Chapter 26: Summoning

Compared to most ninjas, Yujin could be considered a very normal person.

As an outsider to this world, one could say his way of thinking was quite disconnected from the prevailing norms of the ninja world. On the other hand, it also meant he didn't carry the heavy burdens that many others did—his mindset was unencumbered, unshaped by the expectations of this world.

In the midst of the chaos engulfing the ninja world, he was neither blindly optimistic nor bitterly pessimistic to the point of resenting life.

He never considered himself some "main character" destined to shape the fate of the world. In fact, his only goal at this stage was simply to survive this turbulent era in a somewhat normal fashion.

Because of this, he had no inclination to kill someone just for existing—that was far too extreme.

Although someone had just been blown up, it was certainly not intentional. That incident was more akin to a natural disaster—an accident.

After all, what swamp doesn't claim a few victims, right?

This conflict wasn't supposed to happen. From the very beginning, Yujin had just wanted to ask a few questions.

Now that the other side had lost a companion, the situation was even less likely to end peacefully.

The remaining ninja was crouched on the back of a giant eagle summon, glaring down at Yujin from mid-air.

Once he recovered from the shock of the explosion and his senses returned, he didn't hesitate—he immediately directed the eagle into a dive straight at Yujin.

Yujin's ears were still ringing faintly when a piercing eagle cry reached him.

A summon of this size warranted caution. Yujin knew his body wasn't strong enough to go head-to-head with such a chakra beast, so he decided to give it no chance to get close.

In the blink of an eye, the distance between them had closed to just twenty meters.

At this range, among all the jutsu Yujin had mastered, only one could be guaranteed to hit: Water Style: Severing Wave.

His hands flew through a series of hand seals, and a tightly compressed blade of water shot toward the sky.

The high-speed, high-density stream vibrated at an ultra-high frequency far beyond the norm. Its power could cleave stone and metal—against flesh, it was brutally effective.

The water blade slashed diagonally upward, a soft yet unbreakable white line cutting through the air. It cleanly pierced the giant eagle's body and exited without losing momentum.

In an instant, blood sprayed everywhere. One of the eagle's wings was severed with ease.

Even in the air, large targets were much easier to hit than small ones.

And strangely enough, this eagle wasn't particularly agile in its movements.

Against an opponent of this level, using such a high-tier Water Style was a bit like swatting a mosquito with a cannon.

But there was no helping it—when dealing with distant targets, Severing Wave had the most reliable range.

Water Dragon Bullet might have had comparable power, but against airborne enemies, gravity would heavily weaken its impact. Its lethality couldn't match Severing Wave.

This led to another issue—why did ninjas rely so much on throwing shuriken? The answer was simple: the effective range of a shuriken exceeded over 90% of all ninjutsu.

Very few ninjas could perform jutsu with a range beyond twenty meters.

The crippled eagle and the ninja on its back came crashing down from the sky. The bird flailed desperately on the ground like a dying chicken.

The ninja could no longer control his summoning beast, which was now overwhelmed by pain. While dodging the eagle's erratic thrashing, he summoned another creature.

A huge lion-shaped beast suddenly appeared on the battlefield. With razor-sharp fangs and claws, it looked anything but easy to handle.

Yujin found this puzzling. Summoning large beasts was supposed to be a rare ability, yet this random ninja had two of them on hand?

But what happened next shocked him even more. As soon as the lion-shaped summon appeared, it seemed ready to attack.

Yujin lowered his stance, preparing to strike back.

Then, just as it looked like the beast would charge, it suddenly twisted its body with unnatural speed and flexibility, craned its neck, and bit its summoner.

The summon's jaw strength was terrifying. In a flash, it crushed half of the ninja's body. Blood spurted wildly, painting half of the beast red.

This was a far more horrific death than being blown up. At least the first guy didn't have time to scream in agony.

The ninja gasped for breath briefly, then fell silent. The summon shook its head, as if spitting out garbage, and casually tossed the mangled corpse aside.

Then it approached the still-flailing eagle and snapped its neck in one swift bite.

Only after doing all this did it turn its gaze to Yujin.

The look in its eyes made Yujin pause.

Can a summoned beast really have such a complex expression?

It was almost... human.

From that gaze, he saw a kind of will to die.

With a roar, the beast charged at him.

Yujin thought he understood something. He formed seals once more, and another blade of water shot out.

The beast was instantly split in two mid-run, a swift and merciful end.

To be honest, these two summons seemed all show and no substance. Despite their massive size, Yujin felt they hadn't displayed any real combat strength.

After the fight ended, he stood still for a while.

The whole thing had started inexplicably—and ended just as strangely.

He tidied up the battlefield, scavenged a few ninja tools and some currency from the corpses, but found nothing of significant value.

However, while inspecting the two summons, something on their bodies caught Yujin's attention.

They were covered in scars—no, signs of modification. And within their bodies, strange seals had been embedded, the meaning of which he couldn't decipher.

Looking at these, and remembering the lion summon's final actions, Yujin's thoughts drifted toward a dark possibility: something akin to "Ed...ward...Oni-chan..."

This wasn't Yujin being pessimistic. It was simply that in this era, there was no telling how low a ninja's moral bottom line might sink.

…

Since he hadn't found any valuable clues on the two ninjas, Yujin decided to return to the town and investigate that mysterious building.

The battle hadn't affected the town in any visible way. Everything was as usual.

Yujin wasn't sure whether the commotion from the swamp could be heard from here, but given the distance, people should have noticed something. Those explosions were massive and loud.

Yet the townspeople acted like nothing had happened.

"Definitely suspicious," Yujin muttered.

Following the route he remembered, he returned to the building hidden in a narrow alley. He paused briefly at the door, then decided to push it open and walk in.

Behind the door was an ordinary-looking courtyard, but perhaps it was just his imagination—Yujin thought he could faintly smell blood.

After stepping into the courtyard, the door he had just opened closed behind him on its own.

"A face I've never seen before. A foreign ninja. You've been in this town for several days now. What's your goal? Or perhaps… who sent you?"

Though no one was visible, a voice rang out in the courtyard.

As expected, Yujin had been under surveillance since arriving.

Always hiding, playing tricks, Yujin grumbled to himself, then spoke aloud:

"I was just passing through. Happened to notice ninjas coming in and out of this place, and got curious."

"I see…"

The voice seemed to accept his explanation surprisingly easily, then offered what sounded like a sincere clarification:

"Nothing unusual. Those people were just my clients."

"If you'd like, you could become one of them too—my next new client."

Client?

Yujin looked like a mess: clothes in tatters, covered in mud and swamp stench—absolutely ragged. If someone like him qualified as a client, then it must be a VIP... emphasis on the P.