An S-Rank Mission

The information Mion had provided Touma was still very important.

According to the ancient records of the Kurama Clan, Moryo was first discovered in the Land of Demons about 1,200 years ago, after the death of the last emperor of the Land of Ancestors.

The first publication of this book is on Taiwan Novels, Taiwan's top choice for novels. delivers a great reading experience with accurate chapters in the right order.

At the time, numerous feudal states were fighting over the emperor's authority in the Land of Ancestors. The resulting war was terrifyingly large in scale and directly caused hundreds of millions of lives to be lost.

However, the Sage of Six Paths had not yet created the Pure Land, so there was no way to guide the souls of the dead into the afterlife. As a result, the negative emotions unleashed by the deaths of so many people gradually converged under the influence of Natural Energy, forming the demon Moryo.

To combat Moryo, many onmyoji fought and died, eventually simplifying and developing a talisman called the "Evil Sealing Method." After Ninshu chakra was introduced, the "Evil Sealing Method" gradually evolved into the "Evil Sealing Seal" used today!

That was right. To resist Moryo's mind control, you either needed extraordinary mental fortitude and resistance to genjutsu, or you had to prepare an "Evil Sealing Seal" on your body. When Moryo's foreign energy invaded, the seal would activate automatically and absorb and suppress it!

Fortunately, the "Evil Sealing Seal" had appeared in the original story, so Touma had made a point of finding it in one of Orochimaru's leftover scrolls and studying it.

It might only be a B-rank Sealing Jutsu, but even if you didn't skip drawing the symbols, it took at least twenty hand seals to activate. Skipping the symbols required no fewer than thirty-two hand seals.

However, suppressing foreign energy required you to perform the "Evil Sealing Seal" with your own chakra. Teacher Shinku and Shibi could manage it, but Haruno Kizashi had absolutely no talent for Sealing Jutsu.

In fact, when Touma first noticed Haruno Kizashi's talent with ninja tools, he'd wanted to set him up with a Space-Time Warehouse tactic, like Tenten's!

Unfortunately, even with the Space-Time Warehouse already prepared, Haruno Kizashi often made mistakes when trying to open it in the middle of a fight. It had no practical value in combat.

Now, handing him an even more complicated "Evil Sealing Seal" was really going to test Touma's teaching ability.

Touma couldn't teach him successfully, and even Teacher Shinku, who'd been brimming with confidence, had to give up. So, after discussing it, they decided that when a fight broke out, Haruno Kizashi—unable to place the "Evil Sealing Seal" on himself—would stay on the outskirts and avoid fighting the Sugiyama Clan's guards and the ninjas from the Land of Demons as much as possible, to keep Moryo's power from invading him.

Of course, it would also work to make the "Evil Sealing Seal" into a talisman that Haruno Kizashi could activate by injecting chakra into it. But aside from him, the other three were a genjutsu-type ninja, a ninjutsu-type ninja, and a secret-technique-type ninja. Not one of them knew how to make talismans.

That left Haruno Kizashi pretty upset. He'd finally landed a mission where he could fight, and now they were telling him to stand around and watch. It was as good as killing him!

The trade negotiations between the two countries soon reached their final day. The puppet followers brought by "Ota Yokokawa"—or rather, Yomotsu—had long since grown restless.

It wasn't just Team Shinku, openly responsible for security, that had noticed. The Twelve Guardian Ninja assigned by the Yuan Clan and the ninjas from Kairan Village had also picked up on their secret movements.

Team Shinku acted in advance, stopping all the Yomi Sect followers who tried to leave their hotel. They sealed their chakra points and sent them to a dungeon provided by the Heavenly Fire Cult for temporary detention.

The followers who had slipped into the capital among other travelers were left to the Kairan Village ninjas stationed around the perimeter.

Fortunately, water was plentiful near the capital, allowing the Water Release ninjas from Kairan Village to fight at nearly full strength. They easily dealt with these unevenly skilled Yomi Sect followers.

The only regret was that the Twelve Guardian Ninja had failed to stop Yomotsu and his four guards, despite having six Jonin among them. Worse, they let him escape with Onizuka Kenichi into the Sugiyama Clan's territory in the capital's northwest.

Touma now understood why Yuan Jiuxiong didn't trust the Twelve Guardian Ninja. He'd rather recruit new forces than bother directing them. The group had spent so long living comfortably in the Yuan Clan's territory that they'd become completely useless.

Six elite Jonin had let one elite Jonin whose mind was under control escape with four Chunin and an ordinary person—and, more importantly, they'd escaped without a scratch. There was no excuse that could convince the current daimyo, Yuan Benxiong!

Furious, Yuan Benxiong sent the six useless men back to their clan territory for punishment. With no other forces available, he could only humble himself and ask his elder brother Yuan Jiuxiong for help, paying a heavy price to secure support from a contingent of hired ninjas from Shin-Gaku Village.

Yes, Yuan Jiuxiong had already guessed that his good-for-nothing younger brother would run into trouble if he relied on the Twelve Guardian Ninja. So, when he hired the Jonin from Kairan Village, he'd also hired a group of elite ninjas from Shin-Gaku Village.

With Shinku Yuhi—a genjutsu master from Konoha known throughout the Shinobi World as "Konoha Crimson"—on their side, there was almost no chance of anything going wrong.

Shinku Yuhi had only earned that reputation in the last few years. During the war with Yugakure, he'd faced three enemy Jonin at once, held his own, and captured all three.

One Yugakure ninja who'd fallen under Shinku Yuhi's genjutsu escaped back to his village in a mental breakdown, endlessly shouting, "Blood! There's blood everywhere!" That was how Shinku got the name "Konoha Crimson."

He was also one of the few Konoha ninjas whom Yugakure had forbidden its forces from engaging proactively. The others were the Hatake Couple and Orochimaru, who'd demonstrated their Kamui on the Yugakure and Grass Ninja battlefields!

Since the client for this mission was the daimyo's office and the former daimyo had requisitioned his services, Shinku Yuhi couldn't very well refuse. He could only negotiate with the office to raise the mission's rank.

Otherwise, he'd be doing A-rank or even S-rank work while receiving only C-rank pay. Even if Shinku Yuhi were truly loyal to the daimyo, he wouldn't be foolish enough to accept that.

Yuan Jiuxiong, the former daimyo, wasn't stingy. Since his younger brother would reimburse him later, he simply signed an S+ rank mission order in front of Shinku Yuhi, raising the reward to the maximum of five million ryo. Shinku Yuhi couldn't bring himself to turn it down.

A typical S-rank mission had a maximum reward of only one million ryo, while an S+ mission—the so-called super S-rank mission—could pay up to five million. That showed just how difficult this mission was. After all, you got what you paid for.

Of course, Shinku Yuhi wouldn't be taking all five million ryo for himself. The reward would be divided according to their contributions among him and the six Jonin from Shin-Gaku Village and six Jonin from Kairan Village who'd also been hired.

However, when it came to infiltrating and capturing targets, genjutsu-type ninjas couldn't really be compared with the ninja-tool specialists from Shin-Gaku Village or the ninjutsu specialists from Kairan Village.

There was also one temporary participant in this super S-rank mission whom Shinku Yuhi had insisted on bringing along: his student, Touma.

Shinku Yuhi had personally experienced Touma's near-Jonin-level combat ability. On the night their practical exercise ended, he sought Touma out again because he'd realized that his student had held back during the exercise!

But after Shinku Yuhi saw the B-rank Divine Wind Sword and Hidden Thunder Sword Touma had developed himself, along with the A-rank Wind Roar Cannon and Thunder Shock, he knew he could never treat this student like an ordinary Genin!

He planned to help Touma quickly build up experience with high-rank missions, so his student could mature faster and stand on his own!