Poison Mist Counterkill! A Hundred-Man Slaughter Through the Base!

"Brother Abyss!" Sasuke looked at that killing-intent-filled back and hurriedly jumped down from the steps. "The Hokage Building is the village's central core! No matter how strong you are, if you force your way in alone, you'll be surrounded by the Anbu. At least let me go with you!"

Abyss stopped and glanced back at Sasuke. The cold light in those Mangekyo Sharingan forced the rest of Sasuke's words back down his throat.

"If you follow me, you'll only get in the way." Abyss's tone left no room for mercy. "Besides, I've changed my mind. Before I go see Tsunade, I need to prepare a little greeting gift. That old dog Danzo may have run, but the kennels and hidden stakes he left underground in the Hidden Leaf—I'm cleaning every last one of them out today!"

"But..."

"No buts. Stay here and guard the house. Other than me, no matter who comes near—even if that old Third geezer comes back from the dead—kill them on sight. Can you do that?"

Sasuke clenched his teeth and nodded hard.

Abyss laughed. This idiot.

Abyss said no more. His long black trench coat snapped up in the autumn wind, and his whole body turned into a black shadow, vanishing on the spot.

In the northwest corner of the Hidden Leaf Village lay a dead, silent forest that had been abandoned for years. Normally, not even birds came here. Several lines of wire mesh that should have rotted away long ago surrounded the perimeter, with wooden signs hanging from them that read "Danger: Restricted Area." But in Abyss's Sharingan, the chakra flowing beneath this area was as dense as a hornet's nest.

That was the entrance to Root's underground base.

Two Root chunin wearing featureless masks were crouched in a dead tree, keeping watch. Before they could even see who had come, the tree trunk suddenly shook violently.

"Who goes there!"

One of them had just reached for the ninja blade at his lower back when his vision suddenly went black. The sole of Abyss's boot stomped solidly onto his face. The crack of splitting bone was chillingly crisp. The chunin did not even get out a groan before his head was crushed straight into the tree trunk.

The other man was so frightened he immediately formed hand seals to send a signal, but Abyss drew the short blade Sasuke had given him from behind his back with a reverse grip. The blade flashed, cutting off the man's wrist. Then Abyss kicked him in the chest.

Bang! The chunin's whole body flew backward, smashing like a broken sandbag into the alloy door disguised as a rock wall ahead. The muffled sound of his organs rupturing could be heard from far away.

Abyss stepped over bloodstained dead leaves and walked, step by step, to the alloy door that was a full half meter thick. He did not even look at the combination lock on the door. The Kage-level chakra inside him surged toward his right leg like a raging tide.

"Open up!"

Abyss roared, and his right foot kicked hard into the very center of the door.

Boom—

With a thunderous crash, the ground throughout the entire forest shook three times. That specially made alloy door, which was said to be impossible to blow through even with explosive tags, was forcibly kicked inward, leaving a huge dent in the middle. Immediately afterward, the thick steel bars connecting it to the frame let out a tooth-aching tearing sound. The two doors broke straight off their tracks and flew crashing into the base with terrifying force!

"Enemy attack!"

Inside the spacious underground hall beyond the door, several unlucky bastards had just been crushed to pieces on the spot by the doors flying in. A piercing alarm instantly resounded throughout the entire underground space.

Abyss sneered and stepped over the threshold. Looking ahead, he saw dense black figures surging out of the dim underground passage like locusts. They held all kinds of ninja tools in their hands, and judging by their numbers, there were at least three hundred of them. They were all deathsworn that Danzo had raised underground over the years.

"Good, good. Saves me the trouble of finding you one by one!"

Abyss directly bit the blade between his teeth, his hands moving so fast they left afterimages. Abyss did not form hand seals. Instead, he pulled two long strings of sealing scrolls already covered in talismans from his ninja tool pouch. With a hard tug, explosive tags scattered toward the depths of the passage like snowflakes.

A full thousand of them!

The dozen or so Anbu charging at the front changed expression drastically and hurriedly tried to retreat, but the people behind them were desperately pushing forward.

"Explode!"

The deafening explosions echoed nonstop through the sealed underground space. Enormous flames mixed with thick smoke, instantly devouring the first line of defense. The shockwaves blasted rocks from the ceiling, sending them crashing down chunk by chunk, while severed limbs flew everywhere with a rain of blood. With just that, at least a hundred Root ninjas were left without even intact corpses.

The berserk value in his mind jumped madly, the numbers on the panel soaring all the way up.

Before the gunpowder smoke had dispersed, Abyss had already gripped the short blade and charged into the crowd. He gave up on defense completely. Relying on taijutsu honed to the absolute limit, he crushed through the mass of people like a harvester. His hand rose and the blade fell, sending an Anbu's head flying; with a backhand stab, he pierced another man's heart.

Blood splashed across Abyss's face, but he did not even blink. He even felt the blood throughout his body growing hot.

"Kill him! He's only one man!" From the rear of the crowd, an assassination squad captain wearing a serpent mask roared hoarsely. His hands formed a complex seal, and he opened his mouth, spewing out a great cloud of purple mist.

"Water Release: Poison Mist Wave!"

The dense purple mist instantly filled the hall. This poison would rot the skin with just a touch, and a single breath of it could turn a person's lungs into bloody water. A few Anbu on their own side who retreated too slowly touched the poison mist and immediately rolled on the ground in agony, their screams making one's scalp go numb.

Abyss did not retreat.

A burning pain shot through his lungs. But the madness spinning in his eye sockets immediately saw through the chakra composition of the poison mist. His vast mental power instantly forced the poison that had entered his body into a corner, preventing it from spreading at all.

"With this tiny dose, who do you think you can poison to death?"

Abyss's voice rang out behind the poison-nin captain like a ghost.

The captain whipped his head around, only to be met head-on by a blood-covered hand. Abyss grabbed him by the throat, lifted him clean off the ground, and smashed him viciously into the stone pillar beside them.

"Cough, cough..." The captain struggled desperately, stabbing wildly at Abyss's arm with kunai in both hands, but he only tore through the clothing. He could not pierce that layer of violent chakra shield at all.

"You like playing with poison, huh?" Abyss grinned, showing bloodstained teeth. "I'll let you play all you want."

He clenched his left fist and punched the captain's right knee. With a crack, the entire lower leg bent backward at a bizarre angle. Before the captain could scream, Abyss threw another punch and crippled his left hand. Then Abyss forcibly tore off the captain's mask and pressed his head into the thick pool of purple poison water on the ground.

The shrill screams echoed through the poison mist for less than five seconds before turning into muffled noises, then finally falling completely silent.

This brutal method utterly shattered the so-called "emotion-erasure" training of the remaining Root ninjas. Dozens of surviving Anbu began to tremble, and some even dropped their blades and ran toward the entrance to the second underground level.

"Run? You're all dying today!"

Abyss stepped through the blood-soaked mire covering the ground and continued slaughtering his way inward with his blade. The entire first level had completely become a slaughterhouse.

[Ding! Killed Root chunin ×15! Gained green fragments ×150!]

[Ding! Killed Root assassination squad captain (special jonin) ×1! Gained blue fragments ×20! Public torture-kill critical hit, drops doubled!]

"Exchange for his poison chakra." This man's chakra was rather interesting. I'll take it for a spin.

The system notification in his mind kept ringing.

Abyss flicked the blood from his blade, stepped over the bodies littering the ground, and walked to the stairway entrance leading to the second underground level. Other than the smells of burning and blood, there was not a single breathing thing around him.

Just then, from the dark passage below came the sound of orderly, heavy footsteps.

Leading them were a man and a woman in gray robes. Behind them followed a full fifty heavily armed elite jonin whose chakra fluctuations far surpassed those small fry from earlier.

The female ninja wearing half a fox mask sneered and hoisted a fuma shuriken onto her shoulder. "You think this handful of people can block my path?"