ACSP: Chapter 182: The End of Inoue Gessui
Seeing the chaotic crimson chakra swirling furiously into his containment seals, a triumphant, twisted smile broke across Inoue Gessui's face. Victory was within his grasp.
"On a cruel battlefield like this, you women are ultimately nothing more than high-grade resources and the spoils of war," he sneered, his voice dripping with condescension as he stared down at her trembling form. "Even if you lucked out and became a rare Jinchuriki Contractor, your fate was always sealed. You were never going to be anything more than prey."
He let out a low, amused chuckle. "Though, you really should be thanking your lucky stars that it was me who caught you. With a face like yours, if you had fallen into the hands of some of the other squads, you would have suffered a fate a thousand times worse than death before they ever touched your seal..."
His sickening words struck a chord, igniting a final, desperate spark of fury deep within Zhang Xiaolin. Gritting her bloody teeth, she gathered every remaining ounce of her fading strength, mobilizing the dormant, volatile chakra of the Three-Tails to violently thrash against the bindings of the technique.
But her resistance backfired instantly.
The moment she forced her energy upward, the containment seals flared with an unnatural hunger. The harder she fought to manipulate the Tailed Beast's power, the faster and more violently the Three-Tails was ripped from her soul.
"It's useless to struggle," Inoue Gessui mocked, his eyes gleaming with sadistic amusement as he watched her futile efforts. "Once the [Tailed Beast Extraction Seal] is fully locked in, your power no longer belongs to you. You're just feeding the machine."
——BOOM!
A deafening explosion shattered the air before he could finish his sentence.
The heavy stone wall directly behind him detonated inward, blasted into a million pieces by an overwhelming, cataclysmic force. A violent shockwave of pulverized debris, jagged rocks, and thick, choking dust flooded the chamber instantly, shattering the delicate chakra array and forcing Inoue Gessui to break his stance and leap backward.
"Fortunately, I made it in time..."
Through the settling dust and collapsing architecture, Jiang Chen stepped calmly into the ruined chamber. His sharp gaze immediately swept over to the stone altar, landing on Zhang Xiaolin's slumped form. Seeing that the signature chakra of the Three-Tails was still anchored to her soul—that she was still breathing—he finally let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Then, his demeanor shifted. The temperature in the room seemed to plummet to absolute zero.
Slowly, Jiang Chen raised his head, his icy, lethal glare locking directly onto the man standing beside the altar.
He recognized this face. He had just ripped its name and identity straight from Asakura's dying memories.
Inoue Gessui. One of the three elite division captains spearheading the East Island advance team, and the powerful Contractor who wielded the bloodline of Suigetsu Hozuki.
The Hozuki clan's [Hydrification Technique] was a very overpowered ability in the Naruto Dimension.
This ability not only allowed them to liquefy their bodies into water, making them immune to physical attacks.
The Hozuki clan's bloodline was notoriously deceptive. In environments rich with water, their users could seamlessly merge with the liquid landscape, a state of absolute fluidity that amplified their strength and defense exponentially. If an opponent were to rush blindly into battle against Inoue Gessui without this vital intelligence, even a veteran, high-tier Kage-level Contractor would find themselves pushed to their absolute limits just trying to land a physical blow.
But Jiang Chen didn't care. To him, the man's trump card was a joke.
Among the vast arsenal of high-tier skills he had mastered, he possessed the single most devastating, absolute counter to the Hozuki clan's celebrated [Hydrification Technique].
Lightning Release.
When a Hozuki user attempting to liquefy their body ran into high-frequency electricity, the relationship instantly became that of a terrified son standing before an absolute patriarch. They had no room to fight back—their only option was to drop to their knees and beg for mercy.
"You are... that Jiang Chen?"
Inoue Gessui's brow furrowed heavily, the cocky smirk vanishing from his lips as he sized up the teenager who had just pulverized his hideout. His expression grew incredibly grim.
Though he had never faced the youth in the flesh, Jiang Chen's sudden rise to power had branded him as a critical, high-priority target of interest across the entire East Island military network. Almost every single invading Contractor had been forced to memorize his facial features, analyzing whatever scarce combat photos and video footage they could scrape together.
—Zzzzzzt!
Jiang Chen offered no reply, treating the captain's question with absolute silence. He simply drew the [Kusanagi Sword] from its sheath in one fluid motion, instantly coating the pristine steel in a blinding, crackling layer of high-density Lightning Style Chakra.
Damn it! This bastard is channeling Lightning Style right out of the gate. He already knows my exact weakness!
Inoue Gessui's heart dropped into his stomach, panic flaring in his chest. No. I can't afford to engage him here. I need to retreat and regroup immediately!
Sensing the lethal danger radiating from the electrified blade, Inoue Gessui didn't hesitate. Before Jiang Chen could even take a step forward, the division captain decisively whipped out two tactical smoke bombs and slammed them hard into the floorboards at his feet.
"—Bang! Bang!"
The moment the smoke exploded, he immediately ran in front of Zhang Xiaolin, intending to take her with him.
However, just as he reached out to undo the chains, a figure appeared silently behind him.
"Nani?"
Inoue Gessui sensed danger. He had no time to think and immediately gripped the hilt of his blade backhanded. The [Water Arm Technique] erupted. He slashed horizontally.
"—Clang!"
A sound of metal clashing rang out. His large blade was blocked by a long sword covered in lightning.
At the moment the two weapons collided, Inoue Gessui noticed the lightning on the long sword spreading rapidly through the point of impact.
Without a word, he unhesitatingly released his grip on the hilt. Then, he stomped hard on the ground, and his body shot backward like a cannonball.
"Damn it, this guy couldn't have come earlier or later, he just had to show up right when I was about to succeed. Isn't this just purely disgusting?"
Inoue Gessui gritted his teeth, glancing with great reluctance at Zhang Xiaolin, who was still tied to the table.
He knew that with Jiang Chen here today, it was impossible to take her away, so he chose to give up without hesitation.
However, just as he turned to retreat, the floor tiles beneath him suddenly exploded. A palm glowing with lightning shot out from underground and grabbed his ankle.
"—Zzzzt!"
The moment the high-frequency current surged through his nervous system, Inoue Gessui's vision blurred. The devastating electricity instantly locked his joints, paralyzing his muscles and forcing his body into a hideous, uncontrollable semi-liquefied state.
In a desperate, final act of survival, he strained his eyes to look out of the corner of his peripheral vision toward the altar. What he saw made his blood run cold. The 'Jiang Chen' who had been standing at the entrance suddenly detonated into a harmless puff of white smoke.
It was a Shadow Clone?!
"Only just realized it?"
A freezing voice erupted from directly beneath his feet. Inoue Gessui's face twisted in sheer terror. He fractured his jaw open, desperately trying to scream or force a final words out, but Jiang Chen didn't give him a single second of breathing room.
[Chidori Current] detonated from the earth.
The catastrophic wave of lightning blasted through Inoue Gessui's unstable form, instantly tearing his molecular structure apart and violently scattering his body into a chaotic spray of mist and water.
Before the droplets could even hit the ground, Jiang Chen's real body broke through the floorboards. With fluid, lethal precision, his fingers blurred through a sequence of hand seals. He exhaled deeply, unleashing a devastating [Great Fireball Technique]. A massive vortex of scorching flames roared across the chamber, instantly vaporizing every single drop of the scattered water into nothingness.
"Jiang Chen...!"
Just as the last embers of the fireball flickered out, Li Yanran and the rest of the vanguard finally followed the trail of destruction into the hidden room.
Catching sight of Zhang Xiaolin's limp body bound to the heavy altar by iron chains, Li Yanran's heart skipped a beat, and she immediately rushed forward in pure concern. But a split second later, she skidded to a violent halt. Her posture stiffened, her eyes scanning the scorched, empty room with fierce vigilance.
"Jiang Chen, where is the division captain who took Sister Xiaolin?" she demanded, her hand hovering over her weapon.
"I already killed him," Jiang Chen replied casually, shrugging his shoulders as he deactivated his technique.
"What did you just say? You already killed him?"
Li Yanran's eyes widened to the size of saucers, her voice cracking in utter disbelief. Behind her, the rest of the group froze, their faces masking expressions of absolute astonishment.
On their frantic sprint over here, Xiao Tu had explicitly warned them about Inoue Gessui's terrifying profile. He had broken down the mechanics of the Hozuki constitution—how the man could effortlessly liquify at a microsecond's notice, rendering himself entirely immune to physical strikes and standard jutsu. While his offensive output wasn't the highest, his defensive, evasive, and survival capabilities were universally ranked at the absolute top-tier.
They had mentally braced themselves for a brutal, drawn-out battle. They assumed that even with Jiang Chen's monstrous strength, cornering and pinning down a liquid shadow would require an immense, agonizing amount of effort—if it was even possible at all.
Yet, who could have fathomed this? In the trivial handful of minutes it took for them to simply follow his footsteps, Jiang Chen hadn't just defeated the enemy. He had utterly erased him from existence.
Wasn't this god-like speed just a bit too terrifying?