As Thorn walked through the forest with a group of children cautiously following behind him, his Network Technique sensed something happening relatively close to their current location.
He quickly turned toward the children and said in a serious, firm voice,
"Stay here. There's an urgent and dangerous situation ahead. I'll come back once I've dealt with it."
Although they were naturally afraid of being left alone in an unfamiliar forest, something in his tone made them understand that obeying him was the safest choice at that moment.
He then vanished from his spot in a flash of speed. Through his network, he had sensed that the teahouse he had been heading toward was under violent attack.
What was strange and troubling to Thorn was that the attackers were not ordinary humans, but a group of stone puppets moving with astonishing coordination in the formation of a small military unit. Every movement was perfectly synchronized, as though they were all controlled by a single unified mind.
As he drew closer, Thorn remembered what his father had told him about this rising force that had appeared in this region of the continent a force connected to an evil entity controlling an army of puppets. Realizing the situation, he immediately began acting with decisive speed.
Amid the chaos of the surprise assault and the panicked guests fleeing in terror people who only moments earlier had been peacefully drinking tea before everything descended into horror the owner of the teahouse, who was actually an undercover intelligence agent of the Blue Dragon Kingdom disguised as an ordinary shopkeeper, suddenly received a message directly in his ear.
At that moment, he was wielding a chakra-forged battle axe, smashing nearby stone puppets apart one after another with powerful strikes.
Without hesitation, he shouted at the top of his lungs to everyone around him.
"Everyone, fall back immediately! Reinforcements have arrived!"
As a graduate of the Ryūkoga Family's orphan training program, having been trained from childhood by instructors loyal to the family, he understood perfectly what that message meant.
The presence of even a single Ryūkoga family member on the battlefield meant that the situation was almost certainly under control, making any further reckless resistance unnecessary. Without the slightest hesitation, he obeyed his orders, forcing the terrified guests to retreat safely while covering their escape with repeated swings of his massive chakra axe.
At that very same moment, Thorn stood atop a giant tree overlooking the battlefield from a high vantage point that gave him a complete view of the entire conflict. Calmly, he observed the movements of the stone puppets, their numbers, and the coordination between them.
A flash of blue light appeared briefly in his hands before disappearing, leaving behind a black bow. He drew the string, and a glowing blue chakra arrow formed, packed with tremendous concentrated power.
Fwoooosh!
The arrow vanished with incredible speed, cutting through the air in a perfectly straight line.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A tremendous shockwave erupted from the impact as the arrow struck its targets. The blast was so powerful that even some of the fleeing civilians instinctively turned back despite their terror, only to stare in disbelief as every single stone puppet shattered simultaneously in one massive explosion.
Their amazement, however, lasted only a brief moment.
The scattered fragments of the puppets suddenly began pulling themselves back together, countless pieces of stone crawling toward one another and reconstructing themselves as though the devastating explosion had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
Watching the scene with sharp eyes behind the black cloth covering his face, Thorn calmly muttered,
"It seems I'll have to use something stronger."
As he pulled the bowstring back with even greater force this time, the bow itself gradually changed shape until it became perfectly circular.
A brilliantly radiant blue arrow materialized in his hand, far denser and more concentrated than the previous one.
Nor did it stop there.
Dozens upon dozens of additional arrows began appearing above and around him, like a constellation of tiny blue stars all waiting for a single command to be unleashed.
FWOOOOOOOSH!
He released the main arrow.
The surrounding arrows immediately followed behind it, forming a concentrated storm of blue projectiles that tore through everything in their path toward the gathered puppet army.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!
A small mushroom cloud rose into the sky.
The enormous explosion shook the entire surrounding area, sending a noticeable earthquake rippling outward far beyond the impact site.
Standing atop the tree, Thorn looked down at the enormous crater left where the battle had once taken place. It was deep and wide, silent testimony to the overwhelming force of the blast.
This time, the entire stone puppet unit had been completely vaporized.
Not a single fragment remained capable of reassembling itself as it had before.
Quietly gazing at the destruction his attack had left behind, he muttered to himself,
"It seems I overdid it... a little."
He then turned his attention elsewhere to make sure everyone present had survived.
From a safe distance away, he saw the teahouse owner gathering together with the surviving guests. They all looked exhausted and deeply shaken by the sudden attack they had just endured.
Thorn descended gracefully from the tree while contemplating the strange nature of those puppets their unnatural durability, their ability to reconstruct themselves from complete destruction, and what all of that implied about the mysterious entity controlling them, just as his father Dan had warned him.
This had been his first direct encounter with this emerging force in the region.
And as he approached the ruined remains of the teahouse, he clearly realized that it would almost certainly not be his last encounter with this strange and malevolent enemy.
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