At this moment, Ao's figure appeared beside Terumi Mei. His voice carried a faint, almost imperceptible tremor. "I… seem to have come too late. How many are lying down now?"
Terumi Mei fell silent for a moment, her eyes sweeping across this hellish scene, her tone heavy. "I can't count them. His killing speed is faster than I can count. Judging by the density, just the corpses alone… there are no fewer than 300. Among them are jōnin, but even more… are chūnin and genin."
She paused, then added with a hint of bitterness in her voice, "Jōnin might still be able to exchange one or two moves with him, able to understand how they died before the end came. But those chūnin and genin probably never even knew what happened before death descended upon them."
As Ao listened to Terumi Mei's account, a chill surged from the soles of his feet straight up to the crown of his head.
The cold sweat seeping from his forehead instantly soaked the bandage beneath his forehead protector.
He didn't even dare to look directly into Uchiha Keizumi's eyes, much less question why the latter had unleashed such a slaughter in Kirigakure.
Before such absolute power, even anger seemed pale and extravagant.
[Tok—]
[Tok—]
[Tok—]
The sound of a cane striking against the thick, blood-soaked ground echoed slowly.
Elder Genji, the most senior and respected elder of Kirigakure, was taking one difficult step after another, treading across the pool of blood, stepping over the corpses of his fellow villagers, and walking toward Uchiha Keizumi.
His aged figure appeared especially small against the backdrop of this mountain of corpses and sea of blood.
Seeing this, Terumi Mei and Ao immediately followed, guarding him from both sides.
The remaining Kirigakure shinobi, still overwhelmed by the immense shock and fear, dared neither move nor speak.
They had finally seen the truth hidden beneath the Blood Mist, had finally witnessed that terrifying scene of hell itself!
Had it not been for Elder Genji's timely command to stop… they too would likely already have become part of this mountain of corpses.
That Uchiha from Konohagakure… was simply a monster beyond all measure of reason!
"Cough, cough…"
Elder Genji's turbid gaze swept across the field of corpses, a trace of deep sorrow flashing in his eyes before he couldn't help but sigh softly.
But soon he raised his head, meeting the cold Sharingan eyes of Uchiha Keizumi.
At the instant their gazes met, even someone as experienced as Elder Genji felt his heart involuntarily tighten.
From the young man's eyes, he could see no fluctuation of emotion—only an unfathomable, icy indifference.
He immediately understood that this was not someone who could be swayed or restrained by seniority, status, or any worldly rule.
"This old one… has already learned the general course of events from Ao…"
Elder Genji's hoarse voice broke the suffocating silence. "The power you have displayed is enough for this old one to believe… that the Fourth Mizukage, Karatachi Yagura, indeed fell by your hand."
"This old one also believes that your journey from Konohagakure was not for the purpose of invading Kirigakure; otherwise, you would never have come here alone."
He paused slightly, his gaze sweeping across the surrounding corpses, his tone carrying a trace of imperceptible compromise and helplessness. "It was the shinobi of this village… who offended you, sir. Their deaths… are their own doing. I ask the honored guest from Konohagakure… to be lenient."
As soon as these words fell.
The entire place erupted!
All the surviving Kirigakure shinobi stared at Elder Genji's back in disbelief, their eyes filled with shock and confusion.
Even humiliation!
This elder, whom even the Mizukage had to show respect to, was at this moment humbling himself and pleading for peace with an outsider ninja who had committed such a monstrous massacre within the village?
Was that reasonable?!
The next second, Uchiha Keizumi's cold voice sounded. "You seem to have misunderstood something. The reason they were killed was not because they offended me. You say you have learned the general course of events, but it seems you understand nothing at all."
"They were killed because they were people who deserved to die. Those burdened with countless sins—allowing them to live until now was already a failure of justice. The fact that Kirigakure once failed to deal with these people, and even revered them as elites of the village, shows that this shinobi village's ideology has become twisted to a pathological degree."
"To tear away the layer of blood mist shrouding Kirigakure, to let the nearly incurable Kirigakure once again grow the soil of justice—these villains must all be eradicated, not a single one left. Only in this way can justice suppress the ever-spreading Blood Mist policy that breeds sin."
Elder Genji's heart sank.
This young man from Konohagakure was truly no ordinary trouble.
What the other party meant by those words was clearly that he intended to forcibly intervene in Kirigakure's internal affairs.
In his eyes, all the Blood Mist shinobi born under the Blood Mist Village were sinners who deserved death.
He feared the other would not stop after killing just "this many" people in Kirigakure!
If Uchiha Keizumi truly carried out the purge he spoke of—
Elder Genji dared not imagine how many shinobi would be left in Kirigakure by the end.
Would there even be 500 shinobi remaining?
Five hundred might even be saying too much!
"You're just a ninja from Konohagakure! What right do you have to meddle in the affairs of Kirigakure!" a Kirigakure shinobi, eyes blood-red, shouted through clenched teeth. "We Kirigakure shinobi have no need for justice at all!"
"The reason our Blood Mist Village made the entire shinobi world tremble in fear lies in the unwavering iron-blooded policies enforced by successive Mizukage!"
The veins on the neck of the red-eyed Kirigakure shinobi bulged as his emotions surged, completely ignoring Elder Genji's attempt to stop him with his gaze.
He roared hoarsely toward Uchiha Keizumi, who stood upon the mountain of corpses: "It's the Blood Mist Policy! It's the brutal graduation exams, it's the blood-reeking mist shrouding the village, that filtered out the true strong!"
"Look at Terumī Mei-sama! Look at the Demon Zabuza! Even that S-rank missing-nin Biwa Jūzō! Which one of them didn't crawl out from seas of corpses and blood?!"
His voice trembled, yet was filled with fanatical conviction. "Those eliminated and killed under the policy were nothing but useless trash! What right does trash have to live?!"
"Their deaths saved the Land of Water precious resources! To concentrate more chakra metal, stronger ninjutsu scrolls, and richer mission rewards on nurturing true shinobi like us—ruthless and gifted!"
He suddenly turned his head and spat in one direction, his eyes full of disdain. "And those so-called noble Bloodline Limit clans? Hah! A pack of ungrateful white-eyed wolves!"
"They enjoy the village's protection and resources, yet secretly scheme to overthrow the Mizukage's rule and put an end to this glorious Blood Mist Policy!"
"So what if such traitors are all slaughtered? This is Kirigakure's own affair!"
"What does any of this have to do with your Konohagakure?! Mind your own business, you bastards from Konoha!!"
With that final roar, the scene fell into a deathly silence.
It was as if even the sound of blood flowing could be heard clearly.
Terumī Mei's face turned instantly as pale as paper; she could even feel the tips of her fingers turning cold.
Beside her, Ao's forehead was beaded with sweat that had already gathered into droplets, sliding down his tense cheek; his Adam's apple rolled with difficulty, the act of swallowing standing out starkly in the silence.
The gazes of both of them simultaneously fixed upon Uchiha Keizumi, their hearts almost leaping to their throats.
However, they saw that the Uchiha standing atop the piled remains hadn't even changed his stance.
Uchiha Keizumi merely, slowly turned those uncanny Sharingan eyes toward the clamoring Kirigakure shinobi.
In that gaze there was no anger at being offended.
"Whether the hidden evils of the Land of Water have anything to do with me…" he spoke: "what has it to do with you?"
Terumī Mei and Ao were both taken aback.
They had not expected…
Faced with such a fierce refutation, Uchiha Keizumi's response was actually this debate-discarding counter-question.
"You…!"
The shinobi's face flushed beet-red, as if he had punched empty air; he panted rapidly, trying to regain his rhythm, "You shinobi of Konoha, do you not follow any rules at all?! You…"
His words came to an abrupt halt.
Because Uchiha Keizumi, standing atop the mountain of corpses, had his figure blur without warning.
In the next instant, as if teleporting, he was already standing noiselessly before this Kirigakure shinobi.
Blood-reeking killing intent so dense it was almost tangible rushed at his face, laced with the still-unscattered warm breath of recent slaughter, making the Kirigakure shinobi named Mizuno Hideki feel a violent wave of dizziness and nausea.
This was the first time in his life that he felt such intense fear toward the bloody stench he had once taken for granted and even taken pride in.
He desperately tried to muster the courage to meet that gaze, but found his eyeballs as if frozen, utterly unable to focus on those scarlet eyes so close at hand, slowly revolving.
His knees were going weak, and the fingers clutching the kunai spasmed and trembled involuntarily.