Starting with rogue ninjas, building the insect kingdom.

Chapter 407 Puppet Master Grandfather vs. Grandson

Meanwhile, deep in the desert.

Changxin and Sasori of the Red Sand stood in a secluded cave. The cave was not large, but it was large enough to accommodate the Ten-Tails and allow them to use the Illusionary Lamp Body and the Nine Seals of the Illusionary Dragon.

"Let's begin." Changxin untied a huge sealed scroll and spread it on the ground.

Sasori silently nodded and placed Gaara in the center of the sealing array.

He didn't cry or make a fuss; he was unusually quiet.

Soon, eight projected images appeared, standing on the ten fingers of the Ten-Tails.

When Xiao Nan saw the child, only a few years old, at the center of the seal, she felt a pang of pity: "He's just a child, isn't what we're doing a little...?"

"Konan, mercy and weakness will only become knives that pierce ourselves." At this moment, Pain spoke, "Begin, Nine Seals of the Illusionary Dragon!"

"The sealing technique will take at least a day to begin. Will any of you leave a projection so your main body can go out and disrupt the line of sight?" As he spoke, he looked at Nagatomo and Sasori.

In the end, he finally said to Changxin, "I can fly, so let me go."

After saying this, he left behind a false body, while his true body drew a large bird and flew out of the cave.

No one knows whether he went to slack off or actually led people on a roundabout way.

As the sealing began, little Gaara, in pain, half-opened his eyes, his pupils reflecting the jagged rocks at the top of the cave, his expression blank, as if his soul had been taken away by something.

Soon, as the power of the One-Tailed Beast was continuously drained from his body, his life force gradually disappeared.

High above, the invisible Aburame Shisei witnessed all of this without making any attempt to stop it.

It wasn't that he was indifferent, but rather that his fate was sealed the moment Gaara became a Jinchūriki.

The sealing process lasted for a day and a night, and this time the sealing process went exceptionally smoothly.

"Almost there." Black Zetsu looked at the Ten-Tails' one eye that was about to open, a look of excitement on his lips. In another half hour, the One-Tail would be able to return safely.

Time flew by, second by second. As the crucial moment approached, everyone was exhausted, especially Zabuza—the youngest and with the weakest chakra. The projection showed him constantly swallowing pills, forcing himself to stay awake.

However, just as one tail was about to be completely extracted—bang!

Scorpion's sealing scroll suddenly expanded, like a balloon being inflated to its limit, unable to withstand the internal pressure any longer.

A swarm of red bloodworms was ejected with the explosion.

Fortunately, Sasori of the Red Sand was a puppet, and he managed to tear open the scroll in time to transfer the regeneration core, thus escaping disaster. However, the puppet he created was already tattered and torn by the insects.

The seal has been broken and terminated!

Everyone suffered from the backlash and nearly coughed up blood.

The Ten-Tails' open eye closed again, and the One-Tailed Shukaku suffered the backlash. Before dying, it muttered something very vulgar.

But in the end, it all turned into a pile of sand!

Gaara, unsurprisingly, suffered a backlash and died.

"Impossible! How could this be!"

"Aburame Shicheng, it's you again! Why do you always have to pick on me? Where are you? You must be here! Come out now! Get out here right now!"

At this moment, he was so angry that he broke down.

If you have the ability, you could have just made me lose all hope. Why did you give me hope only to shatter it with your own hands? You're deliberately torturing me, aren't you? You must be deliberately torturing me!

Black Zetsu roared in exasperation, but his illusory form was already teetering on the brink of collapse due to the backlash, and finally slowly disappeared amidst his hoarse and furious roars.

The other figures also sighed and disappeared from the spot.

Soon after, the Ten-Tails was summoned again, likely by Nagato.

Only Sasori of the Red Sand remained in place to deal with the sudden appearance of the insects.

That was given to him by Changxin, who said it was the corpse of the Fourth Kazekage. He was initially very happy, but he never expected it to harbor such a huge hidden danger.

He rolled over to dodge the swarm of insects, then pulled a packet of poison from his sleeve, opened it, and scattered the poison.

In an instant, the poisonous powder filled the entire space, and all the red insects rotted away.

This poison is very potent. It's only because he's a puppet that he's unharmed; otherwise, even Pain's body wouldn't be able to withstand it.

Unfortunately, his puppet body had been gnawed apart by insects and was no longer usable.

This troubled him greatly, but he had already lost some of his emotions, and his face showed no emotion.

Although the sound of the Ten-Tails sealing ending was not loud, it carried far.

Granny Chiyo, who was in the desert, had already found clues in the surrounding area. Upon hearing the noise, she immediately led a team of ninjas to the scene.

Sure enough, the footprints of the Crimson Sand Scorpion were found in the sand pit. At this moment, his red and black cloud-patterned clothes were already tattered, revealing the broken puppet body underneath.

Not far away, a tattered puppet lay on the ground, seemingly having gone through a fierce battle, ending in defeat for the defeated side.

"A good opportunity!" Granny Chiyo took out the remaining six puppets and surrounded him, ready to make him pay for his past mistakes.

"Scorpion, it's not my fault for not disciplining you properly back then. Now, let me end all of this!"

"Troublesome, nagging old woman. Actually, you shouldn't have come after me this time." Sasori of the Red Sand said with a blank expression, then took out three scrolls filled with writing and opened them.

Hundreds of puppets poured out of the scroll, instantly filling the cave.

The puppets were all strangely shaped; some looked like humans, some like beasts, and some were completely unrecognizable.

Sasori of the Red Sand stood in the center of the puppet group, a round hole opened in his chest, with chakra threads as dense as a spider web connecting each puppet.

Granny Chiyo's pupils contracted sharply. She was a puppet master who had dedicated her life to the study of puppetry; what kind of puppet hadn't she seen?

But the scene before her still shocked her. She had thought that ten puppets were the limit for humanity, but her grandson had broken that limit.

Chiyo's voice trembled: "What have you been doing all these years?"

"They didn't do much, just destroyed a few small countries."

Sasori's puppetry is different from Chiyo's; it requires no calculation or skill, but only to overwhelm everything with quantity and quality.

Under the siege of hundreds of puppets, more than thirty elite ninjas were instantly crushed, and in no time, they had turned into a pile of corpses.

Granny Chiyo desperately manipulated the six puppets to fight back, crying out, "Scorpion, stop! They were all your former comrades!"

"Companions? True artists are lonely; they don't need companions, only their works. Old woman, why don't you become my work too?"

"You're insane! You're absolutely insane!"