Chapter 189
Some time earlier, Zixu noticed a thin man in the ruins. The man appeared so frail that it seemed only his skeleton was holding him upright.
He stood atop a circular platform, beneath which lay a dark, bottomless chasm. At the man's feet, a massive fūinshiki (sealing ritual) spread out in all directions. Zixu felt an odd sense of familiarity, as if he'd seen this ritual pattern somewhere before.
Approaching from the shadows, Zixu moved toward the man. Suddenly, the man's hands trembled nervously, and several massive, ancient-looking brown-and-yellow puppets emerged. They lunged at Zixu, claws extended.
Despite his injuries from the earlier fall, Zixu was not someone mere puppets could challenge. A breeze stirred within the still ruins—then grew into a violent gale. Blades of wind materialized, shredding two of the puppets into powder, as if they were made of sand.
Boom! Explosions erupted from the remains of the shattered puppets. Apparently, the puppeteer had embedded bakufuda (detonation tags) inside them. Upon destruction, the tags triggered, causing the puppets to self-destruct.
As the smoke cleared, the man had stepped into the center of the fūinshiki, where a strangely-shaped kunai rested alongside a dragon scale that Zixu recognized as his own.
"So this place really is connected to me... Have I been here before?" Zixu muttered, doubts forming in his heart. But the man clearly misunderstood—believing Zixu was there to capture him.
"Even though the chakra of the Ryūmyaku (Dragon Vein) is sealed, if I fuse this fūinjutsu into my body, I too can control its limitless chakra!" the man howled with laughter. Strange runes surfaced across his body. He grasped the kunai in one hand and pulled the dragon scale with the other. A violet chakra storm erupted, centered on him, and swept across the ruins.
"Something's wrong..." Zixu tried to escape, but his injuries were too severe. The purple chakra storm gripped him like a massive invisible hand, dragging him into its vortex.
"This chakra... such power. Could it truly be... endless chakra, like that man said?" Zixu recalled the man's earlier mutterings and was forced to believe it.
"The road to death is long... I just hope I don't die this time." As the thought crossed his mind, his consciousness faded.