Starting with Naruto, I'll become stronger through my own efforts.

Chapter 186 [Space - Four Symbols Seal]

Orochimaru looked around and confirmed that there were no other people, ninjas, ninja beasts, parasitic insects, or anything like that.

Then he said, "Actually, if Sarutobi-sensei isn't dead, I'll have to find a way to take action."

"The longer he lives, the bigger and more unforgivable his mistakes will be."

"It's a good thing that the show can end early."

"Although I can't get a final, definite answer from you, I already have my own answer in my heart."

Orochimaru bowed deeply and said, "Anyway, thank you."

Xia Zuo laughed and said, "Orochimaru—sir, don't try to fool me with empty words when you thank me."

"Help me complete this task, and we'll be even."

Orochimaru chuckled. "Alright, it would be best if we could settle things evenly."

"Fifth Hokage, what do you want me to do?"

Xia Zuo said, "I have my eye on a small country—Loulan."

"To be precise, it is the precious dragon vein passed down through generations of the Loulan royal family. I want to obtain the land and dragon vein of Loulan, and I need Lord Orochimaru's help to design and promote the relevant plans."

Orochimaru looked up at the sky, actually carefully recalling his past experiences: "Loulan, let me think—"

"I've got it! The ancient Loulan Kingdom."

Suddenly, Orochimaru lowered his head and looked at Xia Zuo in surprise: "Hiss, this is not easy to handle. Loulan is a country within a country embedded in the Land of Wind."

"Fifth Hokage, why don't you change your mission? It's about obtaining the country from the Queen of Loulan, who is also within the territory of Sunagakure. It's too troublesome."

Xia Zuo laughed and said, "Lord Orochimaru, your information is outdated."

"Loulan has been destroyed. Their people are scattered in several oases of the Wind Kingdom, led by their new queen, organizing caravans to make a living through trade."

"As long as Konoha provides the money and another piece of land, it won't be difficult to buy the entire Loulan."

"What I want you to solve is the problem of Sunagakure."

"Okay, let me put it more clearly. I can easily defeat Sunagakure and force them to hand over this land to Konoha."

"But as the Fifth Hokage of Konoha, I cannot attack my ally without a reason. I need a reason, a sufficient reason to retaliate against Sunagakure."

"If it's just the Fourth Kazekage insulting me like before, the intensity of my retaliation is limited. I can't kill people indiscriminately, and I certainly can't seize their resources and land."

"This time, I'm going to launch a bigger, more ruthless, and more hostile attack."

Orochimaru's tongue fell out of his mouth in surprise, drooping limply at the corner of his mouth.

"Slurp, Fifth Hokage, you really have impressed me. I never expected you to be so despicable and shameless. This is truly—a pleasant surprise."

Orochimaru retracted his tongue and said excitedly, "Leave this to me. I need to think carefully about how to get Sunagakure to attack Konoha."

"As an ally of Konoha, attacking Konoha without cause is certainly a plausible reason for retaliation."

"Hmm, Fifth Hokage, you turned Sunagakure into a wooden fortress last year. It's easy to provoke the hatred of the Sunagakure ninjas, but how can I instill in them the confidence that they can severely damage Konoha?"

"Oh dear, Fifth Hokage, you beat them so badly before, you've shattered their courage. It's not good to encourage them now."

"I need to think carefully about who I should bring in."

Orochimaru was completely absorbed in thought, excitedly pondering and calculating, and left as if no one else was around.

The Fifth Hokage, Natsuzo, who was left on the roof of the Hokage Building, smirked and laughed at himself before disappearing from the spot.

Orochimaru is a senior ninja, and he's thinking about how to better complete his mission.

If you're rude, then you're rude.

The Fifth Hokage didn't care!

I don't care at all!

Xia Zuo did not go home this time. He left Konoha Village and ran all the way to the Valley of the End, arriving at the training ground that had already been opened.

After fusing with the Core Release Bloodline Elimination, Xia Zuo was horrified to discover that the successful fusion itself was a huge risk. At that time, if he made even the slightest mistake in controlling his Core Release chakra, the [Core Release: Solar Particle] he used would go out of control.

The result of the nuclear release technique going out of control is that it will explode in Konoha Village.

His house, Quan's house, and the surrounding neighbors were all going to be blown to bits, and half of the people he knew would die instantly.

Feeling deeply frightened, Xia Zuo never dared to fuse with bloodstains again in the village, which is why he opened a training ground in the Valley of the End.

As it turned out, his worries were not unfounded.

After stabilizing his nuclear escape technique, he failed to fuse with the dark escape technique in the following days.

The reason for each failure was not the inability to complete the fusion, but the sudden burst of suction after the fusion was successful, which made it difficult for the newly born Dark Release chakra to maintain its balance, and it decomposed back into Wind Release, Water Release, and Lightning Release.

How terrifying is the suction force at the moment of successful fusion?

Xia Zuo gathered the three nature chakras that had undergone a qualitative change in his lower abdomen, and a kind of Dark Release chakra that seemed to be pure darkness was born.

The moment the Dark Release chakra appeared, it first devoured the Wind Release, Water Release, and Lightning Release chakra that had not yet been fully fused.

Then it suddenly swelled up, but at the same time it seemed to have grown up, recognized its master as Xia Zuo, and stopped absorbing Xia Zuo's chakra.

But then it appeared outside Xia Zuo's body, and like a black hole, it began to absorb everything except Xia Zuo.

That's right, the biggest difference between Dark Release: Bloodline Elimination and Dark Release: Bloodline Limit is that Dark Release: Bloodline Elimination can not only devour chakra, but also matter.

When Xia Zuo had just successfully fused with the Dark Release chakra and was unable to control it, his ability to devour matter was terrifying.

Fortunately, the Dark Release chakra can recognize Xia Zuo's life force and will not devour him immediately, unlike Shimura Danzo who tragically died from his own technique after using the [Reverse Four Symbols Seal].

Xia Zuo's clothes were the first to suffer, and he was instantly left naked.

Next, Xia Zuo's house was absorbed. The entire wooden house was decomposed and absorbed under Xia Zuo's gaze, disappearing without a trace.

Then the surrounding trees and soil flew towards Xia Zuo and disappeared before his eyes.

If this happened in Konoha, and what was flying over was the neighbor's house, or even the neighbor himself, Xia Zuo would definitely be devastated.

It was at this moment that a large amount of matter was absorbed by the Dark Release chakra, miraculously contained and disappeared by the Dark Release, while the Dark Release chakra itself was also suffering a huge impact.

As the absorption range expanded to 80 meters, the Dark Release chakra seemed to have overeaten, beginning to vibrate violently before disintegrating once again, breaking down into its original three nature chakras.

The moment of collapse was also the moment when Xia Zuo's focus reached its peak.

He divided all his attention into two parts, one part focusing on maintaining and restraining the Dark Release chakra, extending its existence as much as possible, and slowing down the process of its disintegration.

The other part of his attention was focused on using all his observational abilities to observe the details of the Dark Escape's operation and its disintegration process.

He observed many details, some of which he had observed before, and some of which were entirely new, but all of which were within the scope of his deductions.

After repeated deductions and calculations, Xia Zuo jumped out of the large pit that had been absorbed by the Netherworld Escape Technique.

Yes, he is still naked.

Xia Zuo pressed his hands to the ground and activated Earth Release ninjutsu.

[Earth Escape - Earthquake Core]

The earth began to shake, and the cracked ground rose and fell in a staggered pattern, like the keys of a piano.

Under Xia Zuo's control, the ground shattered amidst the tremors, filling in the large crater created by the Netherworld Escape technique. Although there were still obvious pits and depressions, the ground was largely restored to a smooth surface.

Xia Zuo continued to use his secret technique.

【Magnetic Escape - Sandification】

Centered on Xiazuo, the surrounding land rapidly weathered, turning into golden sand. The sand grains flowed slightly, filling in the large and small pits and making the land completely flat.

[Wood Release: Great Forest Technique]

The sand swelled up into lumps of varying sizes, and then saplings broke through the soil, growing with a crackling sound, and in the blink of an eye, they became a dense, all-encompassing forest.

The newly formed forest constantly sheds leaves, which quickly decompose upon landing and mix with sand to form black humus soil.

Then all sorts of small grasses sprouted from the soil and covered the ground.

Everything returned to normal, as if the Netherworld Escape had never gone out of control, and the forest had not been completely destroyed by the terrifying suction force.

Xia Zuo suddenly sighed, "Ninjutsu is so convenient."

As he spoke, he clapped his hands together, and his chakra fluctuated slightly.

[Wood Release: Three Rooms and Two Living Rooms Technique]

The surrounding trees seemed to come alive, intertwining and twisting, constantly deforming and contorting, transforming at an extremely fast speed into an exquisite and spacious wooden mansion.

Aside from the fact that it's all made of natural wood, making the color look monotonous, and it lacks decorative elements like glass, it's a truly perfect building.

This technique is an improvement on Tenzo's [Wood Release: Four Pillars House Technique]. In fact, it only changes the house structure to make the house more in line with Xia Zuo's own wishes.

Xia Zuo pushed open the wooden door and went inside. The room was fully furnished with tables, chairs, beds, and other furniture.

He casually sat down in the large chair in the living room and began to recall the details before the collapse of the Netherworld Escape Technique.

Just now, Xia Zuo thought of the various details before Shimura Danzo's death, and thus connected the various manifestations of the [Reverse Four Symbols Seal] with the manifestations of the Dark Release Bloodline Elimination absorbing all things.

Although their performances seem different, they actually have many similarities in the details.

Following this line of thought, Xia Zuo then thought of a god-level skill, Obito Uchiha's [Kamui], which was also a skill often used to absorb matter or even capture enemies.

Finally, there are Nagato's techniques based on the Rinnegan: the Universal Pull and the Planetary Devastation. He even personally experienced the former once and felt many details.

Now, putting all of this together, Xia Zuo finally had an idea.

He wants to use the [Inner Four Symbols Seal] to create a space for the elimination of the Netherworld Bloodstains—no, two spaces.

The sealed space is used to contain the absorbed chakra and matter separately, preventing the Dark Release chakra itself from being directly impacted and collapsing when it is completely filled with various items.

Xia Zuo smiled: "That's right, sometimes being kind isn't a bad thing."

"The reward for being Naruto's teacher and teaching him sealing techniques is now being realized at its greatest value."

He began to form hand seals, using chakra as magic and his spirit as a brush, to draw black sealing runes out of thin air.

Because Xia Zuo had to learn sealing techniques before teaching Naruto, and also had to deal with Naruto's endless questions, he became very proficient in sealing techniques.

When his thoughts were clear and bright, he instantly designed all the sealing structures for the [Space·Four Symbols Seal].

However, Xia Zuo had never used sealing techniques in battle, nor did he practice them during training. When he started to actually use them, he found that he had all sorts of ideas in his mind, but his hands just wouldn't obey his commands.

Brain: This way, that way, turn it around again, and it'll be done.

Hand: I know, but don't rush.

Xia Zuo could only awkwardly and extremely slowly sketch the runes, gradually completing the spell's structure.

Throughout this process, he remained extremely cautious.

Even though Xia Zuo was indeed very proficient in sealing techniques and had a complete set of design plans in mind, it was really a problem that his hands were not obeying his commands.

Several times, a single mistake at the last minute ruined a large part of the surgical procedure.

The Fifth Hokage, hailed as the strongest ninja in the ninja world, was forced to break out in a cold sweat by the sealing technique he himself designed.

Fortunately, he was ultimately a powerful Kage-level ninja, and his hands had honed hand seals for many years, giving him a very good foundation, which allowed him to gradually advance the construction of the sealing technique.

As time went by, Xia Zuo's hands gradually adapted to the hand seals of the sealing technique, and the speed at which he drew the seals began to increase. His heart also gradually relaxed.

As dawn approached, the massive sealing technique of [Space·Four Symbols Seal] was finally successfully constructed.

This is a spherical, multi-layered sealing array. Its core is based on the concept of Tai Chi evolving into Yin and Yang, constructing a rotating and balanced spatial structure.

Its cathode space can contain chakra, while its anode space can contain natural matter.

The fish eyes in the Yin-Yang space can output the absorbed chakra and natural substances, unlike the Taotie which only takes in and doesn't give out, eventually bursting itself.

The outermost layer of the sealing array has 12840 contact points, corresponding to the core nodes of the operating structure after the successful fusion of Dark Release chakra.

Xia Zuo intends to use the [Space: Four Symbols Seal] as a starting point, integrating his own Wind Release, Water Release, and Lightning Release chakra, so that the Dark Release: Bloodstained Elimination is integrated with the sealed space from the very beginning.

Just as he was about to begin, a sudden inspiration struck him, and he remembered the Dust Escape Bloodstained Elimination technique, which he had not yet tried.

Based on his experience in forging bloodline limit rings, the closer one gets to completion, the stronger the interference from the bloodline limit becomes, increasing the difficulty of fusing a new bloodline limit.

The fusion of Dark Release is inherently very difficult, but the fact that it has failed so many times may well be due to interference from Wood Release, Steel Release, and Nuclear Release.

The final Dust Release: Bloodstained Elimination Fusion will likely be incredibly difficult.