The Final Flying Dagger

Sure enough, just as Tugang finished speaking,

a hemispherical ball of earth suddenly appeared around Ye Yuexin, trapping him inside.

While speaking to Ye Yuexin, Tugang had already been forming Hand Seals with the hand behind his back.

After sustaining such severe injuries, Ye Yuexin's senses had grown weak. He hadn't detected the chakra gathering in the earth around him at all.

And just like that, he'd fallen straight into Tugang's trap.

Tugang couldn't guess what condition Ye Yuexin was in, so to make absolutely sure, he'd used a wide-range ninjutsu that could trap someone.

Though he was an elite Jonin, his chakra was nearly depleted by now.

That was because this ninjutsu wasn't as simple as it looked.

Ye Yuexin could feel it inside the earth sphere, too.

The earth surrounding him was constantly absorbing his chakra.

That made his already dwindling chakra run even lower.

At this rate, even the chakra he was using to plug the small blood vessels would be drained away.

His wounds wouldn't clot so quickly.

Then he'd be doomed.

Enduring the pain, Ye Yuexin slowly made his way to the earthen wall.

He forced some chakra out of his body and channeled it into his short blade.

Transparent wind began to swirl around the blade again.

Ye Yuexin put all the strength he had left into striking the earthen wall.

"Clang!" A crisp ring sounded.

To his surprise, the wall didn't change at all.

After all, Ye Yuexin had reinforced his short blade with Wind Release chakra.

And because he'd used too much force, his lower abdomen started bleeding again, making his injuries even worse.

What Ye Yuexin hadn't expected was that the earth sphere was also lined with a layer of earth-nature chakra.

Looking at the size of the sphere, Ye Yuexin finally gained a rough sense of how much chakra an elite Jonin had.

It wasn't even close to something he could compare with.

As time passed, Ye Yuexin grew weaker and weaker.

With no way out, he felt that this time he was doomed.

But he truly couldn't bear to die just like this.

The space inside the sphere was utterly silent.

Ye Yuexin could even hear the blood seeping from his abdominal wound and dripping onto the ground, drop by drop.

This had to be the most terrifying thing in the world.

Listening to the sound of his own blood dripping was like listening to death approach.

The loss of blood had already begun to make Ye Yuexin feel cold.

And his chakra was about to be completely drained.

Countless memories from his previous life drifted through his mind like passing clouds.

Then, the image of his deadbeat father from this life slowly grew clear.

Ye Yuexin had always felt that he still owed his father a sound beating; otherwise, he had nowhere to vent all the hardship he'd endured over the past few years.

His father hadn't done a single thing a father was supposed to do.

Next, he remembered Anko. He'd promised to take her on a trip to the Land of Hot Water.

But he'd put it off just because he wanted to save a little more money. He felt he'd been a bit too stingy back then.

Then came Kurenai Yuhi. Ye Yuexin felt a little ashamed when he thought of her.

She'd remembered his childhood promise all this time, and seemed to have taken him at his word.

Everything passed through his mind, and he began to feel tired.

Ye Yuexin slowly closed his eyes, feeling sleepy.

Then the darkness around him was suddenly filled with countless white specks of light.

Ye Yuexin recognized these specks very well.

Last time, they had helped him reach mastery of his footwork.

But now, it seemed that footwork alone...

Ye Yuexin's eyes flew open.

He seemed to remember that these specks could be absorbed into the body, just like chakra.

And after absorbing them, his footwork had undergone something like an evolution, allowing him to transform into wind.

Ye Yuexin instinctively felt that these specks were a kind of energy.

And it had to be an energy even more powerful than chakra, like the spiritual energy in a novel.

So an idea suddenly came to him.

Without hesitation, Ye Yuexin immediately put it into practice.

He had no time left to waste.

With his Flying Dagger Mode barely holding on, the tiny points of light in the surrounding air quickly streamed into the flying dagger in Ye Yuexin's hand.

Controlling them took far too much concentration. Ye Yuexin's Flying Dagger Mode nearly collapsed.

Sweat was already beading across his forehead, and his head felt ready to explode.

Both his body and mind were injured now.

Time ticked by, and about a minute passed.

Just as his body was about to give out, a flying dagger radiating white specks finally took shape, no longer showing any sign of coming apart.

Using the last of his willpower, Ye Yuexin expanded his Flying Dagger Mode to its maximum range.

A blurry figure appeared in Ye Yuexin's mind. It was Tugang's chakra.

"Aah!!"

With a furious roar, Ye Yuexin used every last bit of strength he had to send the flying dagger shooting out.

This was no longer an ordinary flying dagger.

It carried Ye Yuexin's hope. It carried his life.

At that moment, Ye Yuexin had staked everything on this single dagger.

The flying dagger was no longer invisible.

A streak of white light burst through the darkness inside the earth sphere, piercing the earthen wall like a meteor flashing with Inch Glow.

The earthen wall was directly connected to Tugang.

The moment the flying dagger broke through the earth sphere, he sensed it.

But before he could even manage a look of surprise, the white light had already passed through his neck.

It was as if time had stopped.

A few seconds later, Tugang's body finally toppled heavily to the ground.

No other expression had appeared on his face. That was what happened when someone's life was extinguished in an instant.

The earth sphere began to slowly crack apart, and Ye Yuexin lay on the ground.

He hadn't passed out immediately only because he'd wanted to hold on long enough to see what happened to Tugang.

When he saw Tugang lying motionless, Ye Yuexin smiled.

It seemed he'd beaten the Grim Reaper once again.

Now all he had to do was wait for Might Guy and the others to arrive with the rescue team.

When he got back, Ye Yuexin felt that he should just stick to D-rank missions.

He wondered if D-rank missions had started up again.

From where he stood now, D-rank missions seemed pretty great. Why had he been so picky before?

Everything he'd gone through had come from taking missions that forced him to fight elite Jonin head-on.

Thinking about it now, D-rank missions really did seem better.

At least they weren't life-threatening.

Unlike his missions, where he kept running into elite Jonin—and each one was stronger than the last.

Next time, it might even be someone on the level of a Kage.

How could that not scare him?

This time, he'd truly realized the gap between himself and an elite Jonin. And that was without even considering someone on the level of a Kage.

"Ugh!" Ye Yuexin suddenly groaned in pain.

He didn't even have the strength to shout anymore.

A kunai had stabbed into his thigh.

Only then did Ye Yuexin remember that there was still a Chunin left to deal with.

His spirits plummeted straight back into the depths of despair.

His Flying Dagger Mode had already collapsed, so he hadn't noticed that someone was still hiding nearby.

When Tugang had fallen, the Chunin had been completely stunned.

He'd witnessed a little kid take down an elite Jonin who was famous throughout the Rock Ninja.

The sight had seemed so impossible that he'd thought his eyes were deceiving him.

But once he came to his senses, he saw that Tugang really had fallen. The Chunin was so frightened that he wet himself.

Then he noticed that Ye Yuexin had fallen, too.

The Chunin had wanted to run away at once, but when he saw the pool of blood beneath Ye Yuexin, he stopped.

The blood flowing from beneath him made it clear how badly Ye Yuexin was hurt.

But the Chunin still didn't dare approach. Ye Yuexin had been badly injured before, too, yet he'd still managed to kill Tugang.

So the Chunin decided to test him with a kunai first.

He was so nervous that the kunai missed Ye Yuexin's heart and struck his thigh instead.

Only after seeing that Ye Yuexin couldn't even dodge did the Chunin finally relax.

"Do you know how valuable your life is right now? Hahaha! If I take you out this time, I'll never have to suffer on this border again. Ahahahaha!"

As if trying to work up his courage, the Chunin laughed wildly as he walked toward Ye Yuexin.

By then, Ye Yuexin's vision was already blurring. Then everything went black, and he lost consciousness without feeling a thing. I'll leave it to fate...