Freezing Wounds for Disguise, Hiding in Chaos with Killing Intent

The night wind at high altitude was bone-chillingly cold, carrying the heavy scent of gunpowder and blood as it rushed frantically into his lungs.

The hideous wings made of ice crystals behind Mizuki Han were emitting a groaning sound of unbearable strain under the overload. At the edges of the wingspan, shards of Ice Blade as thin as razors were constantly peeling off and shattering, turning into fine ice dust that dissipated beneath the scarlet night sky.

His chakra was completely exhausted.

The meridians in his body felt as if they were being repeatedly pierced by countless red-hot steel needles. Every heartbeat brought a wave of tearing pain, especially from his forcibly abandoned left arm; the agony at the stump gnawed at his nerves like a maggot in the bone.

Haku, held in his arms, had a face as pale as a sheet. She gripped his tattered lapels tightly. Due to the high-speed ascent and violent turbulence, her consciousness was drifting, and she could only instinctively entrust everything she had to this boy who had just brought her out of hell.

"Pfft—"

A mouthful of blood, no longer suppressible, sprayed from Mizuki Han's mouth.

The ice wings shuddered violently in the air, losing the support of his final chakra, and began to disintegrate rapidly in an irreversible trend.

Must land immediately!

Mizuki Han's gaze, like a falcon circling in the sky, swept calmly and sharply over the area below, which had already turned into a living hell.

He could not land in an open area; that would be equivalent to exposing himself to the sight of every Mist Anbu.

He could not land in the crowd; the chaotic civilians would become the greatest obstacle.

His gaze finally locked onto the edge of the ruins, a deep and narrow shadowed alley formed by the compression of two half-collapsed residential houses. That was a dead zone of light and fire, an isolated island amidst the chaos.

Without the slightest hesitation, Mizuki Han used his last bit of strength to adjust the remaining angle of his ice wings. Like a falling falcon, he carried Haku and glided precisely toward the target in a posture of a near-vertical dive.

"Bang!"

A dull thud echoed.

The two of them slammed heavily onto a pile of trash deep in the alley. Just before landing, Mizuki Han forcibly twisted his body, using his intact back to take the brunt of the impact.

"Urgh..."

The violent shock agitated every wound on his body. A sweetness rose in his throat, and another mouthful of blood surged up, but he just bit his teeth together and forcibly swallowed the bloody taste back down.

"Cough... cough cough..." Haku was shaken until she was dizzy and began to cough violently, but thanks to Mizuki Han's protection, she had not suffered any substantial harm.

Mizuki Han ignored her. He struggled to crawl up from the foul-smelling trash heap and leaned against the damp, cold wall, gasping for air.

His complexion was even paler than the wall. The wound on his chest, pierced by the Kisame Water Blade, had ruptured again due to the violent movement. Warm blood was constantly seeping out from under his tattered clothes, staining his front even deeper. At the site of his severed arm, blood was flowing like a fountain.

If this continued, he would die from blood loss long before the Mist Anbu found him.

Mizuki Han's gaze was cold, without a ripple. He raised his only intact right hand and covered the wound on his chest.

There was no flow of chakra, not even a glimmer of light.

But he pushed his understanding of the Ice Release bloodline limit and the most primal ice-attribute power remaining in his body to the extreme.

The next second, an indescribable, extreme cold erupted from within his palm.

"Hiss..."

He could clearly feel that inside his mangled wound, countless ice crystals, too fine for the naked eye to see, were rapidly condensing. They acted like the most precise scalpels and sutures, accurately sealing the ruptured blood vessels and forcibly freezing the blood flow.

The excruciating pain was far more intense than when he had been pierced by the blade. It was a torture that reached the bone marrow, as his flesh and blood were frozen alive.

Mizuki Han's body trembled violently from the agony, and his forehead was instantly covered in cold sweat, but he didn't make a sound. He just bit his teeth hard, spreading this icy power to every bleeding wound on his body.

A few seconds later, he let go.

The bleeding had stopped.

The wounds were completely sealed from the inside by a thin layer of hard ice with a faint blue luster. This was a method of drinking poison to quench thirst; the ice crystals would continuously damage his cellular tissue, but at the very least, it had bought him precious time.

After doing all this, he seemed to have exhausted all his strength, leaning against the wall and slowly sliding down to the ground.

"Han... Brother Han, you..." Haku finally recovered from her shock. Seeing Mizuki Han's pale face and those hideous wounds, her eyes were filled with fear and worry.

Mizuki Han did not answer her; his gaze had already turned to the deeper part of the alley.

There, some debris overturned by the earthquake was piled up. Beneath the debris lay two bodies that had already gone cold. A man and a woman; judging by their attire, they were ordinary civilians who had lost their lives to the collapsing walls the moment the disaster struck.

"Luck is not bad," Mizuki Han whispered to himself, his voice as hoarse as sandpaper rubbing together.

He struggled to stand up and walked toward the two bodies.

Haku did not understand what he was going to do and could only stumble along behind him.

Mizuki Han walked to the bodies, squatted down, and began to unbutton the relatively intact coarse cloth jacket on the male corpse with an expressionless face. His movements were calm and practiced, without the slightest hesitation or discomfort, as if he were not facing a life that had once been vibrant, but merely a tool that could be utilized.

"Ugh..."

Seeing this scene, Haku could no longer hold it back and covered her mouth, retching. The tragic state of death, combined with Mizuki Han's cold-to-the-extreme behavior, made her feel a trembling and discomfort from the bottom of her heart.

Mizuki Han's movements paused for a moment.

He slowly turned his head, his pitch-black eyes appearing exceptionally deep in the shadows.

"Do you want to wear these blood-stained clothes and tell every Mist Anbu who sees us that we are the culprits who killed our way out from underground?"

His voice was not loud, but it was like a basin of ice water poured over Haku's head, making her stop retching instantly, leaving only an uncontrollable trembling.

Mizuki Han stopped looking at her. He quickly stripped the clothes off the corpse and threw the coarse cloth jacket, still carrying the lingering warmth of the body and the scent of dust, in front of Haku.

"Put it on."

Only two words.

Cold, brief, and unquestionable.

Tears welled up in Haku's eyes. She looked at the filthy garment on the ground, then at Mizuki Han's emotionless profile, and finally yielded. Biting her lip, she turned away and, with trembling hands, quickly changed into the clothes that did not belong to her.

Mizuki Han also changed into a grey coat stripped from a corpse, riddled with holes. The oversized garment perfectly concealed the wound where his arm had been severed, as well as most of the blood on his body.

Not satisfied yet, he grabbed a handful of dust from the ground and smeared it haphazardly over his own face and hair, and Haku's as well.

In an instant, the blood-drenched, murderous youth and the delicate, lovely little girl vanished. In their place stood a pale-faced older brother who had lost an arm in the disaster, and a terrified, disheveled younger sister.

This was the perfect disguise.

"Move."

Mizuki Han grabbed Haku's cold little hand. His own palm was equally icy, yet it held an irresistible strength.

He pulled Haku along, stepping cautiously out of the dark alleyway.

The scene outside was even more harrowing than it had appeared from high above.

Soaring flames illuminated the night sky of the Village of the Bloody Mist as if it were broad daylight. The streets were filled with panicked civilians fleeing in every direction. Heart-wrenching screams, the roar of collapsing buildings, and the loud, barking orders of the Anbu ninjas wove together into a chaotic symphony of the apocalypse.

The air was thick with the pungent smell of burning, blood, and dust, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

Mizuki Han pulled Haku along, head bowed, and merged into the tide of fleeing people.

He did not scream or run in a panic like the others; his pace was not fast, even carrying a slight stagger due to his injuries. He simply used those terrifyingly calm eyes to observe everything around him.

He observed the flow of the crowd, the patrol routes of the Anbu ninjas, and the makeshift security lines.

He was like a drop of water, silently blending into the torrent called "chaos," using the panic and flight of everyone around him as his best cover.

Just then, an even greater commotion erupted from ahead.

The crowd seemed to be blocked by an invisible wall, beginning to push and retreat to both sides.

"Everyone stop! No running!"

"Gather at the Central Plaza! Prepare for screening!"

Dozens of Mist Anbu formed a human wall, forcibly intercepting the fleeing civilians and roughly driving them toward the plaza in the center of the village.

Mizuki Han's heart sank slightly.

Screening?

He pulled Haku along, passively retreating with the flow of people, but his gaze pierced through the gaps in the crowd toward the area behind the Anbu.

Suddenly, a figure radiating a powerful chakra fluctuation landed like a ghost atop a tall water tower nearby.

The person wore a special mask, distinct from the ordinary Anbu, painted with blue fangs. He simply stood there in silence, and a cold, tyrannical aura enveloped the entire block, causing everyone's cries to involuntarily quiet down.

It was an Anbu squad leader-level powerhouse!

"Pass on my orders!"

The squad leader's voice, amplified by chakra, rolled like thunder, clearly reaching everyone's ears with unquestionable iron-blooded cruelty.

"The entire village is on the highest level of alert! Seal all ports and thoroughfares! No one is permitted to enter or leave without authorization!"

"Activate the village-wide 'Bloodline Detection Barrier'! Conduct mandatory screening of all civilians!"

"Dig three feet into the ground if you have to, but drag those two rats who crawled out from underground out here for me!!"

"Boom!"

That final sentence struck Mizuki Han's mind like a bolt of lightning.

A village-wide Bloodline Detection Barrier?

He instinctively looked up at the figure on the water tower, who stood like a grim reaper. The crimson moonlight reflected deep within his pitch-black pupils, flickering with a cold light.

He had overturned the chessboard himself, liberating himself from that narrow death cell.

Yet, he had not expected the enemy's reaction to be this swift; in the blink of an eye, they had turned the entire Village of the Mist into a larger, more heavily guarded, and even more lethal... giant cage!