The enormous shadow emerged fully from the darkness of the passage. Sticky liquid dripped from its wrinkled skin, gathering on the ground in foul-smelling puddles.
It was a gigantic summoning beast resembling a salamander, large enough to block the entire passage. It had no eyes. In their place were two pulsating, crimson lumps of flesh that fixed their "gaze" on the only living thing still standing inside the cavern—Mizuki Han.
"Roar—"
A low growl rumbled from its mouth, lined with sharp teeth. A wave of fetid air washed over Han, stirring the dust and bloodstains on the ground.
After just surviving a brutal fight, Mizuki Han was at his weakest. The agony in his lungs, the backlash in his meridians, and his depleted chakra could each prove fatal. Yet the chakra radiating from the summoning beast before him, though chaotic, was powerful enough to be wielded only by an elite jonin.
A ferocious beast stood before him, and there was no way back.
Still, Mizuki Han's face remained as dead and expressionless as ever. His one good hand had already closed around the last kunai at his waist, the one wrapped with an Explosive Tag. His mind raced as he analyzed the beast's every subtle movement.
Its skin was writhing, but at an uneven rhythm. Its roar was loud, but its breathing was unsteady. Most importantly, the chakra mark belonging to Wildcat on its body was visibly fading.
The contract between a summoning beast and its summoner, forged from blood and chakra, was falling apart with the summoner's death.
"Brother Han..." Haku's voice trembled uncontrollably from within the crack in the rocks.
Mizuki Han didn't turn around. With his left hand, which was already crystallizing and had lost all feeling, he made a silent gesture for her to stay quiet.
The summoning beast seemed to sense its contract fading and grew even more frenzied. Its crimson lumps contracted sharply. Its enormous body hunched forward, gathering strength as it prepared to launch one final assault.
At that critical moment, Mizuki Han didn't retreat. Instead, he took half a step forward. Summoning all his strength, he kicked Wildcat's head—its eyes still wide open in death—into the air.
The head traced an arc through the air and landed precisely in front of the summoning beast.
The beast abruptly froze. It lowered its head, sensing the familiar yet fading aura lingering on the severed head through its fleshy lumps. It was its master's aura.
Confusion and a mournful cry born deep within the contract burst through its soul.
"Roar...?"
It let out a bewildered, mournful cry as its huge body began to tremble violently. The chakra that formed its body grew wildly unstable. Like an image with a poor signal, it began flickering in and out of transparency.
"Puff—"
At last, with a soft pop, the ferocious summoning beast burst into a huge cloud of white smoke and vanished.
The crisis was over.
Mizuki Han's taut nerves relaxed for the briefest moment, only to tighten again with even greater vigilance. He didn't waste a second celebrating. Instead, he immediately turned toward the three bodies that still held a trace of warmth.
"Stay where you are. Don't move, and don't look," he ordered Haku in a tone that brooked no argument.
Then he crouched and began clearing the battlefield with calm efficiency. He was like a practiced butcher processing freshly slaughtered livestock, his movements precise and purposeful.
He stripped away anything of value without hesitation: weapon pouches, Soldier Pills, scrolls, concealed weapons... Wildcat, as an elite chūnin, had the most valuables. Along with the usual supplies, Han found a palm-sized medical kit wrapped in oil paper inside Wildcat's flak jacket. It contained bandages and several military-grade, fast-acting painkillers.
That was real currency.
When he finished, Han looked at the three bodies. To him, they weren't former enemies. They were the last resources he had yet to wring dry.
He pressed his palm against Wildcat's chest. Beneath the cold skin lay life energy that was still fading.
"System, extract."
[Extracting residual chakra from elite chūnin...] [Extracting residual chakra from chūnin (assault type)...] [Extracting residual chakra from chūnin (sensory type)...]
Three streams of warmth flowed into his palm, like the first spring rain filling a dried-up riverbed. They coursed through his nearly depleted meridians. Of them, the one drawn from Wildcat was the strongest and purest.
As the warmth passed, the emptiness brought on by chakra depletion quickly filled. The small "lake" in his dantian began to rise at a visible rate.
But this stream of warmth came with a sensation that was its polar opposite.
Sharp pain shot from his left arm, as if countless ice needles were piercing his marrow! The newly flowing chakra was like molten iron poured over a fragile ice sculpture. The warm energy clashed violently with the cold, crystallizing meridians inside him.
"Crack... crack..."
The layer of ice crystals on his left arm made a faint cracking sound. It wasn't melting. Instead, the conflict made it crystallize even more completely, and the crystals had begun creeping toward his shoulder.
Cold sweat instantly beaded on Mizuki Han's forehead. His teeth clenched, but he didn't let out a single groan. He simply watched the war inside his body with cold detachment, like a spectator with nothing at stake.
Pain was the wail of the weak. To him, it was simply the price of gaining power.
[Chakra extraction complete.] [Congratulations, host. Your total chakra has exceeded the Genin threshold. You have officially entered the Chūnin ranks.] [Current total chakra: 12.5 cards (standard chūnin: 10–50 cards).]
The system's notification rang out like a chime amid a storm.
A sense of fullness unlike anything he had felt before rose from the depths of his dantian. He could clearly feel his "container" expanding. If his chakra had once been a stream, it had now become a rushing river.
This meant he could use more powerful ninjutsu and sustain himself longer in battle.
The leap in strength brought a solid sense of security.
Then came the system's cold warning.
[Warning! The host's body has insufficient compatibility with the Ice Release bloodline. Meridian crystallization has worsened to 45%.] [The left arm is completely necrotic, and its nerves are severed. If crystallization spreads to the heart, the host will be in mortal danger.] [The host is advised to immediately find high-level life energy or Yang Release substances to neutralize the effects. Otherwise, the backlash will be irreversible.]
Mizuki Han slowly raised his left arm.
It could no longer be called an arm. It was like a work of art carved from pure crystal, translucent enough to reveal the blue blood vessels within, now frozen and no longer flowing. He tried to move his fingers, but nothing happened. The hand no longer belonged to him.
A flash of madness passed through his eyes.
Irreversible? In this world, there was nothing that couldn't be reversed with enough power. If Yang Release substances could neutralize it, he would take them by force. If powerful life energy could heal him, he would devour it.
He organized the supplies he had collected, then looked toward the scrolls he had found on Wildcat.
Most were standard scrolls used by the Mist Anbu, containing patrol routes and supply-point information. They were of little value to him.
But one of them stood out.
It wasn't made of paper, but of a material resembling tanned leather, a deep, muted black. A thin but sturdy metal wire bound it, and a complex miniature seal made of three different symbols covered the fastening.
Mizuki Han picked it up. A chill seeped from its surface. He tried to undo the metal wire, but it was tightly fastened, with no gap he could use to pry it open.
He then drew on a little of the chakra he had just gained and cautiously reached toward the miniature seal.
The moment his chakra touched the seal—
"Vmmm—"
A faint but highly repulsive surge of energy sprang from the seal, like a needle stabbing sharply into his fingertip.
Mizuki Han grunted and quickly pulled his hand back.
The seal wasn't merely a physical lock. It was also a chakra-based trap, designed to strike back as soon as it sensed chakra probing from outside.
This was definitely no ordinary intelligence scroll!
What secret could it hold, if the leader of an elite chūnin squad had risked his life to protect it?
Was it a deeper secret behind the Great Purge? Or... a clue to escaping this Underground Death Prison?
Mizuki Han's breathing quickened for an instant. He studied the ominous black scroll in his hand. His instincts, honed in his previous life as an intelligence analyst, told him that it might be far more important than he imagined.
He tucked the scroll away, then took a fast-acting painkiller from the medical kit and plunged it into his thigh without hesitation. The numbing sensation spread quickly, temporarily suppressing the pain in his meridians.
Only after that did he turn and head toward Haku in the crevice.
"Let's go."
His voice was still hoarse and cold.
Haku crawled out of the crevice timidly. When she saw the three bodies stripped down to their underwear, her small face grew even paler.
Mizuki Han paid no heed to her fear. He simply tossed her a pouch full of Soldier Pills.
"Eat these and keep up."
He had no time to comfort her, nor the inclination to explain. In this dark underground maze, every extra second they stayed meant greater danger.
Just as he was about to lead Haku along their planned route toward a deeper underground river, his newly enhanced senses—far sharper than before—suddenly caught a hint of movement.
It wasn't from the direction they had come from, nor from the passage blocked by the summoning beast.
It was from... above!
Mizuki Han snapped his head up. Behind the grate of an inconspicuous ventilation shaft in the cavern ceiling, he saw the pale standard mask of a Mist Anbu member silently watching them through the gaps.
Below the mask, one eye was filled with utter shock and greed.
He had been discovered.
And the other person seemed to have watched the entire time as he cleared the battlefield and extracted chakra!
Before you continue