Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

His voice, mingling with the rustling of the Konoha forest, pierced through Bai Ye's mind: "The foundation of puppetry is symbiosis, those heart fragments..."

"It's using the life of the manipulator as a catalyst!" Bai Ye suddenly coughed up black blood—only then did he see clearly that the golden heart fragments embedded in the puppet were drawing his life force into thin streams and injecting them into the embryo through the chakra lines connecting him and Xu Juzang.

Ban's laughter, crackling with molten heat, exploded: "Smart brat, only now do you understand?"

Do you think Luo Sha's remnant soul is helping you?

He had long since been corrupted and turned into nourishment by the puppet incantation!

Before he finished speaking, Madara's sonic resonance struck the Wood Release barrier like a heavy hammer.

The swarm of golden butterflies suddenly exploded, with black liquid seeping from the wings of half of them, instantly clouding the original golden rain of light.

Bai Ye's golden blood dripped onto the barrier, turning black as quickly as if it had been poured into an inkwell. It then crawled up the cracks on his arm, causing the skin to peel back and reveal the bronze puppet patterns beneath.

"Mei!" Bai Ye staggered and bumped into the water mirror. Mei Terumi's reflection had faded so much that it seemed to be melting away.

Chapter 735 Awakening of the Byakugan

Her left hand remained embedded in her heart; the pale golden blood no longer flowed out, but was instead absorbed by the embryo, forming thin strands. "Don't come any closer..." Her lips moved before her voice, and her right eye suddenly glowed white—a sign of the Byakugan awakening. "I see...Konoha..."

"Enough!" Juzo's mechanical throat emitted a piercing shriek.

His body was completely covered by the puppet emblem, even his hair had turned into bronze threads, and he was pressing the last puppet against his chest.

The puppets that should have dissipated with the mechanical core suddenly swelled, oozing sticky black liquid from their joints. "The fusion ritual requires a living sacrifice!" His voice was divided into seven or eight overlapping tones. With each word he spoke, ten puppets exploded. The sound waves and wood-elemental energy collided in the narrow ley lines, tearing open a pitch-black vortex.

The rock walls of the earth's veins began to peel away, revealing the rock shadow mechanical puppets that had been buried for thousands of years.

This war machine, which was thirty feet tall, was now fully raised. The embryo on its chest split into a spider web, from which crawled a huge pupil—a gold and black iris that slowly rotated, each line of which looked like it was tearing at the air.

White Night's golden blood, enveloped in black liquid, flew uncontrollably toward his pupils. He could hear the voices of the First Hokage and Madara intertwining in his ears:

"Stop! This is a forbidden technique of the Uchiha clan!"

"Hahaha! Finally, I can get rid of this wretched body!"

"Shut up, all of you!" Bai Ye bit his tongue, spraying golden blood mixed with black liquid onto his palm.

His right hand suddenly glowed green—the First Hokage's Wood Release kunai had somehow pierced his wrist, and Wood Release chakra wrapped around the black liquid like vines. "When did my life become yours to decide?"

The suction force of the pupil suddenly increased tenfold.

Bai Ye's feet sank into the surface of the ley lines, and ice crystals shattered into starlight at his feet.

He saw Mei Terumi's Byakugan light up completely, the white light piercing through the water mirror and outlining the silhouette of Konoha's forbidden area in the void: the sealing stone tablet there was cracking, and the green energy that was originally suppressed was twisting like a living thing, resonating with the black liquid in the earth's veins.

“I see…” Mei Terumi’s voice suddenly became clear. She pulled her left hand from her heart, and in her palm lay a jade pendant engraved with a swirling pattern. “You lured me to the ley lines, not just for the barrier… but to use my Byakugan to connect to the seal of Konoha?”

"You guessed right." Madara's phantom suddenly overlapped with the First Hokage's phantom, black and red chakra intertwining into new patterns. "But you can't guess... when these pupils have absorbed enough lives..."

"boom--"

The roar of an ancient seal shattering echoed from the deepest part of the earth's veins.

The golden blood of the day finally touched the pupil, and the black liquid and wood escaping were fiercely fighting within it, actually condensing a third color in the center of the pupil: dark red.

His consciousness began to blur, but at the last moment he saw Mei Terumi's Byakugan clearly—in that white light, there was an unfamiliar Byakugan reflection, rapidly approaching from the direction of Konoha.

"Hyuga..." Byakuya's voice faded into the earth's tremors.

The water mirror on the surface of the ley lines suddenly shattered completely. Before Mei Terumi disappeared, she used this technique to trap Gaara's tailed beast chakra. The white light in her right eye suddenly solidified into a point.

That was Hyuga Hiashi's Byakugan, piercing through layers of space and locking onto the location of Byakuya's heart.

The tremors deep within the earth's veins nearly shattered Bai Ye's bones.

He stared at the shattered water mirror above his head. The reflection of Hiashi Hyuga's Byakugan pierced through layers of space as if it were a tangible object, burning a glaring white spot at the location of his heart—the locking mark of the Konoha main family's secret technique, "Amaterasu Eye Lock."

Chapter 736 Ninja Liberation

"The sealing stone tablet of the forbidden area of ​​Konoha... is absorbing the energy of the Eye of the Earth's Ley Lines!" Hiashi Hyuga's voice, mixed with chakra vibrations, came through. His fingers formed a six-pointed star seal in front of his chest, and the veins under his sleeves bulged like snakes.

As the Byakugan user who can see through the origin of chakra, he clearly saw the black liquid surging in the earth's veins rushing wildly towards Konoha along some unseen vein—and the source was Byakuya, who was enveloped in both gold and black liquid.

Bai Ye's feet had already sunk into the surface of the earth's veins, and the stinging pain of shattering ice crystals shot from her ankles straight up her spine.

He could feel Hyuga's magic severing his connection with the earth's veins. The golden crest crawled up his calves along the tree roots, each inch feeling like it was being branded with fire. "Trying to stop the seal's resonance?" He smirked, golden blood seeping from between his teeth. "But you have no idea... what the First Hokage buried here."

Before the words were finished, a sharp sound of puppet threads slicing through the air suddenly came from afar.

Chiyo's granddaughter emerged from the quicksand, her right wrist wrapped with twelve scarlet puppet strings, the foremost one piercing into the rock at the core of the forbidden area.

The afterimage of Chiyo in the girl's right eye suddenly opened, a sharpness beyond her years flashing in her cloudy pupils: "Grandpa's afterimage... started pulling my wrist in my dreams three days ago." Her fingertips trembled slightly, and the Wood Release Seed in her palm suddenly became hot. "So this is what he wanted me to see."

The quicksand receded as if it were alive, and a stone tablet engraved with forbidden puppetry techniques slowly emerged.

Those crooked lines, as if carved into the rock by a sharp blade, completely overlapped with the scar on Bai Ye's chest that stretched from his collarbone to his abdomen.

The girl gasped, and the puppet strings tightened abruptly—the forbidden technique patterns on the surface of the stone tablet suddenly came to life, surging into her bloodstream along her fingertips, and countless images flashed before her eyes: the First Hokage standing before this stone tablet, embedding half of the Wood Release core into the crack in the stone; Madara Uchiha's Sharingan flickering in the dark corner, black flames licking the edge of the stone tablet; and... the scene of Byakuya being chased and beaten when he was a child?

"I see." Bai Ye suddenly laughed, his laughter tinged with blood foam.

Hyuga's technique had pinned him to the tree roots, golden patterns crawling across his waist and abdomen, but his left hand was tightly gripping his chest—the skin there was cracking, and golden and black liquid mixed with dark red blood beads gushed out, revealing the pulsating chakra core below. "The First Hokage's ultimate plan... was not to save ninjas with Wood Release, but to make all ninjas nourishment for Wood Release."

And puppetry... "He ripped open his chest, blood splattering onto the stone tablet," was the chain that made the nourishment more obedient.

The moment he pressed the core into the groove of the stone tablet, the entire forbidden area roared.

Chiyo's granddaughter staggered backward, seeing the forbidden technique patterns on the surface of the stone tablet slithering into its core like a swarm of snakes. The gold, black, and red chakra frantically clashed and finally condensed into a line of small characters in the crack of the stone: Ninja Liberation.

"Liberation?" Byakuya's voice suddenly became hoarse, the consciousness of the First Hokage and Madara shattering into fragments within his sea of ​​consciousness. "So the liberation you spoke of is allowing ninjas to completely integrate into nature... no longer bound by villages, daimyo, or desires?" He stared at the words on the stone tablet, tears mingling with blood droplets falling onto its core. "But you should have known..."

"boom--"

A sharp, metallic whistling sound came from the deepest part of the earth's veins, and an even more violent tremor than before overturned Chiyo's granddaughter.

Bai Ye suddenly looked up and saw the Rock Shadow Mechanical Puppet on the earth vein wall slowly turning its head. In the pupil on its chest, a dark blue sound wave was spreading along the crack in the earth vein—that was the bloodline limit of the missing special Jonin, Juzo Inu from Sunagakure, "Sound Wave Dance".

"It's coming..." Bai Ye's consciousness began to blur. The last thing he saw was Chiyo's granddaughter trembling as she picked up the half of her core that had fallen, while Hyuga Hiashi's Byakugan was staring intently at the four words "Ninja Liberation" on the stone tablet.

The surface of the ley lines solidified back into a mirror, vaguely reflecting the raised right arm of the Rock Shadow Golem. Amidst the grinding of mechanical joints, a muffled whisper rang out: "The First Generation's plan... should end."

The moment the mechanical puppet on the rock wall turned its head, the eerie blue sound wave slashed through the water mirror like a sharp blade.

Chiyo's granddaughter was thrown against the rock wall by the shockwave, and the puppet strings left deep marks on her palms—the sound waves contained the unique chakra vibrations of Sunagakure, which was Juzo's "Sound Wave Dance".

She heard Hiashi Hyuga shout, and the six-pointed star seal exploded in his palm. His Byakugan pupils shrank to pinpoints as he attempted to use Amaterasu Eye Lock to pin the sound wave trajectory to the earth's vein patterns.

Chapter 737 The Gentlest Solution

"It's no use." Bai Ye's voice suddenly became clear, and blood foam mixed with gold and black liquid splashed onto the water mirror.

In his previously unfocused pupils, a crimson Sharingan and a touch of pale blue wood grain lit up simultaneously—it was Madara and the First Hokage's consciousness forcibly taking over his body. "The Rock Puppet was long ago modified by the First Hokage into a ley line resonator, and Juzo's sound waves... are the final key to activating the ritual."

Before he finished speaking, golden butterflies suddenly emerged from the wound on his chest.

The light butterflies with the Uchiha clan crest etched on their wings hovered in the air, forming a semi-transparent cage that trapped the sound waves of the Rock Shadow Puppet within.

Madara's phantom appeared, stepping on butterflies, a cold sneer on his lips: "Hashirama Senju, do you think you can fool me by using yourself as a vessel?"

This 'ninja liberation' within that broken stone is nothing but a lie—a lie that claims all ninja chakra is under your Wood Release control!

On the other side of the water mirror, the phantom of the first generation grew out of the crack in the stone tablet, and the hand wrapped with green vines pressed on the butterfly cage of the freckles.

Wood Release chakra devoured the light butterfly like a living thing, and his voice carried the composure of a thousand years ago: "You still don't understand, Madara."

When ninjas are no longer bound by villages, daimyo, or hatred, when chakra returns to its natural cycle... this is not domination, but liberation.

Chiyo's granddaughter clutched her aching right eye—Chiyo's afterimage was blinking wildly, and the puppet strings on her wrist were stretched like harp strings.

She stared at the gradually blurring words "Ninja Liberation" on the stone tablet, then looked at the swirling golden-black chakra on Byakuya's chest, and suddenly remembered the feeling of her grandfather grabbing her wrist in her dream three days ago. "Grandpa didn't want me to see the truth..." she trembled as she pointed the thinnest of the twelve puppet strings at her heart, "...he wanted me to be the key."

"Are you crazy?" Hiashi Hyuga's Byakugan reflected the chakra storm surging in the girl's heart. "Sunagakure Puppet Techniques forbid the use of the caster as a medium!"

“But the Sand Village’s quicksand can devour all external chakra.” Chiyo’s granddaughter bit her tongue, the metallic taste filling her throat. “The First Hokage’s Wood Release needs the nourishment of the earth’s ley lines, and Madara’s Sharingan needs negative emotions… So I’ll use quicksand as the base and Wood Release seeds as the catalyst to… seal their chakra back into the stone tablet!”

The moment the puppet threads pierced her heart, black viscous fluid seeped from the girl's eyes—it was the curse left by Chiyo's afterimage, mixed with the obsession of the puppeteers of Sunagakure throughout the ages.

At the same time, the golden blood that had splattered on the back of her hand suddenly boiled, intertwining with the black liquid and climbing up the puppet strings, weaving a spiderweb-like chakra network in mid-air.

The black liquid in the earth's veins no longer surged wildly towards Konoha; instead, it was pulled back to the stone tablet by the net. The sound waves that were about to overturn everything also slipped into the cracks in the stone along the net.

“I see…” The phantom of the first generation suddenly smiled, his fingers, entwined with green vines, stroking the cracks in the stone tablet. “You inherited Chiyo’s ruthlessness, but used the gentlest solution.”

"Enough with the nonsense!" Ban's butterfly cage tightened abruptly, and the light butterfly transformed into black flames that scorched the wooden vines. "Even if you understand now, this broken stone can't hold on any longer!"

Before the words were finished, the stone tablet emitted a crisp sound like porcelain shattering.

The first part to crack was the stone surface engraved with "Ninja Liberation," and the cracks spread like a spider web across the entire stone monument, revealing the gold, black, and red chakra flowing inside.

The phantoms of the First Hokage and Madara materialized simultaneously. The First Hokage stepped on the giant tree of Wood Release and soared into the air, while Madara's Susanoo unfolded behind him. The roar of the two chakra blades colliding caused the Earth's Water Mirror to shatter completely into ice crystals.

Chiyo's granddaughter slumped to the ground, watching as the puppet strings around her heart emitted a pale golden light—the trace of the fusion of the Wood Release Seed and the quicksand.

Hiashi Hyuga knelt on one knee, his Byakugan still wide open, but he could no longer see the veins of the earth—those veins had been shattered into a mess by the aftershocks of the broken stone tablet.

Further afield, in the barrier forest on the border of Konoha, flowers of intertwined gold and black suddenly bloomed on land that originally only grew ninjutsu plants.

Tiny puppet threads flow within the stamen of each flower, as if waiting for... some kind of resonance.

Bai Ye knelt before the shattered stone tablet, blood still seeping from the wound on his chest.

He could clearly hear the muffled thuds of fists and feet clashing inside his body—the First Hokage's wooden vines were entangled in Madara's Susanoo armor, and Madara's black flames were burning the First Hokage's heart.

The chakra of two millennia-old rivals is waging a primal battle on his body.

"Is this...destiny?" Bai Ye stared at the golden-black blood beads remaining in his palm and suddenly recalled the childhood scenes reflected in the stone tablet—his crying face as he fell into the mud while being chased, the smugness of secretly healing his wounds with Wood Release, and Madara's whisper in his ear when he killed for the first time.

He didn't know who would emerge victorious in this battle; he only knew that when dawn broke, the entire ninja world... might truly change.

The tremors deep within the earth's veins gradually weakened, but a more muffled rumble came from afar.

Those were the puppet hearts of all the puppeteers from Sunagakure, Kumogakure, Iwagakure... resonating at the same time.

Chapter 738 Puppet Virus

The shattered fragments of the stone tablet pierced Bai Ye's knee, but he felt no pain.

He only heard a series of cracking sounds rising and falling in his chest—the First Hokage's wooden vines made a crisp sound as they tightened around Madara's Susanoo armor, and Madara's black flames emitted a burnt, bitter fragrance as they burned Madara's Wood Release heart.

The blood, both gold and black, flowed down his nasal grooves, earlobes, and the corners of his mouth, creating eerie two-colored swirling patterns on the bluestone slab.

"What you're fighting over... is the soul of all the ninjas?" His hoarse voice, mixed with blood and foam, looked up at the two illusory figures still locked in combat in mid-air.

The first generation of the Wood Release giant tree was being gnawed at by black flames, and Madara's Susanoo's right eye was cracked with a spider web pattern. The chakra storm of the two swept up rubble and smashed around, but always avoided the position where he was kneeling.

“Foolish.” Ban’s voice rolled from his throat, carrying the cold hardness of a thousand years of war. “It’s just two old geezers who refuse to admit that the era should come to an end.”

“No.” The First Generation’s voice followed from deep within his chest, the green vines wrapping around his spine, “What we’re arguing about is… how he should take on this responsibility.”

Bai Ye suddenly clenched the collar of his shirt, his fingernails almost piercing his skin.

He saw fragments of memory churning in the blood mist: when he was seven years old and being chased by Iwagakure ninjas, Madara whispered in his ear, "Kill them, and your chakra will become stronger"; when he was twelve years old, to save a dying stray dog, the First Hokage's Wood Release automatically enveloped the dog's wounds; and three days ago, when he first touched this stone tablet engraved with "Ninja Liberation," two voices exploded in his mind at the same time—"Destroy it, let the old order collapse" and "Repair it, leave room for new life."

"Enough!" he roared, slamming his fist on the ground, sending fragments of the stone tablet flying everywhere.

But this roar acted like a fuse, suddenly intensifying the internal struggle.

The wooden vines suddenly tightened, making his ribs crack softly; black flames shot up his eyes along his veins, turning his vision crimson.

He staggered and fell, his forehead hitting the crack in the stone tablet. His golden-black blood seeped into the stone's texture, causing the three-colored chakra to flow even faster.

"Homeowner!"

Hiashi Hyuga's furious shouts echoed in my ears.

Bai Ye turned his head and saw that the head of the Konoha Clan, who was supporting himself on one knee, suddenly straightened his back, and his originally cloudy white eyes suddenly burst out with blood-red light.

The earth's veins that should have been shattered into a chaotic mess were now being reassembled in Hyuga's pupils in a bizarre way—he saw three Chunin staggering in the Konoha training grounds, clutching their chests, with bluish-black Wood Release roots emerging from the skin beneath their collarbones; outside the medical team's tent, a Jonin's chakra blade struck his comrade's waist, but only severed the entwined vines; deep within the Hokage Rock, the Third Hokage was cutting his own wrist with a kunai, the blood dripping onto the ground and blooming into the same golden and black flowers found in the border forest.

"The puppet virus is infecting people through the chakra network!" Hiashi Hyuga's voice cracked, and veins bulged on his forehead.

With his right hand, he formed the hand seal for the Hyuga main family's forbidden technique, Soul-Locking Chains, his fingertips condensing chakra into translucent chains. "Every Chunin's chest is growing Wood Release: Root... You are the source!"

The shrill sound of chains tearing through the air pierced Bai Ye's eardrums.

He tried to dodge, but the wooden vines and black flames within his body were churning his chakra into turbulent currents, making it impossible for him to even use the most basic Body Flicker Technique.

The moment the chain pierced his back, he heard the crisp sound of ribs breaking, and warm blood splattered at Chiyo's granddaughter's feet.