Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

He turned to the last page of the scroll, which was densely covered with the methods that Sunagakure had used to deal with chakra disorder throughout history. The line with the thickest ink read, "Only a strong will can resist erosion"—a note that Chiyo had written twenty years ago.

The candlelight in the secret room suddenly flickered.

Bai Ye's eyelashes trembled violently, like butterfly wings fluttering in the wind.

His fingers twitched and curled, knuckles white, and a broken groan escaped his throat: "No...don't come any closer..."

Chiyo's Sand Release instantly enveloped his entire body, preventing him from injuring himself while struggling.

Ebizo reached out and pressed his hand on his forehead; the scalding heat almost burned his palm—strangely contradicting the earlier drop in body temperature, as if two forces were engaged in a tug-of-war within him.

“His consciousness is awakening.” Chiyo squinted, the sand in the air of the sealed room condensing into a mirror, reflecting the throbbing veins on Byakuya’s forehead. “Hold on, child…”

When Bai Ye opened his eyes again, he was standing on a patch of scorched earth.

The smell of burnt meat wafted in the wind, and bloodstained headbands still hung on the broken wall in the distance—the Water Seal of Mist Village, the Earth Seal of Rock Village, and the Lightning Seal of Cloud Village.

He recognized this place as the battlefield of the Rain Kingdom three years ago.

He was leading a small team to rescue besieged civilians when he arrived at the scene. There were only seventeen corpses left, and the youngest child was still clutching half a piece of candy.

"white night."

He turned around.

Seventeen corpses stood behind him, their skin charred black, but their eyes glowing eerily.

The little girl clutching the candy tilted her head, the candy slipping through her fingers and shattering into dust: "You said you would protect us, but you came too late."

"We'll be waiting for you in hell." A Chunin with a broken leg dragged his intestines over, shrapnel still hanging from them. "We'll be waiting for you to see the suffering we've endured."

"Enough!" Bai Ye roared as he unfurled his bone wings.

The dark purple runes on the bone wings suddenly erupted, lashing out at the corpses like whips.

The selected corpse instantly shattered into dust, but more corpses crawled out of the scorched earth, wearing headbands from different villages and bearing different fatal wounds, silently surging towards him.

"You can't save anyone."

The voice of the messenger of destiny came from behind the mountain of corpses.

Chapter 595 Where is the end of war?

The white-haired man's figure gradually became clearer. His left cheek still bore the marks of being burned by the runes, while his right cheek wore a cold smile: "The power of the stone slab is the collection of the ninja world's consciousness. When you reversed the runes, you were essentially absorbing all this resentment, unwillingness, and despair into your own soul."

Now they're going to retaliate, turning you into a second Rasa—no, worse than Rasa, because you'll be watching yourself being devoured while fully conscious.

Bai Ye's bone wings suddenly made a hissing sound.

The central bone fragment shattered completely, and dark purple runes burrowed into his back along the broken edge, causing him to kneel on one knee in pain.

He could feel the runes gnawing at his spine, weaving a web around his heart, each thread carrying a memory:

The daimyo of the Land of Fire sneered: "Ninjas are nothing more than moving weapons."

A mournful cry echoed from within the misty, blood-red fog: "Mommy, it hurts..."

The old people of Sunagakure sighed, "When will this war ever end?"

"You think you're a hero?" The Messenger of Destiny approached step by step, his boot heels crushing the bones beneath the scorched earth. "You're just a better piece of fuel."

"Once you're reduced to nothing but scraps, I'll use your soul to reactivate the stone tablet. Then..." His fingertips traced Bai Ye's face, "The ninja world's consciousness network will be even stronger, all ninjas will become puppets, and I..."

"Shut up!" Bai Ye roared, looking up.

A ghostly blue light flashed in his pupils—the power of the stone slab resisting the erosion of the runes.

He recalled the warmth of Chiyo supporting him on the altar, the hand of Ebizo that never let go of the medical scroll despite his cold laughter, and the baby's cries in the swaddling clothes like stars.

"I won't let you succeed." He gritted his teeth and propped himself up, the runes on his bone wings burning with a ghostly blue light, making a hissing sound. "I promised Granny Chiyo that I would watch the babies in Sunagakure grow up; I promised Archer's sister that I would take her to see the sea; I promised myself..." His voice suddenly choked up, "I promised my parents that I would live a life they never saw."

A sudden burst of eerie blue light erupted.

In the real-life locked room, Bai Ye's body suddenly arched.

Chiyo's Sand Release was shattered by the shock. Ebizo rushed over and grabbed his shoulder, but was thrown against the wall by a surge of powerful chakra.

“His chakra…” Ebizo clutched his aching ribs, his pupils contracting, “is rebounding!”

Those black threads are retreating!

Chiyo's sand mirror reflected Byakuya's state: the black threads that were originally wrapped in his blood vessels were being swallowed up little by little by the dark blue light, his body temperature was no longer fluctuating, and although his pulse was weak, it began to beat regularly.

“Willpower…” she murmured, her fingertips gently pressing against Bai Ye’s chest, where she could feel a fire burning. “His willpower is fighting against the backlash.”

But the next second, all the lights suddenly went out.

Bai Ye's body slammed heavily back onto the stone bed, as if all her strength had been drained away.

His bone wings completely disappeared, and the black threads under his skin returned, even denser than before, and even his lips turned bluish-purple.

"What's going on?" Ebizo rushed over, pressing his fingers against Baiye's neck—his pulse was so weak he could barely feel it.

Chiyo's grains of sand swirled above Byakuya's head.

She sensed that the eerie blue light within him had not completely extinguished; it was merely suppressed deep within him, like a spark that might be extinguished at any moment.

And those black threads were drilling out through his seven orifices, leaving strange purple spots on the stone bed.

“His consciousness…” her voice tightened, “He almost broke free just now, but was stopped by the messenger of destiny…”

Before he could finish speaking, Bai Ye's fingers suddenly twitched.

His eyelids trembled repeatedly before he finally managed to open them a crack.

The focus in his pupils shifted and then sharpened, finally settling on Chiyo's face: "Chi...Yo-chan..."

“I’m here.” Chiyo immediately bent down and took his hand.

His hands were as cold as ice, even colder than before. "I'm here."

A faint smile appeared on Bai Ye's lips.

He tried to raise his hand, but could only lightly touch the back of Chiyo's hand with his fingertips: "Don't... give up on me..."

Before he finished speaking, his eyes closed again. This time, not even his eyelashes trembled.

Ebizo's fingers pressed against his chest. The heartbeat was so faint, like a spider's thread, as if it might break at any moment.

Chiyo's sand grains suddenly stood up, forming a defensive barrier in the sealed room.

Her fingers formed a hand seal, and medical chakra surged into Byakuya's body like a hot spring—this was the most chakra-consuming medical technique she had ever used, and even her palms bled.

"Hold on," she whispered to Bai Ye's pale face. "You haven't seen how far you can go yet."

On the stone bed, Bai Ye's body was cooling down at a visible rate.

Amidst Chiyo's chakra glow, a faint, eerie blue wisp rose from his heart, like an inextinguishable flame.

Chapter 596 Trying out the secret technique

The coolness of the stone bed seeped into my back through my thin clothes, and Bai Ye's eyelashes cast dappled shadows on my pale face.

As Chiyo's medical chakra flowed through his meridians like a hot spring, his fingers twitched slightly on the stone bed—like a dying butterfly fluttering its wings for the last time.

"The pulse is weak again." Ebizo's voice was hoarse and rough. He dared not press hard on Bai Ye's neck, for fear that the slightest force would sever that life-threatening thread.

The advisor of Sunagakure frowned deeply as his gaze swept over the purple spots spreading along the edge of the stone bed. The traces left by the black threads that emerged from Byakuya's seven orifices were spreading outwards at a visible speed.

Chiyo's forehead was covered in a thin layer of sweat. Her sand grains condensed into a fine net on the dome of the secret room, each grain shimmering with a faint golden chakra light.

This is her improved medical technique; the sand grains can precisely target each blood vessel, directly injecting chakra into the lesions eroded by the black threads.

But when her senses followed the grains of sand into Bai Ye's body, her pupils suddenly contracted—those purplish-black threads were actually devouring her chakra!

The black silk that was originally suppressed by the dark blue light is now wrapped in her medical chakra, multiplying wildly like a hungry snake.

“This won’t do.” Blood seeped from Chiyo’s palm, the backlash from the medical technique shooting up her arm from her fingertips. “His body is rejecting foreign chakra, and my treatment is just nourishing the black silk.”

Ebizo suddenly ripped off the bandage from his waist and pressed it heavily onto Chiyo's bleeding palm: "Then take mine." His chakra attribute was yin, carrying the dry warmth unique to Sunagakure. But when he placed his palm on Byakuya's chest, the temperature he felt made his fingers tremble violently—it was colder than before, as cold as a stone buried in the snow for three days.

“Try the secret technique,” ​​Ebizo suddenly said, his knuckles turning white from the force. “It’s the technique in the secret chamber beneath the altar that can awaken the deepest consciousness.”

Suddenly, cracks appeared in Chiyo's sand mesh, and a few strands of fine sand fell "rustling" onto the stone bed.

She turned to look at Ebizo, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes furrowing in shock: "Are you crazy?"

That technique requires the life force of the caster as a catalyst!

Last time Gaara was hit by the cursed seal...

"This is not the time to talk about this!" Ebizo interrupted her, swallowing the rest of his sentence as his Adam's apple bobbed.

His gaze swept over Bai Yeqing's purplish lips, over the black silk that was gnawing at his skin, and he suddenly remembered three days ago at the border of the Land of Fire, when this young man who always had a crooked smile held the dying daimyo of the Land of Fire and said, "I've come to show you a new world."

His eyes used to shine like stars in the desert, but now...

“His consciousness is still struggling,” Chiyo suddenly said.

Her grains of sand reformed into a mirror, reflecting Bai Ye's pupils—in the chaos, a faint, ghostly blue pulsed. "I felt it when he called my name just now."

That wasn't a dying person's last burst of energy; he was just holding on.

Ebizo's fingers groped through his ninja tool pouch, pulling out a bronze needle engraved with ancient runes.

The secret technique of Sunagakure requires seven such needles, which are inserted into seven major acupoints on the body, using the practitioner's life force as a guide to forcibly open the connection between consciousness and body.

He remembered that back then, in order to study this technique, Chiyo stayed up for three consecutive nights in the laboratory, and finally said with red eyes, "This is a technique that trades lives for lives, unless absolutely necessary..."

Chapter 597 Evil Awakens

“I’ll act as the guide.” Chiyo suddenly grabbed his wrist. “Your chakra nature is incompatible with his, so the success rate of the technique will be even lower.”

“No.” Ebizo shook off her hand, the bronze needle leaving a red mark on his palm. “You are the advisor of Sunagakure, the village still needs you.” He turned and walked toward the altar in the corner of the secret room, where a diagram matching the technique was engraved. “Prepare the chakra, I will activate it after I insert the third needle.”

Bai Ye, lying on the stone bed, suddenly let out a muffled groan.

His fingers dug deep into the cracks in the stone, his knuckles turning white as if they were bone.

Deep in his consciousness, he was standing on a scorched earth.

The wind swept ash across his face, and in the distance, a broken flag lay half-planted in the ground, the emblem of the Land of Fire on its surface burned beyond recognition.

"Master Bai."

A hoarse call came from behind.

Byakuya turned around and saw a Chunin covered in blood, his headband torn in two, bearing the symbol of Konoha Village in the Land of Fire.

A kunai was stuck in the chunin's chest, and blood was dripping from it onto the scorched earth, the blooming blood flowers resembling the national flower of the Land of Fire.

"You said you'd show us a new world." Blood trickled from the chunin's mouth. "But now... our world is gone."

Then another figure emerged from the ashes.

A genin wearing a Sunagakure uniform still had a straw butterfly he bought for his sister hanging on his chest; a jonin from Kumogakure had lightning patterns on his headband still stained with undried blood; and even the daimyo of the Land of Fire had his crown lying at his feet, his eyes filled with terror.

Why choose us?

Why are we the ones who die first?

"You promised..."

Countless sounds pierced Bai Ye's temples like needles.

He staggered backward, his bone wings suddenly unfurling behind him—but this time the bone wings were no longer dark blue, but were wrapped in purplish-black threads, with black blood seeping from every bone fragment.

He recalled that night in the Daimyo's mansion in the Land of Fire, when he pierced the Daimyo's heart and saw the despair in the man's eyes; he recalled the face of the old woman at the village entrance, holding her grandson and wailing, as envoys from various countries led their armies to the border; he recalled the words of the messenger of destiny in his consciousness: "Do you think you are the savior?"

You're just a spark.

"Shut up!" Bai Ye roared, his bone wings suddenly unfurling and tearing the surrounding phantoms to shreds.

But those figures, just as they were torn apart, coalesced again in the distance. This time, Chiyo and Ebizo were among them—Chiyo's sand mirror shattered into pieces, and Ebizo's ribs were pierced by black silk. Their mouths clearly said, "Don't hold on any longer."

"I can't fall!" Bai Ye's consciousness trembled. He remembered the first time he met Chiyo, when she used the sand mirror to project a map of the ninja world and said, "War is a wheel, and someone always has to be the brake." He remembered Ebi hiding in the secret room, handing him the antidote pill while humming a Sunagakure folk song out of tune. He remembered the daimyo he assassinated, and the same fear that flashed in their eyes at the last moment as that of the fire daimyo—no, not just fear, but also relief?

"You've wavered."

A cold voice echoed from the depths of his consciousness.

The figure of the Destiny Messenger emerged from the black silk. His face bore a seven-tenths resemblance to the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, except that his pupils were devoid of warmth. "You think reversing the runes can change anything?"