Ruuumble...!
Amid earth-shaking explosions, the Ancient Kingdom of Kucha, a ruin surviving from the era of the Six Paths, was reduced to dust in the river of history.
On the Gobi Desert, two hundred kilometers from the Ancient Kingdom of Kucha...
Boom!!! A giant frog burst out of the ground... and spat out the two people who had made an emergency escape.
Splash...
Beside Jiraiya, a bedraggled Konan clambered to her feet. "Teacher!!"
Poof! The giant frog vanished in a cloud of Summoning smoke.
"Huff, huff, huff... are we safe?"
He had never expected... that man in the bird-beak mask to be so decisive. The instant the man realized he was outmatched, he had activated the cloning facility's self-destruct mechanism, sacrificing his own life to bury them both there.
Konan was bewildered. "I never imagined the enemy would be so decisive... just who was that voice we heard before the explosion?"
Yes... before the self-destruction, a mysterious man's voice had indeed rung out, as though issuing an order.
Based on the information available, Jiraiya made a reasonable guess as to the man's identity.
"He possesses cloning technology far beyond Orochimaru's at the same point in time, remotely controls test subjects through voice commands, and... uses something as dangerous as explosions as a means of attack."
"If I'm right, he's Kara's chief scientist, Sanzu Amado..."
Pressing his hand into the frog saliva covering the ground, Jiraiya slowly sat up.
"The question is... why did he blow up Kara's outpost so readily? Was it simply to get rid of us two uninvited guests? Something feels off. An experimental facility that took enormous manpower and resources to finally build, just thrown away like that..."
The Alternate-Dimensional Space.
The Mirror Drones transmitted a live feed from the Gobi Desert.
Standing before the screen, Amado