At the instant when the surrounding white mist was at its thickest, nearly condensing into droplets.
A Kirigakure shinobi skilled in the Silent Killing Technique quietly approached the back of Uchiha Keizumi like a ghost.
His steps were light as feathers, his breathing merged with the sound of the wind, and even the faintest chakra fluctuation was deliberately suppressed.
In the next second, the ninja blade in his hand gleamed with a cold, ghostly luster, aimed precisely at the unguarded cervical spine of Uchiha Keizumi.
With ruthless precision, he slashed diagonally downward!
However, just as the blade was about to touch a strand of hair, the Kirigakure shinobi's pupils suddenly shrank to the size of pinpoints!
Because he could clearly see that the back of that Konoha ninja's head, covered by short black hair, was twisting toward him—inch by inch!
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a half-turned cheek—and an eye that had already opened at some unknown moment, a scarlet and demonic Sharingan!
—He had noticed me long ago!
—My Silent Killing Technique… is completely useless before him!
The shocking thought exploded like thunder in the Kirigakure shinobi's mind, but his body could not keep up with the sudden change.
He didn't even have time to fully display the horror on his face.
All he felt was a fleeting chill at his neck.
The next second, heaven and earth spun.
The world in his eyes twisted wildly, and the last thing his blurry vision captured was a headless body below, still frozen in a slashing stance, collapsing weakly to the ground.
All his doubts and unwillingness, along with his final consciousness, sank into the eternal abyss of darkness.
His head had already been severed and rolled onto the ground.
Uchiha Keizumi flicked his wrist lightly, shaking off the warm blood from the blade in one smooth, fluid motion without the slightest hesitation.
He didn't even have the interest to spare another glance at the corpse.
Within the dense fog, more sounds of wind-breaking came rushing from every direction; countless blurred figures, carrying killing intent, swarmed toward him like sharks drawn by the scent of blood.
Not far away, Terumi Mei reached out her hand in vain, only to watch helplessly as one after another of her comrades from the same village instantly leapt past her and lunged toward Uchiha Keizumi.
The mix of anxiety and helplessness nearly suffocated her.
Very soon, within the originally pure, dense white fog, a faint, eerie blush of red seeped out without warning.
At first it was like dripping a drop of cinnabar into water, but soon this blush spread and diffused at an astonishing speed.
The air began to fill with a nauseating smell, a mix of cloying sweetness and rust.
The dense white fog was being dyed, at a speed visible to the naked eye, into an ever-deepening, heart-stirring crimson!
In only a dozen or so seconds, the entire area seemed soaked in a sea of blood, and visibility plummeted.
The visual impact and psychological pressure brought by the crimson color multiplied.
The true "Village of the Bloody Mist"…
descended here!
"Ugh…!"
"Gah…"
In the thick blood-colored fog, muffled groans, the dull sound of blades cutting flesh, and the thud of heavy bodies hitting the ground formed a dense and brutal symphony of death.
These sounds were short and urgent.
They often stopped the instant they began, as though a huge invisible hand had gripped their throats.
Terumi Mei held her breath, her heart involuntarily twitching with each muffled thud and fall.
She subconsciously counted in her heart:
one, two… 10… 20…
50… 70…
When she counted to nearly 80, a chill shot from her spine to the crown of her head.
How long had it been?
1 minute?
Or 2 minutes?
The Kirigakure shinobi who had fallen under that man's blade were likely nearing 100!
And many of those who came later had no idea what was happening ahead, because all who were killed were deprived of life in an instant without even letting out a proper scream!
"Ah—!!!"
At last, an extremely shrill scream tore through the suffocating silence.
Immediately after, a black figure was flung backward out of the blood fog like a torn sack, crashing hard toward Terumi Mei's direction.
Terumi Mei instinctively turned her body to dodge.
[Bang!]
The figure slammed into the wall behind her, rubble spraying.
It was a Kirigakure shinobi; at this moment he was curled up like a boiled shrimp, constantly vomiting blood mixed with fragments of viscera, a large section of his chest visibly caved in—clearly his ribs were all shattered, and he had completely lost the ability to fight.
"…He held back. He left a living one." Terumi Mei stared at the grievously wounded, dying ninja and murmured to herself.
At this moment, the taut string in her heart unexpectedly loosened a little.
This proved that Uchiha Keizumi was not a mere killing machine.
He abided by his own fanatical and terrifying "Absolute Justice."
Those who truly bore no sin, Uchiha Keizumi would not take their lives easily. But those who dared to stand in his way would inevitably pay a heavy price.
Just like the ninja before her—even if he had barely snatched back his life, without months of meticulous recovery it would be impossible for him to heal, and he might very well be left with a hidden ailment that would follow him for life.
However…
The heavy stench of blood lingering at her nostrils constantly reminded her that those "lucky" ones like him were only an extremely small minority in this one-sided massacre.
Breathing this nauseating air and watching the deepening blood-red around her, she knew full well that the man who dared to slay even the Mizukage… would not show the slightest mercy to the shinobi of Kirigakure.
"Ao… how much longer do you need…" Terumi Mei clenched her fists tightly, her nails almost digging into her flesh.
Every second of delay could mean another ignorant comrade rushing forward to die—or ending up, like that man just now, nearly crippled for life!
As for those whom Uchiha Keizumi called villains, Terumi Mei had already ignored them.
What she cared about were those who should not have been killed, who should not even have been hurt, yet still foolishly charged ahead.
At this moment of despair—
"Shinobi of Kirigakure! All of you, stop at once!!!"
An aged yet imperious and urgent roar exploded like thunder, forcibly piercing through the thick blood fog and reaching the ears of every Kirigakure shinobi.
"Hu… hu…"
The one shouting seemed to have exhausted all his strength; after yelling, only violent, wheezing breaths followed, coarse like a bellows.
Within the crimson fog, the once dense and chilling sound of blades piercing flesh quickly thinned.
Finally, accompanied by the dull thud of the last corpse collapsing to the ground, everything returned to silence.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
Several Kirigakure jōnin who had regained their senses simultaneously formed hand seals. Fierce gales howled forth, striving to blow away the suffocating curtain of blood-red mist.
As the raging wind swept across, the crimson fog gradually faded until it completely dispersed.
And at the instant when their vision cleared once more, all the surviving Kirigakure shinobi were struck speechless by the scene before their eyes.
A chill from the depths of their souls instantly froze their blood.
All were corpses!!!
Everywhere their eyes could reach—layer upon layer of bodies in every possible posture!
They nearly covered the entire ground. The flowing blood gathered into winding red streams, seeping wantonly through the cracks in the stone slabs, finally gurgling into the sewers on either side of the road, dyeing those dark openings a glaring crimson.
And atop that "hill" made of piled corpses, two figures stood tall.
At the very peak stood Uchiha Keizumi.
The standard ninja blade in his hand, the kind seen everywhere, was already chipped and notched from overuse, scarlet drops of blood sliding slowly down its edge.
His face was expressionless; those demonic Sharingan calmly looked down at the Kirigakure shinobi below, who were frozen in place as if under a petrification spell. The condensed killing intent radiating from him was so thick that even the air seemed to congeal.
It was a killing aura purer and more terrifying than that of the coldest assassin in Kirigakure.
Slightly lower down, an Uchiha girl stood, breathing faintly.
Her chakra was greatly depleted, and several shallow wounds marked her arms and shoulders, streaked with blood.
Yet her back remained perfectly straight.
However, not many people spared her a glance.
Every gaze, filled with indescribable terror, was locked dead on the man standing atop the mountain of corpses.