Chapter 112: A Deadly Opponent, The Young Genius Of The Hattori Clan, Kagehisa Hattori!

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Kagehisa Hattori.

The young genius of the Hattori Clan of Ninjas.

An arrogant and prideful young man with an incredible mastery over Ninjutsu and other Spiritual Arts.

But above all, he was a Master of the Demonic Spear Arts, the Divine Inheritance of the Hattori Clan of Ninjas.

Ninjas did exist long before the Apocalypse arrived and Gates, Authorities, and Classes became something real and widespread.

Their clans, however, slowly disappeared one after another as time passed, until only the strongest of them remained, and even those were few in number.

The Hattori Ninja clan was founded by the man most people would call "The Greatest Ninja in History."

Hattori Hanzo!

Historically, the world believed the age of the shinobi had ended with the sunrise of modernization. They thought the Hattori bloodline had dissolved into corporate dynasties or faded quietly into the textbooks of the Sengoku period.

But the truth was far more complicated and far darker.

For centuries the Hattori Clan lived in the deep, unmapped folds of the Iga mountains. There they carefully preserved the ancient and lethal truths of ninjutsu along with the secret rituals of the spiritual arts. They bided their time with endless patience, keeping their bloodlines pure and their steel sharp, waiting for a world that would inevitably rot and require harvesting once more.

Some of them were quietly employed by powerful higher-ups as professional hitmen. Their task was to "take down" political enemies and business rivals and then skillfully mask the deaths as unfortunate "accidents."

Then the Apocalypse arrived.

When the skies fractured and the System integrated Earth, unleashing the monstrous chaos of the Gates, humanity panicked. The modern world’s guns, technology, and fragile politics collapsed almost overnight.

But where the rest of human civilization saw only the end of days, the surviving Hattori Clan saw their ultimate resurrection.

The introduction of Authorities, Mana, and Classes did not change the Hattori. It validated everything they had spent centuries preparing for. The System recognized their long hidden and rigorous martial conditioning along with their ancient spiritual training as perfect pre-requisites for the highest-tier evolutionary paths.

While ordinary humans struggled desperately to adapt to basic warrior or mage archetypes, the elders of the Hattori effortlessly unlocked hyper-specialized mythic-grade Classes such as [Shadow Stalker], [Asura Vanguard], and [Grand Void Shinobi].

The mana flooding out from the Gates acted like pure fuel poured onto a long-dormant flame. The clan’s ancestral home quickly became a hyper-lethal fortress. They capitalized on their natural mountain domain to farm high-level dungeons long before the rest of the world even understood what a "Level" truly meant. They traded the shadows of feudal politics for the deeper shadows of a broken world and rapidly monopolized the trade of rare monster cores and dark-element materials.

But the greatest miracle of the Apocalypse was the awakening of the Ancestral Authorities.

As Riven understood, Authorities were not only gods. Ancient historical figures who had been immortalized as incredible warriors or powerful governing leaders could also be represented by Authorities.

As the veil between the real world and fantasy grew thinner, the legendary patriarch himself transcended. Hattori Hanzo did not merely remain a historical ghost. He ascended into a true Divine Being, an apex entity of the System who now watched over all shadows.

He became known as the "Demonic Shadow King," the absolute ruler of all assassins and ninjas. He granted his blessings to his beloved clan, who had waited patiently for his rise to godhood. Through this divine ascension, Hanzo established a cosmic link back to his surviving bloodline and blessed the most worthy among them with unprecedented power.

And that brings us to Kagehisa Hattori.

Among the surviving youth of the modern Iga hidden village, Kagehisa stood as a terrifying anomaly. His arrogance was not born of empty vanity. It was born of absolute and undisputed dominance.

He had always been the most talented. Born into the world that had already been changed by the Gates, Mana, and Classes, he was someone who could hear the whispers of the Spirits of the Land and immediately learn any technique he saw even once with his own eyes.

He was, without a shred of doubt, an immensely incredible genius among geniuses!

And right now Riven was witnessing just how terrifying a True Genius like him could truly be.

"Hahahaha! Let us see if you can take this technique, Riven!!!"

As Kagehisa laughed with pure confidence, Riven suddenly found himself threatened by dozens of demonic spears pointed toward his throat and every other inch of his body.

Every single one of these clones made of ashes and smoke was completely tangible. Each was even capable of perfectly recreating the legendary weapon Kagehisa held in his own hands.

"Hmph."

Riven smiled coldly and closed his eyes. He fully reinforced his body and musculature to their absolute limits at the same time that Label escaped with Noir’s quiet help.

Kagehisa was not the kind of man who would chase after a defenseless woman. He paid her no further attention and left his three subordinates to take care of her instead.

CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

Sparks erupted from every direction around Riven. The weapons that struck him broke and shattered against his biological armor as it further melted and fused with his natural scales.

Black fur surged beneath his armor as his body rapidly grew twice as large. He became heavily muscular, displaying clear reptilian traits mixed with powerful wolf-like features.

"?!"

Kagehisa was visibly shaken when all of his clones exploded at once the moment Riven swung a single clawed hand. A red-colored slashing wave of pure force erupted outward as Riven activated his Class Skill "Festering Wounds."

A wave of intense crimson flames followed immediately after, racing toward Kagehisa. Yet when the flames cleared, nothing remained on the ground except a simple wooden log.

"Replacement Jutsu," Riven noted calmly as he looked carefully around him for the real threat.

In that split second he took to look at the replacement wooden log, dozens of explosive shuriken were shot from all directions towards him, emerging from the very smoke that composed the clones!

BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!

"...He kept shuriken inside his own clones?! Now that’s some amazing technique!"

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