Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

Sasuke's Amaterasu black flames suddenly went out of control as soon as they were gathered at the tip of the sword.

Blood from his right eye dripped down his cheek, corroding small pits in the sand.

Suddenly, the mysterious girl used her last materialized finger to pierce her own heart, and the burst of emerald light temporarily blocked the flow of chakra in the summoning array.

"Hurry!" Half of the girl's face had already disappeared into the night wind. Their goal was to turn the key into... Before the words were finished, a chakra thread shot from the masked man's sleeve pierced her throat.

The remnants composed of light particles exploded with a roar, forming a green barrier that stretched for kilometers across the desert.

The golden-red chakra that erupted from Naruto's body slammed Sasuke into a safe area.

The device consisting of two keys was vibrating violently at his collarbone, and blood vessel-like red patterns appeared on the bronze surface.

As the masked man's chains wrapped around his ankles, the key pattern suddenly reversed and rotated, and the six tomoe in Naruto's eyes shattered into dark red specks of light.

The third sacrifice... The moment the masked man pulled the chains, the chakra surging from Naruto's body suddenly turned ominously black.

Sasuke's Susanoo finally completed the hand seals, and as the purple giant sword severed the chains, the distinctive roar of the Fourth Kazekage's Gold Dust Burial echoed from the direction of Sunagakure.

Twelve dark figures blurred simultaneously in the moonlight. The masked man's lingering voice mingled with the sound of sand hitting metal: When the three keys reunited... Naruto forcibly tore off the device from his collarbone and threw it to Sasuke, while he himself was dragged into a suddenly cracked crevice by the remaining black chakra.

The last image Sasuke's Mangekyou Sharingan captured was a massive bronze gate faintly visible deep within the crevice of the earth, and two blood-red eyes already lit up in the three keyholes on the gate.

Chapter 405 Three Prophecies

The sand glistened with silver frost under the moonlight as Sasuke staggered, bracing himself against the remains of the purple Susanoo.

The sound of the bronze door vibrating from deep within the crevice still lingered in my ears, and the residual heat from the key device in my arms burned my palms.

The image of Naruto being swallowed by darkness replayed repeatedly in his Sharingan until the mysterious girl's trembling fingertips touched his back.

The Kurama within him was resisting. The amber pendant at the girl's waist glowed faintly; the wound inflicted by the Sand Village's standard kunai was still bleeding; the spatial rift triggered by the key's resonance should lead to the confluence of dragon veins...

Before he finished speaking, twelve sand shuriken pierced through the air and arrived.

Sasuke, carrying the girl, rolled down the sand dune, leaving a honeycomb-like crater where they had been standing.

Black Falcon descended from the sky atop a floating gold sand disc, his ANBU mask gleaming coldly in the moonlight, while thirty Sand Ninja formed a swastika formation behind him.

The Fourth Kazekage's Gold Dust Burial didn't turn you into mincemeat? Black Falcon's chain scythe has caught on Susanoo's ribs. It seems Lord Byakuya was right; the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki is indeed an excellent sacrifice.

Sasuke's pupils contracted sharply at the mention of Naruto's name.

The kaleidoscope patterns spun wildly in my eyes, and the thousand birds wrapped in purple lightning suddenly cleaved through the sand gold barrier.

As the lightning illuminated Black Falcon's collarbone, Sasuke saw the dark red curse mark that shared the same origin as the key device—the same secret totem that had flashed within the emerald barrier three hours earlier when Byakuya's remains exploded.

You Sunagakure are breeding disaster! Susanoo's giant hand smashed the ribs of two Anbu members, Sasuke's roar mixed with the roar of thunder.

The mysterious girl suddenly threw out seven star-shaped darts, deflecting the sand iron spear that was aimed at Naruto's landing point.

The ribbon binding her hair came undone in the blast of air, revealing a blue tattoo on the back of her neck that resembled the pattern of a key.

The black falcon suddenly appeared behind the girl like a ghost.

The moment the chains wrapped around her neck, Naruto, enveloped in black flames, shot into the sky from the crack in the ground.

Nine fox tails pierced the chests of three ANBU members, but their originally golden-red chakra cloaks were now covered with spiderweb-like black patterns, and even their pupils were stained with a chaotic dark purple.

The third sacrifice was in Sunagakure... Black Falcon's cold laugh was interrupted by the Sharp Spear of Chidori.

As Sasuke's Kusanagi sword pierced through his right shoulder, the gold dust disc suddenly exploded into a poisonous mist.

In the chaos, Naruto grabbed Black Falcon's ANBU vest, and half of a secret order shaped like an hourglass fell out from the crack torn open by the Nine-Tails' claws.

The mysterious girl suddenly groaned and knelt down.

Her star-shaped dart was embedded in her left arm, but the talisman tied to the end of the dart redirected the incoming Explosion Release ninjutsu to a sand dune a hundred meters away.

Sasuke then noticed that the blood flowing from her wound was a pale gold color, which bloomed into fleeting glass flowers when it dripped onto the sand.

"Run!" The girl tore open her sleeve, revealing her forearm wrapped in cursed seals. "My blood can temporarily block tracking ninjutsu." Her fingertips traced the key mechanism on Naruto's collarbone, and the patterns of the Sand Village headband suddenly appeared on the bronze surface.

The distant rumble of gold dust grinding together sounded like the prelude to the activation of a giant puppet.

After the three of them escaped two kilometers using the sandstorm, the Nine-Tails inside Naruto suddenly let out a low, warning growl.

Black chakra overflowed uncontrollably, etching patterns on the ground similar to those of a bronze gate.

Sasuke's Sharingan detected a strange phenomenon—whenever the key device vibrated, particles of light would seep from the tattoo on the back of the girl's neck.

White Night once inscribed three prophecies on my clan's star altar. The girl pressed the blood-stained amber pendant against Naruto's chest, suppressing the surging black flames. The key wasn't an object, but three containers carrying the power of the dragon vein. She pulled open her collar, revealing a bronze pattern below her collarbone identical to Naruto's device. I am the key to the sealed door, and you are the key of blood...

A sudden gust of wind carried the stench of rotting puppet oil.

A hundred meters away, atop a sand dune, Ebizo stroked the sharp beak of a puppet crow, the hourglass hanging from his waist resonating with the secret command.

As his age-spotted fingers traced across the crow's eye socket, his hidden Sharingan suddenly began to rotate.

A clever little fox. The old man's laughter was laced with a cough that sounded like sandpaper scraping against the ground; it was a pity he hadn't been able to turn Minato Namikaze into a puppet back then. The starry sky behind him suddenly distorted, and the emerald barrier left by the White Night in the desert reappeared in his palm, telling Granny Chiyo that the dawn of Sunagakure would be dyed red with the blood of Jinchuriki...

Before Sasuke's Susanoo bow and arrow could be fully formed, Ebizo had already turned into sand and vanished.

The mysterious girl suddenly coughed violently, spitting out blood clots mixed with shards of glass.

The device on Naruto's collarbone emitted a sharp ringing sound, and the bronze patterns began to spread towards the girl's tattoo.

As the Nine-Tails' chakra went berserk, the outline of the Sunagakure watchtower appeared on the horizon behind the three.

As the first rays of dawn pierced the clouds, the winding trail of blood on the sand suddenly blossomed into a field of crystal flowers.

In the direction the flowers pointed, a hunched figure sat atop the head of a puppet salamander, its chakra threads already covering the entire desert...

Chapter 406 Secret Order

The crimson storm formed by the Nine-Tails' chakra leveled the entire sand dune by three inches, and bronze patterns flowed through the bulging veins on Naruto's neck.

Sasuke grabbed his trembling shoulder, and his Rinnegan suddenly caught sight of shimmering crystal clusters in the sand—those glass flower fragments were piecing together half of a broken seal pattern on the mysterious girl's collarbone, following the tattoo lines of her tattoo.

The Sand Village watchtower is thirty miles to the northeast. The mysterious girl coughed up more shards of glass; drops of blood condensed into arrowheads in mid-air, but Granny Chiyo's puppet array...

Before he finished speaking, twelve puppets covered with talismans burst forth from the sand.

Chiyo emerged from the tornado with chakra threads wrapped around her ten fingers. The mechanism on her left arm deflected the shuriken that Naruto shot at her, and her right palm struck Sasuke's Susanoo's ribs, igniting a series of sealing runes.

Just as the nine-tailed claws were about to tear her throat apart, the old man suddenly pulled back and the ten puppets instantly disintegrated into three hundred hidden weapons that floated in mid-air.

The Fourth Kazekage's chakra metal. Chiyo unfurled the blood-stained scroll of secret orders, and the dark brown bloodstains on it suddenly transformed into flowing gold dust. Before his death, Rasa used Magnet Release to seal the truth in the blood—the puppet oil you smelled was the residual ocular power left over from Ebizo's Sharingan when he altered his memories.

Sasuke's Kusanagi sword suddenly turned southwest, severing three sand needles with explosive tags attached.

Naruto then realized that the direction the glass flower had pointed to was already filled with puppet spiders, and the sound of gears meshing could be heard from the sandstorm stirred up by the nine tails.

The mysterious girl suddenly knelt down, and a complete sealing array appeared on the tattoo on her back. The moment it resonated with the bronze device on Naruto's collarbone, blood-red smoke suddenly lit up at the top of the Sand Village watchtower.

Five years ago, during the Chunin Exams, the same pattern appeared in Lord Rasa's study. Chiyo's puppet crow brought half a broken jade pendant, which fit perfectly with the pendant around the girl's neck. Byakuya was not a rogue ninja at all; he brought the ledger of the Daimyo's transaction with the Jashin Cult to find the Kazekage, but Ebizo used puppetry to stage an assassination scene.

Twelve kunai suddenly pierced the sand around them, and Black Falcon and his ANBU emerged from the quicksand vortex.

Just as Naruto was about to form the Shadow Clone Seal, he discovered that the bronze patterns had spread to his elbows, and the Nine-Tails' chakra was trembling in sync with the girl's sealing array.

Chiyo suddenly ripped off three strands of her white hair, which transformed into chakra threads that wrapped around the poisoned darts fired by the Anbu, and then pinned them to Black Falcon's mask.

Back then, Rasa used his last strength to seal Byakuya within the Loulan Dragon Vein, but the key was broken into three parts. When Chiyo threw the secret scroll to Naruto, gold dust flames suddenly ignited along the edge of the scroll. One part was in the Tsuchikage's hands, and the other...

The sand suddenly collapsed into a quicksand vortex, and Sasuke's Susanoo skeleton grabbed Naruto by the back of his collar and rapidly ascended into the air.

Suddenly, a 3D map was projected from the mysterious girl's tattoo, and the location of a flashing red dot was clearly the altar where Minato Namikaze sealed the dragon vein back then.

Black Falcon's puppet salamander emerged from the ground, and the poisonous mist it spewed from its mouth corroded the ribs of Susanoo.

Chiyo's fingers flew as she manipulated six puppets to form a defensive array. Suddenly, a scroll covered in sealing runes unfurled behind her: "What Ebizo wants is not power, but to create more undead through chaos to feed the evil god—run!" In the shockwave from the self-destruction of the last puppet, the old man used chakra threads to imprint a coordinate on Naruto's palm.

As Sasuke led the two out of the poisonous fog, the bronze device on Naruto's collarbone suddenly detached, transforming into a key-shaped chakra body that disappeared into the desert.

Twenty miles behind them, deep within the sandstorm, a figure in white robes reached out from the mirage, the sand grains touched by his fingertips instantly crystallizing into emerald green—the residual chakra of the White Night was reconstructing the outline of the key.

The crimson smoke falling from the top of the Sand Village watchtower suddenly froze in mid-air, revealing half of Black Falcon's face covered with puppet seams beneath his shattered mask.

Just as he was about to crush the communication talisman, the mournful cry of the salamander puppet echoed from the depths of the desert—all the chakra threads snapped simultaneously without warning, as if an invisible blade had severed the threads of fate that had bound the entire desert.

Chapter 407 Dance of the White Night

The solidified crimson smoke from the Sand Village watchtower was suddenly torn apart by a strong wind, and the white robe, bathed in moonlight, fell upon the mangled skull of the puppet salamander.

Where the hem of Bai Ye's robe swept across, the communication talisman in Black Falcon's hand instantly crystallized into jade fragments.

A puppeteer should not touch the threads of fate. Bai Ye flicked his finger, and the Black Falcon mask shattered completely.

The half-face, riddled with the seams of a puppet, oozed purple slime under the moonlight, and the broken chakra threads twitched like dying earthworms in the sand.

The bronze device fragment on Naruto's collarbone suddenly resonated and trembled, and the Nine-Tails' chakra uncontrollably condensed into claws on his right arm.

Sasuke's Sharingan caught sight of Byakuya's wrist as his sleeve fluttered—dark red sealing runes were writhing as the outline of the key reassembled, exactly like the secret technique of the Fourth Kazekage recorded in the forbidden scroll of Sunagakure.

A sealing technique of the Uzumaki clan? The mysterious girl suddenly ripped open her collar, and the crimson clan emblem on her collarbone resonated with the chakra floating beneath Naruto's skin.

She touched the wrist of Byakuya, who was about to form a hand seal: Three years ago outside Amegakure, it was we who shielded you from Akatsuki's pursuit.

The moonlight in Bai Ye's pupils shattered suddenly, and the sand and dust around him condensed into hundreds of transparent prisms.

The light and shadow refracted by the prism flashed across the training ground of the Sand Village's dark side—young Rasa was stabbing a kunai engraved with the same rune into the back of the test subject's neck.

Dance in the White Night!

Thousands of prisms shattered simultaneously, and fragments of moonlight transformed into solid blades that poured down.

Sasuke's Susanoo skeleton sparked with dazzling sparks during the collision, and the mysterious girl suddenly threw out a chain wrapped with talismans to bind Naruto's right arm: "Use Kurama's Yin attribute chakra!"

The golden and black chakra Rasengan swelled up in the palm of the claw, and at the moment it collided with the Moonlight Blade, it devoured the light within a radius of ten meters.

Taking advantage of the moment, Sasuke pushed his Sharingan to its limit. In the instant that Byakuya was slowed down by the reverse flow of chakra, he clearly saw the coordinates of Sunagakure hidden in the sealing runes.

The seventh key is in the underground palace of the Kazekage Building! Sasuke's Kusanagi sword suddenly changed direction and pierced into the sand, with lightning weaving into an electric net along the blade.

The outline of the key, which was being reconstructed twenty miles away, suddenly twisted. The moment the sand fragments thrown from Byakuya's sleeve touched Naruto's palm, the image of the Fire Country Daimyo being pierced through the heart by a crystal spear suddenly appeared.

Ebizo's maniacal laughter resonated from the earth, and the desert suddenly surged into a blood-red wave.

The coordinates left by Chiyo when she self-destructed burned in Naruto's palm. The sand grains that seeped into his skin traveled along his blood vessels to his heart, and each grain of sand reflected the illusion of different ninja villages flowing with blood.

The souls of the Sand Village await you on the moon. Before the white night dissipates into sand and dust, the last prism reflects the scene of the Sand Village advisor's office—Ebizo is dripping the blood of the five daimyo into a model of the Dragon Vein Altar.

Outside Sasuke's lightning barrier, the sound of puppets exploding echoed from the depths of the desert.

Naruto knelt on one knee, his right arm burning hot. The Nine-Tails' chakra had somehow condensed into an hourglass-shaped seal under his skin.

A mysterious girl suddenly cut her finger and used her blood to draw a forbidden technique array of the Uzumaki clan in the sand: Your chakra is being assimilated by the Sand Clock...

In the ruins of the watchtower, the remaining half of Black Falcon's face suddenly opened its mechanical compound eye, the depths of its pupil reflecting the grains of sand seeping into Naruto's sclera.

Five crimson pillars of light rose from the direction of Sunagakure in the distance, and the moonlight was stained bronze for a moment, as if a giant key was turning above the clouds.

The crimson moonlight cast long, thin shadows on the sand dunes.

Chapter 408 The Choice of Redemption

The crimson moonlight cast long, thin shadows on the sand dunes.

Naruto knelt in the scorching sand, and what seeped from between his fingers was no longer bright red blood, but sand grains with a metallic sheen.

An hourglass of Nine-Tails chakra was flowing backwards at his collarbone, each grain of sand piercing his skin carrying the chakra aura of the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa.

His body temperature exceeded sixty degrees! Sasuke's Chidori Stream wove an electric net around Naruto, but the lightning always mysteriously dissipated before touching the hourglass seal.

The mysterious girl's blood-stained fingertips hovered above the Vortex Clan's array diagram, and the sealing runes that should have lit up were twisted into sand-patterned totems by some force.

The sound of the puppet's joints grinding together came from deep within the sandstorm.

Naruto suddenly tilted his head back and let out a roar that was unlike any human's. The pupil of his right eye faded to the bluish-gray color unique to Sand Village puppeteers: You said... as long as I become a vessel... His voice was sometimes rough like the friction of sand, and sometimes it returned to the clear sound of a young boy. His right arm, which was being eroded by sand patterns, suddenly grew three inches longer, and his nails turned into crystalline claws that stabbed towards Sasuke.

Wood Release: Advent of the Tree World!

The gnarled tree roots burst forth from the sand, and the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, descended from the sky, stepping on the giant tree.

Branches wrapped with sealing runes cocooned Naruto, and the old man's cracked hands formed a peculiar hand seal that combined Earth Release and Wood Release: with each rotation of the Sand Clock, the child would inherit another memory of Byakuya.

The mysterious girl's array suddenly erupted with blood-red light, and fragments of the Uzumaki clan emblem and sand patterns collided violently in her palm: so what Naruto is seeing now...

It was the blood-red dawn of Sunagakure twenty years ago. Onoki's Dust Release illuminated the tree cocoon, and through the translucent wood, Naruto's figure could be seen curled up in pain.