As the thick fog lifted, Guy Sensei had just managed to repel one of the ninjas. With the fog cleared, the tension in the valley was fully revealed.
Everyone saw Li Zhenwu standing over there, slightly out of breath, while the dual blades of Raiga Kurosuki lay scattered on the ground, leaving his life in question.
The situation was evidently clear.
"Zhenwu defeated Raiga Kurosuki?" Guy Sensei was the most astonished; even if he had gone to take on Raiga Kurosuki, it would have required considerable effort.
After all, with the 'Thunder Swords: Kiba,' that Raiga Kurosuki possessed gives him a boost comparable to that of a jōnin.
Yet, only a short while had passed, and Li Zhenwu had demonstrated such power!
In the meantime, the teammates of Li Zhenwu, Inuzuka Hana and Shiranui Gensui, felt the immense gap between themselves and Li Zhenwu...
On the roadside, a man witnessing Raiga Kurosuki's collapse turned pale.
He had initially hoped that this renowned ninja would help him seize the heirloom of the Land of Bean Jam and secure his rightful place on the throne.
But now, he had been defeated by a child barely a meter tall.
The man felt an absurd sense of drama.
Meanwhile, the ninjas who had been with Raiga Kurosuki and had defied Guy Sensei were also left with grim expressions, some even sneaking off without making a sound.
After the shock wore off, everyone approached.
Inuzuka Hana couldn't believe it and asked, "Zhenwu, you actually defeated him?"
"Yeah, it took a lot out of me, though," Li Zhenwu replied, standing there as his body gradually recovered.
Although he seemed quite valiant moments earlier, Raiga Kurosuki's electrical attacks had left him somewhat numb.
The fight had been challenging, but now that it was over, he felt a bit unwell.
After a while, Li Zhenwu regained his strength and checked the mission prompt in his mind.
He discovered that he had completed his task (3/3), but it still showed an incomplete status. Thus, he turned to the man who had been impersonating the mission client.
"Now, tell me the whole truth and the whereabouts of the real client," Li Zhenwu asked as he walked over.
The man looked defeated, sighed heavily after a long pause, and replied with a face ashen as death.
It turned out that everything he had previously said was mostly true. He was indeed an heir of the Land of Bean Jam, but he played the role of the villain.
The so-called heir trying to usurp the throne using national resources was him; the true heir was his niece.
Due to the previous king's death, the kingdom required an heir, but the last ruler had passed the throne to his daughter.
He was very displeased, especially that the kingdom would be led by his niece, a female, which prompted him to contemplate seizing power.
However, his niece had not yet truly ascended to the throne, as the kingdom's heirloom was not within the country but in a distant land.
Therefore, she needed to find and bring it back to the kingdom to truly inherit the throne.
During this process, he learned that his niece had entrusted a Konoha ninja to escort the heirloom, and quietly developed this devious scheme.
He hired a group of ninjas intending to seize the heirloom for himself. After learning the escort route of the Konoha ninjas, he sent out two waves of ninjas.
However, both groups failed miserably, forcing him to reconsider the likelihood of forcibly taking the heirloom.
Consequently, he abducted his own niece and extracted the meeting codes, hoping to obtain the heirloom directly from the Konoha ninjas.
As for the ninjas in the valley, they were merely a precautionary measure, but he hadn't expected that someone among the Konoha ninjas would see through his ploy.
Moreover, a member of the Inuzuka clan had caught the scent of the ninjas even before they entered the valley...
Accepting his fate, the man confessed everything.
"Why didn't you just kill your niece? Wouldn't that make it easier to take the throne? No one in the entire kingdom would qualify to contest against you," Li Zhenwu asked.
Surprisingly, after Li Zhenwu's inquiry, the man looked at him as if it were absurd: "There are very few of us left in the Land of Bean Jam, and among the royal family, it's just my niece and me. How could I kill her?"
"..."
Raiga Kurosuki lay motionless on the ground, and Shiranui Gensui cautiously approached, discovering that Li Zhenwu had indeed beaten him to death, unable to help but click his tongue in admiration.
Because the real mission client was still in the city, they had no choice but to return the same way. Before heading back, Li Zhenwu did not forget to take the Kiba Swords with him.
Strictly speaking, this was his best spoils of war—notorious among the seven blades, it came with powerful special abilities.
In the end, the man was not disposed of but was kept under watch, returning to the city with them to find the true mission client.
Upon returning to the city, under the man's dutiful guidance, they finally met the real mission client.
At that moment, Li Zhenwu's mind was filled with the system's voice.
"Ding! Congratulations to the host for completing the mission. The mission rewards have been dispersed!"
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