It felt as though someone had forcibly sucked a huge portion of the oxygen out of the cave.
Under the multicolored pollen's glow, Sasori's deathly pale face took on an ashen cast.
His once-nimble puppet hands were now wrapped in so many vines that they looked like bundled rice dumplings.
"Performance of a Hundred Puppets?"
Sen Senju stood less than five meters away, holding a small petal he had just plucked from a giant flower.
"Tch. That's it? That's all you've got?"
"What can these things do besides spit out a few lousy needles? And you call yourself a puppet master?"
Sen Senju casually tossed the petal into the air.
As though alive, the petal spun once in midair and burrowed straight into the head of a puppet that was about to swing its sword.
Immediately, the puppet's joints began cracking and snapping.
It reversed its grip and plunged its sword into the belly of another puppet beside it.
"You!"
Sasori shook with rage inside his shell, but the vines held him fast. He could barely move an inch.
The puppets he had always been proudest of had all become Sen's "toys."
Some fought each other, while others had the chakra drained from their Chakra Threads by the vines and collapsed limply.
"Stop glaring. It won't help."
Sen Senju stretched and let out an enormous yawn, his eyes full of boredom.
"Your puppets have refined steel on the outside and machine oil stuffed inside. Sure, they're hard to deal with."
"But wood is best at finding cracks and working its way inside."
"To my wooden roots, the gaps between your gears are softer than tofu."
As he spoke, the entire wall covered in flowers seemed to peel right off the mountainside.
This was the true **Advent of a World of