Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

The rock strata at the top of the underground palace collapsed in large sections.

Obito's phantom was forced to retreat by Byakuya's Sharingan, but it still sneered: "Even if you destroy the pendant, the memories of the daimyo of various countries have already been altered to be riddled with holes! War will spread like wildfire—"

Rasa's Sand Release chakra suddenly surged.

He tucked Gaara into Byakuya's arms, pressing his palm against the boy's back to channel chakra, his fingertips gently wiping away the tears from Gaara's eyes: "Take him away." His voice suddenly became very soft, as if he were speaking of a secret only a father and son knew, "Go to Konoha, find Naruto... tell him that the Kazekage's curse ends here."

Bai Ye's pupils contracted sharply.

He sensed that Rasa's chakra was dissipating, and the Fourth Kazekage's body was becoming transparent at a visible speed, like grains of sand being blown away by the wind.

Gaara struggled in his arms, his cries echoing against the stone walls of the underground palace: "Father! Father, please don't—"

"Grab him!" Mei Terumi's water dragon burst in from the collapsed entrance, attempting to engulf the three of them.

But the tremors of the earth's veins had reached their peak, and the entire underground palace began to twist like crumpled paper.

Obito's phantom let out a final shrill laugh as it was swept into the sky by the vortex of red light: "Just wait, when golden blood soaks the earth's veins—"

The words stopped abruptly.

The red light at the core of the pendant suddenly collapsed into a single point, exploding into tiny golden starlight in Bai Ye's palm.

He then noticed that a drop of golden blood was seeping from the cracked cloud and thunder patterns, more dazzling than sunlight and hotter than magma.

The moment the blood dripped onto the ground, the entire underground palace emitted a dying groan, a cacophony of sounds: the cracking of rock layers, the shattering of puppets, and the bursting of chakra.

Byakuya knelt amidst the rubble, Gaara in his arms having fainted from crying.

He gazed at the bronze pendant in his palm—golden blood was still slowly seeping from the crack, dripping down his fingers and spreading tiny golden spots on the stone surface.

A distant rumble like thunder came from afar; it was the sound of the ground in Sunagakure collapsing.

“Mother…” Bai Ye lowered her head and kissed Gaara’s sweaty hair, then pressed the pendant to her chest.

The sensation of golden blood seeping into the ground traveled up his fingertips, like something dormant awakening.

He gazed at the gradually darkening underground palace and heard a different rhythm mixed in with his own heartbeat—steady, powerful, like the earth breathing.

Amidst the rumbling of the earth's ley lines, Byakuya knelt amidst the rubble, Gaara's warmth seeping through his clothes like a small flame about to go out.

As he looked down, a drop of golden blood slid down the crack in the pendant, burning a tiny red mark on his palm—the blood didn't drip like an ordinary liquid, but rather seemed to be a living thing, meandering along the lines of his palm before finally falling into the crack in the stone.

"boom!"

A muffled thud startled him, and he looked up to see a faint golden light seeping from the crack in the dome of the underground palace.

The golden light condensed into a human shape in mid-air, with white hair hanging down to the shoulders, wooden clogs stepping in the void, and eyebrows and eyes exactly the same as the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, in the murals of the shrine in my memory.

When the phantom raised its hand, the earth's tremors suddenly weakened, as if even the earth itself was paying homage to it.

"Is this what your father left behind?"

A hoarse question rang out, accompanied by the sound of sand rubbing together.

Chapter 660 The Thousand Hands Bloodline Coveted

Only then did Bai Ye realize that the sand had not completely dissipated—the Fourth Kazekage's right arm was transparent like mist, while his left palm was filled with a tangible waterfall of sand, which was blasting towards the First Kazekage's phantom.

The sand flow collided with the golden light, splashing up fine shards of light, and a crack immediately appeared on the right shoulder of the phantom.

Rasa's Sharingan mark burned on his forehead. He staggered and knelt on one knee, his face contorted with pain beneath his white hair: "Back then, Hashirama used Wood Release to suppress the Tailed Beasts, but our Kazekage clan used his bloodline as a key... You thought this golden blood was a blessing?" He suddenly laughed, his laughter laced with blood foam, "It's a curse!"

It's a curse born from our greed—wanting to control both the Tailed Beasts and the Thousand Hands bloodline simultaneously!

Gaara, nestled in Byakuya's arms, let out a soft whimper. He unconsciously tightened his arms around him, only to touch another piece of coldness.

"Kakashi?" He turned his head and saw the Copy Ninja crouching to his side, his Sharingan spinning rapidly, his pupils swirling with purplish-black chakra.

"Don't move." Kakashi's fingers pressed lightly against the back of his neck. "There are two opposing chakras in your veins—one is the wood attribute unique to the Senju clan, and the other..." His Adam's apple bobbed, "is the will of sand that the Kazekage has sealed within Gaara for generations." Before he finished speaking, a chill suddenly rose from the floor of the underground palace, and a withered hand gripped Byakuya's ankle tightly.

"Don't believe live human experiments!"

Chiyo's lingering soul emerged from the crack in the ground, her face more wrinkled than in life, yet her eyes burned with the flames of a living being: "Back then, the First Hokage used his blood to modify the Tailed Beast vessels, and we Sunagakure used ninjas for experiments..." Her hands trembled, her nails almost digging into Byakuya's flesh, "That chakra system wasn't inherited, it was—"

"Crack!"

The clanging of mechanical gears shattered her words.

Following the sound, Bai Ye looked towards the source and saw seven dark blue light curtains rising from the deepest part of the underground palace, with seven crystal coffins slowly opening.

The souls of the Kazekage of each generation floated out of the coffins, some wrapped in bandages, some wearing straw hats, and some still bearing the burn marks of the Tailed Beast Balls between their brows—their figures melted into golden quicksand in mid-air, surging toward the White Night as if summoned.

"No!" Rasa's Sand Release suddenly went out of control. The sand wall that was originally protecting the three of them rolled back and wrapped around his own left arm.

His eyes widened as he watched the golden sand pierce through his transparent arm and sink into Bai Ye's heart: "Why...why can I sense this power?" His voice grew weaker and weaker, "I'm just an ordinary Wind Shadow..."

Bai Ye felt like her chest was about to explode.

As the golden sand burrowed into his skin, he heard countless sounds overlapping in his mind—the cries of babies, the shouts of battle, and the sighs of old people.

Wood-attribute chakra surged through his meridians, threatening to tear his blood vessels; yet the will of sand gently enveloped the wounds, like a mother comforting a child having a nightmare.

"Cough..." He coughed up a mouthful of golden blood, only to find that the blood droplet condensed into a miniature sandstorm in mid-air.

Gaara stirred in his arms, his little fingers unconsciously hooking around his clothes. The boy's chakra surged in through the point of contact, miraculously neutralizing the conflict between the two forces.

"White...night..." Kakashi's voice suddenly tightened.

Bai Ye followed his gaze and looked down, only to find that the fabric on her back was burning hot.

He couldn't see it, but he could clearly sense it—there were dark patterns moving beneath his skin, and the shape of those patterns was exactly the same as the Wood Release totem on the First Hokage's mask.

Chapter 661 Wrong Order

An even more violent roar came from outside the underground palace; it was the sound of the ground in Sunagakure completely collapsing.

But at this moment, only three sounds remained in the world of White Night: Gaara's heartbeat, the whispers of the two chakra within his body, and the faint, ancient sigh as the dark markings on his back gradually became clear.

The sound of the collapse outside the underground palace was like thunder muffled in a jar, causing dust to fall from the stone walls of the underground palace.

The skin on the back of Byakuya's neck was visibly burning hot. As the dark lines climbed along his spine, he could clearly sense that those lines were not simple engravings—each one was absorbing and releasing wood-attribute chakra, like countless tiny roots burrowing into flesh and blood, resonating with the beating of his heart.

"clang--"

The bronze pendant suddenly sprang from his neck, the surface rust melting away like ice and snow, revealing the thousand-hand family crest engraved inside.

Almost simultaneously, the Wind Shadow headband on Rasa's forehead also glowed with golden light. The two metal objects touched in mid-air, and the sparks that flew off landed on Gaara's face, startling the boy into frowning and unconsciously shrinking into Byakuya's arms.

"Twin hosts!"

Twin hosts! "Chiyo's afterimage suddenly raised her voice, her withered fingers almost piercing Byakuya's shoulder blade," When the First Generation used blood to improve the vessel, she left a backup plan. The ultimate seal of the puppeteer requires two souls of the same frequency—you and Rasa! "Her voice was mixed with the harsh noise of metal scraping," The puppet horde outside Sunagakure is looking for a host!

They're going to take your chakra...

"puff!"

A purplish-black lightning bolt struck between Byakuya and Rasa without warning.

Kakashi's Sharingan had turned a deep purple, and his forehead bandage had slid down to his nose, revealing his taut jawline: "If you continue to fuse, your blood vessels will burst from the Wood Release chakra." His chakra blade grazed Byakuya's left arm, severing the faint golden thread—the materialization of the connection between their chakra.

The splattered golden blood sprayed directly onto Chiyo's chest.

The old woman's spirit suddenly materialized: faded puppet strings were wrapped around her thin wrists, the flames in her eye sockets burned even brighter, and you could even see the wrinkles as her Adam's apple bobbed.

She staggered toward Luo Sha, the bronze pendant burning red in her palm: "Reopen the seal with his blood!"

Only the spirit of the Wind Shadow can suppress it...

"Click."

The hinges of the stone door to the underground palace suddenly broke.

Obito's face was half-covered in swirling dark patterns, while the other half of his pale face wore a sickly smile. He stood amidst the rubble, with a dense swarm of puppets behind him—these were originally weapons of war used to protect Sunagakure, but now they had all turned their spears around, their crimson puppet eyes forming a river of blood in the darkness.

“Granny Chiyo is still as impatient as ever.” Obito’s voice was like rusty iron soaked in oil. “But you got the order wrong.” As he raised his hand, Rasa suddenly let out a muffled groan, and the iris of his right eye cracked with spiderweb-like lines, revealing a rotating bronze gear underneath. “The real test subject has never been Gaara.”

Bai Ye's pupils suddenly contracted.

He could feel that Rasa's chakra had suddenly become viscous, as if its properties had been forcibly distorted by some external force—it was no longer the dry sand unique to the Kazekage, but a mechanical rhythm mixed with the smell of rust.

The Fourth Kazekage placed his hand on his chest, the push carrying no hostility, but rather a resolute tenderness: "Go." His voice suddenly became very soft, as soft as the whisper he used to lull Gaara to sleep, "Go to Obito's place."

"Are you crazy?" Kakashi's Lightning Blade condensed again, but was blocked by a sand wall before it could touch Rasa.

That sand wall was no ordinary sand; each grain of sand shimmered with a ghostly blue light, formed from the life essence of countless wind spirits throughout the ages.

Luo Sha's figure began to become transparent, but his mouth was still moving. With each word he spoke, the golden light on Feng Ying's headband dimmed a little: "Father said that a failed vessel should be used for sacrifice... This time I will not let him down."

The rumble of metal scraping against metal could be heard outside the underground palace.

The puppet group, which was originally aimed at the underground palace, suddenly changed direction, and their scarlet eyes all stared at Kakashi and Gaara—black liquid seeped from their joints, which was the altered manipulation seal taking effect.

Obito's grin widened, his Sharingan swirling in the shadows: "Come here, Byakuya."

"You carry Hashirama's blood, the lifeblood of past Kazekage, and..." His gaze swept over Gaara in Byakuya's arms, "a perfect vessel for a tailed beast."

Bai Ye suddenly felt a sharp pain in her back.

The patterns on the First Hokage's mask had spread all over his shoulder blades, and Wood Release chakra surged out along the patterns, condensing into tiny green sprouts around him—a sign that the Senju bloodline had been fully activated.

He looked down at Gaara in his arms. The boy's eyelashes cast small fan-like shadows under his eyes, and his body temperature was a little cooler than before.

When he looked up again, Obito was already right in front of him, his palm swirling with a black vortex that absorbed chakra.

"catch me."

A clear, cool water blast suddenly swept in from outside the underground palace.

Mei Terumi's chakra, like a living silver snake, bypassed the puppet group's attacks and precisely wrapped around Byakuya's waist.

The moment the water sphere rose, he saw Rasa's figure completely disappear into the golden light, and Obito's pupils suddenly contracted—at the edge of the water sphere, a faint blue chakra mark was faintly visible; it was the distress signal that Tsunade had secretly imprinted on him during the Five Kage Summit.

A sliver of sunlight peeked through a crack at the top of the underground palace.

As Byakuya was lifted into the air by the water sphere, he heard Obito's roar mixed with the rumble of the puppet horde, and Gaara's whisper, barely audible, murmur from within his arms: "Byaku...Yoru..."

Chapter 662 Don't Panic

As he ascended towards the rift, enveloped in the white night by water-based techniques, he could clearly hear the sound of his blood exploding in his veins.

Mei Terumi's chakra clung to his waist like a cold snake's tongue, while Gaara's body temperature was visibly decreasing in his arms, and the boy's fingertips were already turning bluish-gray—this made him even more panicked than being caught up by Obito's absorption vortex.

"The mineral within him is repelling the puppet's resonance." Mei Terumi's voice, enveloped in a water sphere, carried the unique damp vibrations of Water Release. Her chakra strings suddenly tightened, and Byakuya realized that his blood was seeping out with the water, condensing into a golden sealing array in mid-air. "The Seastone fragments I obtained in the Land of Waves back then..."

The words have not yet fallen.

The excruciating pain first pounded into my eardrums.

It was the dull thud of metal tearing through flesh.

Bai Ye's pupils suddenly contracted.

He saw a dark blue sand blade emerge from Gaara's back, with half a blood-stained breastplate still attached to its tip—it was the Sand Village of the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa. The Sand Village, which should have turned to dust with Rasa's dissipation, was now tinged with an eerie purplish-black, slowly being pulled out of Gaara's heart, with half a rotating Sharingan embedded at its tip, black liquid seeping from the gear-shaped patterns.

"Gaara!" Byakuya's fingertips dug deeply into his palm, and the green shoots of Wood Release grew wildly at the wound, but were shattered by the chakra barrier outside the water sphere.

He looked down; the boy's lips were already pale and translucent, and pale golden blood was gushing from his pierced chest—the color of tailed beast chakra mixed with human blood. "Wake up!"

"Don't panic." A sinister laugh came from outside the underground palace.

Ryusuke Hyuga stepped out of the shadows, leaning on his cane. His fingernails were still stained with puppet oil that hadn't been wiped off. "Twenty years ago, that old hag Chiyo burned my mechanical manual. Today, I'll use her most treasured descendant of the Kazekage to teach the conservatives of Sunagakure a lesson."

Seven muffled thuds.

Seven bronze puppets rose from the ground at Bai Ye's feet. Each puppet's joints were engraved with spiral runes, and ghostly green flames shone from their eye sockets. The formation they formed perfectly trapped the water sphere in the center.

Ryusuke Hyuga slammed his cane down heavily, and at the same time, the bronze puppet's arm rose, the chakra threads shooting from its fingertips precisely wrapping around the water sphere—those were puppet threads capable of cutting off the flow of chakra.

"You didn't steal the puppetry technique."

A faint voice suddenly came from Bai Ye's arms.

Gaara's right eye slowly opened, the patterns of his Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan flowing through the bloodstains, clearer than ever before: "It's the First Hokage's Chakra Splitting Technique... The mechanical manual you said was stolen by Iwagakure was actually hidden in a secret compartment in the Kazekage's chamber." His fingers gently touched Byakuya's hand, his body temperature rising slightly from before. "What Father protected with his life soul was not just the chakra of the Kazekage of past generations."

Obito's laughter exploded.

He appeared atop the bronze puppet, holding Rasa's and Gaara's Sharingan in his palms, black liquid dripping from between his fingers, corroding the ground with charred marks: "Twin vessels, twin eyes... Byakuya, you think the Senju bloodline can save you?" His other hand suddenly opened, tearing the bronze pendant around Byakuya's neck away by an invisible force. "This pendant seals the First Hokage's Wood Release remnant, plus the tailed beast of this brat in your arms..."

"Enough!" Mei Terumi's water mirror suddenly unfolded in mid-air, reflecting the scene outside Sunagakure—the ninjas who were originally guarding the village entrance were all lying on the ground, their chakra drained and withered, while the giant puppet group that should have been sealed in the warehouse was slowly moving, with crystal coffin fragments stuck in the joints of each puppet, and the faces of the Kazekage of the past remaining on the fragments.