The two piercing static beeps from the walkie-talkie slowly faded away in the empty basement.
The hissing sound of liquid nitrogen jets from the pipeline broke the silence.
Five minutes later.
Clang.
From the elevator shaft not far away, came the muffled sound of steel cables being stretched taut.
The heavy iron gate slid upwards.
Might Duy stepped out of the elevator.
Wearing a signature green bodysuit and orange leggings.
In this deep laboratory filled with cold metal, lead plates, and white mist, this outfit stood out like an oddity.
He stepped through the cold mist that reached above his ankles.
The military boots landed on the lead plate with a dull thud.
Might Duy stopped.
He looked up.
Their gazes met that three-story-tall black Chakra nuclear bomb.
The massive manganese steel projectile pointed straight at the dome. Dark purple sealing runes flowed eerily through the gaps.
The oppressive feeling was like a solid iron wall slamming into my face.
Dai swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently.
My calves feel a little numb. I clench both hands into fists and place them on either side of my trouser seams.
He wasn't afraid. It was the body's most instinctive physiological alarm when faced with a destructive force.
He forced down his spine.
He turned around and strode up to Shu Shiraishi.
His heel slammed heavily against the ground. Thud
stand at attention.
" Lord Hokage, Chief Taijutsu Instructor Might Duy is reporting for duty."
His voice was so loud that it made the metal casing of the air conditioning unit next to him buzz.
Shu Shiraishi had his hands in the pockets of his black trench coat.
He gestured with his Tsunade toward the metal control panel near Tsunade.
"Past."
"Lie down."
Might Duy didn't ask why.
He walked to the operating table, which was a dissection table welded with thick channel steel.
The metal countertop was icy cold.
He used his legs to propel himself onto the platform and lay flat on his back.
Place your hands flat on either side of your body. Keep your back straight.
Tsunade walked over.
She was holding a specially made brass injection gun.
The gun barrel was as thick as a baby's arm. Inside it was a tube of cloning serum that emitted a ghostly green light.
She held the syringe gun up to her eyes.
I flicked my finger twice against the glass tube.
"Ding. Ding."
Push the metal lever behind it. A drop of viscous green liquid is squeezed out from the needle tip and falls to the ground.
"No anesthetic." Tsunade stood at the head of the bed.
The needle tip was aimed at Might Duy's right neck.
Youth doesn't need anesthesia.
He grinned, revealing his signature big white teeth.
But the muscles in his face were very tense, and his smile looked somewhat stiff.
Tsunade ignored this hot-blooded nonsense.
He pressed his left hand against Dai's forehead, turning his head sharply to the left.
Holding the gun in his right hand.
The needle was violently plunged into the carotid artery.
"Hiss."
The needle pierced the skin and flesh, then entered a blood vessel.
Tsunade used her thumb to press down hard on the push rod.
Most of the green recovery enzyme was instantly and forcibly injected into the pulsating artery.
The needle was pulled out, drawing a spurt of blood.
Blood splattered onto the metal sheet.
Tsunade immediately took two steps back and threw the injection gun into the pool.
Might Duy on the bed.
His body suddenly stiffened.
My heart skipped a beat for a second.
The second second.
The medicine circulated through the bloodstream, rushing into the heart and being pumped to every part of the body.
A violent cell proliferation reaction erupted.
"Ugh--!"
A wild, shrill roar erupted from Dai's chest.
He arched upwards like a fish out of water.
His back was suspended in the air, with the back of his head and heels pressed firmly against the metal bed.
The veins on his neck bulged instantly.
The originally bluish veins turned into a terrifying fluorescent green at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Green veins ran down his neck and spread wildly across his cheeks and forehead.
Twisted and swollen, like thick earthworms struggling beneath the skin.
pain.
This isn't the pain of being slashed or burned. It's the pain of being forcibly torn apart at the cellular level.
He gripped the edge of the dissection table tightly with both hands.
He exerted force with his fingers; his knuckles were deathly pale.
"Creak."
He painstakingly dug ten finger holes into the edge of the two-inch-thick sheet metal.
The fingernail broke off at the base. Fresh blood flowed down the metal sheet.
Orochimaru stood a meter away, holding a recording tablet.
His thin, yellowish eyes were wide open, fixed intently on Dai's physical changes.
"Heart rate spiked. 300 beats per minute."
Orochimaru's voice was hoarse as he frantically scribbled on the paper with his pen.
"Body temperature exceeds 50 degrees Celsius. Cell division rate is 80 times that of a normal person."
On a tin bed.
Dai's skin began to succumb to the expanding force within her body.
"Sizzle."
A two-inch-long gash opened up on his right arm.
Red muscle fibers and white fascia are directly exposed to the air.
But before the blood could even spurt out...
A faint green light flashed across the wound.
The granulation tissue surged and intertwined wildly.
In less than a fraction of a second, the wound closed completely, leaving not even a scar.
Immediately afterwards, the thigh ruptured. Then it healed.
The chest was split open. It healed.
Destruction and rebirth, repeatedly pulled in and out of each other in an extremely short moment.
The body was torn apart, then forcibly glued back together by the First of cloned cells.
The bones, stretched by the muscles, made a cracking, grinding sound as they struggled to keep up with the strain.
Dai was in so much pain that his whole body convulsed violently.
He clenched his teeth tightly.
"Crack."
One of his right molars was bitten so hard it was crushed.
The broken pieces of tooth punctured the lining of my mouth.
Saliva mixed with blood dripped down the corner of his mouth and onto his green bodysuit.
Shu Shiraishi stood two steps away.
The hem of the black trench coat remained perfectly still.
He watched silently as the struggle unfolded on the operating table.
These are the rampaging Hashirama Cells.
If an ordinary person got inside, they would have been blown to bits into a pile of rotten flesh long ago.
But Might Duy held on.
He's a perennial Genin pitifully little Chakra.
But he had practiced the Eight Gates Released Formation for decades.
That was Nintaijutsu that pushed him to the brink of death every day.
His muscle density. His bone density.
There are also the Chakra channels within his body that he cultivated to open the Eight Gates.
It became a perfect container.
It contained this chaotic and violent force.
The sweat on his body had just seeped out of his pores.
It was evaporated into white vapor by the high temperature on the body surface.
The whole person was shrouded in a white mist.
Orochimaru's hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold the pen.
" Lord Shu... the data has stabilized."
He swallowed hard.
"No branches of the Wood Release grew. The recovery enzyme and his muscle groups were completely integrated."
Shu Shiraishi didn't look at Orochimaru.
His gaze passed over the man smoking on the operating table.
Look further afield.
What he saw was an army.
The technology was successful.
This means that Konoha no longer needs to spend decades training a Jonin who is likely to die on the battlefield.
It does not require the Kekkei Genkai of a large family.
All we need to do is find a group of physically fit suicide squad members.
Ordinary people or orphans.
They used Taijutsu to toughen their bodies to the bone every day.
Then, give them an injection of this green medicine.
Konoha could mass-produce a group of monsters like an assembly line.
Fearless of pain, fearless of death, and able to regenerate severed limbs instantly.
They charged forward despite the fire from the Explosive Tag.
To escort the launch site of the Chakra nuclear missile. To flatten the enemy's strongest defenses.
These are the true war consumables. They are an immortal army.
What family background? What Ninjutsu lineage?
Compared to industrially mass-produced cloning agents, they are all worthless pieces of paper.
Time ticked by, second by second.
Five minutes.
The low-frequency rumble in the basement felt like an eternity.
The metal bed stopped shaking.
Might Duy's roar gradually subsided, turning into heavy panting.
He lay on the dented, uneven sheet metal.
His hands loosened weakly. The edges of the sheet metal were covered with sticky, bloody handprints.
The green aura on his body had completely faded.
The skin turned an unnatural dark red, like a red-hot branding iron.
His chest rose and fell smoothly and powerfully.
The air conditioning from the basement was blowing in.
It swept across his body.
Large plumes of high-temperature steam, visible to the naked eye, were billowing out of his pores.
It wasn't white sweat vapor.
It was a faint red steam, carrying a strong smell of blood.
Might Duy suddenly opened his eyes.
There was no trace of fatigue in his eyes, nor the weakness of someone who had just experienced life and death.
There were only two smoldering embers.
The whites of his eyes were covered with red blood vessels.
He didn't use his hands to support himself on the bed.
Suddenly exert force from the waist and abdomen.
He sat up straight off the operating table, as stiff as a board.
Clang.
The metal bed emitted a dull thud.
Dai sat on the edge of the bed.
He looked down at his hands, which were covered in blood.
The joints were large and swollen, filled with a throbbing, almost explosive pain.
He slowly clenched his fist.
Then it loosened.
The air between his fingers was squeezed and burst, producing a faint popping sound.
"Snap."
Red steam swirled around him.
His current body temperature is enough to instantly evaporate any raindrops that fall on him.
Shu Shiraishi looked at the completely transformed Might Duy.
He pulled his hands out of his trench coat pockets.
Raise your right hand.
Extend your index finger.
He pointed to an open space fifty meters away from the basement.
There stands a half-meter-thick manganese steel target used to test the strength of a nuclear bomb casing.
"Wear."
Shu Shiraishi's voice was calm, yet carried a harsh command.
" Gate of Opening."
"Let me see your current limit."