked wicked and alluring, while Takizawa Dan's eyes needed no explanation: he was like an unrivaled demon lord. A single glance at him seemed to inspire an endless urge to submit!

Facing Takizawa Dan now, Sakon and Ukon and Tayuya were suddenly overcome by a profound sense of helplessness.

In their eyes, Takizawa Dan was an absolutely unbeatable opponent, an impassable chasm they could never cross! They had only ever felt this way before in the presence of their master, Lord Orochimaru.

Thinking back to how they had just been about to attack someone like Takizawa Dan, Sakon and Ukon and Tayuya suddenly felt utterly ridiculous.

What else could it be but a mayfly trying to shake a tree?!