ACSP: Chapter 233: Amaterasu Burns Susanoo, The Attitude of the Nangong Family!
Deploying 5,000 active Shadow Clones simultaneously was the absolute, bleeding-edge limitation of Jiang Chen's current level 52 parameters.
Because his central energy pools were stretched across such a staggering, army-sized node registry, these 5,000 standard duplicates were mechanically incapable of scaling up to manifest the [Susanoo]. In the grand calculus of the battlefield, this structural limitation was the sole remaining compromise—a minor regret in an otherwise god-tier execution.
Yet, even without the giant armor shrouds, the sudden deployment of 5,000 identical combat units left the frontline commanders of the Four Vassal Families and the Southern Pavilion completely paralyzed.
"Splitting out five thousand solid duplicates in a single, untelegraphed breath?! What kind of broken casting engine is he running?!"
"Damn it all, is this kid a literal system exploit?! Even if one of his core contracted slots is a high-affinity Jinchuriki (Tailed Beast Host), it's mathematically impossible to register this many active clone matrices at once, right?!"
"Holy fuck... just how massive is his baseline Chakra pool?!"
The standard Shadow Clone was universally classified as a common-level utility; practically every tier-two Contractor in the Great Xia Kingdom had it mapped to their hotbars.
However, witnessing a single player split his registry into a sprawling, 5,000-man legion was a mechanical anomaly none of them had ever encountered in their entire careers. It crossed the line from a high-tier duplicate skill into a literal, self-sustaining army.
Yet, amid the panic, a few arrogant high-level enforcers convinced themselves that Jiang Chen was merely executing a massive, low-stat bluff.
"They're just basic smoke duplicates! What are you cowards freezing for?!"
"Exactly! The standard clone is a trash-tier skill that aggressively hemorrhages Chakra. The more entities he forces onto the grid right now, the faster his core mana pools will hit a critical flatline! No matter how much reserve energy he's hoarding, he cannot sustain this macro-upkeep!"
"I've parsed his logic—the kid saw his core vanguard approaching critical health, so he popped a flashy, low-durability ultimate just to induce psychological crowd control and buy time!"
"Shadow Clones disintegrate from a single point of tick damage. Today, let's show this arrogant rookie the exact consequences of running a fake bluff in front of the Magic City elite!"
Bellowing their defiance, these veteran squads flashed through the smoke, re-initializing their offensive loops toward Ronan and Li Dala's coordinates.
Several high-level mages rapidly completed their hand seals, launching massive, wide-area elemental Ninjutsu arrays designed to blanket the zone and clear the duplicates in a single, sweeping frame. Others relied on high-speed projectile loops, unleashing a dense, blinding curtain of iron Shuriken to systematically pop the phantoms blocking the vanguard lines.
But within a single localized frame, a scene unfolded that left their entire leadership completely dumbfounded.
They watched in horror as the 5,000 duplicates Jiang Chen had deployed didn't just stand there to absorb the splash damage—their movement mechanics were impeccably agile, and every single duplicate simultaneously snapped open a crimson, spinning Three-Tomoe Sharingan!
Leveraging the hyper-predictive kinetic tracking of the advanced ocular trait, the 5,000 clones wove through the incoming shuriken storm with zero friction, their hitboxes completely untouched.
Worse yet, their fingers blurred into flawless, synchronized counters. They immediately cast matching elemental jutsus, perfectly canceling out the wide-area spells mid-air before seamlessly transitioning into a massive, overlapping counter-offensive.
After the first wave of trades finalized on the server... the elite forces of the Four Vassal Families had not only failed to delete a single one of Jiang Chen's clones, but their own frontlines were completely decimated by the precise, predictive retaliation.
Instead, a devastating number of their own frontliners were instantly wiped out, their health bars completely deleted by the high-output counter-skills unleashed by the clone army.
"As expected of the boss—pure, unmitigated dominance!" Li Dala barked, his eyes lighting up as the tactical pressure lifted.
"Stop wasting frames talking nonsense, capitalize on the opening and clear these syndicates out!" Ronan countered, his fingers already blurring through a counter-offensive seal string.
With Jiang Chen's 5,000 clone legion firmly anchoring the map, Ronan and Li Dala instantly shifted their operational loops from full-defense to an aggressive, high-velocity counter-attack.
The grand melee resumed with absolute violence.
Only this time, the structural reality of the grid had completely inverted. It was no longer a 2,000-man army systematically encircling a handful of cornered rogues. Rather, it was Ronan, Li Dala, the unkillable Uchiha ancestors, and over 5,000 predictive, Three-Tomoe-wielding phantoms executing a massive, claustrophobic pincer matrix on the remaining, panicked forces of the Four Vassal Families.
"Sister... what is our play now? Should we draw our weapons and force a breach to reinforce them?"
Nangong Hong clenched her small fists, a heavily nervous expression tightening her face as she looked toward her sibling.
Ever since Jiang Chen had engaged Zhao Dingtian's core group, the two sisters had been effectively sidelined due to their lower level parameters, safely kept in the mechanical blind spots of the clearing under the absolute protection of Ronan's Edo Tensei summons. But now that the macro-flow of the instance had completely shifted into a counter-rout, they could feel the tides turning.
"We help," Nangong Fei said after a heavy, calculating silence. She bit her lower lip, her eyes flashing with a sudden, definitive focus.
"The Zhao Family Southern Pavilion has already flagged our Nangong registry as an active co-conspirator of Jiang Chen. In the eyes of the local factions, there is no neutrality left for us. Since the board is already set, let's play the high-stakes game and push all our chips into the center..."
"Ah? Sister, what exactly are we gambling on?" Nangong Hong blinked, startled by the intensity in her sister's voice.
"We are betting our entire family legacy on Jiang Chen's absolute victory," Nangong Fei declared, her grip tightening on her hilt. "Since the aristocracy of the Magic City has already written us into his script, let's give them exactly what they're looking for. We declare our stance right here, right now, and stand or fall with him!"
The exact frame her words dropped, Nangong Fei drew her blade, her character model blurring as she aggressively charged toward the nearest overextended vanguard unit of the Meng Family.
Seeing her sister fully commit to the grid, Nangong Hong didn't hesitate for another microsecond, flaring her own active aura to join the flank.
Although their baseline stats weren't anything special in a high-tier Super Kage environment, the 2,000-man vassal legion wasn't composed entirely of boss-level targets either; there were plenty of mid-tier auxiliary units shuffling in the chaos. By specifically selecting and targeting opponents whose parameters were weaker than their own, the sisters managed to carve out a highly efficient tactical role.
While this minor operational output wouldn't significantly alter Jiang Chen's primary victory timer, it ensured they were actively scoring points and executing utility—without holding back their frontline protectors a single bit.
...
"Damn it, why are those two foolish girls throwing themselves into the teeth of this meatgrinder too?!"
In the heavily congested spectator stands surrounding the shattered district, Nangong Lifei's expression instantly warped into something extraordinarily serious.
The Nangong sisters were his direct biological daughters—in a high-stakes corporate political climate like the Magic City, their operational footprint on a live battlefield explicitly broadcasted the definitive stance of the entire Nangong Family toward the sovereign Southern Pavilion!
Now that the girls had actively drawn blood against the vassal legions, he, as both a father and the sitting clan patriarch, mathematically lost the luxury of plausible deniability. He could no longer sit on his hands and spectate.
"All core operators and elite disciples of the Nangong Family, unlock your armaments and listen to my direct command—follow my vanguard line and aggressively suppress the forces of the Southern Pavilion!"
After furiously weighing the shifting pros and cons across his mental dashboard, Nangong Lifei finally bit the bullet and forced out the executive order.
He was practically cornered into this decision. Thanks to the previous framing data, every major syndicate in Magic City was already operating under the rigid assumption that the Nangong Family was deeply entrenched in Jiang Chen's pocket. In the theater of power, perception is reality; there was zero space left to explain away their positioning to a corrupt aristocracy.
Since the system had already written them into the rogue script, he would stop wasting frames trying to apologize for it. From this exact microsecond onward, the Nangong Family was officially registering themselves as a direct subsidiary force under Jiang Chen's banner!
A wise bird chooses its tree to perch on—and today, Nangong Lifei was going to ensure his lineage perched on the strongest branch available, no matter how volatile the storm.
With the fresh, fully rested military units of the Nangong Family slamming into the flanks, the already exhausted, fractured frontlines of the Four Vassal Families found their remaining defense pools hit with overwhelming, catastrophic pressure.
Meanwhile, across the broader coordinate grid.
The heavy battalions representing the North, West, and East Pavilions of the Zhao Family remained entirely stationary, maintaining their cold, spectator status on the perimeter.
As direct kin sharing the same bloodline registry, it wasn't that they lacked the baseline capability to deploy reinforcements—rather, the political frame data simply wasn't right.
They were deliberately using Jiang Chen's god-tier output as a proxy tool to systematically liquidate and permanently weaken the military infrastructure of the Southern Pavilion. For decades, Zhao Dingtian had used his Level 98 dominance to act as a tyrant, hoarding the clan's core resources and stepping on their necks. If the old monster's private army bled out completely in this plaza today, no one would be left to suppress the other three pavilions ever again.
At the absolute epicenter of the apocalyptic clearing.
Jiang Chen's twenty towering [Ice Release Clones] were locked in a frame-perfect, high-density trade with Zhao Dingtian and his five desperate [Shadow Clones].
The Great Elder's five duplicates were completely encased in the heavy, crystalline folds of the Crow Tengu armor, boasting an astonishing, system-breaking defensive modifier. Coupled with the fact that the veteran had completely abandoned his offensive routine to hard-spec into pure, unadulterated turtle-defense mechanics, even the overwhelming kinetic output of twenty synchronized, Fourth-Form [Susanoo] giants couldn't cleanly breach his health bar within the opening frames.
Technically speaking, Zhao Dingtian had achieved his micro-objective. He had successfully pinned Jiang Chen's primary coordinate block into a localized deadlock.
Yet, the triumphant macro-payoff he had gambled his life to witness completely failed to materialize on his HUD.
Because far from being driven into a desperate corner by the 2,000-man vassal raid squad, Ronan, Li Dala, and the unkillable Uchiha ancestors were currently throwing a absolute masterclass in counter-routing. Backed by the flawless, predictive tracking of Jiang Chen's 5,000-plus Three-Tomoe clone legion, the numbers game had completely collapsed on the Southern Pavilion. The red names on the mini-map were disappearing in rapid, blood-soaked chunks.
Watching his fiercely loyal clansmen and carefully funded shadow enforcers fall one after another into expanding pools of blood, Zhao Dingtian felt a visceral, blinding agony rip through his chest.
He desperately wanted to disengage his avatar, to drop his defensive stance and rotate his forces to shield his dying army. But the exact frame his hitbox shifted, the purple walls of the twenty ice titans slammed down, locking him firmly within the containment zone.
"What's the matter, old man? Weren't you just proudly boasting about your absolute capability to hold my parameters back?"
Jiang Chen's voice drifted directly into his cockpit, overlapping across twenty distinct audio channels, dripping with a toxic, amused serenity.
"Now that I'm playing along and letting you hold me back... where exactly do you think you're going?"
The mockery detonated the last remnants of the elder's psychological composure, sending his blood pressure spiking into pure fury.
However... the exact millisecond he attempted to force a heavy counter-animation, a sudden, pitch-black anomaly erupted across his defensive line.
Without a single frame of warning, a layer of void-black, unholy fire ignited across the hulls of his five protective Shadow Clones.
[Amaterasu]!
These black flames didn't just deal raw elemental damage; they carried the absolute, rule-breaking power of spatial laws. They burned with a relentless, consuming hunger, eating directly through the supposedly indestructible, god-tier Crow Tengu armor—systematically melting a series of gaping, structural fractures right into his absolute defense.
Worse yet, the obsidian flames refused to extinguish, violently spreading across the dense chakra matrices in all directions like a viral exploit, aggressively tracking downward to reduce his entire Susanoo infrastructure into absolute nothingness!
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