With the current's help, Anyo successfully shook off his pursuers, but a new crisis followed. The backflow of the underground river engulfed him with tremendous force, and an impossible-to-ignore chill immediately swept through his body. He felt as though he had fallen into an enormous ice cavern, struggling desperately while enduring the immense water pressure.
Anyo was now just like a drowning man, unable to breathe at all. His face flushed crimson, but he gritted his teeth and desperately held on. If he opened his mouth, a flood of water would displace the air in his lungs, and suffocation would kill him immediately.
Meanwhile, large amounts of water slowly spread from his chest toward his limbs, soon reaching his entire body. His Anbu mask had long since been swept away by the current.
No, I can't let this go on.
Anyo mustered his chakra and channeled it into the Short Sword, swinging upward with all his strength using his strongest Blade-Breaking Technique.
The powerful strike cleaved the surrounding river water in two, carving out a nearly vacuum-like space. Anyo gulped down two breaths before the river engulfed him again. The current grew even fiercer, and a suction force even rose from the riverbed.
Anyo focused his gaze downward and saw patches of pitch-black shadow along the riverbed, their depths unfathomable as they stretched into the distance.
These were undercurrents along the riverbed.
The undercurrents were immensely powerful, and the water flowed swiftly. Anything that fell into them would be swept away by the tremendous tearing force, with no telling where it might end up.
Knowing the consequences, Anyo desperately resisted that force. But moving was already difficult in water, and faced with this mighty force of nature, Anyo, who had just used the Blade-Breaking Technique, could only resist for a