Having ruled out the first sealing point, Shinji didn't hesitate and immediately headed toward the second sealing point marked on the scroll.
After a long journey, he arrived before a cliff wall, gently touching the solid rock while murmuring: "Is this the place?"
He closed his eyes, sensing. Still, he couldn't detect Mumei's presence.
"Perhaps it's because I lost Jikibi," he thought.
Shinji shook his head, dismissing further speculation, and prepared to excavate.
After pinpointing the exact sealing point using the scroll, he activated his Wood Release. Countless vines burrowed into the cliff, weaving through the rock and shattering the stone covering the sealing point.
Even the toughest rock was fragile as tofu before Wood Release. In moments, a hidden stone door within the cliff appeared before Shinji.
"What kind of sealing technique is this?"
Compared to the ceramic jar at the first sealing point, this second site was clearly of a higher caliber. The ancient, intricate sealing patterns carved on the stone door were unrecognizable to Shinji.
After a brief pause, Shinji activated the dojutsu of his Rinnegan, Sealing Technique Absorption, and pressed his palm against the door.
Instantly, the sealing patterns covering the door were absorbed, unraveled, and vanished without a trace.
With the door's seals undone, Shinji countered with an Almighty Pull, using its suction to wrench the stone door open from the outside.
Whump.
With a resounding crash, the stone door was forced open by Shinji's dojutsu, revealing what lay inside.
"Hm?"
Shinji raised an eyebrow slightly.
Behind the door was a small stone coffin, inside which lay a middle-aged shinobi clad in Warring States-era armor.
Hiss hiss hiss.
As the seal was broken, bursts of steam-like hisses emanated from the shinobi's body within the coffin.
Then, much like Orochimaru's summoning of the First and Second Hokages' Edo Tensei bodies, the middle-aged shinobi gradually regained a flush of vitality amid the steam and awakened.
"Tch, not her either…"
Shinji shook his head slowly.
To him, as long as it wasn't Mumei, he didn't care who the sealed figure was, no matter how significant they once were!
Clank.
Amid the clattering of armor plates, the middle-aged shinobi climbed out of the coffin.
He was a commanding figure. Scanning his surroundings, his gaze finally settled on Shinji, and he said coldly: "Where is Senju Tobirama?"
"Senju Tobirama? So he was indeed sealed by the Senju clan!"
Shinji gained some clarity.
Seeing Shinji's silence, the man spoke indifferently: "Kid, are you alone? Are you from the Senju clan? Didn't Senju Tobirama warn you not to come near this place?"
Sensing no malice from the man, Shinji couldn't be bothered to waste time and turned to leave.
Whatever crimes this man had committed, decades or centuries of sealing were enough to atone. If he resumed causing chaos in the shinobi world, Shinji would personally eliminate him.
"Hey, kid!"
The man took a step, intending to follow Shinji.
But at that moment, the armor that had just clinked crisply began to decay bit by bit in a passing breeze.
The man looked at his decaying armor in surprise: "Has it been that long?"
Shinji paused, his face filled with uncertainty.
The armor's decay seemed only the beginning. The once-vibrant middle-aged shinobi began to age rapidly before Shinji's eyes.
He opened his mouth, asking Shinji in panic: "What year is it?"
Shinji answered instinctively: "Hidden Leaf Year 59…"
The shinobi looked confused: "Hidden Leaf Year? What's that?"
Shinji quickly flipped open the sealing scroll, checking the recorded timeline, and said: "It's been exactly 120 years since you were sealed!"
"One hundred twenty years?" The shinobi looked down at his now-wrinkled, withered hands, muttering: "Senju Tobirama, you sealed me for over a century!"
Shinji cautiously asked: "Are… are you okay?"
The shinobi—no, now more fittingly an elderly man—slumped to the ground, saying: "My power, along with my life, is slipping away. I won't last much longer!"
Shinji panicked: "How could this happen?"
The old man glanced at Shinji: "Kid, you broke my seal. I should reward you with something! But you came too late… too late!"
With that, he closed his eyes and ceased to breathe.
Shinji stood frozen in place.
He never expected this outcome! The moment the seal was broken, he sensed a formidable chakra from the man, one that marked him as a Kage-level powerhouse.
Yet even such a powerhouse withered and died in the breeze moments after being unsealed. This reality was hard for Shinji to accept.
If even a figure like this couldn't withstand time, what about Mumei? Even as a Mangekyo Uchiha, her strength likely didn't surpass Kage-level. If Shinji unsealed her, she might meet the same fate as this rapidly aged shinobi.
Approaching the withered corpse, Shinji examined it.
The more he inspected, the more alarmed he became. As he feared, the man bore no external injuries—he had simply died of old age.
"Indeed, even sealing cannot escape the erosion of time…"
Shinji's emotions were hard to calm.
Initially, he held onto a sliver of hope. But after opening two sealing points, he no longer harbored any illusions.
Unless one's power rivaled Kaguya Otsutsuki, the chakra progenitor, for whom a millennium-long seal was like a dream, or beings like the demon Moryo or tailed beasts—pure chakra aggregates with no concept of lifespan—none could escape time's erosion, even when sealed.
The sealing scroll didn't specify the sealing date for the third point, but based on the scroll's age, all recorded sealing points were at least a century old.
"Can Mumei withstand time's erosion? If I unseal her, will I doom her?"
Doubts flooded Shinji's mind, shaking the resolve he once held so firmly.
If unsealing Mumei caused her to age and die within minutes, could that still be called salvation?