"Squeak!"
A sound like steel wire scraping against something rang out, Shin'un immediately broke free from gravity and rose into the sky.
"Whoosh~ Boom!"
With a deafening roar, the giant tiger puppet's carefully planned and highly anticipated strike slammed heavily into the air.
And the consequences of this failed attack went beyond that.
Perhaps due to the previous series of powerful strikes and sweeps, or perhaps because the puppeteers inside the puppet were struggling to keep up with the giant puppet's demands, the giant tiger puppet was now clearly off balance.
Shin'un's gaze remained fixed on the giant tiger puppet's entire body. He immediately noticed the puppet's loss of balance and his left hand, which had been ready all along, began to Hand Seals.
Lightning Release: Great Lightning Spear!
After just a few hand seals, the Chakra within his body surged into his left palm like a flood.
"BOOM!!!"
A thunderclap sounded, and thick, bluish-purple electric currents appeared, encircling Shin'un's entire left arm. The violent currents began to solidify from the tips, quickly being shaped into a thick, long spear.
"Swish, swish, swish~"
With a thought, the lightning chains suddenly snapped, propelling Shin'un straight down into the head of the giant tiger puppet below.
"Sizzle!!!"
Raising the Lightning Spear attached to his left arm, Shin'un seized the opportunity and thrust it forward, accurately striking the top of the giant tiger puppet's head.
The fully unleashed Lightning Release: Great Lightning Spear was incredibly powerful. The lightning-wrapped spear tip hesitated for a moment when it pierced the outermost steel plate of the giant tiger puppet, then immediately melted it through, creating an extremely deep wound on the giant tiger puppet's head that almost engulfed Shin'un's entire body.
"Ah!..."
Suddenly, amidst the hum of the outer steel plate and the crackling of the electric current, a piercing scream flashed by.
As the sound spread, Shin'un's ears twitched as half of his body pierced the giant tiger's head with the lightning spear, accurately catching the fleeting scream.
With a gentle sniff, the acrid smell of burnt flesh and blood from Lightning Release immediately filled the air.
"If one dies, there are still eight left," Shin'un murmured.
He was certain that with the power of his lightning spear, no ninja could survive a direct hit to the flesh, at least not the puppeteer controlling the puppets in front of him.
"Roar!!!"
The moment after the puppeteer died, the remaining puppets inside the giant tiger puppet seemed to finally react, hurriedly manipulating the giant tiger to regain its balance and slamming its only intact left forepaw towards its head.
Noticing the change in the giant tiger puppet's movements, Shin'un immediately abandoned his attack on the deeper area and instead prepared to dodge the giant tiger puppet's fatal slap.
With a thought, Shin'un activated his Lightning Body Flicker and leaped into the air, simultaneously manipulating the lightning chains coiled around his waist to exert force.
With the combined effect of the two, Shin'un's entire body was immediately launched out like a slingshot.
Thump!
As the tiger's paw struck its own head, a heavy, dull thud resounded.
After Shin'un stabilized himself in mid-air using the lightning chains, he immediately saw that the giant tiger puppet's head was even somewhat deformed from the blow.
Clearly, the puppeteers controlling the puppets did not hold back their attacks despite the fact that the target was the tiger's head.
"Roar~"
On the ground, the giant tiger puppet growled as it looked at Shin'un, who was suspended on the other side. Its feet moved constantly, as if it was looking for an opening and was ready to attack at any moment.
"Um?"
Looking at the seemingly normal giant tiger puppet, Shin'un noticed something strange.
"What's going on? The giant tiger puppet seems to be staggering?"
Shin'un frowned, feeling puzzled.
"No, not staggering, it should be said that... I'm unfamiliar?"
Just like a creature that hasn't walked for a long time, although the giant tiger puppet in front of us was trying its best to move and pretend to be ready to attack at any moment by constantly changing its footing, we could still detect some lack of skill in some subtle ways.
For example, the unsteady gait, the wary stance that occasionally slips away from Shin'un, and the occasional uncoordinated movements of the limbs...
The most obvious feature is the giant tiger puppet's tail, which hangs completely down behind it.
Before Shin'un killed the puppeteer at the head of the giant tiger puppet, the tiger's hard and flexible tail had been taut and swaying.
With its tail constantly swaying, the giant tiger's tail can easily cover a distance of more than half its body length, allowing it to quickly and powerfully sweep its tail at its target.
This has always been one of the factors preventing Shin'un from using Lightning Release attacks at close range.
But now, the wagging of that tail, which posed such a huge threat to Shin'un, has actually stopped?
"Is it because the damage to the giant tiger's head affected the puppeteer's control over the puppet?"
"Or did the puppeteer in charge of controlling it change their battle strategy, trying to use this appearance to lure me into getting close and attacking?"
Looking at the weakened giant tiger puppet not far away, Shin'un pondered for a moment and decided to abandon the idea of taking advantage of the situation to end the battle.
He merely hovered in mid-air, relying on lightning chains to maintain vigilance, staring intently at the giant tiger puppet not far away.
For the time being, Shin'un wasn't in a hurry to end the battle. Letting the hundreds of Konoha Ninja waiting outside the Lightning Chain Prison watch the show for a while wouldn't hurt.
Currently, Konoha has very little information about the giant puppets that have suddenly appeared in the Sand Ninja. The only information they have is a summary of the previous encounter between Orochimaru's forces and Chiyo's puppeteer forces.
The giant tiger puppet before him was the first giant puppet Shin'un had encountered, and it seemed to have temporarily malfunctioned, making it even more worthy of Shin'un's investigation.
If this leads to the discovery of a weakness in the giant puppet, it would be a good thing for both Shin'un himself and the more than 10,000 ninjas on the Konoha front.
"Hmm, we can't really understand anything just by looking at it, let's test the waters."
Hovering in the air, Shin'un finally decided to test the waters.
Lightning Release: Lightning Blade!
With his left hand Hand Seals, Chakra circulated, and a surge of violent electricity erupted, rapidly materializing on Shin'un's left arm and gradually forming a lightning blade three meters long and a palm-thick.
"Swish! Swish!"
Casually brandishing the electric blade in his hand, Shen Yun heard a sharp, piercing sound as it cut through the air. Shin'un nodded, quite satisfied with this Lightning Release: Lightning Release Lightning Spear, which was temporarily modified from Lightning Release: Lightning Blade.
Immediately afterwards, Shin'un stopped hovering in the air. With a thought, the lightning chains wrapped around his waist exerted force, propelling Shin'un rapidly toward the giant tiger puppet not far away.
The giant tiger puppet on the opposite side noticed that Shin'un had made the first move, and the puppeteer controlling it instinctively tried to control the giant tiger puppet to fight back.
Whether due to rushing, lack of skill, or other reasons, the giant tiger puppet's four lower limbs, which had been working in a relatively orderly manner, suddenly became disordered.
His intact left forearm shot up as if possessed, and then flailed wildly in the empty air.
The damaged right forearm suddenly changed from its listless state to become fierce, pounding incessantly on the giant tiger puppet's abdomen, and soon punched a huge crack in the abdominal armor.
The two hind legs moved in perfect unison, as if they had planned it together, and jumped up in unison, falling to one side in mid-air, causing the giant tiger puppet to tumble to the ground.
"Hmm! What's going on?"
In mid-air, Shin'un, who was about to approach the giant tiger puppet, stopped immediately upon seeing this scene. After moving away, he looked at the giant tiger puppet lying on the ground in astonishment, feeling puzzled.
"Roar~"
At this moment, a soft roar came from the giant tiger puppet's mouth, a red light flashed in its eyes, and intense Chakra fluctuations began to emanate from its body, as if the puppeteer inside the giant tiger puppet was still trying to save it.
However, perhaps due to being too hasty, a mistake was made. As the Chakra fluctuations gradually intensified, not only did the giant tiger puppet's four lower limbs continue to thrash wildly, but even the previously relatively stable parts of the giant tiger puppet's body joined in the thrash.
Thump!
"Roar~"
"Squeak!!!"
"..."
As the giant tiger lay sprawled on the ground, continuing its convulsing, Shin'un, suspended in mid-air, gripped the lightning blade, his mouth agape, somewhat dazed.
"What's going on?"