Energy Waves Adjust the World, Twin Blades Pierce Hearts and Destroy the Enemy

The moment the red light exploded, a nauseating, scorched stench permeated the air. The mission scroll was unstable; the blood-red chakra sealed within, forced by Wildcat, had completely lost control, acting like a powder keg squeezed to its limit.

It flew toward Mizuki Han, less an attack than a signal of mutual destruction.

Mizuki Han was mid-air, his center of gravity completely suspended. He watched the red light, which carried an aura of destruction, his pupils shrinking to the size of needlepoints. His brain was not occupied by fear in that instant; instead, it entered a state of hyper-calm calculation: the scroll was three meters away, the estimated blast radius was five meters, and directly below him was the off-balance Wildcat.

Evade? Too late.

Take it head-on? That was suicide.

In the blink of an eye, Mizuki Han made the only choice. He ignored the flashing red scroll and instead exerted force with his right hand, hurling the kunai—which had an explosive tag tied to it—at a tricky angle toward the rear side of the scroll.

"Shhh—"

The kunai cut through the air with a whistling sound.

"BOOM!"

Two forces collided in mid-air. The explosion of the explosive tag and the runaway chakra sealed within the scroll triggered a violent energy overlap. A blinding fireball erupted within the narrow karst cave, and the scorching shockwave, like an invisible giant hand, swept through the entire space in an instant.

Mizuki Han did not attempt to resist this shockwave; instead, he went with the flow. Using the terrifying thrust generated by the explosion, he forcibly twisted his falling posture. His body, like a kite with a snapped string, tumbled backward under the shroud of the shockwave, avoiding the core of the blast while landing with incredible precision behind Wildcat.

"Cough..."

The moment he landed, the excruciating pain in his lungs forced Mizuki Han to spit out a mouthful of blood. Although he had avoided the core of the shockwave, the immense thrust had still severely damaged his internal organs. He didn't bother wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, nor did he adjust his breathing; like a hunting leopard, he instantly lunged forward.

Wildcat had been knocked to the ground by the shockwave of the scroll's explosion. His senses, already in chaos due to his blindness, had now completely lost all sense of direction. He clutched his chest, emitting a painful grunt, his only remaining left hand flailing wildly in an attempt to catch any scent of an approach.

"Are you here?!" Wildcat roared, gathering the last of his chakra in his left hand and slamming it fiercely into the void behind him.

However, he struck nothing but air.

Mizuki Han's figure was like a ghost; a second before Wildcat had even swung his hand, he had already slid to the side. The two ice blades in his hands shimmered with a cold, eerie luster under the dim light. No wasted words, no mercy, not even a moment of hesitation.

"Puchi!"

The ice blade in his left hand precisely sliced through Wildcat's carotid artery.

The ice blade in his right hand pierced through the gaps in his ribs, driving deep into his heart.

The sound of the two ice blades entering flesh overlapped, as crisp as the snapping of a dry branch.

Wildcat's movements froze. His left hand, still flailing in mid-air, dropped powerlessly. His originally ferocious features were now twisted into a knot of extreme pain and resentment. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but could only emit a wheezing "Hah... hah..." sound. A large amount of blood gushed from his mouth, dripping down his chin onto the filthy ground.

"You... you..."

Wildcat's pupils rapidly dilated. He finally realized that this boy before him had never regarded him as an opponent from start to finish, but rather as a precise, fragile mechanism that needed to be dismantled.

Mizuki Han released his grip, letting Wildcat's corpse fall heavily to the ground. He stood beside the body, gasping for air, his chest heaving violently as if every breath were pulling at his fractured ribs.

The cave returned to a deathly silence, with only the sound of the distant underground river tirelessly washing against the rock walls.

Mizuki Han looked down at his hands.

His fingertips were beginning to turn an unnatural pale blue—the precursor to the backlash of his Ice Release after excessive chakra consumption. His meridians were bearing an unprecedented load. That subtle, stinging pain, like steel needles piercing into his bone marrow, was spreading from his arms toward his heart.

He bent down and quickly searched Wildcat's corpse. Aside from the shattered mask, he found several scrolls and a pouch of Soldier Pills that hadn't been used yet.

"More."

He wasn't satisfied; he crouched down and pressed his hand against Wildcat's chest, which had not yet fully cooled.

[High-concentration chakra residue detected. Perform system extraction?]

The system's cold, mechanical prompt echoed in his mind.

"Extract." Mizuki Han murmured in his heart. He needed energy too badly right now; even a sliver of chakra could be his capital for survival.

A warm current was drawn from Wildcat's corpse, flowing continuously into Mizuki Han's meridians. The cold, stinging pain eased slightly under the wash of the warm current, but it was merely a drop in the bucket.

He stood up and cast his gaze toward the depths of the cave. That was the evacuation route he and Haku had planned.

"Han-gege..."

A timid voice came from the darkness. Haku poked her head out from a hidden rock crevice. She looked at the corpses littering the ground and the blood-soaked Mizuki Han, her eyes filled with complex emotions. Fear, reliance, and a trace of awe she hadn't even realized herself.

Mizuki Han didn't look back. He simply wiped the blood from his face coldly, threw the scavenged Soldier Pills into his mouth, and chewed forcefully. The dry, bitter taste spread in his mouth, but it couldn't mask the increasingly intense tearing sensation in his meridians.

He could feel that his body had reached its limit.

The high-intensity battle just now—using Ice Release to forcibly alter the environment, micro-managing the shockwaves, and the lethal ambush—this series of operations had almost drained all his potential. His meridians were not only sounding alarms due to the depletion of chakra, but were also beginning to show signs of crystallization due to the excessive use of Ice Release.

It felt as if the blood vessels in his body were freezing, preventing blood from circulating. Every heartbeat felt like walking on the edge of a blade.

"Move."

Mizuki Han spat out the word, his voice as raspy as sandpaper rubbing against wood. He didn't look at the corpse, nor did he care about the mess on the ground. He had to find an absolutely safe place before his body completely collapsed.

He took a step, each movement extremely slow yet exceptionally firm.

However, the moment he turned, the chakra pathways in his body suddenly spasmed violently. The chakra he had just extracted encountered some indescribable obstruction the moment it entered his meridians.

A piercing, heart-wrenching pain shot straight from his left arm to the top of his head!

Mizuki Han's face turned deathly pale. He lunged to support himself against the stone wall to keep from collapsing. His left hand, at a speed visible to the naked eye, was covered in a layer of eerie, transparent ice crystals.

[Warning! Host's Ice Release bloodline compatibility with the physical body is insufficient. Excessive use has led to meridian crystallization backlash.]

[Meridian damage level detected: 35%.]

[If you continue to force your chakra, the host's left arm will face the risk of permanent necrosis.]

The system's warning sounded like a tolling bell in Mizuki Han's mind. He looked at his left hand, which was now completely numb and covered in a thick layer of ice crystals, his pupils constricting sharply.

Permanent necrosis?

He let out a cold sneer, a flash of desperate madness crossing his eyes. In this world, without power, one didn't even have the right to survive. Necrosis? As long as he could win, he wouldn't care if he lost an arm, or even if his entire body turned into a block of ice.

But before he could make his next move, the rocks at the top of the cavern suddenly emitted a teeth-grinding cracking sound.

"Crack—"

Several massive stalactites fell from the ceiling without warning, crashing heavily into the area where they had just been fighting. Amidst the swirling dust, a colossal shadow slowly emerged from the end of the passage.

That was no Anbu ninja.

It was a giant summoning beast covered in slime. Its scarlet eyes were locked onto Mizuki Han, and a low growl rumbled in its throat, as if declaring that the new hunt had only just begun.