The Cursed Pact Ninja of the shadow realm

The fog in the Forest of Shadows didn’t smell of damp earth; it reeked of rusted iron. To an ordinary ninja, that would have been a strange detail. To Kaito, it was a deadly warning.

Crouched on a thick bamboo branch ten meters above the ground, Kaito adjusted his cloth mask over his nose. The silence of the night was suffocating, broken only by the faint crackle of frozen leaves.

—They are close, boy...whispered a raspy voice, like stone grinding on stone, echoing directly inside his mind.I can smell their fear. Let me out to play.

“Shut up, Akatani,” Kaito thought, gritting his teeth. “Not yet.”

—You’re going to need me. You always do.

Kaito ignored the demon’s voice and looked down. Three massive figures were advancing through the mist. They weren’t ninjas from a rival clan, nor were they ordinary mercenaries. They were Ergo-morphs—humans mutated by the Iron Wrath. Hideous bodies where flesh had fused with raw steel plates, carrying massive, improvised blades in place of hands. Their eyes burned with a dull red glow, completely stripped of humanity.

Kaito’s mission was simple: destroy the nest in the forbidden valley before these monsters reached the village border.

Without a sound, Kaito dropped from the branch.

The fall was silent. He landed squarely on the shoulders of the first monster, plunging a kunai deep into the unarmored joint at its neck. The creature let out a muffled gurgle and collapsed into the snow.

The other two spun around instantly, roaring with a metallic screech that vibrated through the surrounding bamboo.

One of the monsters slashed through the air with a giant steel blade. Kaito threw himself backward, executing a mid-air backflip, but the sharp edge grazed his right arm. The black fabric of his gear tore open, and a thin line of blood sprayed onto the snow.

—Yes!Akatani laughed in his head, a sound filled with sadistic satisfaction.Let the magic begin!

Kaito immediately felt the familiar burn. The blood dripping from his wound didn’t fall to the ground. It hung suspended in the air, quivering as if it had a life of its own. In a fraction of a second, the red liquid crystallized, reshaping into a long, jagged blade as hard as diamond, extending directly from Kaito’s arm.

Blood Technique: Sublimation of Steel.

The pain in his arm was instantly joined by an icy sensation creeping toward his heart. The price of borrowing demonic power.

The monster on the left lunged with blinding speed. Kaito didn’t dodge. He blocked the Ergo-morph’s massive blade directly with his blood sword. Sparks illuminated the dark. With a lightning-fast rotational strike, Kaito sliced through the monster’s steel arm like butter, followed by a decisive blow that severed its head.

The third monster hesitated for a split second, but hunger overpowered caution. It leaped at Kaito with both blades raised high.

Kaito clenched his fist. The blood blade shattered into a thousand crimson needles that impaled the creature from the inside out, pinning it against the trunk of an ancient oak. The monster twitched once, then went completely still.

Silence settled over the forest once more.

Kaito fell to one knee, breathing heavily. The remaining blood on his weapon liquefied and retracted back into his wound, but the skin around the slash had already turned a sickly shade of purple. The black vein crawling up his neck pulsed unevenly.

—Just a little more, and you’ll be mine, little ninja...Akatani whispered, his voice feeling dangerously close to the surface.

Kaito pressed a hand to his chest, clutching a worn wooden amulet—the only thing he had left from his younger sister, Hana.

“Not today, Akatani,” Kaito muttered through his teeth, forcing himself to stand.

He looked toward the horizon, where the sky was beginning to turn a pale shade of purple. The village was close, but something was wrong. Rising from the direction of the houses wasn’t the usual morning chimney smoke, but a thick, black column of raging fire.

The blood ran cold in his veins. That wasn’t the monsters’ fire. That was the holy fire of the Exorcist Order.