The Bloody Metamorphosis of the Single Dormitory and the Agonizing Pain of Cell Tearing

The moonlight was swallowed by thick, scale-like clouds, and the ANBU single-occupancy dormitory on the edge of Konoha fell into a deathly silence.

The temperature in the air plummeted to freezing.

Baishi stood before a water-stained mirror. He had just issued the "Extract" command in his mind, but before the system's heaven-defying power could descend, an extremely cold sensation crawled up his ankles without warning.

It was like a venomous snake just pulled from an ice hole, coiling tightly around his calves.

Baishi looked down.

Through the faint reflection filtering in from the window, he saw his own shadow projected on the floor twisting violently as if it were a living creature. Defying the laws of physics, it sprouted several pitch-black tentacles that raced up his legs, instantly locking his knees, lumbar spine, and finally his throat!

"Crack..."

Baishi's bones emitted a crisp sound under the pressure. He tried to weave hand signs, only to find that moving even a pinky finger had become a pipe dream.

In the corridor outside, the faint sound of wooden clogs scraping against the floor reached his ears.

"As expected of the man the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki has taken a fancy to; your sensory perception is quite sharp."

A hoarse, cold voice leaked through the gap under the door.

"Unfortunately, Danzo said that any uncontrollable factor that might affect the Nine-Tails' emotions must be buried deep underground."

It was Root!

Baishi's eyes turned cold. That old dog Danzo had acted righteous in the interrogation room of the Hokage building, yet behind the scenes, he wasn't even willing to wait a single night, sending an assassin skilled in Yin Release secret techniques to silence him.

"Let this 'Black Curse Binding' send you on your way."

The assassin outside the door maintained the hand sign with one hand while drawing a poison-tipped short blade with the other, preparing to push the door open.

Just at this critical moment.

[Reward extraction initiated.]

The system's prompt exploded in Baishi's mind.

No hand signs, no warning.

A violent, suffocating surge of Lightning Release chakra, like a burst dam from the Milky Way, erupted directly from Baishi's limbs and bones!

"BOOM—!"

Dazzling, ghostly blue electric arcs instantly illuminated the entire cramped dormitory. The spiderwebs on the walls vaporized instantly under the terrifying heat.

Lightning Release, the most rigid and masculine of elements, is the natural nemesis of all dark and evil things!

"Zzzzt!"

The manic current followed the black shadow wrapped around Baishi, surging backward at the speed of light, piercing through the door gap and slamming fiercely into the body of the Root assassin outside.

"Ugh—!"

A shrill, miserable scream was cut abruptly short.

The assassin outside didn't even have time to release a Body Replacement Technique before his heart and brain were instantly pierced by the max-level Lightning Release conducted through the shadow. His body twitched violently twice before crashing flat onto the corridor, emitting a pungent smell of charred flesh.

The binding was broken.

But Baishi didn't even have a chance to catch his breath.

"Thud!"

His knees gave way, and he slammed heavily onto the floor, his hands clawing into the wooden planks, gouging out ten deep, bloody furrows.

The infusion of the system's power was no gentle enlightenment; it was a brutal, inhumane physical transformation!

A massive amount of Lightning Release chakra was forcibly widening his originally narrow and fragile meridians in an extremely violent manner.

Pain!

Pain that reached deep into his marrow!

Baishi felt his muscle fibers being crudely torn apart one by one, only to be forcibly reconnected by a powerful surge of vitality. Blood boiled in his veins, as if he were no longer flowing with liquid, but molten lava. His bones ground against each other, emitting a hair-raising, muffled sound.

"Haa... haa..."

His breathing was as heavy as a broken bellows.

Baishi grabbed a blood-stained, dirty bandage from the side and stuffed it into his mouth, biting down hard.

He could not make a sound.

Even if the pain made his soul tremble, he had to swallow every scream.

The ANBU patrol was not far away; once his presence was leaked, not only would tonight's disguise be ruined, but it would also invite endless pursuit.

Cold sweat mixed with beads of blood seeping from his pores dripped down his pale jaw, pooling into a dark red puddle on the floor.

Baishi stared fixedly at the bloodstains on the ground, his eyes bloodshot and revealing a chilling madness.

This was the price of changing his fate.

In this ninja world where bloodline theory was strict and geniuses were everywhere, if a bottom-tier cannon fodder wanted to cross the class divide and trample those high-and-mighty big shots under his feet, he had to be ruthless! More ruthless than the enemy!

"Minato... Danzo... Third Hokage..."

He chewed on these names over and over in his heart, transforming the physical agony into bone-deep hatred and absolute clarity.

He would never again be the bait to be discarded at will!

He endured for a full hour.

When the final wisp of blue electric arc completely submerged into his skin, the tearing, agonizing pain receded like a tide.

"Plop."

Baishi spat out the bandage he had bitten into shreds, his entire body collapsing onto the floor in exhaustion, as if he had been fished out of a pool of blood.

The room was filled with a thick, pungent stench of blood and sweat.

He greedily gulped down the cold air, then slowly braced himself against the floor to stand up.

His body felt lighter than ever before.

Baishi closed his eyes, sensing the changes within.

The chakra channels that were once as thin as gossamer were now as wide as rivers. That surging, massive volume of chakra flowed steadily through his meridians, as if a single thought from him could stir up monstrous waves.

What was even more terrifying was his control over Lightning Release chakra.

Baishi did not weave any hand signs.

He simply raised his right hand, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and shifted his intent.

"Sss—"

A streak of extremely condensed, deep blue lightning instantly shot out from his fingertips, elongating into a half-meter-long blade of chakra light.

Chidori Sharp Spear!

There was no piercing sound of a thousand birds chirping as in the original, nor were there any wild, leaking arcs of electricity.

This bolt of lightning was eerily quiet, yet it radiated a terrifying heat capable of melting steel.

This was the true manifestation of developing Lightning Release nature transformation to the maximum level—absolute restraint, absolute piercing power!

Baishi flicked his hand casually.

"Swish."

A custom-made refined steel kunai sitting on the corner of the table, along with a small portion of the solid wood tabletop, was sliced in two by the lightning without a sound. The cut was as smooth as a mirror, without even a trace of scorch marks left behind.

The corners of Baishi's mouth beneath his mask curled into a cold, ruthless arc.

With this level of chakra control, combined with the tactical thinking from his past life, he could even manage to weave hand signs with one hand in a blind spot, or silently integrate Lightning Release into any taijutsu.

From this moment on, he was no longer the bottom-tier cannon fodder waiting to be slaughtered.

Baishi retracted the lightning, pushed open the door, and stepped into the corridor.

The corpse of the Root assassin still lay on the ground, charred black and emitting a foul, nauseating odor.

Baishi crouched down, preparing to use an Explosive Tag to stage an accidental fire and completely erase the traces.

The moment he turned the body over, his movements came to a sudden halt.

Inside the inner ninja tool pouch of the corpse, he felt a top-secret scroll that had been half-scorched by the lightning.

Baishi pried open the seal of the scroll and, by the moonlight, scanned the remaining text.

The next second, his pupils contracted sharply, and a cold killing intent surged into his heart.

The scroll clearly detailed the deployment list for tomorrow's ANBU clearing mission.

And his codename, "Owl," was not only circled in striking vermilion ink, but it was also followed by a chilling tactical annotation—

[Vanguard bait, confirm elimination. Mission core: Cover Namikaze Minato's squad, seize Iwagakure frontline classified intelligence.]

Baishi gripped the scroll tightly, the veins on the back of his hand bulging like coiled dragons.

Namikaze Minato's squad?

He suddenly lifted his head and looked toward the direction of the Hokage Building.

So that was it.

This was the real reason why Namikaze Minato had so easily backed down in the interrogation room!

That golden-haired genius, perfect as the sun, had no need to dirty his own hands. Because he had known all along that by tomorrow morning, this low-level ANBU who made him feel threatened would die legitimately in an Iwagakure encirclement, all in the name of the "Will of Fire"!