Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

He looked up abruptly, only to see the gradually dissipating group of puppets and the eyes of the first statue closing again.

On his chest, the black emblem and gold patterns were still intertwined, like two biting snakes.

Deep underground, that aged laughter rang out again, but this time it was clearer: "The fourth vessel... has finally awakened."

The crack in Baiye's mask widened another inch.

The fragments reflected his reddened eyes—in the deepest part of that crimson, a black line, identical to that of Hiashi Hyuga, was slowly creeping up his brow bone along his tear duct.

Before the metallic tremors from the ground had subsided, the black emblem on Bai Ye's chest suddenly emitted an eerie, ghostly light.

Just as he was about to raise his hand to touch the burning pain, a piece of puppet thread covered in mucus suddenly shot out from the wound on his severed wrist, twisting in mid-air into an afterimage of Hyuga Hiashi—the old man's eye socket was cracking open at a speed visible to the naked eye, and golden wood-style roots emerged from his gray-white pupils, like countless tiny vines, tightly binding his translucent outline with the puppet thread.

"The ultimate form of the Puppet Virus..." Hiashi Hyuga's voice echoed with a harsh metallic scraping, roots coiling into a spiral in his pupils, "requiring the symbiosis of the main family bloodline and the First Hokage's Wood Release!"

Chapter 749 Puppet Virus

Bai Ye's breathing suddenly stopped.

He saw fragmented images emerging from the slime behind the afterimage: Hashirama Senju's palm pressed against Madara Uchiha's nape, golden chakra and crimson Sharingan intertwined into a net, and Madara's pupils clearly reflected the First Hokage's face—a scene sealed deep in his memory, now surging forth from the curse of the Hyuga bloodline.

"Hyuga-sama!" Byakuya instinctively reached out to grab the phantom, but was scalded by the slime and pulled his hand back.

He could feel his chakra seeping out along the remnants of the blood pact, as if being sucked away by an invisible straw. "Didn't you say that the resonance field was isolated by quicksand?"

"What's being isolated is Madara's consciousness..." Hiashi Hyuga's phantom was suddenly twisted by the roots, "but the symbiotic seed planted by the First Hokage... has sprouted in the Puppet Virus."

The rumble of gears breaking came from underground.

The figure of Juzou rose from the wreckage of the puppet horde. The puppet emblem that had covered his entire body was now fully materialized—black metallic scales spread from his neck to his fingertips, his left eye became a mechanical structure with gears embedded in it, while his right cheek still retained human skin, which was festering at a visible rate.

"The price of Otogakure..." His voice was filtered into an electronic tone through the mechanical throat, and a bloody gash suddenly exploded in his chest cavity, from which a pulsating, flesh-colored embryo was ejected, its surface covered with silver lines of the same origin as Hyuga Hiashi's bloodline, "It is to become the final vessel!"

The moment the embryo touched the air, it resonated with the silver threads overflowing from the afterimage of Hyuga Hyuga.

Byakuya watched as the two touched in mid-air—silver threads burrowed into the embryo like living things, and black metallic scales exploded from the surface of the embryo, forming a black hole between the two that devoured chakra.

The wind was sucked in and emitted a shriek. The kunai at his waist, the slime from his severed wrist, and even the golden wood release pattern on his chest began to flow uncontrollably toward the black hole.

“This is…” Bai Ye staggered backward, his back slamming heavily against the base of the first statue.

He could clearly sense that his chakra sea was collapsing, as if an invisible hand was squeezing his heart. "A fusion of the Hyuga bloodline and the puppet virus?"

"Symbiosis..." Hiashi Hyuga's phantom was suddenly distorted by the black hole, roots growing wildly from his eye sockets, weaving a golden net at the edge of the black hole. "The First Hokage used Wood Release to lock Madara's consciousness... Madara used a virus to erode Wood Release... and you..."

"boom!"

The last puppet exploded at the edge of the black hole, and metal fragments rained down on the ground.

Bai Ye subconsciously raised his hand to protect his face, but through his fingers he caught a glimpse of the old scar on his ribs gleaming with a blinding light.

Two illusory figures floated in the light: on the left was Hashirama Senju's Wood Release chakra, a bluish-gold color like a vibrant forest; on the right was Madara Uchiha's Sharingan, a scarlet color like a burning sunset.

In the instant the two intertwined, half of a new face materialized in the void—its eyebrows and eyes resembled those of Zhu Jian, but its pupils were tinged with a scarlet hue.

"Cough!" A sweet, metallic taste rose in Bai Ye's throat, and the oppressive feeling brought by the new form of the phantom almost crushed his sternum.

He saw the black hole's devouring speed suddenly slow down, Hyuga Hiashi's phantom was being held tightly by the filter, and Inu Juzo's mechanical eyes suddenly lost their luster, the metal scales began to peel off from his fingertips, revealing the festering flesh underneath.

"Catch it!"

Before completely dissipating, Hiashi Hyuga's afterimage suddenly erupted, his roots piercing the filter at the edge of the black hole like sharp arrows, stuffing a fragment of a puppet heart engraved with the word "symbiosis" into Byakuya's palm.

The moment the shard touched his skin, Bai Ye heard the First Generation's voice explode in his mind: "This is the key to breaking the curse..."

A rumbling sound came from underground, emanating from the statues in the forbidden area of ​​Konoha.

Bai Ye looked down at his palm. The two characters "symbiosis" on the fragment were pulsating with his pulse. Gold and black patterns intertwined in the characters, as if telling a kind of destiny that he had not yet understood.

The black hole had disappeared at some point, and Juzo lay in a pool of blood. The gears of the mechanical eye were still turning slowly, but there was no more sound.

The wind whipped up metal fragments from the ground, which clattered against the base of the original statue.

Bai Ye stared at the statue's closed eyes and suddenly remembered what Hyuga Hiashi had said before he disappeared—"the third sacrifice"—he touched his brow bone, where the black lines had somehow crept up to the corners of his eyes, forming an eerie symmetry with the golden wood release patterns on his chest.

"The fourth container..." The ancient laughter from underground echoed again, this time so clear it seemed to be right next to my ear, "Time to go to the core of the forbidden area..."

Bai Ye's knees suddenly buckled, and he knelt on the bluestone slab in front of the first statue.

The shards in his palm were so hot he could barely hold them, yet it felt as if a thread was pulling his consciousness toward the deepest part of the forbidden area.

Moonlight streamed through the cracks in the dome, casting the shadow of the statue on his back—the outline of that shadow overlapping with the face of the new, illusory form on his chest.

Chapter 750 The Symbiotic Soul of the Ninja

Bai Ye's knuckles pressed against the bluestone slab, and beads of blood seeping from under his fingernails meandered along the stone's texture like tiny red snakes.

The pulling force from the ground grew stronger, and he could hear his bones making a barely audible grinding sound, as if an invisible hand was gripping his spine and pressing it into the base of the statue.

“Symbiotic Altar…” he repeated the words of Hyuga Hiashi’s afterimage in a low breath. The fragment in his palm was now as hot as a piece of burning coal, leaving translucent golden-black lines under his skin.

The lines climbed along the veins, from his wrist to his forearm. When he tore open his shirt, they were clearly visible intertwined with the old scar on his chest—the old scar was not oozing blood, but cyan-gold wood chakra mixed with scarlet Sharingan chakra, weaving a spider web on the surface of his skin.

"I have to..." He gritted his teeth and propped himself up, his knees dragging two bloody marks on the stone slab.

The first statue's features gleamed coldly in the moonlight. When he pressed the fragment against the statue's chest, his fingertips touched not stone, but some kind of living, cool texture. "It needs living blood...and the puppet virus." He read the message from the fragment, a sweet, metallic taste rising in his throat, and a mouthful of dark red blood splattered onto the statue.

"Click——"

Cracks burst open from the heart of the statue, like a tree growing in reverse.

Bai Ye staggered backward, looking at what was emerging from the cracks: dark blue wood-style roots, each root wrapped with dark red runes, and at the very tip of the deepest root was embedded Uchiha Madara's three-tomoe Sharingan.

They slowly rotated, and what was reflected in their pupils was not the White Night, but the face of Hashirama Senju—two faces overlapping, forming a bizarre symbiotic picture in the root network.

"Grandpa's puppet silk!"

A cool, clear female voice came from deep within the earth's veins.

When Byakuya turned his head, he saw a semi-transparent figure emerge from the gaps in the roots: it was Chiyo's granddaughter, but her body was like a crumpled piece of silk, and the hem of her clothes was still covered with yellow soil from Sunagakure.

She held several gleaming silver puppet threads in her right hand and a fragment engraved with the Sand Village crest in her left. "It can temporarily isolate resonance!"

Before she finished speaking, a dazzling golden pattern suddenly appeared in her right eye—the mark of Ban's will.

Black slime gushed from her eyes, stretching into sticky threads on her cheeks. "Quick!" she cried, staggering as she lunged forward. Puppet threads from her fingertips wrapped around Bai Ye's wrist, and slime dripped onto the blood droplets on the back of his hand. In the instant the two colors merged, a new emblem lit up under his skin: the upper half was the Sand Village's quicksand pattern, and the lower half was the entanglement of Wood Release and Sharingan.

"boom!"

A rumbling sound like muffled thunder came from underground.

Bai Ye suddenly turned his head and saw that Xu Juzang's body, lying in a pool of blood, suddenly convulsed. All the metal scales on his back peeled off, revealing countless sonic puppet cores embedded in his festering flesh.

The cores simultaneously glowed with a ghostly blue light. "The ultimate form of the Puppet Virus..." Juzo's voice surged from all directions, echoing mechanically, "It is the symbiotic soul of all ninjas!"

The next second, all the cores exploded simultaneously.

The shockwave from the sound wave overturned Byakuya, and he crashed into the root network. The Wood Release roots immediately wrapped around his limbs, but were scorched by Madara's Sharingan incantation at the moment of contact.

In mid-air, golden butterflies suddenly surged out from the roots, densely gathering into a cage that trapped the sound waves of the explosion in the center—it was the phantom of Madara, his Susanoo only showing half of its face, its scarlet eyes pulsating with a mad light.

The original statue is being devoured in reverse.

Chapter 751 Quicksand

His previously closed eyes slowly opened, and cyan-gold wood-style chakra surged out like a tide, each drop corroding the virus within the sound waves.

Byakuya saw that at the point where the two forces clashed, the earth's veins began to crack, and quicksand from the Sand Village surged out from the cracks, like a golden wall, trying to separate Madara from the First Hokage's resonance.

Chiyo's afterimage suddenly shook violently, her body beginning to turn transparent. "Quicksand is the last barrier..." Her hand pressed against the new crest on Byakuya's chest, a burning pain shooting through the mingled fluids and blood. "But it requires..."

"What do you need?" Bai Ye grabbed her wrist, but touched nothingness.

“Your blood…” her voice trailed off, “and…your soul.”

Laughter echoed from underground once more, this time clearly discernible as two voices: the First Hokage's composure mixed with Madara's arrogance, "The fourth vessel...it's time for sacrifice."

Bai Ye's fingertips unconsciously dug into the new emblem on his chest, where the skin was burning hot, as if a fire was about to burst out of his body.

He watched as the phantoms of the First Hokage and Madara intertwined in the root network, and suddenly remembered what Hiashi Hyuga had said about the "third sacrifice"—it turned out that from the very beginning, the sacrifice was himself, the living vessel of the First Hokage and Madara's symbiotic contract.

Before Chiyo's granddaughter's lingering image completely dissipated, her last words pierced his ears: "Tear open her chest..."

Moonlight streamed through the cracks in the dome, illuminating his trembling fingertips.

The new emblem on his chest pulsed with his heartbeat, each beat a reminder that what must be done is never a choice.

He looked at the two tangled phantoms in the root network and suddenly laughed—the cost was never the problem; the problem was whether the end of this symbiotic relationship would be salvation or another destruction.

Fingertips gently pressed against the skin of the heart.

Bai Ye's fingertips paused for three breaths on the new emblem on his chest.

Moonlight streamed through the cracks in the dome, casting spiderweb-like shadows on his eyelashes and revealing the dark red and blue-gold swirling in his pupils—the projection of Sharingan and Wood Release chakra onto his retina.

"Tear it apart." He said to the air, as if responding to the laughter of the First Hokage and Madara, or as if convincing himself.

Her fingernails dug deep into her burning skin, and beads of blood seeped out between her fingers, spreading along the edges of the emblem, like a scarlet border drawn on the golden quicksand pattern.

As the excruciating pain exploded in his chest, he heard a faint groan emanating from his ribs. The sensation of his muscles being torn apart felt like being gouged out with hot tongs, but it was nothing compared to the burning sensation coming from his heart—where something was writhing wildly. It was the puppet silk left behind by the afterimage of Chiyo's granddaughter, the earth ley line resonance in Hyuga Hiashi's bloodline, which was now drilling out of his body through the torn wound.

"Catch it." The voice of the afterimage rose from the blood mist.

Her figure was fainter than before, like a sheet of paper soaked in water, yet it solidified into a physical form the instant Bai Ye tore open her chest.

Her left hand pressed against the tear in his heart, while her right hand pressed the fragment of the Sand Village Clan crest into the chapped flesh. "Use your blood as a guide, and my soul as an anchor!" Mucus gushed from her right eye, dripping onto the crest fragment. Suddenly, black and gold runes burst forth from the fragment, crawling along the wound into Byakuya's body, weaving a semi-transparent net within his torn chest.

"Pfft—" Bai Ye spat out a second mouthful of blood, this time it was a bluish-gold color, mixed with the sweet and metallic taste of Wood Release chakra.

He could see his ribs clearly, and his heart was pounding violently within the spell net, each thud causing the spell to glow with golden light.

The eyes of the first statue suddenly lit up, and a bluish-gold light surged into his body along the earth's veins. Madara's phantom emerged from the Sharingan incantation, and crimson chakra licked his spine like a snake's tongue.

Chapter 752 Never Die

The moment the two forces collided in his chest, the new emblem suddenly emitted a dazzling golden light—the quicksand pattern had come to life, spreading from his chest to his neck and branding half a golden mask onto his face.

"Resonance isolation!" Bai Ye roared through gritted teeth, his voice a mixture of the First Hokage's composure and Madara's low huskiness.

A muffled sound came from the depths of the earth's veins. The originally entangled Wood Release roots and sound wave energy were suddenly cut apart as if by a knife. The Wood Release roots frantically contracted back into the statue, while the eerie blue light at the core of the sound wave was enveloped by golden quicksand and slowly sank into the depths of the earth's veins.

But the next second, an even more violent tremor came from underground, as if something was breaking free from its seal—it was the embryo of the puppet virus, wriggling in the deepest part of the earth's veins, each tremor causing the entire forbidden area to shake.

"They're getting serious." Madara's phantom suddenly materialized, and the skeleton of Susanoo rose from behind Byakuya, each of its six arms wielding a chakra blade, its crimson Sharingan reflecting a bloody light across the forbidden area.

The phantom of the First Hokage followed closely behind, with Wood Release: Flower Trees growing from beneath his feet, and Blue-Gold Chakra transforming into a giant hand that slammed directly towards Susanoo's head.

The two chakras exploded within Byakuya's body, forming a mushroom cloud-shaped vortex. The vitality of Wood Release and the killing intent of Sharingan clashed within the vortex, scorching his torn chest cavity to a charred black. Strangely, the wound stopped bleeding; instead, golden quicksand seeped from his flesh, as if filling the crack.

"The complete annihilation of the container..." Juzo's mechanical voice came from the depths of the earth's veins. The last few fragments of the puppet's heart suddenly rose from the blood and filth, and a ghostly blue light linked together to form chains that wrapped around Baiye's ankles.

As he looked down, he saw the chains drilling into his body, corroding his chakra with every inch of them. "This is... the symbiotic soul of all ninjas..." Before he could finish speaking, the fragments exploded simultaneously. The shockwave from the sound waves directly blew away the afterimages of the First Hokage and Madara, but was deflected by the golden sand pattern the instant it touched Byakuya, creating a golden ripple around him.

The excruciating pain suddenly disappeared.

Bai Ye stared blankly at his chest—the once hideous wound was healing, and the old scar had turned into an ordinary pink mark, as if it had never existed.

The afterimages of the First Hokage and Madara dissipated in the aftershocks of the explosion, and the last wisp of lapis lazuli and crimson chakra pierced into his pupils, leaving behind two lines of blood tears.

The morning light had somehow seeped into the forbidden area, illuminating the golden sand patterns on his face and creating shimmering light.

"Grandpa's puppet strings..."

A familiar female voice came from deep within the earth.

Bai Ye suddenly turned his head and saw the afterimage of Chiyo's granddaughter rising from the crack in the earth's veins.

Her body was clearer than before, the sand and yellow soil on the hem of her clothes was still damp, but her right eye reflected the smile of the first statue—a smile that was completely different from the Hashirama Senju in her memory, with a more eerie curve.

"The puppeteer's will..." she pointed to the new crest on Bai Ye's heart, "...forever immortal."

Before she finished speaking, her figure vanished again, leaving only a wisp of silver puppet silk drifting into Bai Ye's collar.

The moment the morning light pierced through the clouds, Bai Ye suddenly felt something surge from the soles of his feet up his spine—it was the fluctuation of the earth's vein energy, more than ten times stronger than before, like a wild beast awakening, slowly opening its eyes within his body.

He raised his hand and pressed it against the new emblem on his chest.

The skin my fingertips touched was still burning hot, and I could clearly feel something pulsating beneath—was it the pulse of the earth's veins, the aftershocks of the puppet virus, or...?

"It seems the end is far from over," he whispered to the morning light, his voice carried away by a sudden gust of wind.