Wild Dog's Dream (2)

Wild Dog's Dream (2)

"My name is Illusion Erosion," said the rogue ninja dressed as a cultivator. "I am a member of the Black Erosion Corps. In my name, I can guarantee your safe departure."

"The Black Erosion Corps..." The Wood Clone's voice betrayed no emotion, yet it precisely caught the gaps in the other man's words. "Then, Mr. Illusion Erosion, can you make a promise on behalf of the entire Black Erosion Corps? Would Lord Beast Soldier Guard, leader of the Tea Mountain Gang, approve of it? And what about your companions?" Each question was like a stone cast into a deep pool, probing the undercurrents below.

Illusion Erosion was about to continue speaking when he suddenly became alert.

Something was wrong!

His goal was to pry out information!

Dragging this out would only create more variables. The technique he had carefully prepared was already ready. He could not wait any longer!

"Of course..." he answered vaguely. Before his words could fade, his right hand, hidden beneath his voluminous kasaya, suddenly shot up! The ancient bronze bell engraved with the character "Devour" around his wrist jolted violently!

"Ding—!"

The bell's chime was shrill, like a funeral knell.

Almost the instant the sound spread, the floor, walls, and even the ceiling of the room where the Wood Clone stood suddenly lit up!

Several dark-red patterns twisted and spread like living veins, instantly outlining a complex sealing array.

Scorching heat surged alongside the swelling dark-red glow, as though the air itself had caught fire! Several chains formed from pure energy, radiating ominous red light, shot from the array's core like venomous snakes that had smelled blood, piercing straight through the spot where Shuji stood with incredible speed!

Yet Illusion Erosion, whose attack had landed, felt the warning in his heart not fade but scream even louder!

"Rip—!"

The window on the other side exploded apart! Wood chips and shards of glass burst through the noonday sunlight, scattering in all directions and reflecting a blinding chill. A figure shot out through it, moving with swift, clean precision. He traced a rapid arc through the air and landed steadily in the middle of the deserted, deathly silent street below, which lay under lockdown. Dust rose lightly beneath his feet as he faced the shadowed street corner where Illusion Erosion hid.

"Not a bad trap," Shuji remarked. "Too bad it was a little slow."

A flicker of anger at being underestimated rose in Illusion Erosion's heart, only for him to force it back into a cold abyss. He could not get angry. That was a trap.

He spoke no further. His hands became afterimages as several cross-shaped Shuriken gleaming with an eerie light flew from his hand, spinning as they tore through the air and attacked Shuji's upper, middle, and lower body at once!

At the same time, the fingers of his left hand flew through hand seals so swiftly that only blurred traces remained.

Several even smaller sealing techniques, likewise flashing with dark-red light, appeared in the shadows along the bluestone paving beneath his feet and the weathered walls on both sides!

Like ravenous insects, these techniques began wildly sucking in and stirring the surrounding air and scattered chakra energy the instant they appeared, laying an invisible mire of distorted force fields around Shuji.

Facing the incoming Shuriken and the force-field traps silently opening on the ground, Shuji's eyes narrowed slightly. As a clone, his chakra was limited. He did not possess the original body's ability to continuously refine chakra, and with the original body so far away, he could not use techniques that consumed too much chakra if he wanted to maintain his existence.

His toes lightly tapped the rubble-strewn ground. As he dodged the Shuriken, he also avoided the sluggishness caused by the miniature force-field traps beneath his feet.

The ninja tools buried themselves deeply in the wall and ground behind him, producing dull thuds.

In the gaps between his evasions, his hands had already quietly completed the hand seals.

Wind Release: Thousand-Leaf Cutter

His palms abruptly came together before his chest! Less than a foot in front of him, a tightly condensed pale-green whirlwind burst into existence! This was not a violent gale, but a circular wind shield barely a foot across, rapidly rotating and formed by countless hair-thin, high-speed Wind Blades forcibly compressed together!

Several more incoming Shuriken slammed straight into the rapidly spinning miniature wind shield, and piercing sounds of metal grinding and tearing erupted at once.

Like fragile scraps of paper within the violent vortex of Wind Blades, the Shuriken were mercilessly sliced, twisted, and shredded into countless fragments gleaming with cold metallic light. They clattered against the surrounding walls and ground.

"Wind Release: Turbulent Flow Arrows!"

His hand seals changed again! Several visible pale-white air arrows formed from highly compressed air shot toward Illusion Erosion's true body in the shadows at the street corner!

Yet before the air arrows had even crossed half the distance, several other miniature sealing techniques that had long been glowing beneath and beside Illusion Erosion suddenly flared with intense red light!

"Puff! Puff! Puff!"

Dull explosions rang out in succession. The pale-white air arrows struck the dark-red force-field vortices like stones tossed into a viscous swamp. Their speed plummeted, their forms warped, and they were ultimately swallowed and annihilated by the writhing dark-red light, leaving behind only a few wisps of turbulent air.

At the instant the air arrows vanished, Illusion Erosion's glowing green eyes abruptly lit up!

Now! I caught it!

"Guh..." A hiss suppressing both wild joy and agony squeezed from deep within his throat. The cold copper coin that he had kept clenched tightly between his canine teeth to suppress the agitation inside his body was violently spat out!

Gleaming faintly with saliva, the coin tumbled through the air, tracing a dim arc before landing with a clink in a nearby crack between stones.

The restraint was gone!

"Wild Dog's Dream..." Illusion Erosion's hands formed a twisted, bizarre hand seal with lightning speed, like a beast pouncing on prey. A scalp-numbing growl rolled from his throat, like a starving dog gnawing on rotten bones. The humming of the "Devour" bell around his wrist, trembling at its limit, suddenly warped and rose in pitch, becoming a soul-piercing, utterly shrill—

"Awooo—!!!"

The invisible sound waves mixed with the power Illusion Erosion had accumulated for so long, madly amplified through the bell, along with the chakra aura belonging to Shuji that he had just captured. Like a breached tide of thick, filthy black water, they instantly crossed the smoke left by the explosions and the chaotic street, ignored physical distance, and slammed viciously into the Wood Clone!

The Wood Clone Shuji's body suddenly froze in place!

An indescribable, absolute emptiness surged from the deepest depths of his soul, as though his entire abdominal cavity and all his organs had been forcibly carved out. Like the most vicious plague, it instantly corroded every one of his senses and thoughts! That emptiness became flames that burned away reason, driving the most primal instincts of destruction and devouring!

At the same time, a violent desire to attack and destroy everything erupted from the darkest abyss of his consciousness like boiling, viscous asphalt!

The dam built by reason groaned under the unbearable double impact, trembling on the verge of collapse! His vision began to warp and spin violently, stained with a layer of crazed blood-red. His ears rang, and apart from the thunderous pounding of his heart within his chest, as though it might burst apart at any moment, all that remained was the ever louder, ever clearer roaring and whimpering of countless hungry dogs fighting and tearing at each other, as though it came from the deepest hell!

Wild Dog's Dream had descended. Cold drool seemed to be dripping along the edges of his consciousness.

(End of Chapter)