60: Chapter 60 The Puppet Master's End and the Birth of the Tree RealmThis canyon on the border of the Land of Wind has been sculpted by wind erosion over thousands of years, resembling a scar on the earth.
The gale howled through the cracks in the rock wall, making a sound like the wailing of ghosts and wolves.
Amidst the suffocating yellow sand and rocks, two figures, one in front and one behind, intercepted the slowly moving dark shape.
"Finally caught up." Chiyo stopped, her withered hands gripping her cane tightly.
Her chest heaved violently, not only because of the long run, but also because of the figure with its back to her.
That ugly and enormous puppet lying on the ground, resembling a scorpion—Hiruko.
That was her grandson's masterpiece, and also the embodiment of her nightmare.
Naruto's wood clone stood beside Chiyo.
He didn't speak, nor did he even assume a fighting stance.
He simply put his hands in the pockets of his orange trousers, tilted his head, and looked at the monster in front of him with an indifference that was almost like examining a defective product.
Hiruko's steel tail swished lazily in the air, producing a dull whistling sound.
That deep, hoarse voice, altered by a mechanical device, emanated from beneath the heavy casing.
"Who do we have here?Isn't this Granny Chiyo?"
There was no warmth of a long-awaited reunion in that voice, only annoyance at having one's mood disrupted.
"At your age, why not stay in the village and wait to die?What are you doing coming to this desolate wilderness?If you want to reminisce, I don't have the time."
Chiyo's wrinkled face twitched.
She could hear the undisguised contempt in his tone.
In that child's eyes, blood ties were probably less important than an intricately designed gear.
"I'm here to take you back, Sasori." Chiyo's voice trembled slightly, but was quickly replaced by determination."Or, to destroy you here."
"Destroyed me?" Hiruko let out a piercing, eerie laugh, the sound of mechanical contraptions rubbing together."You?Or that brat from Konoha next to you?"
Before the words were even finished, the giant steel tail suddenly attacked.
It defied the laws of physics, piercing the air at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye, heading straight for Chiyo's face.
The tip gleamed with a purple, eerie light; it was a deadly poison that would kill instantly upon contact with blood.
Chiyo was prepared.Her cane instantly disintegrated, transforming into a chakra shield.
bite!
Sparks flew everywhere.The immense impact caused Chiyo's feet to carve two deep furrows in the sand.
She gritted her teeth, her ten fingers moving rapidly, several kunai being guided by chakra threads, bypassing the giant tail's defenses, and stabbing towards the joint gaps of Hiruko.
However, the moment those kunai touched Hiruko's back, they were repelled by an invisible chakra barrier.
Immediately afterwards, the mechanism cover on Hiruko's back popped open, and countless poisoned senbon needles poured out like a torrential rain.
Chiyo tumbled and rolled in a disheveled manner to avoid it.
Several thorns brushed against the hem of her clothes and embedded themselves in the rock, instantly corroding it into black powder.
"Too slow, too weak." Scorpion's voice was full of mockery."Grandma, your fingers are as stiff as withered branches.This outdated technique can't even hurt my skin."
Naruto's wood clone remained standing in the same spot.
Several sages flew towards him, but he casually dodged them by sidestepping.
He did not make a move.
He is waiting.
[Ding!You have received 4500 units of "Feelings of Powerlessness" from Chiyo!]
[Ding!You have acquired 3800 [Arrogance] from Sasori of the Red Sand!]
The numbers on the system panel are fluctuating.
But that's not enough.
The taste of despair wasn't strong enough.
"Since you're so eager to die, then I'll show you what real puppetry is all about." Chiyo pulled a scroll from her bosom.
White smoke exploded.
Ten puppets dressed in white appeared out of thin air.
White Secret Techniques: The Ten Masters of Chikamatsu.
This is a masterpiece left by the progenitor of puppeteers, and it is also Chiyo's last trump card.
Under her fingertips, the ten puppets formed a battle formation as if they were alive, and charged towards Fei Liu Hu.
Swords clashed and mechanisms roared.
The canyon instantly transformed into a battlefield of clashing steel.
However, the battle situation did not reverse because of this legendary secret technique.
Hiruko is like an indestructible mobile fortress.
No matter how the Chikamatsu Ten Puppet Masters attacked, they could not break through that thick outer shell.
On the contrary, Chiyo's puppet had its parts flying off and limbs breaking apart in the repeated collisions.
Is this your limit?
With a cold snort, Fei Liu Hu's tail swept out, smashing the two puppets charging at the front into pieces.
Chiyo's breathing became disordered.
Cold sweat beaded on her forehead, and her fingers began to spasm from excessive chakra depletion.
She's old.
I'm really getting old.
Her reaction speed and chakra reserves were no longer sufficient to sustain such a high-intensity battle.
"How boring." Scorpion seemed to be losing patience.
Click.
Hiruko's back split open.
A figure with short red hair and a handsome face like a young boy slowly rose from that ugly shell.
He looked to be only fifteen or sixteen years old, with an eerie porcelain-white skin and obvious spherical seams at his joints.
This is Sasori of the Red Sand's true form.A madman who turned himself into an eternal work of art.
"Since you've brought out the Chikamatsu Ten Ninja as a return gift, I'll also show you my most prized collection."
Scorpion summoned a black-haired humanoid puppet from the scroll.
The puppet floated in the air, emanating a chilling magnetic force.
Chiyo's pupils suddenly contracted to pinpoints.
"That's.the Third Kazekage?"
The man known as the strongest Kazekage of all time, who had been missing for over a decade, had actually been turned into a puppet?
"That's right." Scorpion stroked the puppet as if caressing a lover's skin."To obtain this perfect material, I…"It took quite a bit of effort.
"You.beast!" Chiyo roared, controlling the remaining puppets to charge forward.
Scorpion merely moved a finger.
The third Kazekage puppet opened its mouth.
Magnetism Release: Iron Sand Rain.
Countless black iron filings condensed in the air, turning into a sky full of black rain that covered the entire canyon.
Each grain of iron filings contains a deadly poison, and each drop of "rain" carries enough kinetic energy to penetrate rock.
This is not a contest of puppeteers' skills.
This is an absolute crushing defeat in terms of strength.
The moment Chiyo's puppet came into contact with the iron sand, its joints were locked by the magnetic force, and it was then blasted into pieces.
The remaining iron sand, still powerful, poured down on Chiyo herself.
There's no escaping it.
The area is too large.And her chakra is almost depleted.
Chiyo looked at the black death god pressing down from the sky, a trace of despair flashing in her cloudy old eyes.
it's over.
Her entire life was spent scheming for Sunagakure and plotting against each other for those laughable political gains.
In the end, however, he was killed by his own grandson.
Perhaps this is retribution.
She closed her eyes and lowered the hands that had manipulated puppets her entire life.
[Ding!You have received 15,000 units of the ultimate [Despair] from Chiyo!]
[Ding!You have received 12,000 [Death Will] from Chiyo!]
That's right.
This is the moment when the sweetest fruit ripens.
Just as the first drop of iron sand was about to touch Chiyo's pale skin.
boom!
A muffled, loud bang exploded in front of Chiyo.
The expected excruciating pain did not come.
Chiyo opened her eyes in surprise.
Her vision was filled with a deep brown.
A huge, hemispherical wooden shield, like a hand growing from the earth, firmly protected her behind her.
The torrential rain of iron sand pounded against the wooden shield, crackling and splintering, but it could not penetrate the seemingly fragile plant fiber.
"This." Chiyo's mind went blank for a moment.
She looked along the grain of the wooden shield.
Suddenly, the Naruto clone that she had been ignoring and thinking was just a spectator appeared in front of her.
He held one hand out to the side, palm facing the huge wooden shield.
On that face, which was exactly the same as the original, there was no sign of strain; it remained that infuriating calm.
"Is this what they call the strongest Kazekage of all time?" Naruto's clone spoke calmly, his voice clearly reaching the ears of the two present amidst the roar."This level of attack isn't even enough to tickle me."
He flicked his wrist.
The wooden shield, which had withstood tons of damage, exploded, turning into countless sharp wooden spikes that shot back towards the Third Kazekage puppet in the air.
Scorpion's expression changed.
He abruptly manipulated the Third Kazekage to increase altitude, narrowly avoiding the counterattack.
"Wood Release." Sasori stared intently at the blond boy, and for the first time, a flicker of shock appeared in those lifeless puppet eyes."You're the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki?How could you possibly know Wood Release?"
This is the bloodline limit of the First Hokage!
It's a myth that's long been lost!
"Surprised?" Naruto's clone withdrew his hand and patted off non-existent dust from his sleeve."For a frog in a well, the sky is indeed an incomprehensible existence."
"Arrogant brat!" Scorpion was enraged.
That condescending attitude disgusted him even more than Chiyo's lecturing.
He suddenly pulled open the cover on his chest.
"Since you want to die, then I'll grant your wish!I'll show you the ultimate art, enough to conquer a country!"
The scroll unfolds.
Crimson Secret Technique: Hundred Machine Manipulation.
Hundreds of puppets dressed in red robes poured out of the scroll, densely filling the sky.
They held all sorts of weapons, each gleaming with a ghostly blue poisonous light.
This is Scorpion's masterpiece.
He once used this tactic to destroy a small country overnight.
"Die!" Scorpion roared.
Hundreds of puppets, like a red torrent, swooped down on the two below with a suffocating sense of oppression.
Chiyo's face turned deathly pale.
Such a quantity.such a scale.is simply beyond human capability to counter.
"Run." She instinctively tried to grab Naruto.
But Naruto's clones remained completely still.
He looked at the massive army of puppets rushing towards him, his azure eyes showing no fear, only a kind of weariness as if he were seeing garbage.
"Quantity?" He chuckled."Quantity is meaningless in the face of quality."
He slowly squatted down and slammed his hands onto the hard rocky ground.
The chakra within his body, the immense energy belonging to the Yang energy and the origin of life, was poured into the earth without reservation at this moment.
"Wood Release: Descent of the Tree World".
Rumble rumble rumble!
The earth is roaring.
The entire canyon was trembling violently.
Before Chiyo and Sasori's horrified eyes, countless thick, dragon-like tree roots tore through the rocks and broke through the sand, bursting out of the ground at a frenzied, natural speed.
Those weren't just a few trees.
It was a forest.
A primeval forest that appeared in an instant, filled with aggression and a desire to devour.
The swooping army of puppets had no time to display their ingenious mechanisms before they were struck head-on by the sudden green tsunami.
Click!Click!Click!
A series of teeth-grinding, shattering sounds filled the air.
The hard shell of the puppet was as fragile as a paper toy in front of these giant trees full of life.
Some were pierced directly by tree branches and hung in mid-air.
Some were tightly entangled by vines, which broke their joints.
Some were struck head-on by the massive tree trunks and instantly shattered into countless pieces.
In the blink of an eye.
That hundred-machine drill, enough to destroy a nationThe puppet army that struck fear into the hearts of the entire ninja world was completely annihilated.
Not a single puppet survived.
The entire canyon has been filled with a lush forest.
In the middle of the forest.
The thickest tree trunk, like an execution rack, firmly bound Sasori of the Red Sand in mid-air.
The tough wood fibers dug deep into the gaps between his joints, severing all his chakra transmission lines.
His once-proud human puppet body was now immobilized, completely reduced to a discarded doll.
quiet.
A deathly silence.
The only sound was the rustling of leaves in the wind.
Chiyo stood there blankly, her cane already fallen to the ground.
She stared blankly at the forest that had appeared out of nowhere, at the remains of puppets hanging from the branches.
What's this?
Is this ninjutsu?
No.
This is a miracle.
[Ding!You have received 35,000 of Chiyo's ultimate [Disruptive] items!]
[Ding!You have obtained 32,000 Extreme [Horror] from Sasori of the Red Sand!]
Naruto's clone slowly straightened up.
He stepped onto the thick tree trunk and walked step by step to the scorpion that was tied in mid-air.
He looked down at this once arrogant and invincible genius puppeteer.
At this moment, the indifference and arrogance on Scorpion's face had long since disappeared, replaced by a twisted and bewildered expression after the collapse of his worldview.
"Is this your puppet technique?" Naruto reached out and gently patted Sasori's bloodless face, the gesture as dismissive as if he were slapping a dead dog."Fragile and easily defeated."
Scorpion's lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he said nothing.
He was trembling.
It wasn't out of fear, but because of that deep sense of powerlessness.
Naruto leaned closer, his voice low but carrying an undeniable chill.
"Alright, game over."
"Now, tell me."
Where is Orochimaru?
The image freezes at this moment.
Golden sunlight filtered through the dense canopy of trees, dappling the two of them.
One was a blond boy with an expressionless face, looking down on all living beings like a god;
One is a red-haired puppet with a face full of terror, who has been completely stripped of his dignity and freedom.
That was a painting titled "Absolute Domination".
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