47: Phantom of the dark night, food supply cut off thousands of miles away

Wind Barrier, front-line command post.

The atmosphere was as heavy as a physical presence.

Rasa stood with his hands behind his back in front of a giant sand table, his face ashen. On the sand table, the area symbolizing Raiming Valley was specially marked in red, a shocking sight.

"The intelligence from Shidou and Tang Yan has been cross-verified," an intelligence officer said, his voice dry. "Konoha's 'Root' organization is indeed making a big move in Raiming Valley, and their goal is very likely to use 'thunderclap stone' to release or control... 'Mōryō'."

"Mōryō..." Rasa squeezed the name through his teeth, a deep apprehension flashing in his eyes.

This ancient name, in the secret records of Sunagakure, was closely associated with destruction and calamity.

"Once this thing gets out of control, the Wind Barrier, and even the entire Land of Wind, will face utter devastation!" another high-ranking official said, his voice trembling.

Rasa suddenly turned around, his hoarse voice carrying an unchallengeable resolve: "Deliver my orders!"

Everyone in the tent felt their hearts leap into their throats.

"All combat units on the Wind Barrier front line, at all costs, must prevent Konoha's scheme! Once there are signs that the 'thunderclap stone' is being activated..."

A cold glint flashed in Rasa's eyes.

"Destroy it on the spot!"

Temporary command post, Tang Yan's tent.

An urgent order landed on his desk.

Two chained A-rank missions, simple and direct in content, yet radiating a bone-chilling coldness.

【Main Mission: Silence of Thunder】

Mission Objective: Infiltrate behind enemy lines in Konoha and completely destroy all of Konoha's schemes to acquire or use the 'thunderclap stone' to activate 'Mōryō'.

【Side Mission: Pulling the Rug】

Mission Objective: Within twenty-four hours, cut off Konoha's three core supply lines—personnel, weapons, and provisions. Buy time for Sunagakure's main forces to make strategic adjustments.

The mission reward section listed several extremely rare metal materials and a mineral emitting strange energy fluctuations, precisely what the All Things Creation Box urgently needed for repair and upgrade.

Tang Yan's fingertips gently tapped the desk, his gaze slowly moving across the mission brief.

Of the three supply lines, the provision line was the most dispersed, the personnel line was highly fluid, and only the weapon supply line, usually connected to fixed armories, was heavily guarded, had the highest value, and was the most difficult to destroy.

If successful, the blow to Konoha's front line would be fatal.

A barely perceptible curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.

The hardest bones were the most satisfying to chew.

"Qian, Zi Luo."

The two entered in response.

"Captain."

"What do you need us for?" Zi Luo stretched his wrists, his iron hands making a slight rubbing sound.

"New mission." Tang Yan pushed the brief over. "Konoha's weapon supply line transfer fortress—'Tiexie Canyon'—I'll handle it personally."

He turned his gaze to Qian and Zi Luo: "You two are responsible for the personnel and provision lines. You don't need to fight head-on; focus on harassment and creating chaos, attracting Konoha's attention as much as possible to buy me time."

"Feint?" Qian mused.

"Understood!" Zi Luo grinned, a flicker of excitement in his eyes. "We'll turn the world upside down!"

"Ninja Toad will move with me, and 'Luo' also needs to be brought along," Tang Yan added.

This was almost the strongest assault force of the Fifth Squad.

Night fell.

The moon was dark and the wind was high, thick clouds obscuring the starlight.

Outside the Tiexie Canyon, sandstorms howled, stirring up gusts of dust.

A blurred dark figure, like a phantom merged into the night, moved rapidly through the jagged rocks and low sand dunes, without making a sound.

It was Tang Yan, having activated Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track.

With Purple Demon Eyes fully activated, the patrol routes within the canyon, the positions of sentries and hidden posts, and the faint Chakra flows hidden in the shadows, all appeared clearly in his mind as a peculiar energy halo.

The defenses were indeed formidable, living up to their reputation.

"This is it." Tang Yan stopped behind a hidden sand dune, whispering to the air beside him.

"Bang!"

As the white smoke dissipated, the agile figure of Ninja Toad appeared, kneeling on one knee.

"It's up to you."

Ninja Toad's crimson scarf swayed slightly in the night wind. He nodded, rapidly forming hand seals.

"Sand Release: Earth Sink!"

With a low shout, the sandy ground beneath a patrol of Leaf Ninja in the distance suddenly collapsed without warning!

"Ah!"

"What's going on?!"

Exclamations and curses rose and fell. The patrol, caught off guard, tumbled into the sand pit. Though not deep, it was enough to throw them into disarray.

"Enemy attack?!"

"It seems like an earth sink, quick, pull them out!"

The commotion quickly drew the attention of two other nearby patrols, who immediately changed their routes and converged on the incident site.

A brief, fatal gap appeared in the outer defense perimeter of the canyon.

Tang Yan didn't hesitate for a moment. His figure flickered, like an arrow released from a bowstring, sweeping rapidly along the ground towards the canyon entrance.

The Myriad Forms Ingenuity Box on his waist analyzed the rock structure of the canyon fortress and the weak points of the outer energy barrier.

A few seconds later, a faint spiritual fluctuation came from inside the box.

"Thirty-seven steps to the front left, beneath the rock wall, a disused sewage pipe... a defensive blind spot..."

Tang Yan continued without stopping, his figure twisting a few times in the shadows. Sure enough, in a hidden corner obscured by a large rock, he found the entrance to a sewage pipe almost completely buried by thick moss and sand.

The entrance was narrow, emitting a nauseating stench of decay.

Without hesitation, he crouched and squeezed inside.

Inside the sewage pipe, it was even darker and damper, with a pungent, foul smell.

The strong odor almost solidified, a sickly sweet mix of decay and rust, clinging to the back of his throat.

The mud underfoot reached his ankles, each step making a dull "squelch" sound. Drops of water seeping from the pipe walls were cold and slimy, carrying slippery moss.

In the air, a faint, cloying sweetness subtly permeated, intertwining with the foul stench.

An ordinary Ninja might only find this scent strange, but Tang Yan's nose twitched, and he immediately recognized the characteristic of a paralyzing gas.

The concentration wasn't high, but its advantage lay in its persistence, enough to make anyone staying there for a long time unknowingly slow to react and weak in their limbs.

His Xuantian Skill had already circulated on its own, its pure inner force like an invisible qi armor, isolating the poison gas and filth. His breathing remained steady and deep.

Such tricks were nothing to him.

Purple Demon Eyes operated at full power, the dim environment having no effect on him.

At the end of his vision, on the ground of the passage ahead, a few flagstones had subtle differences in color and texture compared to their surroundings. Beneath the flagstones, he could vaguely sense the cold, hard aura of metal, and faint traces of poisoned energy residue.

Pressure-activated traps, old-fashioned, but effective.

The stone walls on both sides were also restless; in a few inconspicuous corners, several faint Chakra runes were inscribed.

Those were sensor-type explosive tags; once a living being approached, the Chakra within the runes would instantly burst forth.

"Heh, they put in some thought, I guess." Tang Yan chuckled inwardly. This chain of traps might be more than enough for ordinary infiltrators, but to him, it was like a child's game, the flaws clearly visible.

He didn't stop, his right hand already raised.

Xuan Yu Hand activated, his entire palm seemed to be covered in a layer of warm jade, crystal clear and indestructible.

His fingertips rapidly skimmed over the edges of the discolored flagstones, lightly flicking or gently turning, his movements so fast they were almost invisible.

With only a few extremely faint "click," "clack" sounds, like the buzzing of a mosquito, the springs beneath the pressure plates were completely locked by his skillful force. The poisoned thorns and steel needles would never spring out.

As for the explosive tags on the stone wall, Tang Yan took out a small bone knife, less than three inches long, from his Pregnant.

The blade was slender, shimmering with an ivory-like luster, and the tip was exceptionally sharp.

He had polished and crafted it from the finger bone of a special type of beast.

It had a miraculous effect on cutting Chakra energy.

He flicked his wrist, and the tip of the bone knife precisely cut across the Chakra core nodes of those few explosive tags.

The faint glow that had been circulating on the runes instantly dimmed, as if their source had been severed by an invisible force, turning into useless scraps of paper that drifted gently down.

He moved along as if in an uninhabited land.

Deeper in the pipe, the stench grew even stronger, almost suffocating.

A heavy steel grate blocked the way.

The grate was made of steel bars as thick as a child's arm, cross-welded, and structurally sound.

Even more troublesome, fine blue electric arcs occasionally flickered and jumped across the metal surface of the grate. The "zzzt zzzt" sound was particularly jarring in the silent sewer, and the air even carried a faint burnt smell.

This was the last barrier of this abandoned sewage pipe. The designers obviously weren't entirely unprepared for this "shortcut."

Tang Yan stopped, examining the iron monstrosity before him, the faint curve at the corner of his mouth deepening.

He unhurriedly took out an inconspicuous small porcelain bottle from his pocket, pure white with no markings.

As he pulled out the stopper, an indescribably faint, peculiar scent flashed by—neither foul nor fragrant, but more like the unique rhythm of a metal being activated.

The bottle contained a refined version of "Soul-Corroding Bone-Dissolving Water," its corrosive power more than three times stronger than the original, and crucially, it was also effective against metal.

He tilted the bottle, and a few drops of liquid, clear as water, fell onto the thickest steel bars of the grate and the keyhole.

There was no violent white smoke, no pungent odor, not even a sizzling sound of corrosion.

The few drops of liquid seemed to be rapidly absorbed by the metal, their color barely changing.

Tang Yan stood at ease, seemingly waiting for something.

About ten breaths later, he extended a finger covered by Xuan Yu Hand and lightly touched the steel bar.

"Crack... creak..."

A series of minute, grating sounds came from inside the steel bar.

The previously indestructible steel now seemed like rotten wood hollowed out by termites; its surface was still pristine, but its interior was completely decayed.

As he applied slight pressure with his fingertip, those core steel bars silently bent and broke, revealing an opening large enough for one person to pass through.

The electric sparks at the break point futilely flickered a few times before quickly dying out.

The entire process was eerily quiet.

He carefully dripped a few drops of "Soul-Corroding Bone-Dissolving Water" into the grate's keyhole.

"Sizzle..."

A faint corrosive sound emerged. A few breaths later, the incredibly sturdy steel lock core melted and peeled away silently, like a candle burning in a fierce flame.

Tang Yan gently pushed, and the heavy grate silently swung inward.

Like a ghost walking in the darkness, he successfully infiltrated the interior of Tiexie Canyon.

At the center of the canyon, a colossal warehouse resembling a steel fortress was his ultimate objective for this trip—Konoha's armory.

At the same time.

Konoha's front-line command post.

A sensory Ninja suddenly opened his eyes, his brows tightly furrowed.

"Report! Abnormal Chakra fluctuations detected in the outer area of Tiexie Canyon, not strong, suspected Sunagakure scouts!"

In the main seat, a middle-aged Jonin dressed in Hyuga Clan attire, with his eyes closed and a calm demeanor, slowly opened his characteristic Byakugan.

Hyuga Tokuma, an elite Jonin of the Hyuga branch family, known for his calmness and insight.

He tilted his head slightly, and his Byakugan "looked" in the direction of Tiexie Canyon.

"Oh?" His tone was flat, betraying no emotion. "Just small mice?"

"Order the First Patrol Squad to investigate. Remember, do not alert them. I want to see what kind of trash Sunagakure has sent to their deaths this time."

"Yes!"

Tang Yan had now reached the outer perimeter of the armory.

He hid in the shadows of a discarded pile of supplies, his Purple Demon Eyes taking in everything around him.

The armory's defenses were several times more stringent than he had anticipated.

There was a guard almost every three steps, a sentry every five, and the density of patrol teams far exceeded the outer perimeter.

What made it even more difficult for him was that at the main and back entrances of the armory, two elite Chunin with stable auras and Chakra levels far exceeding ordinary Chunin were stationed.

Their positions were tricky, their vision covering almost all possible infiltration angles.

These two were like two nails, firmly hammered into the vital points of the armory.

Tang Yan's gaze swept around, his brain rapidly working, analyzing all available conditions.

The shift changes of the patrol teams, the blind spots in the guards' vision, changes in wind direction, and even the occasional chirping of insects and birds from afar, all became part of his calculations.

Time was ticking away, minute by minute.

He had to find a perfect entry point in the shortest possible time, striking a fatal blow.

Just then, his Purple Demon Eyes caught a detail.

In the northwest corner of the armory, an area near the cliff, due to the terrain, the lighting was relatively dim, forming a natural shadow zone.

Three seconds.

That was enough.

Tang Yan suppressed his aura, activating "Illusionary Body Barrier" to reduce his presence to the lowest possible level.

He lightly tapped his toes, and his entire body silently glided out of the shadows where he had been hiding, sweeping towards the deep darkness beneath the cliff.

That was the ultimate blind spot in their vision, his perfect breakthrough point in his plan.