Chain Detonations Shatter Enemy Courage, Frozen Kunai Destroy Organs

Desperation can turn a man into a beast. When his retreat was completely sealed off by cold, sheer walls and his senses were stripped away by endless, thick fog, the last shred of Captain Hozuki's sanity as an elite Chunin was finally incinerated by a flame called "fear."

His single crimson eye reflected the boiling mist, igniting with the madness of someone ready to perish together with his enemy. He abandoned all defense, letting the cold, stagnant water soak his wounds, while his hands moved in a bizarre, twisted fashion to weave hand seals at high speed.

"Fire Release..."

The sound squeezed from his throat was as hoarse as two rusted iron plates grinding together. An aura, even more violent, scorching, and ominous than his previous "Flame Wave Burning Kill," erupted from within his body!

"Gurgle... gurgle..."

Centered on him, the stagnant water at his feet began to bubble and boil violently. The thick fog was scorched and twisted by this high heat, forming a small vacuum zone. His tattered ninja gear fluttered without a breeze, and his skin even took on an unnatural, deep red hue due to the excessive concentration of chakra.

He was burning his life away!

He intended to use his final reserves of chakra to unleash a forbidden technique with enough power to blow this entire buffer room to pieces, turning the brat hiding in the shadows, this damned fog, and these damned ice walls into ash!

On the other side of the fog, Mizuki Han's eyes narrowed slightly. He could clearly feel the terrifying heat rushing toward him, enough to make the very air ignite. He didn't even need to look; through the temperature changes in the water at his feet, he could judge exactly what kind of horrific technique his opponent was brewing.

Take it head-on? Only a fool would entertain such a thought.

His body was in a state of extreme weakness due to excessive chakra consumption, making it difficult even to maintain basic Ice Release defenses.

However, there was not a trace of panic on his face. In those eyes, which remained startlingly bright amidst the thick fog, there was only cold, machine-like precision.

From the moment he decided to play along and create this heavy fog, he had already anticipated this step. An enemy pushed to the brink would often choose the most extreme method to counterattack. And he was most adept at cutting off the enemy's last straw of hope just as they thought they had grasped it.

Captain Hozuki's hand seals reached the final one.

"...Great Fire Annihilation..."

The moment he was about to roar out the name of that destructive technique, Mizuki Han moved.

He did not weave seals, nor did he move his position. His right hand, which had been steadily submerged in the water, simply curled its five pale fingers inward, as if playing a piano.

It was an incredibly subtle movement.

Yet, it was as if he had pressed the first note on the Grim Reaper's score.

"Shh!"

A faint, almost imperceptible sound of tension came from Captain Hozuki's ankle.

The nearly transparent ice thread he had stepped on during his charge tightened instantly!

Captain Hozuki's body, currently concentrating all his chakra, stiffened abruptly. He looked down instinctively, only to see a faint, barely visible bloodstain appearing on his ankle.

That ice thread, thinner than a strand of hair, had coiled around his legs without him even noticing!

This negligible restraint should have been broken with a single struggle by an elite Chunin. But as he poured his entire being into the activation of the forbidden technique, this tenth-of-a-second delay became the final straw that broke the camel's back.

His chakra flow suffered a momentary, chaotic disruption!

"No!"

A warning bell rang wildly in Captain Hozuki's heart, yet it was already too late.

Mizuki Han's curled fingers did not stop.

The tightening of the first ice thread was merely a signal. A signal to trigger a chain of death.

"Shh! Shh! Shh! Shh!"

In an instant, countless ice threads, some visible and some hidden, erupted from the murky water in all directions! They acted like the most precise snares, coiling around Captain Hozuki's limbs, waist, abdomen, and neck!

These were all part of the web of death Mizuki Han had re-woven under the cover of the fog!

Captain Hozuki's nearly completed forbidden technique was forcibly interrupted by this sudden, all-encompassing restraint!

The violent chakra lost control within his body, rampaging wildly, which caused a sweet taste to rise in his throat as he uncontrollably spat out a mouthful of scalding blood.

"Ah--!"

He let out a roar of frustration, attempting to use brute force to break free from these damned threads.

However, the triggering of these ice threads was not meant to restrain him.

It was meant to... detonate!

Attached to the ends of those ice threads were over a dozen Explosive Tags that Mizuki Han had scavenged from the weapon rack earlier! They had been cleverly wrapped in waterproof oil paper and hidden beneath the stagnant water, in the crevices of the walls, and even in the cracks of the ceiling!

"BOOM--!!"

The first Explosive Tag detonated right beneath Captain Hozuki's feet!

The orange-red firelight instantly tore through a corner of the fog. A violent shockwave, mixed with boiling water, slammed fiercely into Captain Hozuki's leg. The armor on his leg shattered upon impact, leaving the flesh a mangled mess.

But this was only the beginning.

Like a string of lit firecrackers, a chain of lethal explosions played a symphony of death within this cage sealed by ice walls!

"Boom! Boom! BOOM--!!"

The second and third Explosive Tags detonated simultaneously on his left and right, the violent blast throwing his entire body into mid-air!

Following that came the fourth, the fifth, the sixth... The Explosive Tags placed on the walls and ceiling formed a three-dimensional, omnidirectional crossfire grid!

The sound of the explosions was deafening, firelight and thick fog intertwined, and the entire buffer room shook violently as debris from the dome and molten metal chunks rained down.

Captain Hozuki was like a ragdoll tossed into a tumble dryer, thrown back and forth amidst the continuous explosions, every inch of his body enduring devastating blows.

His armor shattered inch by inch, flesh and blood torn apart by the shockwaves, and bones snapped under the violent impact.

His prized crimson gem, capable of seeing through illusions, was struck by flying shrapnel during a massive explosion; with a "pop," it shattered completely, leaking black-red blood.

His consciousness gradually blurred amidst the agonizing pain and deafening roar.

That rage capable of incinerating everything, that pride of an elite Chunin, that madness of wanting to drag his enemy down with him... all were blown to pieces and vanished before this absolute, cold, and unreasonable barrage of firepower.

"Bang."

As the final echoes of the explosions faded, Captain Hozuki's charred body fell heavily back into the stagnant water, splashing a cloud of murky, blood-stained spray.

He had lost.

Lost so thoroughly, so humiliatingly.

He hadn't even seen the enemy's face before exhausting all his strength and dignity in a trap meticulously laid by his opponent.

The thick fog dispersed slightly.

Mizuki Han's figure emerged slowly from behind an overturned weapon rack. His face was pale, his breathing slightly rapid; clearly, manipulating such a precise trap simultaneously had been a massive drain on his mental energy.

He walked step by step toward the body twitching slightly in the water.

Captain Hozuki was not yet dead.

Relying on the formidable vitality of an elite Chunin, he had forcibly endured the chain of explosions.

He lifted his head with great difficulty, his mangled face—with only one empty, bleeding eye socket remaining—staring fixedly in Mizuki Han's direction.

"Haa... haa..."

He opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to say something, but his punctured lungs allowed only the sound of a wheezing bellows.

Suddenly, his one remaining functional arm pushed hard against the ground, and he lunged up from the water as if in a final death throes! In his hand, he clutched a blood-stained kunai, using his last ounce of strength to strike at Mizuki Han's heart!

This was his final, most instinctive counterattack!

Facing this dying yet still lethal strike, Mizuki Han's eyes did not flicker in the slightest.

He did not even take half a step back.

The moment the kunai was about to touch his chest, his right hand raised like lightning.

He, too, held a kunai in his hand.

But this kunai was different.

It was composed entirely of ice, crystal clear, yet at its core, it held a hint of a heart-stopping, deep, ghostly blue. Its design was longer and thinner than a standard kunai, the edge so sharp it seemed capable of slicing through light itself.

This was a lethal weapon Mizuki Han had created by combining his Ice Release with the system's analysis of ninja tool construction.

Frozen Kunai.

"Whoosh!"

Without a moment's hesitation, Mizuki Han flicked his wrist, and the Frozen Kunai left his hand, transforming into a ghostly blue afterimage that struck first despite being launched later!

It did not parry the kunai Captain Hozuki had thrust; instead, at an incredibly tricky angle, it precisely buried itself into the Captain's already ruined chest and abdomen.

"Squelch."

The sound of the blade entering flesh was soft and dull.

Captain Hozuki's lunging body came to an abrupt halt.

The kunai he had thrust stopped less than a centimeter from Mizuki Han's chest.

He looked down, staring in disbelief at the ice kunai protruding from his abdomen, radiating a chilling aura.

There was no sharp pain.

Only an extreme, bone-deep cold that spread rapidly from the wound.

"This... is..."

Before he could finish his sentence, a sudden change occurred!

The moment the Frozen Kunai embedded in his body touched his scorching internal organs and blood, the speck of ghostly blue at its core erupted!

It did not explode; rather, it... melted!

With a speed that defied logic, it instantly transitioned from a solid state into the most primal, bone-chilling liquid!

Yet, in this instantaneous change of state, countless ice crystal particles—finer than needle points and invisible to the naked eye—surged madly through his bloodstream like billions of the fiercest piranhas, flooding his internal organs!

Liver, spleen, lungs, heart...

Every soft organ that sustained his life was ruthlessly torn, sliced, and shredded from within by the impact of this icy torrent!

Captain Hozuki's body began to tremble violently. His pupils dilated to their limit due to this incomprehensible, extreme agony originating from within. He opened his mouth wide, but could not even let out a scream.

He could clearly feel his life being cruelly "eaten" away, bit by bit, from the inside out.

"Thud."

The kunai in his hand slipped to the ground, and that once-formidable body finally lost all support, falling straight backward and splashing a large amount of water.

His life force was completely extinguished.

Mizuki Han watched it all with cold indifference, slowly withdrawing his hand.

A flawless, lethal strike.

This was the first "gift" he had prepared for this bloody world.

The battle was over.

Mizuki Han's gaze drifted past the cooling corpse and the chaotic battlefield, finally settling on the heavy steel door that stood slightly ajar from the explosion.

Behind the door lay a profound darkness, as if it could swallow all light.

A thick scent, a mixture of gunpowder and gun oil, drifted out from the gap.

The door to the Armory had opened for him.

Just how many spoils of war lay inside to cure his "insufficient firepower phobia"?