"Stop arguing, look ahead," Nagi interrupted her two teammates, reminding them.
Upon hearing Nagi's reminder, the two turned around and looked in Kōki's direction.
Kōki, who had been knocked away by the minotaur puppet, had already stood up again. He dusted himself off, and there were no injuries on his body.
"How is this possible? Is this kid a monster?" The burly man Raizo exclaimed in surprise when he saw that Kōki was completely unharmed after being attacked by the bull-headed puppet.
It wasn't that he was making a fuss; the main reason was that he clearly knew the power of the Minotaur puppet.
This puppet was specifically designed to protect the physically vulnerable puppeteers and possesses formidable melee combat abilities. Furthermore, it is crafted from a very rare type of Rock Ironwood.
This type of wood can only grow in special mining areas within the Land of Craftsmen, and it possesses a hardness comparable to steel.
Therefore, ninjas hit by the bull-headed puppet suffered broken bones at best, and death on the spot at worst.
While Saki was holding nothing back when she was in control, Kōki's current behavior is clearly illogical and completely unexpected by Raizo.
"Be careful, this kid's strange. He's not an ordinary Konoha Jonin." As the leader of the three, Nagi noticed something unusual about Kōki's behavior just now.
"Just now, when the puppet attacked that Konoha brat, I clearly saw the brat withdraw his attack on Raizo in an extremely short time, turn around, and assume a defensive stance, successfully blocking the puppet's attack. This incredible reaction speed is terrifying. If we're careless, this brat can easily seize an opportunity, and we could suffer a great loss. So, Saki, you must pay close attention to that brat's movements. You're responsible for controlling the guardian-type puppet; your mission is extremely important. You must protect us."
Nagi was quite wary of Kōki's performance. Even though it was his first time fighting Kōki, Kōki's ability to find weaknesses, his agility in the face of attacks, and his extraordinary reaction speed made Nagi very worried. Therefore, he had to take Kōki seriously.
While Nagi was giving instructions to the two, Kōki was also focusing his attention on the puppet trio.
Through this encounter, he fully realized the strength of the Chikamatsu Ten Puppets.
Combining offensive, defensive, and protective tactics, and controlled by three perfectly coordinated individuals, this technique can unleash power approaching that of Kage Level.
The puppetry techniques that were highly praised by Xie, the pinnacle of puppetry, in the original work are indeed unique.
However, Kōki was not troubled by the Chikamatsu Ten Puppets, because his Superhuman Strength Technique was the bane of puppets.
He hadn't used this technique earlier because he wanted to see if he could capture the leader first and eliminate the puppeteer. However, he hadn't expected that the puppet trio was quite strong, and the Chikamatsu Ten Puppets they controlled also displayed their corresponding strength.
Since this strategy didn't work, he had no choice but to resort to real means.
Thinking of this, Kōki bent his knees slightly, then pushed off suddenly, and shot towards the three Sunagakure members not far away like an arrow.
The three from Sunagakure were also on high alert after witnessing Kōki's actions.
After seeing that Kōki had come within a certain distance, Raizo, the puppeteer who controlled the offensive puppets, flicked his hands, and his three puppets continued to rush towards Kōki. However, this time he was not the only one who made the move.
Nagi, the captain of the trio, also began to wave her hands, manipulating her puppets to coordinate with Raizo's attacks.
Under his control, the mechanisms on the blue-faced puppet activated, and a resilient steel rope extended from its head, grabbing at Kōki with lightning speed.
Upon seeing the steel cables, Kōki ducked and dodged several times before suddenly stopping, grabbing the cables tightly to his chest. With a sudden burst of strength, he pulled up the blue-faced puppet at the end of the cables, then twisted Kōki body and flung the blue-faced puppet at the red-faced puppet that was attacking him.
"Hateful"
Nagi, who was controlling the puppet, shouted with a grim expression. He hadn't expected Kōki to be so strong; the puppet in his hand went out of control and crashed into the red-faced puppet. This collision caused the red-faced puppet's attack on Kōki to fail.
However, Kōki's danger was not over. A female puppet wielding two swords appeared to Kōki's right and launched a series of slashes at Kōki.
Fortunately Kōki reacted quickly and handled the slashes with ease, dodging all the attacks with just a few quick maneuvers and flips.
While dodging, he found an opening in the dual-sword puppet and, with a speed that Raizo couldn't react to, jumped behind the puppet and kicked it. At the same time, because Kōki's movements were so fast, even Nagi, who was responsible for supporting him, didn't have time to react.
The next second, the puppet kicked by Kōki slammed heavily into the ground, creating a huge dent in the earth from the powerful impact. The dual-wielding puppet that took the Kōki head-on immediately suffered obvious damage; not only was one arm gone, but its entire abdomen was shattered and disintegrated, clearly rendering it uncontrollable.
"How is that possible?!"
This situation deeply saddened Raizo; he couldn't understand how Kōki could so easily shatter a puppet made of special materials.
Seeing the puppet's miserable state, Raizo was instantly enraged and was about to continue controlling his black-haired, white-faced puppet to charge at Kōki, but before he could make a move, he was immediately stopped by Nagi beside him.
" Raizo, calm down. Take a closer look at the damage to the puppet. Don't you think this is very similar to the situation that Lady Chiyo once warned us about?"
Nagi recalled Chiyo's warning to them from the puppet's miserable state, and realized that Kōki's secret technique for destroying the puppet was not simple.
With Nagi's reminder, Raizo calmed down from his anger over the destroyed puppet. He looked at the mangled puppet at Kōki's feet and recalled Chiyo's warning to them.
"The three of you must remember this: while Puppet Technique is powerful, it still has its weaknesses. Slug Princess of Tsunade, Konoha Superhuman Strength Secret Technique that can easily destroy our carefully crafted puppets. So if you ever unfortunately encounter Tsunade in the future, be extra careful."
Recalling Chiyo's earnest expression back then, and now with Nagi's reminder, Raizo asked in surprise, "Nagi, do you mean this brat possesses the Superhuman Strength Technique that only Tsunade has?"
"Yes, although I really don't want to suspect this, only the Superhuman Strength Secret Technique that Lady Chiyo mentioned could destroy our puppets so easily with bare hands and feet."
After Nagi finished speaking, his face turned extremely ugly. This brat from Konoha was already difficult to deal with, and now he discovered that the brat was actually the nemesis of their puppeteers. This result gave him a huge headache.