National Guardian's Gone and We're Done

His steps were silent, like a single leaf drifting to the ground,

a testament to his consummate skill as a Ninja.

He cautiously approached the lifeless body of the Samurai,

each step taken with extreme care,

as if the ground beneath him were a minefield bristling with spikes,

where the slightest misstep would trigger a deadly trap.

His heart hammered against his ribs, threatening to burst from his chest,

and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead, glistening faintly in the dim light.

When he finally reached the Samurai’s side, he slowly extended his right hand,

his arm trembling slightly—not from fear, but as an instinctive reaction to the unknown danger.

His fingers crept toward the space just under the dead Samurai’s nose,

feeling for the faintest whisper of a breath that might still exist.

He knew, in his heart, that under such bizarre circumstances,

the chances were infinitesimally small.

But any sign of life, no matter how small, could signal either immense danger or a sudden turn of events,

and he couldn’t afford to be careless for even a moment.

However, the instant his fingers brushed against the tip of the Samurai’s nose,

it was as if he had triggered some malevolent mechanism.

Without any warning, a horrifying scene unfolded.

The Samurai, previously judged to be dead and now a figure of blood-red flesh,

suddenly snapped his eyes open. They held not a single spark of life,

only an endless void and a bizarre gleam, like a stare from the Hell Abyss.

His mouth flew open with an exaggerated, impossibly fast motion that left no time to react.

Inside the cavernous, dark maw,

a row of sharp teeth, caked with blood and shredded flesh, glinted menacingly in the dim light.

In a single motion, it bit down hard, severing Iwata Masao’s unsuspecting fingers.

”AARGH!”

A blood-curdling scream erupted from Iwata Masao’s lips,

tearing through the silent night and echoing chillingly throughout the vast pit.

But this was only the beginning of the nightmare.

Before he could even recover from the excruciating pain of his severed fingers,

the Samurai shot out both hands with the speed of a thunderclap. They were like a pair of steel pincers,

clamping down tightly on his arms.

Iwata Masao’s eyes widened in terror, filled with desperation and struggle.

He thrashed wildly, using all his strength to break free from the Demon-like grip,

but the Samurai’s hands seemed to be empowered by some Mysterious Power.

They didn’t budge an inch, threatening to drag him into an endless, dark abyss.

Just then, something even more terrifying happened.

The blood-red soil scattered on the ground, which had seemed completely lifeless,

was suddenly infused with a malevolent spirit and began to slowly squirm beneath his feet.

It was like a swarm of awakened, evil phantoms,

spreading slowly toward Iwata Masao’s body, then accelerating like an unstoppable, surging tide.

In just a few seconds, it swarmed up his legs

and continued to climb, seeking to envelop him completely in its blood-red, terrifying cage.

Iwata Masao’s heart filled with despair and terror.

His eyes revealed a profound fear of death and a sense of powerlessness against this Mysterious Power.

He screamed with all his might, his voice sharp and hoarse with terror,

sounding exceptionally shrill in the vast pit.

He thrashed his body desperately,

trying to shake off the Samurai’s hands and the blood-red soil creeping over him,

each struggle a final battle against the Death God, but it was all in vain.

The Samurai stared intently at Iwata Masao, its eyes filled with a bizarre madness.

Blood from Iwata Masao’s fingers dripped from the corners of its mouth, the severed digits still inside.

As it chewed,

the sounds of crunching bone and tearing flesh reached Iwata Masao’s ears with sickening clarity.

The sounds were like a Curse from Hell, each one a sharp dagger

stabbing into his heart and making his very soul tremble.

Even for a highly trained Ninja who had faced countless life-or-death situations,

this unprecedentedly terrifying scene made his blood run cold,

as if his blood had frozen solid and an icy chill shot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

When the blood-red soil spread over Iwata Masao’s legs,

he discovered in horror that he had instantly lost all feeling in them.

They had been severed from his body by some evil force,

a sensation so bizarre and alien that it filled his heart with helplessness and despair.

At this point, Iwata Masao was one hundred percent certain: this blood-red soil had to be inextricably linked to some wicked, powerful, and bizarre Evil Spirit. There was no other explanation for how terrifying and sinister it was.

The entire horrifying scene unfolded with extreme speed.

In just twenty or thirty seconds,

Iwata Masao, who moments ago had been thrashing violently and screaming for backup,

was frozen in place by this terrifying power.

His body stopped moving, his eyes filled with terror and despair.

In that instant, his life force vanished completely, with no trace of vitality remaining,

as if this evil power had instantly ripped out his soul, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell.

Soon, the blood-red soil had completely covered Iwata Masao’s entire body.

His body began to transform, becoming identical to the surrounding blood-red soil,

as if he were being reshaped by the evil earth with its blood-red clay,

turning into a grotesque, blood-red ”clay man.”

The remaining Samurai and Ninjas standing at the edge of the pit

witnessed this gruesome and terrifying scene firsthand. They were all dumbstruck, their faces pale with fright.

They exchanged glances, their eyes filled with terror and shock.

Just moments before, they had considered going down to help,

but the scene was simply too bizarre and horrifying.

Fear had taken root in every one of their hearts.

No one wanted to be caught in that nightmarish trap,

to become the next victim mercilessly consumed by the blood-red soil.

After all, the power displayed by the blood-red soil was too strange and immense.

Once touched by it,

one would be dragged into an inescapable vortex of death.

No one knew what even more dreadful things would happen next.

However, while they were still paralyzed by fear,

something even more bone-chilling occurred.

Iwata Masao, now a blood-red ”clay man,” and the first dead Samurai

slowly began to rise from the ground.

Their movements were stiff and sluggish, like puppets controlled by some evil force,

exuding a suffocating aura of death.

Their eyes stared blankly forward,

the blood-red soil still dripping from their bodies,

pooling on the ground in crimson puddles.

It was as if blood were flowing straight from Hell,

transforming the already grim and terrifying pit into something like Purgatory in the Mortal World.