Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

The core of the memory puppet is a fragment of Hiashi Hyuga's Byakugan, which is currently comparing the chakra fluctuations of the six people with the Konoha ninja database one by one—none of them match.

The first to notice something was wrong was the leader, a Jonin from Kirigakure.

He had just touched the edge of the bluestone slab when suddenly silver threads shot up from his feet, wrapping around his ankles like living things. "Trap!" he shouted, slashing at the silver threads with his kunai, only to see the threads suddenly thicken and wrap around his wrists instead of his kunai.

The other five people drew their swords at the same time, but as soon as their blades were drawn, they were shredded into pieces by the chakra threads that surged from all directions.

Chapter 774 Thunder Array

"You shouldn't be speaking like people from Konoha." Byakuya's voice came from above.

The bluestone slabs flipped violently, and he stood in the moonlight, his eyes beneath the Yaksha mask glowing a dark red—his Sharingan reflected the six people's panic. "Konoha's medical ninjas can't even imitate the groans of the wounded properly." He flicked his finger, and chakra threads instantly pierced the throats of three people. Before the other three could react, their mouths and noses were sewn shut by puppet threads.

The last surviving Kirigakure chunin knelt on the ground, making a hoarse sound from his throat.

Byakuya crouched down, pressing his fingertips against the back of Hozuki's neck: "Tell Hozuki that next time he sends an imposter, at least remember that the Konoha medical team won't wear new wooden clogs in the rain." Before he finished speaking, the Chunin's pupils suddenly dilated, and chakra threads had already crawled into his brain along his blood vessels, turning all his memories into a jumbled mess.

The dripping sound deep inside the secret passage suddenly changed its rhythm.

Byakuya listened intently and recognized the crisp sound of wooden clogs clicking on wet stones—it sounded just like the footsteps of Granny Chiyo.

He pulled on the chakra threads, and countless silver threads immediately extended from the stone walls on both sides, weaving a semi-transparent net in front of him.

"Stop." His voice came through the dripping water.

As soon as Chiyo's clogs touched the silver net, the threads seemed to come alive and wrapped around her calves.

She looked at the boy who had suddenly appeared before her. His mask was off, and his pale face was still stained with blood. The cinnabar mole on his forehead flickered in the shadows—just like the child who always stayed in the corner of the puppet workshop thirty years ago, even the frequency of his eyelashes trembling was exactly the same.

"Night travel?" Her voice was as soft as a sigh. The puppet of Sasori in her arms suddenly made a soft sound, and the light in its red eyes overlapped with the determination in the boy's eyes.

Bai Ye reached out and ripped the strings wrapped around her leg: "You once said that the essence of puppetry is 'to let the lifeless carry the soul.'" He lifted his sleeve, revealing the dense array of puppet strings on his arm. "But later generations only learned to use puppets to kill people and to use living people as puppets."

I want to...show you the true legacy.

Chiyo's hand touched the suture on his arm, her fingertips trembling.

She recalled that snowy night thirty years ago, when Xiao Yexing held the broken puppet core and cried, "It still has a soul, I can fix it." The knot on the boy's wrist at this moment was the "Nine-Return Soul" knot that she had taught him to tie back then.

“This is the core of Scorpion’s puppet.” She took out a dark red crystal from her bosom, its surface still bearing the cracks from when it was shattered years ago. “Before he died, he said… he wanted to see how many souls his puppet could hold.” As she handed the crystal to Bai Ye, a tear dripped onto it. “Now, I’m giving it to you.”

Byakuya accepted the crystal, and chakra from his palm seeped into it like a stream.

The crystal suddenly glowed red, and the first seedling on his chest trembled slightly—two forces intertwined within his body, as if repairing some broken barrier.

As the light gradually brightened at the exit of the secret passage, a blood-red petal drifted to his nose.

The petals still held the familiar Wood Release chakra, and a trace of scorching Fire Release aura—it was the First Hokage and Madara's will bidding their final farewell before completely dissipating.

"This battle is not over yet." He put the crystal into his pocket and turned to walk towards the Land of Thunder.

The wind lifted the hem of his clothes, revealing the newly tied puppet strings around his waist—a mix of dark red and emerald green, like some kind of unfinished contract.

A flash of purple chakra light appeared in the dark clouds at the border of the Land of Lightning.

The Fourth Raikage, A, stood atop the mountain, the Eight-Tails' chakra surging like thunder behind him.

In the jungle below, the reflections of kunai from the Hidden Clouds' Dark Side stretched out like scattered stars on the ground.

"They're here." He clenched his fist, and the lightning chakra in his palm crackled.

A mountain wind carried a suppressed roar, like countless chakra blades rubbing against a whetstone—that was the sound of the Cloud Village's "Thunderbolt Formation" activating.

Bai Ye paused in his steps.

He gazed at the churning thunderclouds ahead, a slight smile playing on his lips beneath the mask.

Chakra threads danced at his fingertips, and the crystal in his arms and the First Hokage seedling both ignited—this time, he would make everyone controlled by the puppet threads of fate see their own hands clearly.

Chapter 775 No Way Out Under the Thunder

Dark clouds pressed down, making the jungle on the border of the Land of Thunder appear three degrees lower, and the sound of Bai Ye's footsteps on the decaying leaves was broken up by the wind.

He looked up at the churning purple thunderclouds, a wisp of burnt lightning chakra brushing against his nose—it was the aura of the Eight-Tails, even stronger than three days ago.

“A’s chakra level has increased again.” He touched the burning dark red crystal in his arms, and the First Hokage seedling trembled slightly in his chest, as if responding to some kind of resonance.

He had long heard of the Cloud Village's "Lightning Net Formation," in which seventy-two Lightning Release ninjas laid out a lightning net in the eight trigrams, waiting for their prey to stumble into it.

But Raikage personally oversees the mountaintop, clearly not content with being just a hunter—the secret letter intercepted by the Hidden Mist ANBU three days ago is still in his mind: "Capture Byakuya, unravel the mystery of his bloodline, and Kumogakure will become the leader of the Five Kage."

A crisp sound of rocks cracking echoed from the mountaintop.

The Fourth Raikage, A, leaped down the rubble, the Eight-Tails' chakra coalescing into a giant tail behind him, each step causing the ground to crack with spiderweb-like patterns.

His bronze neck was taut like an iron chain, and lightning danced in his pupils: "Bai Ye!"

I know that all countries want to kill you, but the Hidden Cloud Village can protect you!

Come back to the village with me, and I'll keep you safe.

"Zhou Quan?" Bai Ye stopped in his tracks, the chakra threads at his fingertips forming a nine-fold soul knot in his sleeve.

He could see Darui twenty paces behind Ai. The silver-haired guard was holding a kunai at his waist, his brows furrowed. Darui's chakra fluctuations were three times more stable than the Raikage's, clearly indicating that he had doubts about the hunt.

"Lord Raikage," Darui finally spoke, his voice like a blade dipped in cold water, "According to intelligence, the death of the Fire Country Daimyo has nothing to do with him..."

"Shut up!" Ai slapped a boulder at his feet, shattering it. The shards grazed Bai Ye's ear. "Do you think I can't see through you?"

That kid has the bloodline of the First Hokage, Sasori's puppetry skills, and... "His Adam's apple bobbed, and the words he hadn't finished were swept away by the wind—the corpse of Hyuga Hiashi, who had been transformed into a puppet, was found by the Cloud Village's ANBU in the secret passage of the Land of Fire three days ago, and was currently soaking in the Cloud Village's laboratory.

Bai Ye suddenly laughed.

He untied the dark red and emerald green puppet strings from his waist and casually tossed them into the bushes to his left. "Lord Raikage, if you want to protect me, why don't you come yourself?" Before he finished speaking, the bushes twenty meters away suddenly exploded, and seven Cloud Village ANBU members rushed out wielding Raikiri—they had been lying in ambush on the path that Byakuya was sure to take, and the "throwing of strings" was just a ploy to lure them out.

Ai's pupils suddenly contracted.

He then noticed that Bai Ye's shadow stretched extremely long across the ground, like an invisible line extending southeast. "Chase!" he shouted, and the Eight-Tails' chakra instantly enveloped his entire body, purple lightning shattering the clouds.

Darui gritted his teeth, drew his kunai, and followed up. The ANBU pounced on Baiye's shadow like a pack of wolves.

As the musty smell of the abandoned mine filled his nostrils, Bai Ye crushed the third piece of gravel engraved with a puppet symbol.

He walked thirty steps along the mine tunnel in the dark, his fingertips tracing the stone wall—where seven fragments of Sasori's puppet heart were embedded, each connected to a ley line. "Deep enough." He removed the wooden mask from his face, and moonlight leaked through the collapsed mine roof, illuminating the dark red crystals in his eyes.

A deafening roar of lightning explosions echoed from outside the cave.

Ai's voice pierced through the mine tunnel: "You brat, have you tampered with the ley lines here?"

"Lord Raikage has excellent eyesight." Bai Ye threw three kunai with his backhand, embedding them in the ventilation openings on both sides of the mine tunnel.

The chakra threads at the tip of the kunai suddenly tightened, and the hearts of the seven puppets trembled simultaneously—the dormant energy within the earth's veins was awakened, like a sleeping beast being poked awake.

Chapter 776 Approaching the Target

"Everyone retreat!" Darui's roar came a step too late.

Suddenly, a shower of rubble rained down from the mine roof. A raised his hand to create a protective barrier with Lightning Release, only to see the ground crack open in a spiderweb pattern, each fissure emanating a ghostly blue light. "Puppet Technique?" He realized with a start that the light was the same color as the chakra threads in White Night's sleeve. "You used a puppet's heart as a catalyst..."

"It's the earth's veins that act as a catalyst," Bai Ye's voice came from above.

He had somehow climbed onto the mine tunnel beam, the dark red crystal in his arms gleaming brightly. "Lightning Release needs a conductor, and ley lines are the best conductor." He flicked his finger, and chakra threads pierced precisely into the heart of the nearest puppet—ley line energy surged wildly into the Cloud Village ninja's lightning release through the cracks.

When the first scream rang out, a member of the Dark Guard suddenly suffered a backlash, with electricity shooting from his arm into his heart.

Ai's pupils contracted sharply, and the Eight-Tails' chakra surged wildly in an attempt to suppress it, but then he saw more of the Anbu's lightning releases begin to go erratically: some of their lightning blades turned into purple snakes, and the lightning in some of their palms suddenly went out, as if their chakra had been drained.

"Retreat!" Ai grabbed the nearest operative and flung him toward the mine exit, while he himself punched the mine roof—he needed to clear a path to safety first.

Just as his fist was about to touch the rock, an unfamiliar chakra fluctuation suddenly came from deep within the mine.

That was Earth Release, carrying the heavy feel unique to Iwagakure, which stood out starkly against the burnt smell of Lightning Release.

“Onoki’s people.” Byakuya looked at the three “Kumakushi ninja” huddled together in the corner. Their chakra fluctuations were too even, as if they had been deliberately suppressed.

He touched the water pouch at his waist—before setting off, he had scattered puppet spores into the streams on the border of the Land of Lightning, and they were now climbing up the veins of these people.

"Break," he said softly.

Suddenly, the skin of the three "Cloud Village Ninja" cracked open, and dark yellow Earth Release chakra seeped out from the cracks.

The leader, clutching his neck, roared, his fingernails turning into the stone-like texture characteristic of Iwagakure: "You knew all along..."

“The Earth Release chakra of Iwagakure has a rusty smell.” Byakuya put his mask back on. “And your kunai are three qian lighter than those of Kumogakure.” He turned to look at A, who was using the Eight-Tails’ tail to pull the last few Anbu members away. “Raikage, do you know who the prey is now?”

The moonlight on the mine roof was suddenly covered by shadows.

Ai's lightning release finally blasted open a gap, but just as he was about to leap out, he heard the sound of chains scraping against the stone wall behind him.

He instinctively turned around, only to see a gray shadow flash past the corner—it was...

"Dogs run away?" Darui's voice was filled with alarm.

He recognized it as the uniform of the Anbu, a direct branch of the Land of Fire, but the guy's chakra fluctuations... were like those of a puppet whose soul had been drained.

Bai Ye gazed at the gray figure, the chakra threads in his sleeve slightly warming.

He knew that the real show was just beginning.

The moss on the mine tunnel walls curled up from the lightning, and the gray shadow of the dog-walking puppet slid along the ground in the chaos.

His joints creaked as if they were wooden wedges rubbing together, a sound masked by the thunderous roar of lightning, yet it precisely penetrated Byakuya's ears—the trembling frequency at the ends of the chakra threads was the coded signal of "approaching the target."

"Hey!"

Watch out behind you! As Darui's roar tore through the air, Inuzo's right hand was already on Raikage's lower back.

The fingernails of that hand were inlaid with the white sealing marks unique to the Hyuga clan, chakra marks extracted by Byakuya using the bloodline of Hyuga Hiashi.

The Raikage's Eight-Tails chakra was frantically repairing the backlash from the Anbu's Lightning Release techniques, leaving him no time to turn around.

He felt a chill on his lower back, and some kind of icy needle-like energy rushed up his spine into his chakra points—it was a variant of the Hyuga clan's "Pulse Locking Technique," specifically designed for ninjas with high chakra levels, like a thin steel wire suddenly constricting his chakra flow.

"How dare you use the power of Konoha against me!" A's Lightning Release shield shattered into pieces, and veins bulged beneath his bronze skin.

He grabbed Inuhachi's neck with his other hand, but frowned the moment he touched the other's skin—the touch was like dried tree bark, cold and without a pulse.

Chapter 777 The Power of Thunder

"This is not the power of Konoha." Byakuya's voice came from the mine ventilation shaft, chakra threads creating afterimages in his palm.

He looked at the Raikage's eyes, which were red from chakra imbalance, and his Adam's apple bobbed. "It's human power."

Before he died, Mr. Hiashi asked me to do one last thing with his bloodline—to remind you not to get entangled in something even more dangerous.

The dog's chest suddenly exploded.

The instant Bai Ye severed the control chain, the explosive talismans within the puppet blasted the remains of the Iwagakure spy into a bloody mist.

Taking advantage of the moment when Raikage dodged to the side, he leaped onto the cave ceiling by stepping on the crack in the mine tunnel. The dark red crystal burned a mark on his chest—the resonance of the first seedling was pointing towards the forbidden area deepest in Kumogakure.

The Cloud Hidden's "Thunder Prison" is built in the heart of Divine Turtle Peak, with seven layers of thunder arrays on the outside and the secret treasures of the Thunder Shadows of past generations inside.

As Bai Ye crawled along the cliff face, the puppet spores at his fingertips had already seeped in through the ventilation ducts, scrambling the guard's chakra fluctuations into gibberish.

The moment he touched the third lightning array, the stone wall suddenly emitted a blue light—a trace of the First Hokage's Wood Release and Lightning Release resonating together.

“Found it.” He spat out blood-stained saliva.

The defensive spell that had just been triggered cut three bloody gashes on his arm, but it also revealed the stone tablet hidden in the rock vein.

The engravings on the bluish-gray stone tablet are three inches deep, carved directly into the rock by the First Hokage using Wood Release chakra: "The power of lightning can cleave the shackles of fate, and can also burn oneself to ashes."

Bai Ye's fingers traced the last few words before suddenly stopping.

At the bottom of the stone tablet is a line of tiny coded text, written in the Hamura clan's secret code: "Unite the Five Kage, lock up the bloodline of the First Hokage, and eliminate future troubles forever - Hamura Shinobu."

He took out the puppet heart fragment from his pocket. The water ripples on the surface of the fragment were the sealing technique used by the Hidden Mist Division to intercept the secret letter three days ago.

"So it turns out that he was the one instigating all the actions of the various daimyo." Bai Ye tore off a piece of his clothing to wrap around the stone tablet for rubbing, a bitter taste rising in his throat.

He should have realized that the head of the Hamura family, who always bowed his head and took notes at the Five Kage Summit, would never be content to be a historian for the rest of his life.

A deafening roar, like a mountain collapsing, came from outside the cave.

The Raikage's Eight-Tails chakra pierced through the seven layers of lightning array, and the purple lightning scorched black marks on the rock wall.

Blood streamed down A's left cheek, and his headband was torn in two, yet he still wrapped Darui's body in Lightning Release—clearly, the Locking Pulse Technique had caused his chakra to go out of control, accidentally injuring his personal guard.

"Leave the stuff behind!" Ai's fist grazed Bai Ye's ear and slammed against the stone wall. In the rain of rubble, he saw the rubbing in the other's arms. "You knew all along that Yun Yin wasn't the mastermind...why didn't you say so sooner?"