ACSP: Chapter 200: The Main Force, Twin Brothers with the Power of the Nine-Tails!
East Island: The Imperial Palace of the Heavenly King
This towering, ancient architectural complex held the absolute highest authority within the borders of East Island—it was the sovereign residence of the Heavenly King itself.
Under normal circumstances, the security protocols here were airtight. Only high-ranking officials at the prince level, legendary clan patriarchs, and the notorious 'Class-A War Criminals' who had rendered outstanding, bloody service in the founding eras of East Island were ever permitted to cross the threshold.
Yet at this exact moment, the atmosphere inside the inner hall was suffocatingly heavy.
Dozens of powerful men wearing traditional, formal montsuki haori hakama were gathered together, kneeling in neat, rigid rows on both sides of the polished obsidian floor. These individuals were the apex leaders of East Island's corporate and military hierarchy; every single person holding a title of immense geopolitical weight.
Among them sat the grim-faced high priests of the Nanga Shrine, alongside the ruthless patriarchs of the island's most prestigious contractor clans. Kurosaki—the elite samurai who had previously clashed with Jiang Chen within the harrowing confines of the [Forest of Death] intermediate Secret Realm—was also tightly squeezed into their ranks.
This room contained the absolute main force of East Island's military asset sheet. They represented the highest tier of raw, destructive combat power the nation could mobilize.
And positioned high above them, resting on the golden, intricately carved dragon throne at the head of the palace... a red-haired man wearing an ornate dragon-python robe sat upright.
He didn't utter a single syllable. He simply looked down at the gathering of elites below with an unreadable, dead-eyed silence. Yet, the sheer intensity of his passive aura saturated every cubic inch of the grand hall, pressing down on the lungs of everyone present like a physical weight.
This man was none other than the absolute, supreme ruler of East Island: Ryuichi Yuwa. He was the mythical "His Majesty the Emperor" whom every single Dongdao Contractor spoke of with fanatical, terrified reverence.
With the Emperor remaining silent, the high-level officials below kept their voices tightly hushed, whispering aggressively among themselves while shooting anxious glances toward the throne.
"Captain Shimura hasn't transmitted a single encrypted update for several days now. It seems the raw slaughter footage circulating on the global forums is highly credible."
"The secondary reinforcement fleet carrying the Bodo sisters has also completely lost contact with naval command. Based on our latest satellite arrays, I estimate they have likely run into grave, irreversible danger..."
"Hmph! A pathetic bunch of useless, incompetent fools!" an elderly clan head hissed, his knuckles turning white against his robes. "We deployed a massive contingent of high-level elite Contractors to land alongside them. It was a perfectly synchronized, unprovoked surprise attack, yet they allowed themselves to be entirely annihilated by a chaotic militia of Great Xia Contractors. It is a literal disgrace to the martial honor of East Island!"
"Calm your rage, that's not logistically accurate," a sharp-eyed intelligence director countered, shaking his head. "Judging carefully by the frame-by-frame data in those leaked videos, there is a specialized tier of exceptionally powerful, high-level hidden Contractors operating on the Great Xia side. It was this specific vanguard that cleanly intercepted Kenta-kun's advance troops and systematically dismantled the Bodo sisters' reinforcement fleet before they could even establish a beachhead..."
"It must have been orchestrated by that specific Super Kage-level anomaly named Jiang Chen. I distinctly remember the reports indicating that the coastal city where he performed his awakening contract ceremony was Jinghai. The exact coordinate Kenta-kun targeted for our initial expansion happens to be his active jurisdiction."
"Wait a minute, hold your tongue! Didn't that Jiang Chen kid just complete his contract ceremony a mere few months ago?" another elder questioned, his voice laced with profound skepticism. "Even if the laws of the world recognize him as a rare Super Kage-level Contractor, it is mathematically impossible for a raw rookie to single-handedly slaughter Kenta-kun and the Bodo sisters simultaneously, right? The power scaling doesn't add up."
"According to the final packet of tactical intelligence beamed back by Kenta-kun before his signal died, there is another massive, heavily fortified tier-one city with a population of ten million sitting directly adjacent to Jinghai City. I calculate that the veteran high-level Contractors stationed in that metropolis must have mobilized an emergency rail reinforcement to bail out Jinghai..."
"Exactly! I concur completely with that analysis. Otherwise, relying solely on a single Super Kage-level Contractor who hasn't even been given the historical time to grow and mature, it would be a physical impossibility to wipe out our elite vanguard..."
"Regardless of their internal numbers, Captain Shimura excellently fulfilled his primary reconnaissance mandate before his fall. Next, the time for probing actions has officially concluded. It is time for us, the absolute main force, to make our definitive appearance on the battlefield."
The whispered debates continued to bounce off the walls of the silent palace. To say the loss of Shimura Kenta and the Bodo sisters hadn't shaken them would be a lie; the total radio silence of their primary landing assets was a severe psychological blow.
However, the apex predatory lords sitting near the front didn't truly take the loss to heart. To put it pragmatically, Shimura Kenta's advance troops were merely an aggressive scouting unit carrying a standard combat payload. They were expendable tools designed to harvest raw tactical intelligence, test the response times of Great Xia's coastal defenses, and map out the current distribution of their high-tier forces.
As for the actual expansion of their sovereign territory and the permanent extraction of Great Xia's resource nodes? That was the exclusive, holy task of the main force sitting inside this very room. It had absolutely nothing to do with the preliminary scouting waves.
"Kurosaki-kun."
Just as the room was reaching a boiling point of competing theories and arguments, a faint, chillingly calm voice drifted down from the golden throne.
The absolute millisecond that voice cut through the air... every single mouth in the hall snapped shut.
The noisy, echo-filled palace instantly plunged into a dead, terrifying silence. Not a single person dared to draw a heavy breath. Every eye in the room pivoted uniformly toward the man resting in the python robe, their gazes dripping with a profound, primitive awe—as if the man sitting above them were a living deity who held the literal threads of their lives and deaths in his palm.
Kurosaki's expression tightened. He smoothly stood up from his faction's row, stepped deliberately into the exact geographic center of the main hall, and sank directly onto both knees.
Leaning his upper body slightly forward, he pressed his palms flat against the dark floor and bowed his head in absolute, unshakeable respect toward Ryuichi Yuwa.
Only then did Kurosaki slowly straighten his back, keeping his eyes lowered respectfully as he spoke: "Replying to His Majesty the Emperor—the raw combat strength of that Jiang Chen is something I have only witnessed once in my entire life. Regarding my definitive evaluation of his capabilities, I have only two words: Very strong!"
"Very strong? That evaluation of yours is quite interesting."
Ryuichi Yuwa leaned forward slightly, looking down at Kurosaki with great interest as a rare flash of genuine surprise unavoidably played across his eyes.
Although Kurosaki's current contractor level wasn't exceptionally high on paper, his contracted legacy character was a legendary samurai whose peak destructive capacity was cleanly comparable to the Shadow-level. Furthermore, his temperament was notoriously arrogant. Ordinary Kage-level Contractors couldn't even catch his eye, yet this Great Xia Kingdom rookie named Jiang Chen was able to wring such a heavy evaluation from him. It seemed the kid truly possessed some terrifying skills.
"However, His Majesty the Emperor, please rest assured," Kurosaki immediately added, gathering his courage as he sensed Ryuichi Yuwa sizing him up. "I only missed my chance in the secret realm last time due to unfavorable terrain variables. If you grant me another opportunity on the front lines, I possess more than enough confidence to cleanly behead him on the spot..."
The second those words left his mouth, it immediately triggered the intense dissatisfaction of the other elites sitting nearby.
"Kurosaki-kun, you should save your hollow big talk for the next time you actually survive a clash with that Jiang Chen. Otherwise, it won't look good when you accidentally bite your own tongue."
The person sneering at this moment was a young man with long, golden hair cascading past his shoulders, casually wearing dark sunglasses indoors. This man's name was Yamamoto Kin, an elite guardian of the Nanga Shrine. Sitting right beside him in identical posture was a youth who looked nearly identical to him—his younger twin brother, Yamamoto Gin.
Although the basic contracted characters of these two brothers were technically classified as Elite Jonin on paper, their true, synchronized combat output was staggeringly fierce, routinely surpassing that of ordinary Shadow-level fighters.
The secret to their terrifying status? Their contracted legacy entities were both Jinchuriki, and the specific Tailed Beast chakra legacy they possessed belonged to the undisputed strongest entity: the Nine-Tails!
The mere fact that Yamamoto Kin could casually interrupt a conversation directly in front of Ryuichi Yuwa without being executed on the spot was more than enough to prove how astronomical his political and military status was within East Island. Even the Heavenly King himself had to accord the twins a high degree of respect.
"Whether I am merely talking big or stating cold tactical facts, you will find out soon enough when you wait and see on the battlefield," Kurosaki's eyes narrowed into slits, turning his head slowly to lock onto Yamamoto Kin. His tone remained perfectly level, but his words carried a distinct, razor-sharp hint of provocation.
"Then I shall eagerly wait and see, Kurosaki-kun. I look forward to watching your spectacular performance under real fire," Yamamoto Kin curled the corners of his mouth, retorting entirely unceremoniously.
The two high-level combatants stood facing each other across the obsidian floor, the localized atmospheric pressure instantly spiking as the entire room became suffocatingly tense. Another clan elder was just about to step out from the ranks to smooth over the escalating friction between the factions, but right at that exact millisecond...
A faint, high-frequency spatial fluctuation suddenly ripped down from the open air directly above the Imperial Palace.
Several high-tier sensory types in the hall instantly noticed the structural anomaly, their expressions changing drastically as cold sweat broke out on their necks.
"Someone just forced a high-altitude spatial displacement skill...!"
Recognizing the threat profile, Ryuichi Yuwa's eyes flared with sudden fury. With a violent wave of his heavy python robe, he instantly burst out of the main hall, leading the entire contingent of dozens of high-level officials rushing out into the courtyard of the palace.
However, the moment they crossed the threshold and collectively cast their eyes up toward the clear sky...
The words died in their throats.
Descending from the clouds at terminal velocity was a monstrous white clay doll measuring dozens of zhang in height—and its entire massive, smooth surface was densely covered, inch by inch, in thousands of pulsing, highly unstable Explosive Tags!
"Nani?! What the hell is that ridiculous thing? A giant Teru Teru Bozu?!" someone couldn't help but scream out in sheer, unadulterated confusion.
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