Borrowing Airflow to Condense Ice Wings, Rocks Fly Through the Air, Revealing the Night Sky

Falling.

An endless fall.

The gale tore at their ears, emitting a sharp, whistling shriek like countless vengeful spirits mourning the collapse of this steel tomb. Countless burning shards of stone and twisted steel bars, like a meteor shower from hell, streaked past them, kicking up waves of scorching heat.

Haku's consciousness was nearly scattered.

She was held in a death grip by Mizuki Han's intact right arm, her body tumbling uncontrollably in the weightless abyss. She could see nothing, hear nothing; the entire world had transformed into a chaotic, plummeting nightmare.

Despair, like the deepest ocean, surged in from all sides, crushing her small frame and making even the act of breathing feel like a stinging pain.

Just at this terminal point of destruction, in the depths of darkness where even light could not reach, she suddenly felt the arm that had been clutching her like an iron vice loosen.

The wind rushed in violently.

She and that broken body were slightly separated amidst the turbulent airflow.

Haku's pupils dilated in an instant. She reached out instinctively, wanting to grab onto something, but grasped only empty air.

Is he... abandoning me?

This thought, like the most venomous curse, instantly shattered her final psychological defenses.

However, amidst this endless fall and despair, a pair of eyes pierced through all the darkness and smoke, locking onto her firmly.

They were eyes that flickered in the firelight and shadow, still cold, still devoid of any emotion, yet they acted like two nails, pinning her soul—which was on the verge of collapse—firmly in place.

Mizuki Han's lips moved slightly. His voice, hoarse to the point of being almost unrecognizable, nevertheless pierced through all the roaring and whistling with precision and clarity, reaching Haku's ears.

"Grab me. Use all your strength."

It was not a request, nor was it comfort.

It was an order.

A cold, unquestionable command in the midst of the apocalypse.

Before the words had even faded, a pure, icy-blue chakra erupted violently from Mizuki Han's shattered body!

The volume of this chakra was not vast—one might even call it faint—but its quality was chillingly pure!

It was the final reserve of chakra within Mizuki Han's body, kept for emergencies, his last lifeline!

Without a moment's hesitation, he squeezed every last drop of this final hope dry!

"Urgh..."

Excruciating pain flooded his consciousness like a tide. The overload of chakra caused his already crumbling meridians to emit a groan of unbearable strain. From the severed stump of his left arm, the crystallized wound sent a piercing, bone-deep agony, as if countless needles were frantically churning his marrow.

But he did not stop.

That icy-blue chakra did not take on any offensive form; instead, like a living vine, it spread rapidly to his back.

It did not create something from nothing, but rather, with a near-predatory greed, it frantically captured and absorbed everything in its vicinity!

The high-temperature steam from the explosions, the humid, thick fog filling the air, and even the droplets of sewage kicked up by the shockwaves... every substance containing "water" was, in that instant, forcibly plundered and assimilated by that icy-blue chakra!

"Click... crack..."

A faint, crisp sound of ice crystals forming rang out strangely amidst the deafening roar.

Reflected in Haku's eyes was a scene she would never forget for the rest of her life.

On Mizuki Han's back, sheets of ice crystals, thin as cicada wings yet incredibly hard, were condensing, overlapping, and expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye!

They were not wings of pristine, traditional beauty; they were a construction filled with the aesthetics of violence and absolute pragmatism. Each "feather" was an Ice Blade with a razor-sharp edge, shimmering with a ghostly blue chill. Countless Ice Blades layered over one another, arranged at precise, aerodynamic angles to form a pair of ferocious, magnificent... Ice Wings, spanning over five meters!

These were not the wings of an angel.

They were weapons used by a demon to tear the sky asunder!

"Hold on!"

The cold command rang out once more.

The Ice Wings beat violently!

"Hum—!"

The massive Ice Wings did not generate upward thrust; instead, amidst the immense inertia of the fall, they acted like a top-tier glider, instantly catching the scorching updraft roaring up from a ruptured energy conduit below!

The momentum of the fall came to an abrupt halt!

A powerful, upward buoyancy acted upon them both in an instant!

"Boom!"

Not far beneath their feet, a concrete boulder the size of a house plummeted with the force of ten thousand tons, smashing into the abyss below without even an echo returning.

Yet Mizuki Han, carrying Haku and utilizing that violent, rising thermal wind, began to sprint like a falcon flying against the current toward the opening above—a gap that was constantly collapsing and stained red by the firelight!

"Th-this is..." Haku's small hands gripped Mizuki Han's tattered clothes tightly. She opened her mouth wide, but could not utter a sound.

Fear, shock, and a trace of near-worshipful fanaticism—which she herself had not yet realized—intertwined in her heart.

In the middle of falling to hell, he had forcibly spread his wings and, using the wind of destruction, ascended against the heavens!

What insane imagination! And what terrifying execution!

"Shut your mouth, unless you want a piece of rubble to pierce your throat."

Mizuki Han's voice remained icy. He felt not a shred of self-satisfaction; every ounce of his focus was poured into the micro-management of his ice wings.

The ascent was far more perilous than he had imagined.

The updraft created by the explosion was extremely unstable, fluctuating between violent gusts and weak flickers. More lethal still, countless shards of stone and steel rebar were raining down from above, forming an airtight barrage of death.

"Left!"

Mizuki Han's pupils contracted sharply. He manipulated his ice wings, banking to the right at an extreme angle!

Whoosh—

A massive steel rebar, over half a meter in diameter with a tip melted into a spear-point by the intense heat, whistled past, barely grazing the tip of his nose. The scorching gust of wind even singed the black hair on his forehead.

Yet, the crisis was far from over.

Due to that extreme evasive maneuver, they had briefly slipped out of the strongest part of the updraft, causing their momentum to stall abruptly.

And directly above them, a massive "cloud" composed of countless concrete fragments and rebar had already descended upon them!

There was no way to dodge.

Haku instinctively closed her eyes.

However, the expected impact never came.

A flash of ruthlessness crossed Mizuki Han's eyes. Instead of dodging, he beat his ice wings violently, charging head-on into the debris!

"Ice Release: Scatter!"

The massive pair of ice wings disintegrated in an instant, transforming into thousands of high-speed, razor-sharp Ice Blades. Like a swirling storm of blades rising against the current, they slammed into the falling "cloud" of debris!

Clang, clang, clatter—bang, bang, bang!

A dense sound, like a torrential downpour hitting a tin roof, erupted!

Countless stones were sliced apart and deflected by the Ice Blades! That cloud of death was forcibly blasted open, a gap torn through by the power erupting from within.

In the moment his wings disintegrated, Mizuki Han used his final remaining chakra to condense a small platform of ice beneath his feet. Utilizing the recoil from the impact, he shot through the forcibly opened gap like a cannonball, carrying Haku with him.

Pfft—

A mouthful of blood he could no longer suppress sprayed from Mizuki Han's lips, scattering into a mist in the air.

The chakra within his body was completely exhausted at this moment.

His body, too, had truly reached its limit.

But they had made it out!

They broke through the layered curtain of death, composed of fire, thick smoke, rubble, and darkness.

A cold night breeze, carrying the scent of blood and gunpowder, blew against their faces.

Before them, the view suddenly opened up.

It was the vast, boundless night sky—something that could never be seen from deep underground.

A crescent moon hung high in the heavens, stained a ghostly crimson by the thick, ever-present blood-red mist of the village.

They were out.

From that sunless hell on earth, they had returned to this wider, yet even more cruel, world.

Mizuki Han weakly flapped his newly reformed, yet tattered and broken, ice wings, hovering with Haku nearly a hundred meters above the ground.

He looked down, surveying the masterpiece he had created with a cold, god-like detachment.

Centered on the Anbu headquarters, an area nearly a kilometer in radius had been completely reduced to burning ruins. The massive crater looked like an ugly, bottomless scar on the earth, still belching black smoke and flames.

Countless Mist Village ninja scurried about the ruins like ants from a disturbed nest, panicking and scrambling to assemble.

The shrill sound of alarms echoed throughout the Village of the Bloody Mist.

The entire village had fallen into extreme chaos due to this sudden, unprecedented catastrophe.

"Success..."

Mizuki Han's lips parted slightly to utter the word.

There was not a hint of joy on his face.

Because he knew that escaping the underground was merely the beginning.

Now that they were back on the surface, what was the situation in the Mist Village? And how would the high-ranking officials react to this earth-shattering explosion?