Meridians Reshaped to Heal Fatal Wounds, Cruel Tutelage Establishes Hierarchy

A foul wind, thick as the corpse of a colossal beast left to rot for months and mixed with the filth of a sewer, assailed them, almost strong enough to make one lose consciousness. In the darkness, several pairs of eerie green eyes, like will-o'-the-wisps, leaped and locked onto the only two living beings in the passage.

Haku's small face instantly turned deathly pale. She instinctively clutched Mizuki Han's clothes, her teeth chattering. This was not the aura of a ninja, but a more primal, more chaotic hunger of a beast.

Mizuki Han's reaction was the opposite. Instead of retreating, he gently pushed Haku back and stepped half a pace forward, shielding her. His body was still weak, the pain in his chest a constant companion, but his eyes, at this moment, shone with astonishing brilliance, like two obsidian stones, perfectly polished, reflecting the few points of eerie green light opposite them.

"Screeeech—"

Accompanied by a piercing shriek, the monsters in the darkness finally revealed their true forms. They were three giant rats, each the size of an adult dog, but their appearance had long since transcended the bounds of normal creatures. Their fur was patchy and falling off, revealing dark red muscle tissue beneath. Twisted bone spurs grew from their backs, and corrosive saliva dripped from their mouths, sizzling and burning white smoke from the ground.

Mutated experimental subjects, or perhaps contaminated organisms. Either way, they considered this place their lair, and any intruder was food.

"Roar!"

One of the largest mutated rats suddenly exerted force with its hind legs, transforming into a black shadow that lunged towards Mizuki Han's throat with a foul wind. Its speed was extreme, its claws slicing through the air, leaving several cold glints. An ordinary genin would likely not even have time to react to such a surprise attack.

Haku's heart felt as if it would leap out of her throat, and she instinctively closed her eyes.

However, Mizuki Han didn't move at all.

He simply raised his right hand, fingers spread, and gently clenched them towards the charging black shadow.

No hand seals.

No violent fluctuations of chakra.

Not even a single superfluous movement.

"Crack—!"

A crisp, utterly sharp cracking sound echoed abruptly in the empty passage.

The giant mutated rat, mid-leap, froze as if its body had been put on pause. A layer of frost, visible to the naked eye, spread rapidly from its head to its entire body in a tenth of a second! Its eyes, which had been flashing with savage green light, instantly froze into two lifeless glass beads.

The next instant, Mizuki Han's fingers tightened abruptly.

"Bang!"

The massive ice sculpture exploded in mid-air, shattering into countless crystalline ice shards, mixed with dark red flesh and blood, which rained down upon them. The nauseating stench was instantly sealed by the extreme cold.

One strike, instant kill.

Clean, neat, even possessing a cruel artistic sense.

The remaining two mutated rats stiffened, terrified by the bloody and bizarre scene. Their beastly instincts made them feel an unprecedented fear. They wanted to retreat, to flee back into the depths of the darkness.

But Mizuki Han would not give them the chance.

His gaze was icy. He brought his left index and middle fingers together and lightly drew them across the ground.

"Thwack! Thwack!"

Two incredibly sharp ice spikes erupted from the slippery ground without warning, piercing through the jaws of the two mutated rats at an incredibly tricky angle and emerging from the tops of their heads!

The two monsters couldn't even let out a scream before they were pinned firmly in place, their bodies still twitching slightly from nerve reflexes, their green eyes rapidly dimming.

The entire battle, from start to finish, lasted no more than three breaths.

Mizuki Han hadn't even moved an inch.

This was the control brought by intermediate Ice Release. No more cumbersome hand seals, no more vast amounts of chakra to support forms; as soon as the thought arose, the ice blade formed. This was a qualitative leap.

A deathly silence returned to the passage, broken only by the sound of dripping water.

Haku slowly opened her eyes and saw a hellish scene. Three monster corpses impaled by ice spikes, and the figure of the slender youth standing amidst them, like a demon god.

On her small face, besides fear, there was a sense of indescribable shock and awe.

Mizuki Han slowly exhaled a breath of mist. The instantaneous ninjutsu had almost completely depleted the trace amount of chakra he had just recovered. A tearing pain pulsed from his chest wound, reminding him that his body was still on the verge of collapse.

He could feel that under the system's high-purity gene repair, his dried-up meridians were like being re-cast with ice and snow, becoming more resilient and wider. The broken muscle fibers and alveolar tissues were forcibly bonded and stimulated by countless tiny ice crystals. A thin layer of ice scab had already formed on the wound, stopping the bleeding.

This was a brutal method of repair, trading destruction for survival. Although it had pulled him back from the brink of death, the side effects were equally obvious—his body was transforming into something non-human, closer to the substance of "ice."

He turned around and looked at Haku, whose small face was pale from lingering fear, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly.

He walked up to her and looked down at her.

"What are you afraid of?" His voice was cold, devoid of any inflection.

"I... I..." Haku was flustered by his icy gaze.

"Afraid of those monsters? Or afraid of me?" Mizuki Han's lips curved into a cruel arc. He reached out, dipped his fingertip into the frost condensed on the monster's corpse, and gently smeared it on Haku's lips.

The bone-chilling cold made Haku tremble.

"Remember this feeling," Mizuki Han's voice seemed to resonate directly in her soul. "Fear is the privilege of the weak. In this place, you do not have that privilege. Your tears, your fear, are useless except to hasten your death."

He paused, his gaze deepening, an absolute control of a superior over his possessions.

"You only need to do one thing: obey all my commands. Your life is mine, so you cannot die before I do. Understand?"

These words made Haku's heart pound more than any monster. She looked at the youth before her and, for the first time, clearly understood that they were no longer simply of the same clan, but absolute master and subordinate, with no room for doubt.

She nodded vigorously, swallowing all her fear and tears.

"Very good."

Mizuki Han withdrew his hand, turned, and continued walking deeper into the underground river.

The presence of mutated creatures here meant they were far beyond the regular patrol zones of the Anbu, but it also meant that unknown dangers were far more prevalent. His current physical state did not allow for any high-intensity combat.

He needed an absolutely safe sanctuary to fully recover from his injuries, and then... plot his next move.

The two walked along the winding underground river for nearly another hour. Mizuki Han's stamina had been pushed to its absolute limit; with every step, the wound on his chest felt as if it were being seared by a branding iron. His face was as pale as a sheet, and his lips had begun to turn blue.

Just as he felt he could no longer hold on, a deep, dark opening appeared around a bend in the underground river.

It was an abandoned karst cave carved out by the water flow. The entrance was concealed, surrounded by slick moss and strangely shaped stalactites, making it an excellent place to hide.

Mizuki Han's spirits lifted, and he dragged Haku inside with great difficulty.

The interior of the cave was much drier than the outside and quite spacious, large enough to accommodate over a dozen people.

After confirming there were no other living creatures, Mizuki Han's tightly coiled nerves finally relaxed. He leaned his back against the cold stone wall and slowly slid to the ground, gasping for air.

A sense of physical weakness surged over him like a tide, making even the effort of lifting a finger feel exhausting.

He had survived.

From the death row cell to Kisame's pursuit, and then to the nest of mutated monsters, he had exhausted every ounce of his cunning and every hidden card he possessed to finally earn this brief moment of peace.

Yet, in Mizuki Han's eyes, there was not a trace of relief at having escaped death, only a cold, silent stillness.

He glanced at Haku, who was curled up not far away, watching him with eyes full of worry and a hint of fear, then looked at his own empty hands and the pitiful few ninja tools he had left.

Food, medicine, weapons... they had nothing.

Hiding here, they could at most linger on for a few days before starving to death, or being crushed like insects by the returning Anbu search teams.

A ruthless mastermind never leaves his fate to luck.

In a desperate situation, retreating meant death; only by advancing instead of retreating could one find a glimmer of survival!

Mizuki Han's gaze pierced through the darkness of the cave, as if he could see those Anbu who were currently slaughtering at will in the tunnels above and below, believing themselves to be the hunters.

A mad and vicious plan quietly took shape in his mind.

He licked his cracked lips, his eyes gleaming with the light of a beast.

So what if he was unarmed?

He would make those fully armed "hunters" realize that in this dark underground world, the real hunting game had only just begun!