Abilities X Protective Space X Those Who Disobey

This time, there was no tremendous bang, no ground heaving upward, no shock that sent shattered stones flying.

The shadow beneath his feet rippled gently, and a toad nearly the size of an adult rose silently from it, landing at his feet.

It crouched there, its rough grayish-brown skin glistening darkly with moisture in the fading light. Its bulging eyes shifted slightly, and the ruizu mirror pattern on its belly was clearly visible.

Its posture was completely different from last time.

Gone were its instinctive aggression, its tensed hind-leg muscles, and its tongue poised to strike.

It simply crouched quietly at his feet.

Docile and obedient, it waited silently for its next command.

Jiang Ye looked at it, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

He couldn't help recalling the abilities of this Shikigami.

Each Shikigami in the Ten Shadows Technique had a different role and function.

The Divine Dogs were for scouting and close combat, Rabbit Escape provided cover and disruption through sheer numbers, while Toad's primary roles were ranged control and defense.

Its long tongue could shoot out several times farther than its normal body length, moving so quickly that an ordinary person could barely follow it with the naked eye.

Its surface was coated in a slippery secretion, making it extremely difficult to break free once caught.

It could wrap that tongue around an enemy's limbs, dragging them, swinging them around, or slamming them into the ground to restrict their movements.

It could even save people!

It could hook its summoner or a teammate and quickly pull them out of danger.

At a critical moment, it could save a life!

At that thought, Jiang Ye's gaze fell on the rusted wreck of a truck in the distance, abandoned for many years.

The truck's cab had long since collapsed, its bed was piled with rubble and rusty iron scraps, and its frame was sunk deep into the stony ground, as though it had been buried for more than a decade.

He tilted his head toward Toad.

"Try that one."

Toad made no sound.

It simply opened its mouth, and its dark red tongue shot out so quickly that its path was almost impossible to see, wrapping precisely around a crossbeam on the truck's frame.

The tongue clung tightly to the rusted metal, locking around it like a living rope.

Then Toad pulled hard.

Creak...!

The next moment, the immense force of the contraction dragged the truck wreck half a meter across the ground.

The rusty metal on the frame let out a piercing sound as it twisted, and the section of crossbeam wrapped in the tongue visibly compressed and deformed, as though an invisible giant hand were slowly squeezing it flat.

Jiang Ye watched from several meters away and nodded in satisfaction.

Toad's attack power wasn't explosive, but its ability to pull and control targets from a distance was extremely useful in terrain like Meteor City's.

Its advantage in open ground was even greater.

With no walls or pillars to brace against, a target caught by the tongue couldn't even find a foothold from which to fight back.

Seeing this, he remembered another ability.

Toad actually had a protective space inside its mouth.

It could swallow a person whole and enclose them inside its mouth.

It wasn't a separate dimension, but part of the Shikigami's own body.

It could shield the person inside from explosions, bullets, and even Nen attacks!

But there was one problem.

It wasn't a safe, independent space.

If Toad was injured or killed, the person inside its mouth would be exposed directly to the outside, with no further protection.

Jiang Ye glanced at the dark interior and slippery surface visible inside Toad's open mouth and decided not to test that function himself for the time being.

"Let's head back first."

He put Toad away, its massive gray outline sinking silently into his shadow.

Then he turned and walked toward the Rust Bone Gang's headquarters.

Behind him, the gray-white hard ground was gradually swallowed by the receding night, and the dark golden afterglow on the horizon was narrowing to a thin line.

By the time he returned to the container housing area at the edge of the farm, it was mostly dark.

Iron Wall was pacing back and forth at the entrance to the housing area.

His thick arms were folded across his chest, and his brows were drawn low.

When he saw Jiang Ye come into view, he immediately went up to meet him.

"Boss!"

Iron Wall immediately began his report.

"We've got a clear picture of the people under us."

Jiang Ye didn't hurry inside.

He stopped two paces in front of Iron Wall and motioned for him to continue.

Iron Wall's Adam's apple bobbed, and he went on.

"Out of the thirty, twenty are firmly on our side now."

A smile appeared on his face as he gave the number.

"After I took some men to pay each of them a visit, I let them know that as long as they obeyed the Rust Bone Gang, they'd get food and have work to do."

"The other twenty have all made their positions clear... If a real fight breaks out, they're willing to charge in."

"They know perfectly well that if we go down, they won't survive either."

The stick-and-carrot approach was clearly very effective.

But Iron Wall paused at that point, his fists clenching involuntarily.

"But the remaining ten..."

His face darkened.

"Their leader is called Bago. He used to be a minor leader with the Gray Rat Squad before it was scattered. He couldn't make it on his own afterward, so he came and joined us."

"As for his strength..."

Iron Wall looked up at Jiang Ye and considered his wording before speaking.

"He's about as strong as me."

"Gray Beak is keeping an eye on him over there with some men. Neither side has made a move yet, but things are tense."

"Bago said it himself..."

Iron Wall's voice carried a trace of suppressed anger and embarrassment.

"Only the strong are worthy of his submission, worthy of making him do things!"

Jiang Ye's expression remained unchanged when he heard the last sentence.

His eyes merely narrowed slightly, thoughtful.

"About as strong as you?"

"Yeah."

"Gray Beak is confronting him?"

"They've been standing face-to-face since evening, and neither one has made the first move."

Jiang Ye didn't respond immediately after hearing that.

He raised his head and looked past Iron Wall's broad shoulders toward a row of makeshift shacks in the distance, built from scrap metal and old cloth.

The figures of those ten men were dimly visible in the poor light. The one at the front was indeed a good deal broader than the others, and his stance was steady, as though he were calmly waiting for someone to arrive.

Jiang Ye looked away and turned to Iron Wall.

"Iron Wall."

His tone was calm, with no discernible change in emotion.

"What do you think..."

"How should people who disobey be treated?"

At those words, Iron Wall's nerves tightened for a moment.

Without the slightest hesitation, he dropped to one knee, pressed his right fist to his chest, and shouted sharply.

"Kill!"

Jiang Ye listened, then walked forward, expressionless.

"Lead the way."