ACSP: Chapter 202: Is Jiang Chen the Culprit?
The [Spirit Transformation Technique] stands as undisputed code for the most bizarre, terrifying soul-based Forbidden Technique within the entire Naruto meta.
When active, this technique functions precisely like the rusted scythe in the skeletal hands of the Shinigami itself. It completely detaches the user's consciousness from the physical constraints of flesh and blood, rendering them a metaphysical sniper capable of traversing thousands of miles to cleanly assassinate a high-value target—entirely regardless of defensive fortresses or geographical distance.
As the absolute President of the Nanga Shrine, Kato Dankichi's political and military status on East Island was universally recognized as sitting below one single man, yet comfortably towering above ten thousand others. He answered exclusively to His Majesty the Emperor, Ryuichi Yuwa.
Precisely because of his near-deific status, and the harsh reality that maintaining the Spirit Transformation Technique demanded an immense, borderline catastrophic consumption of spiritual energy, Ryuichi Yuwa would never deploy him lightly for standard theater warfare.
But this time, the rules of engagement had changed. The devastating, heavily rigged clay bombs Jiang Chen had delivered directly over their anti-air parameters using the [Heavenly Transfer Technique] posed a terminal, localized threat to the absolute sovereignty of East Island. The structural terror of a daily, un-interceptable payload forced Ryuichi Yuwa to play his absolute highest trump card.
And initially, Kato Dankichi did not let his Emperor down.
After flawlessly executing the Spirit Transformation Technique, he weaponized the unique physical phase-shifting advantages of his raw soul form. Flying at speeds that defied conventional tracking arrays, he rapidly crossed the ocean strait and slipped completely undetected past the coastal detection grids of the Great Xia Kingdom, arriving directly in Jinghai City.
At this exact moment, Jinghai was still deep in the throes of post-war civilian and military reconstruction. Everything was waiting to be rebuilt from the bedrock up; the heavily damaged streets, alleys, and medical plazas were dense with busy, sweating crowds of laborers and lower-tier Contractors.
Kato Dankichi hovered high above the city center, expanding his specialized soul perception radius to its absolute maximum, systematically scanning every bunker, civilian shelter, and hidden training room for a long time.
Yet, to his growing irritation, he found absolutely no trace of Li Dala's signature Explosion Release chakra anywhere within the municipal limits.
Deducing that the high-yield demolition expert might have relocated to the neighboring stronghold of Kang City to fortify their defense lines, the spectral assassin shifted coordinates, rushing there at supersonic speeds to replicate his search.
However, the tactical result was entirely identical.
Li Dala seemed to have completely vanished from the face of the earth, leaving behind no residual chakra trails, no active signatures, and no biological footprints. He was entirely unfindable.
"What the hell is going on here? Could Captain-General Musashi's intelligence department have fed us corrupted, outdated data?"
Kato Dankichi floated in the empty air, completely lost in thought, his translucent face twisting into an exceptionally grim expression.
Executing any S-rank Forbidden Technique requires paying a severe, mathematical price. As a pure soul-based manipulation, the Spirit Transformation Technique was actively draining his vital reserves at an exponential rate with every passing second he remained detached from his physical vessel. If he couldn't isolate and execute Li Dala within the next few minutes, this highly classified deployment of their strategic trump card would result in a complete, embarrassing waste of resources.
Looking down at his arms, he noticed his spectral body was already becoming deeply translucent, flickering softly like a dying candle—a definitive biological sign that his internal Chakra reserves were hovering near absolute exhaustion.
"Dammit... I am the President of the Nanga Shrine. I absolutely cannot permit myself to slink back across the ocean empty-handed after committing to a deployment of this scale!"
Realizing a blind search for Li Dala was a sunk cost, Kato Dankichi ruthlessly shifted his primary assassination parameters. If he couldn't cut off Jiang Chen's artillery, he would bleed Jinghai's leadership. He locked onto Song She, the individual currently radiating the single strongest, most dense concentration of Kage-level Chakra within the entire municipal border.
Utilizing the absolute phase-shifting properties of the Spirit Transformation Technique, Kato bypassed every automated barrier in the underground laboratories, easily identifying Song She, who was currently bent over a sterile workbench, deeply hyper-focused on analyzing a glowing petri dish containing highly volatile [Hashirama Cells].
With a cold, spectral lunge, Kato Dankichi's soul form dove straight into Song She's back, forcibly overriding his nervous system and possessing his physical body in a single, violent stroke.
The very next microsecond, without a single shred of human hesitation, Kato controlled Song She's right hand to snatch a razor-sharp, surgical scalpel from the stainless steel tray, and violently slit his own throat.
—PFFT!
A fountain of dark, arterial blood erupted instantly from the severed windpipe, splashing across the glowing samples and the research monitors.
Song She's eyes widened in brief, paralyzed shock. He clutched his shredded neck with both hands, his knees buckling beneath him as he collapsed heavily onto the cold floor, his respiration and heartbeat ceasing within seconds.
The moment the brain activity flatlined, confirming the kill, Kato Dankichi immediately released the possession vectors of the Spirit Transformation Technique, allowing his depleted, flickering soul to snap back across the ocean grid, returning to his waiting body in the imperial courtyard.
However, in his desperate rush to preserve his remaining chakra, the elite assassin failed to notice a single, deeply anomalous biological event.
In the dark laboratory, not long after Song She's physical corpse fell entirely limp onto the floor...
The jagged, gaping wound across his severed neck began to violently bubble. With a wet, sickening tear, a pale figure completely coated in thick, regenerative translucent slime slowly and deliberately crawled its way out from inside the dead man's throat.
...
Back in the courtyard of the East Island Imperial Palace.
"President Kato's eyes are moving—he's back!"
"Did the deployment yield a confirmed kill?"
"Do not fret, look at his posture. President Kato's legendary Spirit Transformation Technique has maintained a flawless execution record since the founding of the Shrine. There is no way a Great Xia rat survived his possession."
Seeing Kato Dankichi's physical eyelids slowly flutter open, the dozens of high-ranking lords and clan patriarchs immediately broke formation, gathering around his cross-legged form in a dense, expectant crowd. They all spoke up simultaneously, eagerly demanding confirmation of the assassination's success to salvage their bruised national pride.
However, facing their bright, fanatical gazes, Kato Dankichi didn't smile. Instead, he let out a soft, profoundly exhausted sigh, his voice heavy with a mixture of fatigue and frustration:
"I am deeply sorry, my lords... I did not complete the primary parameters of the mission this time."
The moment those words left Kato Dankichi's mouth, the expectant, bloodthirsty expressions on the faces of the gathered elite lords instantly froze solid.
"President Kato... isn't your legendary Spirit Transformation Technique globally recognized as the absolute pinnacle of untethered assassination? A technique claimed to kill from thousands of miles away and never fail? What under the heavens happened this time?"
Someone in the middle ranks blurted out, their voice cracking with a mixture of profound shock and rising panic. Though the rest of the high-ranking leaders kept their mouths shut, their eyes were similarly dilated with pure, unadulterated disbelief. They looked at the pale, sweating President of the Nanga Shrine as if they were fundamentally unable to believe their own ears.
Kato Dankichi's soul-shredding scythe had actually suffered a definitive, undeniable failure. How was that mathematically or logistically possible?
"Kato-kun, please explain to the court exactly what occurred across the sea," Ryuichi Yuwa spoke up, his voice dropping an octave as his purple concentric rings narrowed slightly.
The Emperor understood the underlying mechanics of the Spirit Transformation Technique better than anyone. He knew that once the practitioner successfully synchronized their soul form and locked onto a target's baseline chakra signature, the statistical success rate of the assassination was nearly one hundred percent. It was, by design, an unstoppable, un-blockable execution mechanism. If it failed, there had to be an extraordinary anomaly causing it.
"Sumimasen~... Your Majesty the Emperor," Kato Dankichi lowered his head further, pressing his hands against his knees as he openly admitted his shortcoming. "I could not locate that rogue, Li Dala..."
Facing the absolute authority of the throne, Kato didn't bother to fabricate excuses or hide the tactical reality. He directly stated the cold, frustrating facts: he had scoured every square inch of both Jinghai City and Kang City using his advanced soul perception, but he could not find a single trace, echo, or residual thread of Li Dala's Explosion Release signature in either metropolis.
But before the murmurs of discontent could grow louder, the white-haired assassin sharply raised his eyes and added: "However, although I was unable to eliminate the primary target, before my chakra reserves reached absolute depletion and forced the skill to deactivate, I managed to isolate a high-level Kage-level Contractor within the underground layers of Jinghai City. I possessed his vessel and executed him on the spot."
Hearing this, the dozens of officials looked at each other, the heavy, suffocating tension in the courtyard lifting slightly.
Well... if he didn't kill Li Dala, but still managed to cleanly butcher a completely different, high-value Kage-level pillar of the Great Xia Kingdom's defense network, it couldn't truly be considered a disgrace to his terrifying reputation. His Spirit Transformation Technique remained a soul-based Forbidden Technique where a single clean breach still meant absolute, unmitigated death.
In an instant, the collective focus of the room shifted entirely away from the assassin. Every gaze in the courtyard swung around like a battery of spotlights, locking directly onto the trembling figure of the intelligence director.
"Mr. Musashi! Did your department not explicitly state in the morning briefing that the demolition asset, Li Dala, was currently stationed within the defensive grids of those two specific Great Xia cities, Jinghai and Kang City? Why on earth could President Kato find absolutely zero biological or chakra traces of him there?"
"That's right, Mr. Musashi! Could your heavily funded spy networks be feeding us corrupted, entirely fabricated intelligence?"
"If it weren't for President Kato's extraordinary personal adaptability and his quick decision to slaughter an alternate Kage-level Contractor before his spirit dissolved, our nation's most taxing, soul-based Forbidden Technique would have been entirely wasted today!"
Faced with the mounting, aggressive demands for an explanation from the prestigious clan heads, Musashi Ichiro's face twisted into an expression of severe, calculating distress. He tightly knit his brow, processing the tactical variables for a long, quiet moment, before he looked directly past the shouting lords to lock eyes with the exhausted Kato Dankichi.
"President Kato... when your soul was scanning the municipal perimeters of Jinghai and Kang City... did you happen to cross-reference or detect any active trace of the Super Kage-level Contractor, Jiang Chen?"
Kato Dankichi silently shook his head.
The moment the assassin confirmed the double absence, the expression on Musashi Ichiro's face darkened instantly into a mask of pure, grim realization. A rare, genuine hint of deep-seated worry flashed behind his eyes.
"If that is the case... then it appears the highly anomalous piece of intelligence my deep-cover operatives scraped off the network lines earlier today was entirely true."
Kato Dankichi's brow furrowed tightly. "What specific intelligence?"
Musashi Ichiro took a deep breath, his voice turning exceptionally solemn as he addressed the entire assembly: "A few days ago, my cyber-reconnaissance division recovered a heavily encrypted, raw video file from the deepest layers of the global Dark Web. The footage detailed Jiang Chen personally attending a highly restricted, high-tier underground auction hosted inside Kang City. At that specific auction, he weaponized an absurd fortune to systematically buy out almost every high-value asset on the block, even going so far as to light several legendary Sky Lanterns in a display of absolute financial dominance..."
"Mr. Musashi! Hold your tongue!" a clan patriarch interrupted impatiently, slamming his staff against the stone tile. "We are aggressively demanding an explanation regarding the physical location of the bomber, Li Dala, right now! Why are you wasting His Majesty's time rambling about a rookie attending a civilian luxury auction?"
However, Musashi Ichiro didn't let the interruption sway him. He simply raised his cold eyes, stared silently at the impatient lord until the man shut his mouth, and then continued speaking as if the outburst had never occurred:
"...At that exact auction, a legendary, high-tier space-time Ninjutsu scroll surfaced. It was none other than the legendary [Heavenly Transfer Technique]. According to our historical archives on legendary legacy skills, this specific technique possesses the reality-warping capability to instantaneously teleport anything to a designated coordinate across thousands of miles—completely devoid of limits regarding structural quantity or biological quality. As long as the casting contractor can provide an exceptionally massive, near-infinite reservoir of raw Chakra to feed the vector... even an entire fortified city can be blinked across the globe in a microsecond."
As Musashi Ichiro systematically laid out the absolute, god-tier parameters of this newly revealed space-time Ninjutsu, a collective, sharp intake of breath hissed through the courtyard. Dozens of high-level East Island officials couldn't help but gasp in pure, unadulterated shock.
A space-time technique that could ignore geographic distance and teleport heavy payloads without a single restriction on quantity or quality? Wasn't that utility far too heaven-defying? It entirely shattered the conventional concepts of national defense lines!
At this exact moment, high above them, Ryuichi Yuwa's mind clicked. The pieces of the tactical puzzle instantly fell into a terrifying alignment.
His purple concentric rings narrowed to sharp points as he leaned forward from the sky, his voice dropping like an anvil onto the intelligence director: "Musashi-kun... are you logistically suggesting that the high-yield puppet bomb dropped directly over my Imperial Palace earlier wasn't a localized airstrike launched by Li Dala operating from our borders... but was actually executed by Jiang Chen from thousands of miles away?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. Based on the spatial telemetry, it is highly likely," Musashi Ichiro nodded heavily, the seriousness on his face reaching an all-time high.
He paused, letting the weight of the realization settle over the silent, terrified courtyard, before delivering the final, catastrophic piece of the puzzle:
"Furthermore, our financial tracking units confirmed that immediately after acquiring that space-time technique... Jiang Chen also bought out a specific, bulk-manufactured strategic asset at that very same auction."
"What did he buy?" Yamamoto Kin demanded, his crimson Nine-Tails shroud flickering erratically in response to his rising anxiety.
Musashi Ichiro looked up at the sky, his voice trembling slightly as he whispered the final number:
"300 billion explosive tags."
...
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