Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

At this moment, the gears of cause and effect seem to have only just begun to turn.

As they turned around, a deafening roar echoed from the depths of the icy plains, as if the ice had shattered completely.

No one saw that in that pale blue light, a blurry figure was slowly opening its eyes.

The probe beneath the ice suddenly emitted a sharp buzzing sound, and the chakra threads on Chiyo's fingertips tautened abruptly. The scorch marks on the surface of the metal puppet were still hissing and emitting blue smoke.

She quickly pulled back the last puppet, and amidst the static on the miniature display screen, the outline of interwoven ice and rock slowly emerged—it was a half-open stone door, its lintel covered with dark red runes, like a frozen river of blood.

"You brat, come here." Chiyo's puppet arm slung heavily over Byakuya's shoulder, pushing him closer to the screen.

The old man's age-spotted fingers touched the flickering image, his nails almost piercing the fragile metal casing: "Do you see these patterns?"

The crossed spiral is the foundation of the Senju clan's seal, but the inverted tomoe at the edges... "Her Adam's apple bobbed twice, and her voice suddenly became as low as a whisper," it was the structure of an Uchiha technique.

Bai Ye's pupils contracted slightly.

As he leaned forward, the stray hairs on his forehead brushed against the static electricity on the screen, creating tiny blue dots that exploded in his field of vision.

The incantations flickered in and out of the noise, yet they sent a chill down his spine—the Senju and Uchiha techniques were natural enemies, and in the entire history of the ninja world, there was no one else who could perfectly fuse the two. "The First Hokage and Madara..." he murmured softly, "Their collaboration?"

"No." Chiyo suddenly grabbed his wrist and pressed his palm onto the ice.

The snow melted into water from the body heat, seeping into the ice cracks through the fingers. The moment it touched the incantation, the entire ice surface glowed with a ghostly blue light.

Chapter 803 Waiting for You to Understand

Byakuya's chakra seeped through his skin, as if it had touched something alive and was suddenly sucked in—it was a tremor different from the First Hokage's bloodline resonance, colder and sharper, as if someone had scratched a fine mark deep in his soul.

“Someone is imitating their power,” he blurted out, his voice trembling with a tension he himself didn’t realize.

The incantation beneath his fingertips began to flow, dark red and dark blue intertwining into a vortex, outlining a complete sealing array beneath the ice.

He could clearly sense that something was sleeping deep within the seal—not chakra, not a soul, but more like… a “will” compressed into a physical form.

"These are remnants of a transferred will." Chiyo's puppet pouch suddenly popped out three kunai, which were pinned to the southeast, west, and north directions respectively.

Her chakra condensed into visible silver lines in the air, connecting the kunai into a triangle. "I saw similar fluctuations on the battlefield when Obito Uchiha used a forbidden technique to transfer the will of the tailed beasts."

But this scale... "Her voice suddenly stopped, and she looked up at the sky.

Dark clouds had rolled in unnoticed, completely obscuring the moonlight, plunging the icy plain into a bluish-gray chaos.

Bai Ye followed her gaze and looked up, just in time to see a dark shadow flash across the top of the snow hill—it was a figure wrapped in a black robe, with a long staff hanging from its waist reflecting a cold light, casting a slender shadow on the snow like an upside-down sword.

"Watch out!" Chiyo's puppet arm instantly extended, and more than a dozen poisoned kunai shot out from her sleeve.

But the dark figure moved even faster, its toes touching the snowdrift, causing the snow to explode into white mist, and it shot towards the white night like an arrow released from a bow.

Bai Ye's pupils shrank to pinpoints, and the puppet threads that had been dormant within him suddenly came to life, spiraling three times in his palm—his most instinctive defensive posture when facing a surprise attack.

"Ding!"

The puppet threads shot out like silver snakes, precisely wrapping around the black-robed man's ankles.

The man paused, then used the momentum to spin around and sweep his long staff horizontally.

The wind from the stick sliced ​​through Bai Ye's sleeve, leaving a bloody mark on his forearm.

But Bai Ye's expression calmed down. He could sense that although the opponent's attacks were fierce, they always avoided vital points—this was not a fight to the death, but a test.

"You haven't completed your mission yet." The black-robed figure, suspended in mid-air by puppet threads, spoke through a mask like a rusty gear, "The bloodline of the First Hokage shouldn't be bogged down in such petty squabbles." His staff suddenly erupted with black chakra, condensing into six tomoe on its shaft. "Where you should go..."

"Shut up!" Chiyo's Magnet Release: Gold Sand suddenly surged from the ground, enveloping the black-robed man in a golden cocoon.

The old man's forehead was covered in sweat, clearly straining his chakra: "You brat, deal with this trouble first!"

Bai Ye did not move.

He stared at the magatama on the black-robed mannequin, the patterns of which were exactly the same as the seal beneath the ice.

Blood dripped from his arm onto the snow, but he felt no pain—something was awakening deep within his soul.

After the original will subsided, he thought he was finally free, but now it seems...

"The gears of cause and effect have only just begun to turn," he said softly, his voice ripped apart by the wind.

The head of the man in black robes, which was wrapped in a cocoon of sand and gold, suddenly turned, and the eyes under the mask shone with a dark red light.

His voice pierced through the gold dust, like a venomous snake's tongue: "The day you figure it out..."

The gold cocoon suddenly trembled violently, and the shadows of the six magatama pierced through the gold layer, casting distorted spots of light on the snow.

Chiyo's chakra threads emitted a piercing groan. She gritted her teeth and separated two more streams of sand to reinforce them. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Byakuya staring at the seal beneath the ice. The incantations there had all lit up at some point, as if countless eyes were watching them through the ice.

"Go!" Chiyo suddenly grabbed Baiye by the back of his collar. The sand cocoon exploded behind them, and the sound of the black-robed man's long staff cutting through the air grazed past their ears.

Her puppet arm nearly snapped Byakuya's waist as she raced through the icy snow: "Back to Sunagakure, find Ebizo, tell him about this..."

Before he could finish speaking, a deafening roar came from behind as the ice shattered completely.

The moment Bai Ye turned around, he saw the blurry figure in the dark blue light finally stand up—its outline overlapped with the black-robed man, overlapped with the seal under the ice, and finally overlapped with the silhouette of the first generation before he disappeared in his memory.

The black-robed figure, bound in mid-air by the puppet threads, was now pulling off his mask, revealing a face almost identical to the shadow.

He watched Bai Ye's departing figure, a cold smile curling at the corner of his lips.

Chapter 804 Improved Puppet Technique

The moment the sand gold cocoon burst open, ice shards mixed with gold dust scattered everywhere, and Chiyo's puppet arm almost embedded itself in the fabric around Byakuya's waist.

Her breathing was heavy, like a broken bellows, and her knuckles turned bluish-white on the control stick—Sasori's core energy was surging out along the chakra lines, condensing into purple sealing patterns beneath their feet.

"You brat! What are you daydreaming about!" she yelled, glancing out of the corner of her eye to see Bai Ye still staring at the man in black.

The figure, covered in gold dust, hung suspended in mid-air. The puppet silk left deep marks on his ankles, but it did not make him panic in the slightest.

He even laughed, his voice beneath the mask like rusty iron scraping against a stone slab: "You think you've ended your fate? No, you've just opened a door."

Bai Ye's pupils contracted slightly.

The bloodstains on my arm stung, but an even more intense tremor came from the depths of my soul—the original bloodline resonated, like a sleeping beast being awakened by a familiar aura.

He tightened his grip on the wound, his knuckles turning white: "Who are you?"

"The next container."

These four words struck my temple like a heavy hammer.

He recalled the words of the first generation before he vanished in the ice coffin: "The bloodline will seek a new vessel until the mission is completed." At that time, he thought he was the last one, but now, the dark red eyes under the black-robed man's mask overlapped with the shadow that had awakened in the seal beneath the ice, and a chill ran down his neck.

“Granny Chiyo!” He suddenly grabbed the old woman’s puppet arm. “That guy’s chakra frequency…”

“I know!” Chiyo’s puppet fingers flew across the control panel, Sasori’s stinger split open, revealing the emerald chakra core flowing inside. “It’s exactly the same as when you awakened!” Cold sweat beaded on her forehead, and sand gold formed a ring barrier around the two of them. “But it’s more murky, like a polluted resonance.”

Before the words were finished, the puppet strings binding the man in black robes suddenly snapped.

Bai Ye's pupils suddenly contracted—the slender silver thread instantly taut and snapped, the fragments splashing onto the snow and melting, creating small holes.

The man in black landed with his toes touching the snow, his long staff spinning half a circle in his palm, the six magatama on the staff shining like stars.

He raised his hand and waved it, and a blinding blue light rose from the ice field, from which twelve ice puppets broke through the ice.

Their joints were inlaid with dark blue crystal cores, and their movements were so synchronized that they seemed to be controlled by a single thread. They held short swords in their left hands and shields in their right hands, forming a triangular formation around the two people.

"An improved version of the Puppet Technique?" Bai Ye dodged the ice blade, the edge grazing his ear and cutting off a stray hair. "But the puppet spirit is alive." He sensed that the chakra within the ice puppet carried emotions of anger, urgency, and even relief.

"Not only that." Chiyo's sand-gold barrier was ripped open by the ice shield, leaving spiderweb-like patterns. She gritted her teeth and split off two streams of sand to entangle the nearest ice puppet. "The chakra circuits of these puppets... are similar in structure to Sasori's creations, but more complex." Before she could finish speaking, the ice puppet entangled by the sand-gold suddenly disintegrated into ice shards, which reformed behind her the next moment, a short sword piercing straight for her heart!

"Watch out!" Bai Ye spun around and threw three kunai, which accurately pinned the joints of the ice puppets. Using the recoil, he leaped to Chiyo's side, and puppet threads shot out and wrapped around the necks of the other two ice puppets. "Grandma, how much longer can your chakra last?"

"Hold on until you find the weakness!" Chiyo swung out Magnet Release Sand, which condensed into an umbrella-shaped barrier above her head. "That long staff!" she gasped. "He used the staff's magatama to activate the seal, and now the ice puppet's core frequency is synchronized with the staff!"

Bai Ye's gaze was fixed on the long staff.

The six magatama symbols flickered in sync with the ice golem's attacks, and with each flash, the ice golem's movements became faster.

He recalled the shadow awakening beneath the ice—the sealing incantation had once been at the same frequency.

Chapter 805 Continuing the Ideal

“He’s connecting to something within the seal.” His voice was cold and hard. “The ice golem is the medium.”

The man in black robes seemed to hear this, and his mask cracked open, revealing half of a pale face that was exactly the same as the silhouette of the shadow.

“Clever.” He slammed his staff heavily on the ground, causing the ice field to tremble violently, and six more ice golems burst from the earth. “But guess why the First Generation sealed the ‘Contract’ inside the ice?”

The white night puppet threads suddenly tightened, causing cracks to appear on the necks of the two ice puppets.

Blood boils, memories of the first generation surge: snow-capped mountains, blood sacrifices, altars inscribed with incantations, and a man kneeling before an ice coffin, using his heart as a key.

“Because the contract… will corrode the container.” He blurted out, his voice trembling.

"So he sealed himself away, thinking he could sever the causal link." The black-robed man chuckled, his long staff glowing with all its magatama, and blackish-red liquid seeping from the ice puppet's crystal core. "But causality is a chain; severing one link only tightens the next." His gaze pierced through the clamor, locking onto the white night. "We are called—"

"The New Contractor!"

The last three words exploded with the deafening roar of the ice golem disintegrating.

Bai Ye felt a sharp pain in his eardrums, and all the ice puppets in front of him froze. The black and red liquid in the crystal core surged out wildly and condensed into a huge incantation in mid-air.

Chiyo's gold-plated barrier was corroded, creating a black hole. She staggered backward, the gears of her puppet arm emitting a piercing wail.

Bai Ye pressed his palm against his chest, where the throbbing blood vessels seemed to tear his skin apart.

He watched as the figure in black robes was gradually swallowed by the incantation, and heard the other's last words being torn apart by the wind: "The day you're willing to see the truth clearly..."

The ice field trembled violently again, and the shadows beneath the ice rose completely.

Its outline overlapped with the black-robed man, with the first generation's memories, and finally with the reflection of the white night.

Chiyo's hand trembled as she gripped his, but he couldn't move—he finally understood that the so-called "end" was merely the beginning of another cause and effect, and he had never been a bystander in the story.

On the snow, the shadows of the six magatama slowly rotated, like the gears of fate just biting into their first teeth.

Before the tremors of the ice field had subsided, the figure of the black-robed man, enveloped in incantations, suddenly stopped.

Through the crack in his mask, his dark red pupils reflected the suddenly shrinking black pupils of the white night, and a broken laugh escaped from his throat: "We are called 'New Contractors'—the will of the First Hokage and Madara has never disappeared, it has just awakened in a different way."

A buzzing sound filled Bai Ye's ears.

He recalled the gaze of the first generation before he vanished in the ice coffin, that look of regret and relief, now torn to shreds by these six words.

"You...are using their echoes?" His voice tightened, his knuckles digging deep into his palms. The burning pain in his veins only made his mind clearer—it turned out that the "mission" the First Generation spoke of was never the end of the bloodline, but some kind of sealed cycle.

"An echo?" The black-robed man slammed his long staff into the ground. The dark red liquid seeping from the ice puppet's core suddenly condensed into chains, wrapping around the neck of the nearest ice puppet. "No, we are continuing their ideals." His voice suddenly rose, mixed with the creaking of the ice puppet's joints. "Hashirama Senju wanted to use bloodlines as a guide, using the illusion of peace to mend the cracks in the ninja world; Madara Uchiha wanted to reshape order with power—they were both wrong! True continuation is letting their will come alive in a new vessel!"

"You brat! Look at this!" Chiyo suddenly grabbed Baiye's wrist and shoved a shard of ice puppet crystal into his palm.

The old woman's puppet arm was still smoking, and the barrier formed from Magnet Release sand was corroding at a visible rate, but her hunched back was straight, and a sharp light burned in her cloudy eyes. "The core isn't chakra, it's First Hokage's cells!" Her wrinkled fingers poked at the faint crimson patterns within the shards of crystal. "Unlike the living tissue Sasori used to improve the puppet, this stuff..." She paused, her fingertips trembling slightly, "is mixed with the technology you left in Sunagakure's experimental records."

Chapter 806 Where to Begin Supplementing

Bai Ye's pupils contracted sharply.

Three years ago, in order to improve puppetry, he gave Sasori his experimental notes on the fusion of the first generation of cells with the puppet core. After Sasori died, Chiyo put the notes into a secret room. The crimson color flowing in the shattered crystals at this moment is the characteristic of the "active fusion body" in the notes.

“They stole my research.” He gritted his teeth, a metallic taste of blood rising in his throat. “Use my technology to revive their ‘ideals’.”

"We must stop them." Chiyo's puppet arm suddenly flicked out thin needles, precisely piercing the chakra points in her arm. "If we delay any longer, what lies beneath the ice will fully awaken!" Her breathing suddenly quickened, her white hair whipped by the wind. "Use your bloodline! The echo of the First Hokage's will hasn't dissipated yet, draw it over!"

Bai Ye suddenly looked up.

He could sense that the shadow overlapping with his own beneath the ice was stirring restlessly, and memories of the first generation surged like a tide—on the snow mountain altar, the man who used his heart as a key had not fear in his eyes, but liberation.

"So you knew all along." He murmured, his palm pressed against his chest, the frequency of his blood throbbing suddenly synchronized with the shadow beneath the ice. "So you sealed the contract in the ice to wait for the next vessel to sever it."

The man in black robes seemed to sense the danger, and the magatama on his long staff began to flash wildly.

"You dare—!" He was about to make a move when Bai Ye closed his eyes.

The burning pain in his bloodline transformed into a scalding stream, rushing along the chakra threads to his fingertips. He recalled the First Hokage's words before he vanished in the ice coffin: "The bloodline will seek a new vessel until the mission is complete." It turned out that the "mission" was not inheritance, but an end.

"Using me as the medium." He opened his eyes, a golden light shining in them, the same as that of the First Generation. "The will of the First Generation, return!"

A rumbling sound came from beneath the ice.

The incantation that was originally wrapped around the black-robed man suddenly reversed, the black and red liquid in the ice golem's crystal core boiled violently, and the twelve ice golems simultaneously disintegrated into ice mist.

The man in black robes staggered backward, his mask shattering completely, revealing a face that perfectly overlapped with the shadow beneath the ice—the face of the man kneeling before the altar from the first generation's memories.