A cold black rod pierced through Hiruko's hands, nailing him firmly to the stone wall.
He could clearly feel the ominous aura emanating from that pure Yin-Yang Release Chakra's construct… cold and piercing, as if it could freeze all of his Chakra!
A drop of cold sweat slid down his pale temple, falling onto the dust-covered rock with a nearly imperceptible sound.
All his madness, all his trump cards, had turned into powerless bubbles in the face of this absolute threat of death.
nma's gaze penetrated the mask, staring at Hiruko's face, which was twisted with fear.
He was like a fish pinned to a chopping board, his eyes filled with resentnt and despair!
"Lead the way." nma's voice was flat and emotionless, yet it carried an undeniable tone of command, "To your hideout."
Hiruko's Adam's apple moved with difficulty as he let out a hoarse syllable: "Yes-"
The instinct to survive overwheld everything else.
nma retracted the black rod and it dissipated in his palm.
Hiruko looked at the blood oozing from the holes in his hands, not daring to hesitate in the slightest. Stiffly, he turned around and staggered toward a hidden path covered by the shadows of a massive crevice.
Each step was heavy, as if he were treading on the edge of a blade.
Behind him, the white three-eyed fox mask of Shura followed silently, each step pressing down on his strained nerves.
In the distance, the battle between the chira and Genbu had also ended. The chira, pinned to the ground by Genbu and unable to move, was unsummoned by Hiruko, while nma likewise dismissed Genbu.
Watching Genbu's towering form ripple like water before vanishing, Hiruko was shocked by this unconventional Summoning Technique.
Following the winding crevice downward, they descended deeper and deeper until the light was completely swallowed, leaving only the cold touch of the rocks and the damp, musty air.
Hiruko stopped before a seemingly seamless rock wall, his trembling fingers pressing on several concealed protrusions.
With a dull chanical sound, the thick rock wall slid open silently, revealing a large door.
Inside was a vast and eerie underground space.
The air was filled with a pungent mix of disinfectant, preservatives, and a faint trace of blood.
Massive glass incubation tanks, like the eggs of giant beasts, lined the walls on either side. Inside floated grotesque biological tissues, so vaguely resembling human or animal forms, their bodies slowly writhing with black matter… Hiruko's cultivated chiras.
The tal operating table at the center glead with a pale light, stained with dark brown marks.
Against the wall, tal racks held an array of cold, glinting surgical instrunts, test tubes, and flasks, neatly arranged alongside nurous scrolls covered in complex formulas and diagrams.
This is Hiruko's lair, a workshop where life was recklessly stitched together and defiled.
Hiruko walked to a heavy tal cabinet embedded in the rock wall and entered a complex code.
The door slid open, revealing a single scroll sealed with multiple layers of Sealing Techniques.
With trembling hands, he retrieved it and handed it to the figure behind him.
"This... is the complete core of the Chira Technique-" Hiruko's voice was filled with humiliation and fear.
nma reached out and took it, not even glancing at Hiruko as he casually untied the scroll's binding and unfurled it with a flick.
Behind the mask, his crimson Sharingan glowed faintly, the three tomoes spinning silently like a precision scanner as they rapidly swept over the twisted tadpole-like script, complex Chakra Pathway diagrams, and the grotesque illustrations depicting the fusion process.
The scroll recorded the insane theory of devouring, plundering, and stitching together different Kekkei Genkai in pursuit of 'perfection'.
After a mont, nma rolled the scroll back up with a flick of his wrist and tucked it carelessly into the inner folds of his black robe.
"Not bad." nma's tone didn't express any emotion, as if he were rely appraising an ordinary item.
Only then did he turn his gaze to Hiruko's face, which was filled with terror and resentnt.
The underground space fell into dead silence, broken only by the faint pop of bubbles bursting in the incubation tanks.
The strange, mixed odor in the air seed to grow even stronger.
Hiruko's heart pounded wildly in his chest. He knew that the mont that would decide his fate had arrived.
Shura had taken the secret technique he had treasured as his life's work. Now that he, its creator, had been stripped of it... was there any reason left for him to exist?
Hiruko could feel the scrutinizing gaze behind that mask, coldly weighing his value… or rather, deciding how to dispose of him.
nma took a step forward. It was a light step, yet it made every muscle in Hiruko's body tense to the extre, nearly forcing him to stumble back.
"Your research... is sowhat interesting." nma's voice echoed through the underground space, carrying a casual, almost dismissive superiority, "Rather than hiding like a rat in here, devouring diocre Kekkei Genkai, why not co with ?"
Hiruko's head jerked up, a flash of disbelief in his eyes before it was quickly buried under deeper suspicion.
'Go with him? To do what? Beco a tool in his laboratory? Or the next target for his devouring?'
"Submit to ," nma's voice suddenly dropped lower, like the cold scrape of tal, "Serve ."
As the word 'submit' left Shura's lips, an indescribable killing intent, one that seed to originate from the depths of the soul, descended upon the space!
It wasn't violent, but it was as tangible as ice-cold water, instantly seeping into every cell of Hiruko's body.
No threat. No warning. Just a pure, declarative will: Submit, or die.
Hiruko's bandaged body trembled violently, his sharp teeth chattering uncontrollably.
He stared at Shura's white three-eyed fox mask, as if gazing upon an expressionless god of death lurking in the darkness.
This wasn't an invitation.
It was an ultimatum.
Shura was not asking for his opinion… he was announcing the outco.
All his hopes, all his sches, seed laughably fragile in the face of such absolute power and will.
Escape?
The mysterious black rod that had pierced his palms earlier, that ghostly speed… it had already crushed any such delusions.
Fight back?
His chira was no match for the opponent's summon and his strongest techniques, the Dark Release and Storm Release, were re child's play in Shura's eyes.
There was no choice.
Not even the slightest shred of one.
Overwhelming fear finally shattered the last remnants of Hiruko's pride and ambition as a powerhouse.
"I… Hiruko-" His voice was hoarse and broken, trembling with humiliation and terror.
"-Swear... to follow Shura-sama! I offer... my loyalty... and the Chira Technique!"
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