Chương 155: The State of the World and the Roots of the Jashin Cult

When minor fiefdoms and major hidden villages descended into chaotic skirmishes, geopolitical equilibrium invariably hinged on the Hidden Leaf. The Third Shinobi World War had ignited with the mysterious disappearance of Sunagakure's Third Kazekage and concluded in a brutal, multi-front meat grinder involving Konoha, Kumogakure, and Iwagakure. Yet, while a nominal global peace had settled over the realm, localized brushfire wars refused to die.

Among the great nations, only Sunagakure and Kirigakure remained hopelessly mired in the grueling quagmire of their southern campaign. Meanwhile, the minor nations that possessed functional shinobi villages and fancied themselves regional powers grew restless. Capitalizing on the heavy casualties, depleted reserves, and fracturing spheres of influence of the major powers, these upstarts initiated proxy skirmishes, turning their predatory gazes toward even smaller protectorates wedged between their borders.

Just as buffer states insulated the great nations, a dense constellation of micro-fiefdoms separated the minor powers. Many of these enclaves remained entirely unmapped, leaving the true geography of the shinobi world an unquantifiable puzzle to the average layman. Kusagakure, the Hidden Grass Village, epitomized this volatile ambition; lacking substantial military muscle but possessed of boundless hubris, it launched expansionist campaigns to swell its sovereign boundaries.

Not content with devouring the micro-states at its periphery, Kusagakure had recently begun to covet the borders of the Land of Waterfalls. This rampant chaos came to an abrupt, screeching halt the moment the Nine-Tails ran amok within the Leaf, as if the cosmos itself had pressed a global pause button. Geopolitical actors understood a singular, fundamental axiom: Konoha was the metronome of war and peace in this world.

Should the Leaf emerge critically crippled from the claws of the Nine-Tails, its rivals would instantly converge like vultures. The embers of the Third Great War, scarcely cooled, threatened to reignite into a global conflagration. Even if the various factions desired a respite to lick their wounds, a vulnerable Leaf meant they would undoubtedly repudiate the territorial and economic concessions stipulated in their recent peace treaties. Every nation adopted a posture of predatory vigilance.

Sunagakure, having barely extricated itself from the global theater, had suffered its own domestic catastrophe earlier that year when the One-Tail went on a minor rampage. Exhausted and militarily bankrupt, the Sand desired nothing more than convalescence; they had already dispatched a formal armistice proposal to Kirigakure. Crucially, unlike the other four major powers, Suna's internal hierarchy was fracturing.

Although Rasa had secured the backing of the village elders—including Chiyo and Ebizo—to ascend as the Fourth Kazekage, a formidable faction remained fiercely loyal to Pakura, fostering a volatile internal schism. The Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, maintained a strict policy of non-intervention, resolutely refusing to stick his neck out. The old man harbored a deep-seated paranoia born of the previous war, where Iwagakure had inexplicably found itself transformed into public enemy number one.

This time, he would not commit a single asset until the final act. Meanwhile, the unhinged factions governing Kirigakure perceived a prime opportunity to salvage their bruised honor at Konoha's expense. Accepting Suna's armistice, they began consolidating their vanguard, waiting for the perfect window to disrupt the Leaf's lucrative hegemony. The most impatient actor, however, was Kumogakure.

Though the Cloud had forfeited its supreme martial asset—the Third Raikage—during the conflict, its core infrastructure remained remarkably intact. Having failed to extract sufficient concessions from the peace treaties, they were the most primed to initiate hostilities. The immediate future depended entirely on Konoha's posture. Should the Leaf broadcast even a tremor of vulnerability, its rivals would strip away any semblance of diplomatic courtesy.

By mid-November, over a month had elapsed since the Nine-Tails disaster, drawing the fifty-first year of Konoha to a close. Amidst this tense atmosphere, a crisis erupted within the Land of Hot Water: its sovereign Lord Daimyo had fallen terminally ill, his life force ebbing away as he prepared to depart for the Pure Land. The shinobi world adhered strictly to agnatic primogeniture; thus, the Land of Hot Water had long established its crown prince, destined to ascend the throne upon his sire's demise.

Ordinarily, the administrative transition of such a minor principality would fail to register on the radar of the five great villages. However, its timing was precarious—unfolding in the immediate vacuum of Konoha's crisis, it presented an irresistible leverage point for scheming minds. The five major hidden villages derived their revenue from various channels, but a singular stream constituted the overwhelming bulk of their treasury: the direct financial allocations from their respective Daimyos.

This subsidy was the lifeblood that sustained their military infrastructure. During wartime, these funds were dispersed directly to the villages based on strategic exigencies. In peacetime, the capital was restructured into quarterly distributions disguised as official mission commissions. Within the village mission matrix, D-rank requests functioned merely as domestic training exercises and internal welfare projects; spontaneous commissions from private citizens rarely moved the economic needle.

The true volume was state-sponsored. The official apparatus of the Five Great Nations collected requests for assistance from every corner of their realms, consolidating and routing them to their designated hidden villages on a rigid schedule. These deployments encompassed border pacification, high-profile escort details, merchant convoy security, and the systematic elimination of bandits, colossal beasts, and rogue ninja.

The anti-piracy operation at Mount Hemo executed by Zhen's squad upon graduation was an exact product of such a Fire Country mandate. Concurrently, minor states orbiting the great powers either possessed entirely impotent shinobi villages or lacked military infrastructure altogether, forcing their sovereign commissions to flow outward to the big five hidden villages.

This represented an astronomical reservoir of wealth, as ninja specialized exclusively in resolving dilemmas beyond civilian capability, commanding exorbitant fees for their interventions. Consequently, post-war peace conclaves were fundamentally disputes over the redistribution of these lucrative territories. Even a proud faction like Sunagakure, thoroughly broken by the Leaf's military machine, was forced to cede a portion of the Land of Wind's domestic mission quotas to Konoha.

For a paramount hidden village to forfeit its sovereign commissions to a rival was an existential humiliation, anchoring the enduring disdain Suna faced from its peers. In any reality, war was a zero-sum game where the victor claimed the spoils; Konoha naturally maintained an ironclad monopoly over the mission allocations of adjacent micro-states. Yet, the Nine-Tails crisis had kindled a desperate hope among its rivals to carve up this lucrative pie.

Kumogakure, for instance, could exploit Konoha's internal restructuring to install a proxy Daimyo within the Land of Hot Water, redirecting its immense wealth into the Cloud's own coffers. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Within the opulent bedchamber of the Daimyo's palace in the Land of Hot Water, the sovereign lay entombed in silk, his frame emaciated, his breath a rasping, threadbare whisper that signaled imminent demise.

His most faithful Ministers of State and Defense stood vigil at his bedside, awaiting their master's feeble inquiries. The monarch was not advanced in winters; rather, a lifetime of opulent decadence and unbridled debauchery had prematurely hollowed out his physical vessel. In this world, no authority eclipsed the Daimyo; they reigned as absolute kings, and kings rarely enjoyed longevity.

Were it not for the esoteric intervention of medical ninja weaving chakra alongside orthodox pharmacology, his soul would have slipped its mortal coil long ago. A desperate, clawing hunger for life burned within the dying ruler's hollow eyes. He parted his lips with immense effort, his voice a ghost of a sound.

"The experimentation within that cult... does it still fail to yield what I require?" The chamber was tomb-silent, allowing the Minister of Defense to catch the whisper with perfect clarity.

"My profoundest apologies, my Lord. The trials remain entirely inconclusive."

"I see. A cabal of utterly useless sycophants," the Daimyo wheezed, his chest burning with resentment.

"They have squandered fortunes of my treasury, yet they can neither deliver immortality nor secure me a mere handful of additional years."

"My Lord, they have actually isolated a minor breakthrough," the Minister countered softly.

"However, fearing severe diplomatic retaliation from the major hidden villages, our own shinobi forces have resolved to sever all affiliations with the sect. Shall the crown maintain its patronage?"

"Oh? A breakthrough? Can its properties be applied to my vessel?"

"It has already been administered."

"Which implies it possesses zero efficacy for my condition, correct? Then let those wretched degenerates be liquidated."

"But sire, what if ultimate success looms on their horizon?"

"Heh... I am standing at the precipice of death. What relevance does their future success hold for my ghost? That which is denied to me shall be inherited by no other soul. See to the execution of my command."

"As you decree." The Ministers of Defense and State exchanged a fleeting, unspoken look. A command was a command, but the logistics of its execution remained entirely within their purview. If the elixir is useless to a corpse, it may yet preserve the living. Naturally, a significant portion of those fanatics would have to be offered up as sacrifices, but the core architects must be preserved to sustain the research. The state-sponsored purge would simply serve as an artificial crucible to accelerate their results.

These fanatics were, of course, the Cult of Jashin. The cult had originated from Yugakure's classified biological research into physical immortality, subsequently leveraging the allure of eternal youth to secure the clandestine backing of the Land of Hot Water's Daimyo. Yet, despite decades of systemic funding, massive financial bleeding, and a mountain of human casualties, tangible results remained non-existent.

Instead, the psychological profiles of the zealots had warped into extreme radicalism, and the internal stability of the sect fractured daily—as if some deranged soul among them had genuinely pierced the veil to receive the divine mandates of a malevolent deity. The ruling elite cared absolutely nothing for the existence of some mythical Lord Jashin; they craved only longevity, and if the cult failed to deliver that currency, it possessed zero utility.

For a Daimyo or a high minister of state, absolute power and vast wealth had already procured every material luxury the terrestrial world could provide. Longevity was the singular, missing crown jewel—the key to eternalizing their earthly paradise. In any reality, immortality remained the ultimate, unyielding obsession of mankind, particularly among those who held the levers of power.

Even within the mundane world of Zhen's past incarnation, the global oligarchy would readily plunge their moral baselines through the nineteen layers of hell to secure a few additional winters of life; how much more so within a transcendent realm where supernatural chakra existed? Here, immortality was not a delusional fantasy, but a tangible, documented possibility.

The Daimyo closed his eyes, sealing away the topic that had offered him a fleeting oasis of hope only to abandon him to absolute despair on his deathbed. The Minister of Defense fell into a disciplined silence, while the Minister of State ventured a cautious inquiry.

"My Lord, regarding the active schism between the two princes... do you harbor any specific directives?" A protracted silence filled the room before the monarch offered a weary, defeated reply.

"What directives could I possibly formulate? The ultimate succession will invariably be dictated by the whims of the great hidden villages. Let them engage in their fratricidal squabbles; the last man standing shall inherit this hollow crown. Leave me. I am exhausted; do not vex my remaining hours with these trivialities."

"As you command." The two ministers withdrew to the outer pavilion, where the leader of Yugakure and the Jonin Chizo awaited their audience.

"Gentlemen," the Yugakure leader initiated, "what is the condition of the Lord Daimyo?"

"By all metrics, his vessel will fail within a handful of days," the Minister of State replied flatly.

"Then how should our military assets navigate the shifting political currents?"

"Maintain absolute neutrality," the minister directed.

"Allow the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Cloud to fight their shadow war over the succession. We shall simply align our village with whichever titan emerges victorious." The leader let loose a heavy sigh.

"Very well. I comprehend." Chizo remained mute, his fists clenching until his knuckles whitened. Such was the systemic tragedy of minor powers and insignificant hidden villages—impotent to steer their own destiny, they were condemned to dance to the tune of the great nations. Breaking the silence, the Minister of Defense added, "The crown will oversee the liquidation of the Jashin sect. The village needs only to dispatch a detachment of shinobi to support our regular vanguard." The leader offered no objection.

He had already abandoned all ambitions of military expansion, steering Yugakure toward an ideology of absolute pacifism—or more accurately, institutional stagnation. Those volatile elements within his ranks who rejected this pacifist philosophy could be conveniently transferred to the state vanguard to be spent against the unyielding fanatics of the Jashin cult. It was an elegant, self-cleansing maneuver.