Following the Root ninja's dires, Masashi tinued heading north.

  As the vegetation thinned out aually disappeared, he found himself in a region of yellow loess hills.

  He began to uand what the Root ninja meant by valley.

  It was essentially a series of raviypical of loess ndscapes, each fold and crevice potential hiding spots or ambush points.

  In su enviro, earth jutsu was the most ve for stealth, but even without it, the fractured terrain and numerous ravines were enough to make do.

  Moreover, the weather cooperated; rain began to pain, providing him with signifit cover. Using the terrain and the rain as cealment, he finally located the hideout of the Hannya Bck Ops.

  Just as the Root ninja described, the Hannya Bck Ops' abilities were indeed mediocre.

  It didn't take long for him to find their base. The yout was obvious to any trained eye, especially oh the Sharingan.

  They had built a simple encampment alongside one of the hills. Although there was a lookout tower, in this weather, it was as good as useless.

  Their attire matched the gang's name. Every member wore a demonic mask, which looked somewhat intimidating at first gnce.

  As Masashi infiltrated the camp, the lookout iower remained oblivious, huddled against the rain. The guard's chakra signature barely flickered—clearly untrained in maintaining awareness during adverse ditions.

  The camp was truly crude. With the rain, puddles formed everywhere, and as the downpour intensified, streams began to flow.

  He used a water jutsu te into the flowing water and slipped deeper inside, his chakra perfectly matg the natural flow.

  After cirg the area, he discovered why the camp was so basic.

  The true headquarters of the Hannya Bck Ops y within the loess hills, hidden in a work of cave dwellings.

  The camp was merely an outer defensive ring.

  Unfortunately for them, their anti-intrusion meisms were ughably outdated by the standards of the Five Great Nations. There wasn't even a barrier in pce.

  They're either incredibly stupid or incredibly arrogant. Probably both.

  With minimal effort, Masashi had scouted the entire area.

  The Hannya Bck Ops numbered about seventy to eighty members. Their ranks included roughly ten in, one jonin, and the rest were genin. Through his Sharingan, he could see the differences in their chakra works.

  However, these genin were veterans who had spent years at that level. While their skill might be limited, their movements were seasoned, marking them as hardened fighters.

  The Hannya Bck Ops wasn't a ninja anization native to the Land of Earth. Instead, they were a group Konoha had chased across borders, and these seventy to eighty individuals were likely the gang's st remnants.

  If they perished here, the Hannya Bck Ops would vanish as an anization.

  Masashi remained hidden until te at night, the embers gathered in the rgest cave. The cave was brightly lit, aed arguments occasionally echoed from within.

  His position in the rain allowed him to catch fragments of versation carried by the wind.

  Although he couldn't make out every word, he caught ss.

  It seemed they really had discovered some sort of secret realm.

  However, he wasn't overly optimistic.

  The world was vast, but pces that taught Sage Arts were rare. The most renowned ones were the oied to the legendary Sannin. In all these years, no fourth secret realm of simir caliber had ever surfaced.

  After firming that the Hannya Bck Ops sisted only of those present, he marked the area with a Flying Thunder God seal areated to the camp.

  The t had explicitly demanded no survivors, so he couldn't let anyone escape. Total elimination.

  Speaking of which, Danzō might put o of an old-fashioned leader, but his tea-drinking skills were surprisingly refined. His methods were thh, likely honed during his younger years on the front lines as Konoha's intelligence expert.

  Yet those teiques were outdated and paled pared to Yaku's. His scheming ability was on par with the younger geion's talents.

  Using a water teique, Masashi submerged himself in the accumuted water he patrol route of the Hannya Bck Ops. The rain provided perfect cover for his chakra signature.

  As three patrolling ninjas passed by, he struck.

  The first noticed the water ripple. "Trap!"

  He shoved his panions aside but water spikes had already pierced his ankles, anch him in pce. As he tried to form hand signs, more spikes shot through his fingers, spreading them apart.

  A water bde decapitated him from behind.

  The sed guard hurled explosive tags while backflipping.

  Det move. Masashi caught the severed head and threw it through the explosions. The wet impaocked the guard off-bance.

  Before he could recover, Masashi appeared behind him, gripping his wrist and redireg his kunai ssh into his own teammate's throat.

  As his friend choked on blood, Masashi twisted the guard's arm backward, driving the same kunai up through his own jaw.

  Before they could colpse, a chilling wave froze their bodies in pce, making them appear as though they had simply stopped moving in the rain.

  With this done, he moved deeper into the camp.

  He emerged from the shadows, letting himself be seen by three muards.

  Two immediately rushed forward, hurling shuriken while the third hung back, hands moving to unspool steel wire.

  The front guards pressed their attack, f him to dodge in a specific dire—right into their partner's wire trap. He let them think it worked.

  As the wire-user pulled the strands tight, Masashi substituted with a fallen log near him.

  The wires sliced through the wood with a sharp crack, sending splinters flying. Before the wire-user could react, Masashi's bde sshed up from behind him.

  Within mihe camp's surface was devoid of life.

  Except for the lookout tower.

  That posed no challenge. He quickly unched a Great Fireball at the tower, redug it to splinters.

  But the guard showed ued insight, colpsing the tower to crush his attacker. As burning wood rained down, he formed hand signs.

  "Earth Style: Stone n Spears!" Stone spikes erupted upward.

  Masashi weaved through the spikes, grabbing one as he moved. In one smooth motion, he ripped one spike free and threw it through the guard's chest.

  The man coughed blood but maer explosive tags hidden iower ruins.

  Masashi used the impaled body as a springboard, ung himself clear as the explosion transformed the remaining wood into deadly shrapnel.

  Shadow e Jutsu and other simir teiques might look fshy, but without mastery, they were futile in bat.

  The e glow of the fmes illumihe rain, drawing attention from the caves. Masashi marked a kunai, weighing it in his hand.

  Silhouettes darted out into the open.

  Exactly what Masashi had hoped for.

  "Back line, suppression! Front, engage!" A in shouted as masked figures poured out. They spread into groups, ons ready.

  Their movements showed years of w together.

  He threw the marked kunai. A guard k aside with his sword. As the kunai spun away, Masashi fshed to its location, his bde already pleting its arc. The guard's head left his shoulders before he could realize his mistake.

  "Earth Style: Mud Wave Jutsu!" Two shinobi smmed their hands down.

  The ground rippled, threatening to swallow him. He marked one of the corpses as he leapt clear, then threw another kunai high.

  A wind-user tracked the kunai. "Above!"

  His wind bde split the on in two. But Masashi had already fshed back to the marked corpse, appearing behind the earth-users.

  Two quick strikes, two more bodies.

  "It's the Body Flicker! Watch the movements!" The in's warning came as Masashi caught a wire-trapped kunai aimed at him.

  He spun, marking the on before sending it through another ninja's throat.

  "Retreat! Back to the—" The order cut short.

  He had appeared at the marked kunai, then instantly fshed to his previous victim's corpse which y behind the speaker. The in's head rolled past his still-standing body.

  Two guards who had fought side by side watched their leader fall. The younger one's hands trembled on his kunai. His panion noticed, reag for his shoulder. "Stay focused—"

  "No... no way." The younger guard stumbled backward, shaking his head. "We 't beat this monster!"

  He turo run.

  His panion's face hardened behind his mask. "Coward!" His hands smmed into the ground. The earth spear took the deserter in the back, pinning him mid-stride. "Die with honor!"

  Wow... honor among thieves. Masashi marked a corpse as he passed it."

  "Box him in!"

  Three ninja smmed their hands into the grouh walls shot up around him while others darted between them, ying wire traps.

  A grizzled genin began ing explosive tags around himself.

  "Die with us!" The tagged genin charged through the opening as his panions' hands flew through signs.

  Fire roared from multiple dires, turning the rain to steam. Masashi fshed to the corpse, using it as a shield. The explosion scattered burning ks across the battlefield, igniting more tags hidden in the mud.

  Through the smoke, a swordsman burst forward. His bde work f Masashi to actually time his dodges. "Face me properly!"

  Masashi caught the bde in a deliberate parry, marking it. "Skilled." He vanished, appearing behind the swordsman mid-swing. "But not skilled enough."

  The body fell in three pieces.

  A pained groan cut through the sound of falling rain. A young genin dragged himself through the mud, trailing his severed leg behind him. Blood mixed with rainwater as he cwed desperately forward.

  Masashi appeared before him. "You know what to do." His voice was calm, almost gentle. "Or would you like help?"

  The genin's cracked mask revealed a young face. His eyes darted around—at the quartered swordsman, at the scattered pieces of the suicide bomber, at his panions' mangled corpses being washed by the rain.

  Without a word, he drew a kunai with trembling hands. His st act showed more ce than his entire career as a bandit.

  "Kill him!" A voice cut through the rain as more shadows emerged from the caves.

  These moved differently—no wasted motion, atioh walls erupted in plex patterns while others took precise positions for crossfire.

  Masashi marked the walls as they rose. Three quick fshes, three dead bodies.

  A fourth mao unch a fire jutsu before his head left his shoulders. The fifth died trying to plete a hand sign.

  In the blink of an eye, only the jonin remained alive. The rest had been sughtered effortlessly. Bodies littered the muddy ground, some still twitg.

  He didn't fare well either. His arm was sshed deeply, the bone visible through the gash. He had narrowly avoided losing the entire limb, thanks only to Masashi not aiming for his vital points.

  "Who... who are you?" the jonin asked weakly, knowing his fate was sealed but wanting to uand. His uninjured hand clutched his wounded arm, trying to stem the bleeding.

  "Give up the secret realm's information," Masashi demanded, his Sharingan glowing in the rainy darkness.

  "Uchiha!" The jonin gritted his teeth. "I'll give you the information, but you must let our remaining members go."

  "There are no remaining members. Just you," Masashi said, shaking his head. "You're doomed. As for the secret realm, we don't really care. It's just a bonus."

  "You will care. I'm not referring to something ordinary here. You'll see," the jonin said, resigo his fate. "Ryūchi Cave. We've discovered its location and how to e."

  "Ryūchi Cave?" Masashi paused.

  "It's true. The Ryūchi Cave is right here, and we've already deciphered the method to e."