Rating: A

After a long pursuit, Shinji finally cornered Lower Rank Five Rui at a mountain stream.

Faced with Shinji chasing him all this way, Rui was no longer as arrogant as he had been when dealing with the Konoha Anbu. With nowhere to run, he flew into a frenzy, giving Shinji no chance to interrogate him. He unleashed his Blood Demon Art recklessly, flinging layer upon layer of bloody webs in every direction.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Everything the bloody webs swept over was reduced to rubble.

In an instant, splintered wood and flying rocks filled the mountain stream, water splashed everywhere, and the whole place was left in disarray!

At a time like this, Shinji didn't choose to clash head-on with Rui and waste his Dojutsu. Instead, he retreated a long way and took up a position high above the stream, looking down at it.

"He knows I want to interrogate him for information."

Shinji felt Rui's sudden frenzy was related to his attempt to interrogate him.

In other words, being interrogated for information was a very serious matter to Rui, enough to send him into a frenzy and make him instinctively resist it.

Realizing this, Shinji shook his head to himself. It seems unlikely I'll get anything useful out of him.

The mastermind secretly orchestrating this invasion had clearly anticipated that Rui, a demon sent to scout ahead, might reveal information about their side. They must have taken precautions accordingly.

So Shinji's plan to get information about the enemy from Rui was probably doomed to fail.

"Then there's no point wasting time!"

Shinji quickly made up his mind.

Whoosh.

But just as Shinji was about to attack, a streak of light tinged with blood tore open space, shining into the Shinobi World as if through a rift in time and space!

Shinji's pupils contracted at the sight, and an inexplicable unease rose within him.

But when Rui, still in his frenzy, saw the blood-colored light, he was overjoyed. Ignoring everything else, he hurled himself toward it with all his strength.

Shinji's expression turned grave. He had no time to analyze what the sudden light was. He leaped from the heights into the air and activated Susanoo before he could hit the ground.

Rumble!

The colossal Susanoo descended like a god, crashing into the mountain stream and smashing Rui, who had been rushing toward the light, to pieces!

Rui's body was nearly shattered into scraps. His flesh suddenly split into four or five pieces, each of which grew eight spider legs before scuttling toward the light in different directions.

As they ran, they shouted, "You can't catch me! You can't catch me!"

He was now only a few dozen meters from the light. At his speed, he would reach it in the blink of an eye, so he had completely lost his fear of Shinji. His voice brimmed with smugness!

Beneath Susanoo, Shinji looked over impassively.

Whoosh.

A wisp of Black Flame drifted out, falling evenly around the blood-colored light like goose down.

Rui instinctively sensed that the Black Flame before him was no ordinary fire. But the light was right in front of him. As long as he escaped into it, he would have completed his mission. So all four or five of his divided forms charged straight into the flames.

"Ahhh!"

The instant they touched the fire, every Rui let out a piercing scream.

They rolled around in the flames, trying to shake off the Black Flame clinging to their bodies. But all their struggles were futile. No matter what they did, the Black Flame followed them like a shadow!

Before long, all five of Rui's clones had turned to ash in the Black Flame, as if they were merely ordinary clumps of flesh, with none of the rapid regeneration one would expect.

Just then,

the blood-colored light that had torn open space disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving only a mark on the ground.

Shinji released Susanoo and walked over calmly.

He had already extinguished the Amaterasu flames on the ground. Rui, who had rushed into the Amaterasu, had left not the slightest trace behind. He had been completely burned away by Amaterasu.

"Amaterasu really can counter demons!"

Shinji had seen how Amaterasu performed.

When Rui had tanked the Anbu's Fire Dragon Bullet earlier, he hadn't screamed at all. But the moment he was burned by Amaterasu's Black Flame, he let out a chilling, bloodcurdling shriek.

And in only a moment, he had been reduced to ash in the Amaterasu, as if a demon's incredible regenerative ability didn't exist at all.

However, Shinji frowned slightly.

He remembered that Rui, the leader of the demon family on Mount Natagumo, was Lower Rank Five of the Twelve Kizuki.

But when Rui had split into five clones just now, the hair covering his left eye had disappeared. Shinji had seen Lower Rank Six in his left eyeball.

"Did I remember wrong?"

Shinji shook his head, then put the doubt out of his mind.

Rui had already been eliminated. Whether he was Lower Five or Lower Rank Six no longer mattered.

[The invasion has been successfully stopped.]

[The rift has closed.]

The mysterious voice finally sounded.

Shinji breathed a sigh of relief. The voice meant that he had eliminated every invading demon without missing any.

Although he couldn't get information about the mastermind from the demons, he had successfully stopped them from sending information about the Shinobi World back to their side.

Especially information about how Chakra was used.

Chakra could be used to perform offensive ninjutsu, heal wounds, and even create things from nothing or spur life into being.

The consequences would be unimaginable if the demons completely mastered the techniques for using Chakra.

[Scanning for spoils.]

[Analyzing spoils.]

[Spoil: Thread Manipulation Technique.]

[Spoil: Special Spider Silk (can be strengthened with Chakra)]

Two glowing orbs appeared in the wrecked mountain stream.

"Thread Manipulation Technique and Spider Silk?"

Shinji went over to the orbs and reached out, gathering them in his hands.

In an instant,

a flood of techniques for manipulating threads entered his mind. Though they were advanced techniques, he understood and mastered them with ease, as if he had studied thread manipulation for decades.

"This—this is every one of Rui's insights into controlling threads!"

As a Spider Demon, Rui's control over threads had become instinctive. Now, all of that had become Shinji's experience.

Next, Shinji looked at the mass of Spider Silk in his hand.

The silk was incredibly light. He couldn't feel its weight at all, and it felt very soft to the touch, nothing like the bloody threads that had just cut through metal and stone.

On a whim, Shinji tried flicking the Spider Silk with the thread-control technique he had just acquired.

Whoosh.

The soft Spider Silk, reinforced with his Chakra, instantly became a blade, slicing a nearby tree in two.

"Impressive!"

If he used this Spider Silk to launch a surprise attack in the dark, an ordinary person would have no way to defend against it.

However, according to Rui's insights into thread manipulation, the Spider Silk did have a weakness: fire.

Under the heat of flames, the Spider Silk would instantly soften and then turn to ash.

[Calculating rewards.]

[Rating: A]

[Received the Shinobi World's Gift: A-rank Ninjutsu (random).]

[Achieved an A-rank rating. You may forgo the Shinobi World's Gift to receive a random reward.]

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