Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

In his blood-stained vision, the newly formed dangerous traps were combining to form an even larger sealing matrix, and at the center of the matrix, a phantom of a giant tree similar to the one behind the old man was faintly emerging.

Sasuke suddenly grabbed Naruto's wristband and retreated rapidly.

Where they had been standing, the sand suddenly collapsed into a bottomless diamond-shaped pit.

The puppet crow thrown by the mysterious girl circled twice above the pit before suddenly bursting into flames. The burning ashes formed four shimmering sand-hidden characters—【Forbidden Awakening】.

The light from the spirit orb suddenly intensified to a dazzling degree.

When Naruto raised his hand to shield his eyes, he noticed that his skin appeared strangely translucent under the bright light.

He turned to warn his companions, but saw thousands of chakra chains traversing the void reflected in Sasuke's Sharingan, all of which pointed towards the Land of Fire.

The mysterious girl's exclamation was drowned out by the sudden burst of chakra.

When Naruto barely opened his eyes, a spherical barrier composed of eight layers of sealing arrays had already formed around the Spirit Orb.

The surface of those wandering chains revealed protrusions resembling the face of an old man, each protrusion uttering a warning in a different language.

The scorching heat of the desert was replaced by the chill emanating from the barrier.

Naruto watched as the white mist he exhaled condensed into ice crystals on the surface of the barrier, and his clenched fist made a cracking sound as his bones rubbed together.

Sasuke's sword tip carved deep marks into the ground, and the Uchiha clan crest formed by those marks suddenly oozed a dark red liquid.

The mysterious girl suddenly pressed her hand to her violently heaving chest.

The tattoo of a rogue ninja from Sunagakure on her neck was bleeding, and the moment the blood droplets fell onto the surface of the barrier, the eight-layered sealing array simultaneously lit up with a scarlet light.

A blurry image flashed by in the red light—it was an ancient palace pierced by tree roots, with seven luminous objects floating inside that were exactly the same as the spirit orbs before them.

Naruto reached out and pressed down on Sasuke's trembling shoulder.

The same rapid heartbeats emanated from their backs, which were covered in tiny wounds, and sweat mixed with blood smeared dark marks on their combat uniforms.

The energy flowing within the barrier began to emit a rhythm similar to a human heartbeat, and the chains that crisscrossed adjusted their attack trajectories in accordance with the rhythm.

As the first rays of twilight painted the western sky red, the traps surrounding the Spirit Orb finally took their final form.

The surface of the eight-layered barrier revealed the long-lost sealing inscriptions of the five great nations, each character containing terrifying energy powerful enough to annihilate a tailed beast.

Naruto wiped the blood from his eyes, his azure pupils fixed on the slightly trembling spirit orb in the center of the trap, his Adam's apple bobbing but no sound coming out.

Sasuke's Kusanagi sword suddenly emitted a clear, resonant tremor.

The barrier patterns reflected on the sword resonated subtly with the Six Paths power remaining deep within his Sharingan, and a dangerous conjecture gradually took shape in his mind.

When he turned to speak, he noticed that the Sage Mode markings on Naruto's forehead were flashing at a specific frequency—perfectly matching the low point of the barrier's energy fluctuations.

The desert night wind carried the stench of blood past my nose.

Naruto's fingers, which were pressed against the kunai pouch, twitched unconsciously, and the bandages exposed from the tear in his combat suit were being stained red by freshly seeping blood.

The light emanating from the spirit pearl cast dancing spots of light in his constricted pupils, as if the deadly traps surrounding him were waiting for a trigger.

Chapter 381 Crazy Gambling

The seal runes glowed with a dark purple light in the twilight. Naruto's back was pressed against the scorching rock wall, and a metallic taste rose in his throat.

Nine-Lama let out an uneasy growl from the depths of his consciousness. He could clearly feel the chains floating outside the barrier adjusting their angles with the energy pulses, like a venomous snake raising its head, waiting for its prey to step into its trap.

Naruto Uzumaki. Sasuke's voice came through the sand, the Kusanagi sword held between the two, the barrier's energy at its lowest point with twenty-seven breath cycles remaining.

Naruto wiped the blood seeping from his forehead with his tattered headband, the Sage Chakra burning a fine, tingling pain in his meridians.

He saw Sasuke's Sharingan rotating at a strange angle—a sign that the power of the Six Paths was forcibly breaking down the sealing technique, and blood vessels had already crept up the other's pale eyelids.

The spirit pearl, fifteen steps away, suddenly burst forth with dazzling golden light, and all the secret texts within the barrier circulated in response.

Naruto instinctively raised his hand to form hand seals, only to find that his chakra was being pulled in the opposite direction by some force, and a new wound tore open on the left shoulder of his combat suit.

Kurama's warning and Sasuke's muffled groan rang in his ears at the same time. Three chains grazed his neck and carved a bottomless hole in the rock wall.

"Don't use ninjutsu!" The mysterious girl suddenly appeared from the shadows of the rock crevice, her plain white robe stained with the iron brown unique to the desert.

She held three bone fragments engraved with incantations between her fingers, and her heterochromatic pupils reflected the sealing patterns that moved across the surface of the barrier: those were the lost Eight Gates Binding God Formation of the Uzumaki clan, whose chakra fluctuations would awaken the deep killing array.

Naruto stared blankly as the bone fragments thrown by the girl exploded into dust in mid-air, the dark blue barrier barely blocking the second wave of chain attacks.

The shattered bone dust drifted onto his blood-stained headband, and in a daze, it bore a striking resemblance to the sealing technique left by his mother.

Nine Lama suddenly chuckled from the depths of his consciousness: This little girl smells of corpses.

You knew about the mechanism here all along? Sasuke's Kusanagi sword suddenly appeared at the girl's neck, the blade reflecting the faint diamond-shaped mark on her collarbone. The trajectory of the third chain attack shifted by fifteen degrees. Your adjustment of the barrier is too skillful.

The hot desert wind, carrying bone fragments and debris, swept through the gap in the three's stalemate.

Naruto noticed that the girl's fingers hanging by her side were twitching slightly, and the blood seeping from the hem of her robe spread out in small swirls on the sand.

The moment she raised her head, a sense of unease, somewhere between human and puppet, flashed through the depths of her pupils.

Thirty years ago, two hundred and seventy members of the Sand Village puppet army disappeared in this desert. Suddenly, the girl wrapped Sasuke's sword blade with chakra threads, and a blue light as thin as spider silk flowed between her knuckles. Their bones turned into the foundation pillars of the barrier, and their resentment nourished the spirit orb—now, every quarter of an hour, the killing array would devour one more wisp of earth vein spiritual energy.

Naruto felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

The chains surrounding the barrier had turned a ghastly white, their surfaces now covered with countless human face outlines.

Kurama's chakra suddenly surged violently within his body, and he was shocked to realize that the Sage Mode patterns on his palms had achieved a strange resonance with the barrier's fluctuations, as if countless hands were tearing at his chakra meridians.

I can temporarily freeze the core array eye. The girl suddenly tore open the loop on her right arm, revealing purple patterns beneath her pale skin that were of the same origin as the secret runes of the barrier, but you need to sever the spiritual energy nodes in the southeast and northwest directions at the same time.

Sasuke's Sharingan suddenly contracted: "Use Lightning Release to pierce the earth's ley lines?"

Do you think we're three-year-old children?

This level of barrier backlash...

"Use taijutsu," Naruto suddenly interrupted.

He ripped off his blood-stained headband, and Sage Mode patterns crawled up his neck and cheeks: Kurama said there was residual chakra from the Tailed Beast Ball deep within the array's core, and my Sage Mode could temporarily resonate with it—Sasuke, do you remember that move from the Valley of the End?

The sound of wind and sand suddenly became ethereal.

Sasuke's knuckles turned white as he gripped the sword hilt, and the memory of the chirping of a thousand birds in the torrential rain strangely overlapped with the fluctuations of the barrier at this moment.

When he caught a glimpse of the nine chakra tails faintly emerging behind Naruto, he suddenly understood the unspoken plan—a crazy gamble of entrusting one's life to one's nemesis.

"Ten breaths later, we'll make our move." Before the girl finished speaking, she transformed into a streak of light and rushed towards the center of the barrier.

The bloodstains on her robe scattered into eerie runes as she sped along, each step blooming into icy incantations on the sand.

Naruto saw her hair turn white inch by inch amidst the surge of spiritual energy, and a disturbing aura of decay mixed with chakra rushed towards him.

As Sasuke's Chidori spear pierced the night, Naruto had already leaped up from the rock face.

The moment the Sage Chakra exploded into a shockwave beneath his feet, he saw the girl's hands form an ancient bloodline seal, her pale fingertips turning to ash at a visible speed.

Suddenly, the secret runes of the barrier emitted a piercing wail, and spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the eight layers of light screen at the same time—but the chains did not shatter as expected. Instead, they swarmed towards the girl like sharks that had smelled blood.

As the first ray of icy blue light emanated from the girl's heart, Naruto suddenly realized why Kurama had issued that warning.

The chakra emanating from the girl carried the same energy as the Spirit Pearl, and the chains that should have torn her apart all mysteriously froze three inches from her throat the moment they touched the icy blue light.

Chapter 382 Now's the Time to Obtain the Spirit Pearl

The barrier emitted a crisp sound like shattering glass, and the icy blue light surrounding the girl suddenly surged.

The suspended chains exploded into bone dust with a buzzing sound, but then reformed into thicker bronze chains before hitting the ground, with human faces protruding from the chain links emitting silent roars.

Naruto somersaulted in mid-air to avoid the sweeping chains, his Sage Mode eyeshadow flickering in and out of the dust.

Southeast! Sasuke's Chidori spear cleaved through three encircling chains, and lightning scorched the girl's sleeve along the chakra lines.

Naruto charged forward, stepping on the fallen chain fragments, his fist, enveloped in azure chakra, slamming heavily into the ground.

Nine spiraling ravines suddenly rose from the sand, and Sage Chakra surged straight towards the core of the barrier along the earth's veins.

The girl groaned and knelt down in the center of the formation, the purple lines under her right arm spreading to her neck.

When Naruto's torrent of chakra crashed into the barrier, she suddenly ripped open her clothes, revealing an ice crystal-like object embedded in her chest—it was a miniature replica of the Spirit Orb.

Now! The girl plunged her ten fingers into the sand, and the blue light emanating from the Spirit Pearl clone collided violently with Naruto and Sasuke's chakra.

Sasuke's Sharingan suddenly bled as he saw the fatal gap in the barrier's energy flow: three inches to the northwest. He used taijutsu to strike the seventh rune!

The moment Naruto's toes touched the ground, nine chakra tail illusions erupted behind him.

The shockwave from his spinning kick plowed deep trenches into the sand, and the flying kick, imbued with the power of immortal magic, precisely struck the weak point of the barrier.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, the girl inserted the bone fragment into the diamond-shaped mark on her collarbone, and dark red blood lines crawled along the seal pattern all over the entire barrier.

The bronze chains snapped inch by inch amidst a mournful cry, and the golden light on the surface of the spirit pearl suddenly receded into a warm, milky white.

Sasuke's Kusanagi sword pressed against the girl's back at that moment: You deliberately lured us to attack the array's core so that the spirit orb could absorb our chakra properties.

The killing formation will reorganize after six hundred breaths. The girl wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth; the ice crystals on her collarbone were slowly cracking. Now was the time to take the spirit pearl.

Naruto stood between the two, the Sage Mode markings on his palm still steaming.

He noticed that dark red liquid was beginning to seep from the ground around the Spirit Pearl, and Nine Lama let out a low growl of warning from the depths of his consciousness.

As Sasuke's Lightning Release chakra condensed once more, the desert suddenly trembled violently, and the Spirit Orb floated into the air on its own.

Something's wrong! The girl's warning and the strange change in the spirit orb occurred simultaneously.

The gentle white light suddenly turned blood red, and Naruto's outstretched right hand froze half a foot away from the spirit orb.

Countless fragments of memories suddenly flooded into his mind—the desperate wails of the Sand Village puppeteers, the pale faces sealed in ice crystals, and the afterimage of a girl forming hand seals amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

Just as Sasuke's Susanoo skeleton took shape, a crimson pillar of light completely engulfed Naruto.

The sealing talisman thrown by the girl spontaneously combusted the moment it touched the pillar of light, and a large area of ​​skin on her right arm suddenly peeled off, revealing the intricately working puppet joints underneath.

Is this... a memory corridor? Naruto struggled to turn his head in the pillar of light and discovered that his chakra was being frantically drained by the Spirit Orb.

A scene from thirty years ago emerged from the crimson mist: two hundred and seventy Sand Village ninjas had their chests pierced by bronze chains, their chakra coalescing into the original spirit orb, and standing in the center of the formation was none other than a younger version of the mysterious girl.

Kurama's roar startled Naruto awake, and he found himself floating inside the Spirit Orb.

Countless sealing scrolls hovered in the void, with the topmost scroll slowly unfurling—at the end of the yellowed scroll was Minato Namikaze's name, written in a flamboyant and elegant style.

A faint shout came from outside, and Naruto used his last bit of strength to channel Sage Chakra into his right palm.

Just before his consciousness faded, he saw half of a cracked fox mask flash deep within the crimson spirit orb.

Chapter 383 Bridge of Souls

Crimson mist swirled among the ruins, and Sasuke's Sharingan glowed eerily in the shadows.

He knelt beside Naruto, his fingers hovering three inches above his companion's neck, chakra threads hanging down like a spider web, but snapping instantly upon touching the crimson pillar of light.

After his seventh failed attempt, he slammed his fist on the ground, the flying pebbles grazing his hand and drawing blood.

The flow of chakra was completely disordered. Sasuke stared at his trembling fingertips, his throat feeling like it was being rubbed with sandpaper, unable to even sense the Nine-Tails' chakra.

A mysterious girl is changing the joints of a puppet behind a broken wall three meters away.

The bionic skin on her right arm piled up at her feet like a snake's shed skin, and the moonlight reflected a cold light off her stainless steel knuckles.

When Sasuke turned back for the third time to check the rise and fall of Naruto's chest, the clicking sound of the bronze axle suddenly stopped.

How many layers of chakra seals can you see with your Sharingan as the girl wraps a new sealing scroll around her forearm?

Seventeenth floor. Sasuke's pupils contracted sharply, realizing the absurdity of the number only the instant he uttered it.

Ordinary ninja tools can only have three layers of seals stacked on top of each other, but within the blood-red light curtain that enveloped Naruto, the chakra seals were nested layer upon layer like an onion.

He turned around abruptly, the cold light of the Kusanagi sword held against the girl's throat: You knew the truth about the Spirit Pearl all along?

Suddenly, the puppet arm made a clicking sound, and sixteen senbon needles popped out from between the girl's fingers, but hovered half an inch away from Sasuke's temple.

The sword energy aroused tiny goosebumps on the skin of her neck, but her voice was as calm as if she were discussing the weather: Thirty years ago, when Sunagakure used living people to refine the spirit pearl, I personally drove the sealing wedge into the array eye.

The hooting of an owl echoed from afar, and Sasuke's sword drew another half inch closer.

The girl suddenly raised her puppet finger, the blood-stained fingertip lightly touching the blade pattern of the Kusanagi sword: but that scroll, she indicated, the sealing scroll floating in the pillar of light, did not belong to the forbidden technique system of Sunagakure.

Sasuke's pupils trembled slightly.

Under the refraction of the crimson halo, Minato Namikaze's signature at the end of the scroll gleamed with a faint golden light, a sealing technique unique to the Uzumaki clan.

As he tried to get closer to take a closer look, Naruto suddenly convulsed violently within the pillar of light, and the blood foam spilling from the corner of his mouth turned into crimson crystal sand in the turbulent flow of chakra.