A Risky Move for Arms, Targeting the Underground Armory

Armory.

These two words were etched into Mizuki Han's vision, as if branded onto a pitch-black canvas with a searing hot iron.

He took the blood-soaked, stiffened parchment map from Haku's trembling hands, his gaze darting between the skull icon marking the "Armory" and the glaring "72 hours" countdown on the black scroll he held.

Two seemingly unrelated pieces of intelligence were, in this instant, forcibly linked by an invisible thread through the cruelest of logic.

Despair, like a rising tide, silently submerged every inch of air within the limestone cave.

Three days.

In three days, the nerve gas known as "Blood Banyan Mist" would flood every corner of this underground space.

This was not a purge targeting a few; it was a total extermination operation that would leave no survivors.

All exits had been physically sealed and were guarded by Elder Gen's elite unit, the Sharp Tooth Unit. This meant that any conventional escape route was completely blocked. To force a way out would be no different than slamming a flesh-and-blood body against a wall of solid steel.

A dead end.

A perfect dead end, designed from the very beginning with no path to survival.

The wounds in Mizuki Han's lungs, forcibly sealed by layers of ice, throbbed with his increasingly ragged breathing. The numbness from the painkillers was slowly fading, and a new wave of agony began to gnaw at his nerves like a festering rot.

Yet, more unbearable than the physical pain was the helplessness of having his fate manipulated by others.

In both his past life and this one, this was the feeling he loathed the most.

Firepower... the firepower is insufficient...

He muttered to himself subconsciously, his uninjured right hand brushing over the ninja tool pouch at his waist. Three kunai, five shuriken, and a few low-quality explosive tags he had scavenged.

This was his entire "firepower."

With this, he was to confront an elite Anbu blockade unit and blast open an exit reinforced by physical barriers and seals?

Pure delusion.

He needed power—absolute power capable of flipping the chessboard in a single stroke.

And in this underground cage, there was only one place that could provide such power.

His gaze fell once more upon the tattered map, locking firmly onto that hideous skull icon.

—The Armory.

A thought so insane it bordered on self-destruction coiled around his heart like a poisonous vine born in the abyss, beginning to grow wildly.

If there was no path, then he would blast one out himself!

If the exits were sealed, he would create an unprecedented chaos—an explosion massive enough to shake the entire Anbu base—and tear open an unforeseen path to survival amidst the turmoil!

To realize this plan, he needed a massive quantity of explosive tags and high-yield, specialized ninja tools.

And those could only be found in the Armory.

The logic was simple, brutal, and carried a lethal temptation.

To survive, he had to get the explosives.

The explosives were in the most heavily guarded, most dangerous place.

Therefore, he had to brave this dragon's den and tiger's lair.

This was no longer a multiple-choice question; it was the only answer.

A desperate gamble, seeking life within the jaws of death.

Deep within Mizuki Han's cold eyes, a flame called "madness" was fully ignited. His soul, afflicted with severe "insufficient firepower phobia" and "persecutory delusion," was not crushed by despair at this moment; instead, it was driven into a state of extreme, pathological excitement.

The more desperate the situation, the greater the gamble!

"Han-gege..." Haku looked at the shifting expressions on Mizuki Han's face and called out softly, her voice filled with unease.

Mizuki Han ignored her. He carefully stowed the black scroll and the map, then shoved the entire bag of Soldier Pills toward Haku, commanding in an unquestionable tone, "Eat them all. Not a single one left. We need the stamina."

Haku dared not disobey; she could only swallow the strange-tasting pills one by one, struggling to wash them down with the foul water.

Mizuki Han swallowed three himself, forcibly squeezing the last bit of potential from his body. Once done, he pulled Haku up without a moment's hesitation.

"We are going here."

He pointed toward the Armory on the map, his voice hoarse yet exceptionally firm.

Haku followed his finger, seeing only the crudely drawn, ominous-looking skull. She did not understand what that place was, but she could feel that the air of determination radiating from Han-gege as he made this decision was colder than any eternal ice in this underground cave.

"Stay close to me. Do not make a sound, and do not ask any questions."

Mizuki Han offered no further explanation. He took Haku's hand and plunged into the deeper, more profound darkness.

Time ticked away, second by second.

The 72-hour countdown hung over his head like a guillotine, its cold blade already pressed against his neck.

He did not choose the main thoroughfares that appeared widest and most convenient on the map. Based on the intelligence he had cross-referenced, those areas were undoubtedly the primary focus of the Sharp Tooth Unit's search.

He chose the narrow pipes and sewage branches, abandoned and intended only for maintenance personnel.

These places were dark, damp, and filled with unknown dangers. Rotting sludge rose above his ankles, emitting a nauseating stench. From time to time, one could see mutated fungi and moss emitting a faint, ghostly green light in the darkness.

Haku nearly slipped several times, but each time, Mizuki Han's powerful right hand caught her and held her firm.

He moved like the most seasoned hunter, navigating the massive underground labyrinth with a beast-like intuition and the logical analytical skills honed in his past life, precisely evading patrol after patrol of Anbu ninja.

His sensory abilities had undergone a qualitative leap after breaking through to the Chunin level. Any fluctuation of chakra within a hundred-meter radius could not escape his detection.

Several times, they brushed past a squad of Anbu, separated only by a thin rock wall. Haku could even clearly hear the footsteps and conversations on the other side, each instance making her heart feel as though it were about to stop.

But Mizuki Han remained expressionless. His heartbeat did not accelerate by even the slightest fraction.

He was simply calculating, waiting with cold precision.

As they ventured deeper, the surrounding environment began to change significantly.

The air was no longer damp, replaced instead by a dry, stifling atmosphere. The tunnels, originally composed entirely of rock, began to feature steel-reinforced structures, and every ten meters along the walls, one could see a warning rune flickering with a faint red light.

The defense level here was clearly higher than in the outer perimeter.

They were approaching the core area of the base.

After crawling through a narrow ventilation duct for nearly another half hour, Mizuki Han suddenly stopped.

He signaled for Haku to stay put, then, like a gecko, he silently poked his head out to peer beyond the duct.

The view before him suddenly opened up.

It was an incredibly wide corridor, spacious enough for ten carriages to travel side-by-side. The floor was paved with massive slabs of obsidian, smooth as a mirror and radiating a cold luster. The ceiling was exceptionally high, embedded with dozens of Moonlight Stones that emitted a soft white glow, illuminating the entire corridor as if it were daylight.

At the end of the corridor stood a steel gate so massive it defied imagination.

The gate was at least twenty meters high, cast entirely from some unknown black metal, its surface engraved with dense, complex sealing formulas that resembled circuit boards. Those formulas flowed slowly, emitting a visible, pale blue chakra radiance that rendered the entire gate like a miracle of the gods.

This was the gate to the Armory.

However, what caused Mizuki Han's pupils to contract sharply was not this magnificent gate.

It was the two figures standing before it like statues.

They were also dressed in the standard uniform of the Mist Anbu, wearing pale, expressionless masks. But the chakra fluctuations radiating from them were worlds apart from any enemy they had encountered before.

It was a feeling of condensation and weight, as unfathomable as the deep sea.

Elite Chunin.

And not just any, but the top-tier elite Chunin who were only a single step away from becoming Jonin!

They stood like two gate guardians, one on the left and one on the right, motionless, their aura of "no entry" enough to make anyone with ill intent turn back in fear.

And these were merely the guards outside the gate.

Heaven only knew how many traps or stronger enemies were hidden behind that gate shimmering with chakra light.

Mizuki Han slowly pulled his head back into the dark duct.

His back was already soaked with cold sweat.

This was the target he had chosen.

A steel fortress so heavily guarded that not even a fly could get in.

And he had only a crippled left arm and a seven-year-old girl.

The seventy-one-hour countdown continued to tick mercilessly in his mind.

Mizuki Han leaned against the cold wall of the duct and closed his eyes.

His brain, comparable to a supercomputer, began to race at an unprecedented speed.

Force their way in? Certain death.

A feint? In front of two top-tier elite Chunin, any small movement would be laid bare.

Infiltration? The chakra seal on that gate would likely stop even a mosquito from passing through.

Every path seemed to be blocked.

However, at that moment, a detail he had overlooked flashed through his mind like lightning.

Water.

In this underground world, the one thing they had in abundance was water.

And water... under specific conditions, could undergo a change in its physical state.

A brand-new idea, more insane, more daring, and more inconceivable than any of his previous plans, sprouted in his mind.

Mizuki Han snapped his eyes open, his pitch-black pupils reflecting a mad plan that would make even gods and demons tremble.

He stared at the impregnable steel gate in the distance, a cold and cruel arc curling at the corner of his mouth.

Where ninjutsu cannot hold, science shall open the way.

What kind of defensive power awaited him behind that chakra-sealed gate?