Konoha: Starting with Sage Mode

The next moment, the ground below suddenly shone brightly, and a sealing array with a diameter of more than ten meters appeared.

Madara Uchiha landed in the middle of this formation.

This was something Kirito secretly arranged while he was manipulating the rock giant and chakra chains to deal with Madara Uchiha.

To avoid being detected by Madara Uchiha's Sharingan, he even used the rock giant as cover.

Using the chakra thread he shot into the rock giant's body as the main thread, and then using the rock giant's body as cover, he split it into numerous smaller threads, passing through the rock giant's feet, and finally deceived Uchiha Madara, successfully setting up this sealing array in secret.

As soon as the sealing array was activated, the space within it immediately became severely distorted.

Madara Uchiha, who was in the middle of the formation, had a drastic change in expression. He already knew what kind of sealing technique Kirito had used. He wanted to escape, but found that his body could not move for a moment, and his feet were bound by a large number of sealing techniques.

Sealing Technique: Inner Four Symbols Sealing!

Sealing Technique: Sixfold Lamp Array!

This sealing array was created by Kirito by combining the two sealing techniques mentioned above. Anyone within the array, even Madara Uchiha, will die.

"Die, Madara Uchiha."

"Sakumo Hatake" laughed happily.

As they spoke, a distorted black hole appeared in the sealing array on the ground below, sucking everything in the array into it.

Naturally, Madara Uchiha was no exception. With a furious shout of defiance, he was sucked into the black hole and entered an unknown alternate dimension.

"I never imagined that I could kill Madara Uchiha in such a simple way. It's unbelievable."

Kirito watched as the Four Purple Flame Array that had been sealing him collapsed rapidly, and sighed.

After defeating his formidable enemy, Madara Uchiha, the tension that had been building up inside him finally eased. However, the backlash from the replicated Chili Pepper Ball and the Eight Gates technique became uncontrollable, and he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

The next moment, the chakra wings on his back disappeared, and he fell rapidly from the sky.

With a "poof" sound.

Sakumo Hatake's body lay on the ground like a lump of mud, unable to move.

Then, a voice that made Kirito smile wryly appeared behind him: "Well done, your sealing technique is indeed excellent."

Chapter 242: The Fallen Uchiha

"Disgraceful resurrection coins, resorting to cheating when you can't win."

Upon hearing Madara Uchiha's annoying voice, Kirito knew where he had lost and retorted.

His voice was undisguised, which sounded extremely harsh to Madara Uchiha behind him. Madara's killing intent rose rapidly, and he sneered, "The lament of a defeated dog."

He certainly took Kirito's sarcastic words to heart. If he hadn't used Izanagi to rewrite reality, he would have indeed been killed by Kirito's unexpected sealing technique.

But Izanagi was originally his method, so how can it be considered despicable?

"If you can't beat them, you can't beat them" is just an excuse, the lament of a defeated dog.

"Ah, yes, yes, it is indeed the lament of a loser. But I wonder who used the same trick to escape from under the nose of the God of Ninjas back then. Who is the real loser?"

Kirito sneered, mercilessly reopening Madara Uchiha's deepest wounds.

His conflict with Madara Uchiha was irreconcilable, so he might as well just openly oppose him.

"you wanna die!"

Uchiha Madara, having been hit where it hurt by Kirito, immediately crushed a spare three-tomoe Sharingan in his right hand and roared in anger.

As he spoke, the red light of his right Mangekyou Sharingan flashed, and a black flame appeared out of thin air, shooting towards Hatake Sakumo.

Damn brat, he'll burn this kid to ashes, bit by bit.

Kirito was powerless at this point. He could only watch helplessly as Madara Uchiha used black flames to destroy Sakumo Hatake's body, and sighed inwardly, "I'm sorry, teacher, I really can't save him. I can only make you suffer less."

Sakumo Hatake's body was already suffering from the backlash of ingesting the replica chili pill and being forced to use the Eight Gates technique by Kirito. Now, he was attacked by Madara Uchiha's black fire, and his injuries suddenly flared up completely, causing his life force to rapidly disappear.

"Hmph, I almost fell for your trick."

Suddenly, Madara Uchiha snorted coldly and decisively dispelled the black flames on Sakumo Hatake's body.

Kirito could easily see how bad Sakumo Hatake's injuries were. Even without his intervention, he wouldn't live long without timely treatment. Kirito's words just now were less about provoking him and more about using him to lessen Sakumo Hatake's suffering.

In this way, Sakumo Hatake really died at his hands, and he no longer had any leverage to threaten Kirito Tohsaka.

He had already witnessed Kirito Tohsaka's abilities, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The fact that the opponent could unleash such powerful combat strength simply by relying on Sakumo Hatake's body, and even successfully ambushed him once, forcing him to use Izanagi to achieve a counterattack, all indicate that this kid is a formidable enemy.

This enemy's weakness is that he is too sentimental; otherwise, he wouldn't have used his spiritual transformation technique to travel thousands of miles to support Hatake Sakumo.

If he were to kill Sakumo Hatake here, he would truly lose a bargaining chip to threaten Kirito Tohsaka. In any case, even if Sakumo Hatake survived, he would be essentially useless and posed no threat to him. It would be better to keep him alive and use him to threaten Kirito Tohsaka.

With this thought in mind, Madara Uchiha used Wood Release: Silent Binding Technique to bind Sakumo Hatake with a large number of wooden strips. Then he placed his hands on Sakumo Hatake's body and used Healing Palm Technique to heal him, keeping Sakumo Hatake alive.

Upon seeing Madara Uchiha's actions, Kirito immediately understood Madara's intentions and couldn't help but laugh, "Thank you so much."

As soon as he finished speaking, a blue sphere of soul light emerged from between Hatake Sakumo's eyebrows.

This sphere of soul light is the soul seed that Kirito left inside Sakumo Hatake.

Now that Sakumo Hatake is in Madara Uchiha's hands, Kirito naturally can no longer leave the Soul Seed on Sakumo Hatake. He knows Madara Uchiha's abilities and might even be able to find the Soul Seed and capture it.

The soul seed contains a large amount of his memories, and this information must absolutely not fall into the hands of Uchiha Madara.

The Soul Seed flew rapidly into the sky to escape, but a rocket formed from black flames struck it. Accompanied by a soul-shaking scream, the Soul Seed dissipated in the air.

"Trying to escape? Humph."

Madara Uchiha watched the dissipating soul seed in the sky with his Sharingan, a cold smile creeping across his face.

Ordinary people don't have the means to deal with souls, but he's different. He's someone who has awakened the Rinnegan, and the Rinnegan's abilities include methods to target souls. Although he doesn't have the Rinnegan now, he can still harm souls using the power of Yin-Yang Release and the Sharingan.

However, although Madara Uchiha killed Kirito's soul seed, he felt little joy and regret.

Because he discovered that Kirito Tohsaka's spiritification technique was far more powerful than he had imagined. The soul seed he had just seen was clearly not Kirito's true soul, but merely a tiny, insignificant fragment of his soul that he had separated using his soul ninjutsu.

But even this tiny, insignificant fragment of the soul allowed Kirito Tohsaka to remotely control Sakumo Hatake from a distance, unleashing astonishing power. This shows that Kirito Tohsaka has already progressed very far in his cultivation of the soul.

"Such a prodigy exists in this world. If he had been born in the Warring States period, he would surely have been a great enemy of me and Hashirama Senju."

Madara Uchiha was filled with emotion.

Even now, he finally truly faces Kirito as an enemy, no longer outwardly acknowledging Kirito's strength, but still harboring a slight disbelief, believing that he still has every chance of controlling this Konoha genius.

At the same time, Kirito, who was flying rapidly through the borders of the Land of Fire, suddenly felt a slight pain in his soul, and his brows furrowed immediately.

Each soul seed is essentially a soul clone of him, albeit a low-end version, far less powerful than the soul clones he creates using large soul fragments. However, it still has relatively complete functions, such as memory sharing.

After the Soul Seed was destroyed, he immediately gained its memories and knew about Madara Uchiha's capture of Sakumo Hatake.

Things became difficult.

Now that Sakumo Hatake is in Madara Uchiha's hands, he will inevitably be at a disadvantage against this cunning old fox.

"Although I knew long ago that this old schemer's bottom line had been decreasing and his arrogance had long been shattered by Hashirama Senju, I didn't expect his bottom line to have dropped to this level. If the Uchiha clan knew what he had done, their impression of their ancestor would definitely be shattered."

Kirito cursed inwardly when he heard that Madara Uchiha was going to use Sakumo Hatake to threaten him.

At the same time, he also felt a little annoyed with himself.

If he hadn't returned to the Land of Wind last night, Hatake Sakumo probably wouldn't have fallen into Uchiha Madara's hands.

Unfortunately, there are no "what ifs," and now he can only take things one step at a time.

However, it was ultimately a good thing that Sakumo Hatake was not killed by Madara Uchiha. As long as he was alive, there was still room for things to turn around.

Furthermore, Uchiha Homura's fate is currently unknown, and he may have already perished at the hands of Uchiha Madara.

"We need to be faster."

Kirito's heart tightened when he thought of the tear stains on Chizuru's face before she left.

The next moment, he used the Thunder Transformation Technique again, transforming into a bolt of lightning and shooting towards the location where the soul seed had disappeared.

About a minute later, Kirito arrived at the spot where the Soul Seed had disappeared.

By this time, Madara Uchiha and Sakumo Hatake had already disappeared without a trace. His various powerful sensory abilities were unable to find any trace of Madara Uchiha. This shows that Madara Uchiha was very familiar with his sensory abilities and had taken precautions in advance.

"Intelligence is indeed the lifeblood of a ninja. The more I do, the less of an intelligence advantage I have. Madara Uchiha might be watching me from the shadows right now."

Kirito looked around and used all his sensory abilities to investigate, but still couldn't find Madara Uchiha's whereabouts, and his heart sank.

Now, the enemy is in the dark while we are in the light.

Just as Kirito suspected, Madara Uchiha was observing Kirito from the shadows. He used the Mayfly Technique with the help of Tobi, the White Zetsu, to hide in a large tree and used a sealing technique to block his own soul's perception in order to target Kirito's soul perception.

The Mayfly Technique is an extremely sophisticated concealment ability, and White Zetsu is naturally close to natural energy. If Kirito didn't have soul perception and relied solely on natural energy perception, he really wouldn't be able to detect the White Zetsu hiding by using the Mayfly Technique.

In the original storyline, only three people were able to discover White Zetsu: Naruto, Orochimaru, and Kabuto, who had conducted in-depth research on White Zetsu.

Kirito also studied the White Zetsu, but because he had the ability to summon spirits, he could easily find White Zetsu, so he didn't put much effort into finding them. His main research focus was on how to make prosthetics using White Zetsu cells to coexist with ordinary humans.

White zonal cells are amazing and wonderful things. If we can find a solution to the problem of rejection between white zonal cells and human cells, it will greatly benefit mankind.

At that time, perhaps everyone will be able to awaken Wood Release.

"This kid really came over; he's truly loyal and devoted."

Madara Uchiha secretly observed Kirito, thinking to himself.

He had considered that Kirito might come here in person, but after discovering the Soul Seed, he changed his mind and thought that Kirito couldn't possibly come. But he actually did come.

Now that he has seen Kirito in person, he has gained a new understanding of him.

This was indeed a ninja who could threaten his life. He hadn't felt extremely dangerous from other ninjas in a long time, and it was right for him to hide for the time being.

He had just fought consecutive battles with Uchiha Homura and Sage Mode Hatake Sakumo, which had significantly depleted his chakra and eye power. Furthermore, he had very few spare three-tomoe Sharingan left. It would be extremely unwise for him to fight Tohsaka Kirito now.

Kirito Tohsaka is not comparable to the 'Sakumo Hatake' from before. Whether it's the amount of chakra or the methods, the latter is far inferior to the former.

He was now unsure whether he could take down Kirito Tohsaka without endangering his own life. If killing Kirito Tohsaka meant losing himself, it would be a losing proposition.

"It's alright. Although you are a genius, without the power of the Uchiha and Senju clans, your ultimate achievements will be limited. I have plenty of time to play with you slowly."

Madara Uchiha watched Kirito's departing figure, then slowly burrowed underground to join Black Zetsu.

The Impure World Reincarnation technique of the Root is a good thing. He was originally worried that he wouldn't have enough time, but now he's not afraid. Once he completely controls the Root left by that bug, even if he dies, his Eye of the Moon plan can continue.

……