At the top of the cavern, a murky droplet slowly slid down the tip of a stalactite, tracing an almost perfectly straight path through the air before finally splashing into the knee-deep water below.
"Plip."
The faint splintering sound echoed through the vast cavern, only to be torn apart in an instant by a furious rush of wind.
"Over there!"
The sensor ninja Jingting let out a shrill cry. His hands, which had been held up to maintain his sensory technique, snapped toward the space behind a pillar on the left side of the cavern. In his sensory field, a dense, restless chakra signature burst out of the water like a cornered beast, radiating murderous intent as it lunged straight at Heavy Hammer on the flank of their formation.
Wildcat and Heavy Hammer reacted almost simultaneously. As elite members of the Mist Anbu, they had escaped death in the Blood Mist countless times. Their battle-hardened instincts had their bodies moving to counterattack before their minds had even caught up.
"Die!"
Heavy Hammer gave a low growl like rolling thunder. The short axes in his hands glimmered dark green as he infused them with chakra. Instead of retreating, he took a heavy step forward. The force of his stomp sent the water at his feet bursting outward in a spreading ring of ripples.
"Whoosh!"
His short axe swept through the air in a shrill arc, striking precisely at the black shadow hurtling toward him. Heavy Hammer believed that a single blow would be enough to split apart any enemy who tried to get close.
But the instant the blade touched the shadow, Heavy Hammer's expression changed.
There was no resistance of steel biting into flesh, no sound of bones shattering. The seemingly ferocious shadow twisted unnaturally beneath the blade, then broke apart and collapsed into a pool of lifeless dirty water that splashed all over him.
"Water Clone?!"
Wildcat's pupils contracted, and a powerful sense of danger crawled up his spine. He suddenly realized that his squad had made a fatal mistake: they had relied too heavily on their sensor's judgment.
In this cavern, where chakra signatures were extremely unstable, their opponent had taken advantage of the sensor's frayed nerves to create a "false signal" convincing enough to fool them.
"Jingting! Watch your back!"
Wildcat's voice turned shrill with alarm. He didn't even have time to aim his kunai, flinging it toward the sensor ninja's blind spot on instinct.
But it was too late.
The instant the Water Clone burst out and drew everyone's attention, the real Mizuki Han was pressed against the slippery rock ceiling in a near-torturous effort, gliding silently toward the space directly above their formation like a transparent ghost.
He had precisely divided the chakra in his body into countless fine threads, each one clinging tightly to a crevice in the rock to cancel out any sound caused by gravity. His lungs had all but stopped expanding, and his heartbeat had slowed to a crawl. He had blended completely into the cold, damp surroundings.
This was the most crucial part of Han's Three-Part Chakra Principle: never let the enemy see your real trump card, not even your position.
While Wildcat and Heavy Hammer were focused entirely on the water splashing below, Han silently dropped away from the rock ceiling.
He didn't drop straight into the water, since the splash would instantly give away his position. With only half a meter between him and the surface, Han shifted the tips of his feet, and two wafer-thin yet remarkably tough layers of ice formed beneath them.
He settled onto the water as lightly as a falling feather. The moment the ice touched the water, he used precise control of his Ice Release to dissolve the recoil into the current's natural movement.
One step, then two.
Han glided across the water, moving with the grace of a deadly waltz. He slipped past Wildcat's frenzied spinning kunai, avoided the chakra ripples Heavy Hammer sent flying in his fury, and cut precisely into Jingting's blind spot.
Two meters.
The sensor ninja Jingting was now in a state of utter mental disarray. The Water Clone's deception had interrupted his Hand Seals, and the clear sensory map in his mind had become like an old television struggling with interference, full of static.
Panicking, he tried to gather chakra again and find the hunter who had vanished.
But all he could sense was the sudden chill at the back of his neck, cold enough to freeze his soul.
Han emerged from the darkness. Beneath the dim light, his pale, delicate face, cold as a divine statue, looked especially eerie. His right hand was already raised, and between his fingers, an Ice Blade formed from the filthy water glimmered with a faint blue light.
The blade had no edge, but its cold was absolute.
Jingting wanted to turn around, scream, even use the Substitution Technique.
But under Han's ink-black gaze, he found himself frozen in place. It wasn't a ninjutsu holding him back. It was the terrifying killing intent of a superior looking down on an insect, which had shaken his very soul.
Killing someone had never required any unnecessary movements.
Han's right hand was perfectly steady, without the slightest tremor. The tip of his Ice Blade rested against the most vulnerable gap between Jingting's skull and his cervical vertebrae.
One more inch, and the ninja who served as his squad's "eyes" would become a cold corpse.
Wildcat had turned around by then. He stared in disbelief at the boy they had dismissed as a "rat," standing behind his subordinate with the air of a ruler.
"Stop!"
Wildcat let out a heart-wrenching roar. All the chakra in his body erupted at once, and the rocks beneath his feet cracked under the strain. He shot forward like a cannonball, his Ninja Blade trailing a streak of fierce lightning as he aimed straight for Han's throat.
It was a ploy to besiege Wei and rescue Zhao—and a move that could take them both to the grave.
He was betting that Han would pull back his attack to save himself.
The corner of Han's mouth lifted in a disdainful, cruel smile.
By his calculations, Wildcat's blade would reach his throat in 0.4 seconds.
His Ice Blade needed only 0.1 seconds to pierce Jingting's brain.
The remaining 0.3 seconds were enough to trigger the final trap he had already prepared.
"Shhk."
The sound of the Ice Blade entering flesh was crisp and brief. No great spray of blood followed, because the terrifying cold had sealed the blood vessels around the wound the instant it pierced him.
Jingting's body stiffened. The light in his eyes went out at once, and he slumped lifelessly like a machine with its power cut.
First kill: complete.
But Wildcat's lightning-wreathed Ninja Blade was already less than three inches from Han's skin. The raging Lightning Release Chakra had even singed the hair at his temple.
At that instant, with life and death hanging in the balance, Han didn't dodge. Instead, he slammed his left hand down on the back of the corpse that had yet to fall.
"Ice Release: Crystal Explosion!"
Han's icy voice echoed through the cavern.
"Boom!"
The sensor ninja's corpse, which had served as cover, suddenly shone with blinding blue light. Countless tiny ice crystals burst from every pore, transforming the body into a massive, deadly crystal bomb!
Wildcat's seemingly unstoppable slash struck the center of the exploding mass of ice.
Fierce lightning and freezing crystals collided in midair. The resulting shock wave turned all the water around them into a dense white fog.
"Cough, cough..."
Wildcat staggered back out of the fog, his right arm covered in tiny bleeding cuts left by shards of ice. More terrifying still, a cold chakra was trying to creep through the wounds and into his chakra pathways.
He jerked his head up and stared into the depths of the mist.
"Heavy Hammer! Block the passage! He's wounded—he couldn't have gone far!" Wildcat panted heavily as he ordered his subordinate on the other side.
But the only response was silence.
Wildcat's heart lurched. He whipped around to look toward Heavy Hammer.
The burly close-combat fighter stood frozen in the middle of an axe swing, unable to move, like an exquisitely crafted ice sculpture. Countless translucent threads, fine as a spiderweb, covered the ground beneath his feet.
The threads had crept up from his legs, binding him tightly in place.
Behind Heavy Hammer stood the small figure of Haku. She was trembling as she clutched a kunai. Her face was pale, but her eyes held a determined resolve.
"Damn brat..."
Wildcat gritted his teeth and turned back toward the center of the mist.
As the fog slowly cleared, Mizuki Han stood there quietly. His left arm trembled slightly from the backlash of the explosion, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, but his gaze remained so calm it was despair-inducing.
He hadn't run. Instead, he was walking toward Wildcat one step at a time.
"Now," Han said coldly, without a trace of emotion. He raised his right hand and lightly wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. "You're the only one left."
Feeling the chakra in his body gradually slow and the temperature around him drop lower and lower, Wildcat experienced the emotion called fear for the first time.
He realized that the Anbu tactics he had always prided himself on were like a clumsy farce in front of this boy.
Just as Wildcat prepared to fight to the death, the corner of his eye caught sight of a black scroll bearing strange symbols among the wreckage of the supply crates. It was glowing a faint red.
Could it be... the ultimate order for the Great Purge?
Han's gaze shifted toward the scroll too, and his pupils suddenly contracted.
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