Infiltration

In the evening, deep within an unremarkable alley in an unknown village inhabited by the Tsugawa Clan.

The quiet environment brought a sense of time standing still. When night fell and human activity temporarily subsided, it revealed a natural harmony.

Unfortunately, all this "peace" was merely an illusion. A "quiet evening here" was about to unfold in this village.

Although all the villagers could be classified as cattle and horses in sociological terms, not all cattle and horses are the same. For instance, some cattle and horses have a habit of waking early and sleeping late.

This building, unremarkable and inconspicuous within the village, along with the underground space hidden beneath it, formed the Tsugawa Clan's important storage center and logistical hub.

According to the intelligence Uchiha Nanami had dug up, Yuzhen quickly located this place after infiltrating the village.

Not only could Uchiha Nanami find the enemy's supply depots, but she could even uncover information on the types and quantities of some of the supplies.

In reality, the Tsugawa Clan's village was loosely guarded on the outside but tightly controlled within, with numerous sentries deployed. However, even without intelligence support, Yuzhen's exaggerated infiltration abilities made it difficult for these ninja to detect his presence.

Yuzhen used the Mayfly Technique to pass directly through the wall and stealthily infiltrate the warehouse, but he didn't act immediately.

His body almost merged with the wall, his eyes solely observing the situation in the warehouse courtyard.

One, two, three, four. There were a total of four ninja here. One of them was the "supervisor," who was directing the other three in accounting for the incoming and outgoing supplies.

Yuzhen prioritized destroying this place over dealing with the enemy's higher-ups. He naturally understood the principle of striking enemy logistics nodes as much as possible in war.

He was extremely patient at the moment. These individuals were still gathered together, but they would eventually separate.

Yuzhen understood wage slaves very well. How could wage slaves working in warehousing stay gathered together all the time?

More than ten minutes later, a ninja walked into a side building to inventory the supplies inside.

Yuzhen followed almost at light speed.

After entering the room with him, he found the ninja facing a shelf, back to the wall, inventorying something. This position was actually quite good, but he was too close to the door, so Yuzhen temporarily suppressed the urge to act.

After the ninja finished inventorying this shelf and took a few more steps deeper into the warehouse, his figure could no longer be seen from outside the door.

Yuzhen seized the opportunity and, without hesitation, struck decisively.

He suddenly extended his hands from the wall, covering the other ninja's mouth and nose with his left hand while pressing the back of his head firmly against the wall. With his right hand, he plunged a kunai into the ninja's waist from behind.

The intense pain caused the ninja's torso to arch forward uncontrollably. He instinctively thrust his lower back forward, seemingly trying to distance himself from the blade piercing his body. However, such a vicious "kidney strike" destroyed his physical reflexes. His strength and Chakra rapidly left his body with the cold, stinging sensation from his back.

Even if Yuzhen hadn't covered his mouth and nose, he would have been unable to make any sound.

Yuzhen gently twisted his right wrist. The kunai embedded in the enemy's body almost shredded his internal organs. The unlucky ninja's body twitched involuntarily.

At this point, Yuzhen moved his right hand away from the enemy's mouth and nose, hooked his elbow around the ninja's neck, and then exerted sudden force.

Crushing internal organs from below and nearly snapping the neck bone from above—the combined effect was greater than the sum of its parts. The ninja silently lost his life.

Then, Yuzhen repeated the same method. The second and third ninja died in almost the same way.

Finally, with only the supervisor ninja remaining, Yuzhen silently appeared behind him and gave him a "throat slit" with the edge of his kunai before the ninja was even aware of it.

"Cough... Hck..."

Thump.

His short gasps for air and the sound of his body uncontrollably falling to the ground were almost the only noises made during Yuzhen's stealth assassination operation.

The entrance to the underground warehouse was likely protected by a Barrier to warn against external invasion. However, Yuzhen didn't need to find the entrance at all. He simply used the Mayfly Technique, plunged into the ground, and entered the underground space unimpeded.

Yuzhen was indeed adept at adapting his strategy. If he were infiltrating the Uzumaki Clan's village now, he certainly wouldn't have killed the supervisor directly. Instead, he would have taken him hostage and attempted to force him to deactivate the Barrier through coercion.

But in the Tsugawa Clan's village, it wasn't that troublesome.

As mentioned before, the ninja villages nowadays were merely makeshift operations. Villages composed of a single Ninja Clan could not possibly have so many versatile talents. Large, powerful Sealing Barriers were not something an ordinary Ninja Clan could master.

If Yuzhen had chosen to force his way through the Barrier at the entrance to the underground space, he probably wouldn't have been stopped.

Upon entering the underground space, Yuzhen found that, just as the intelligence indicated, it was indeed storing war supplies.

He quickly rummaged through boxes and cabinets, soon finding a large quantity of Explosive Tags in several dry, sealed, and shock-absorbent packaged boxes.

"This is a huge help."

Yuzhen took out almost all the Explosive Tags. He took out most of them and quickly plastered them all over the warehouse, then set up several very hidden trigger traps at the entrance.

Then, instead of using the Mayfly Technique, he brazenly walked directly through the lightly restricted warning barrier.

The enemy's reaction was very swift. Almost at the moment Yuzhen triggered the Barrier, they realized an outsider or enemy had entered the important supply warehouse.

A few minutes later, five Tsugawa Ninja rushed towards the area.

"They're all dead..."

Soon, someone discovered that everyone here had been assassinated.

"The important war supplies in the warehouse, oh no..."

Since their own people had been assassinated, it meant the area had been invaded by an enemy. Thus, he frantically rushed towards the entrance of the underground warehouse.

"Wait, be careful..."

Someone tried to stop and warn him, but the impulsive young ninja had already entered the underground space first.

Then...

BOOM!

A dull, oppressive explosion suddenly rang out, waking the still-sleeping village and sending the ninja who had come to provide support spiraling into the sky.

After the explosion, thick smoke rose from the village.

As it turned out, no matter how fast a ninja was, they couldn't be faster than an explosion.

This village wasn't large, so this explosion alerted almost everyone. Five minutes later, more ninja arrived at the scene.

What greeted them was nothing but burning ruins.

Cracks, crisscrossing the once-flat ground, spewed forth flames and thick smoke...

The Tsugawa Clan, which was skilled in Water Style, united their efforts and immediately began firefighting operations, attempting to salvage as much material as possible.

Meanwhile, another group of ninja began searching the area, trying to find the intruders responsible for the destruction.

However, just as the entire village's attention was drawn to this spot, several more explosions sounded not far away, followed by towering Higure appearing in the night sky.

The ninja, all aghast, turned to look in the direction of the flames.

The warehouse they were trying to save stored war materials, a significant portion of which were iron weapons, so the fire after the explosion wasn't very large.

But the subsequent explosions, which ignited the general supplies warehouse, contained many highly flammable items like grain, thus illuminating the dark, moonlit night sky with immense flames.

Simply put, Yuzhen played a feint, fully displaying his artistic sensibilities and achieving excellent results.

These destroyed supplies would certainly not bring the Tsugawa Clan to its knees immediately, but it would undoubtedly cause considerable panic, accelerating the clan's fate toward an unknown future.

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