Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

As he reached out to catch it, his fingertips were cut by the scorch marks on the edge of the paper, and drops of blood dripped onto the last page, blurring a few crooked words—"The true sacrifice of puppetry... is the soul of a ninja."

"Wait." The Hyuga family head's voice suddenly became hoarse.

Bai Ye turned his head and saw that the old clansman's hand, which was supporting him on the tree trunk, was trembling. Black viscous liquid was seeping from the white lines on his neck, flowing down his collar like rotting tree sap. "The barrier... the barrier is collapsing."

Bai Ye's nerves tensed instantly.

He noticed that the Hyuga clan head's Byakugan was no longer a pure light blue; deep within his pupils floated several strands of dark red, as if it had been corrupted by some kind of evil magic.

The old clansman suddenly clutched his throat, letting out a muffled sob. Black viscous liquid oozed from between his fingers, dripping onto the decaying leaves and immediately emitting wisps of smoke.

"SOS signal." The head of the Hyuga family struggled to raise his hand and fired a rocket into the sky.

The red tail flames left long streaks in the mist, but suddenly twisted and dissipated into a cloud of black mist when it reached the height of the treetops.

His body began to convulse uncontrollably, and the black liquid in the white lines of his eyes seeped out more and more, soon forming a pool of foul-smelling turbid water at his feet.

Bai Ye took two steps back and placed his hand on the puppet's spool.

He could sense the unusual fluctuations in chakra in the air—it wasn't a natural disorder, but more like some kind of...summoning.

In the distance, towards Iwagakure Village.

The fifth generation Iwakage, who was inspecting the mine, suddenly stopped in his tracks.

His right eye twitched uncontrollably, his gaze piercing through layers of rock and landing on the puppet miner deep inside.

The puppets, which should have been still, suddenly raised their heads, and a ghostly green light shone from their empty eye sockets.

"Lord Kage?" asked one of the accompanying Jonin.

Rock Shadow did not answer.

He raised his hand, his knuckles turning white from the force—the stinging in his right eye was becoming increasingly intense, as if something was drilling out along his optic nerve.

As his fingertips touched his eye socket, a drop of black light suddenly seeped from his pupil, fell to the ground, and scorched a black hole in the rock.

Meanwhile, in the forest of Konoha's barrier, Byakuya stared at the Hyuga clan head's body, which was gradually being soaked in black liquid, and then looked down at the diary in his hand.

The words on the last page fluttered slightly in the morning breeze, and the four characters "Ninja Soul" seemed to come alive, striking his temples with each heartbeat.

The earth trembled again, but this time the frequency was different—deeper and more muffled, like some sleeping behemoth finally opening its eyes.

Chapter 715 The Broken Chakra Threads

The Hyuga clan head's throat made a popping sound as bubbles burst in the black liquid. As the last wisp of pale blue in his Byakugan was completely swallowed by the dark red, Byakuya's puppet strings had already wrapped around his wrist.

But the black liquid seemed to have a life of its own, flowing back along the threads and burning charred marks on the fingertips—this was not ordinary corrosion, but more like some living thing devouring the chakra.

"Step back." Bai Ye shouted in a low voice, cutting the silk thread with his backhand.

The old Zong family member's body slammed into the pile of decaying leaves with a thud. Black liquid spread around him in an irregular circle, with an eerie green glow at the edges.

Bai Ye took two steps back, crushing a withered leaf stained with black liquid with the sole of his boot, the smell of burnt wood mixed with the stench of decaying earth filling his nostrils.

His pupils contracted slightly—the smell was exactly the same as the remnants of the puppet virus he had seen in Amegakure three years ago.

The frequency of the earth's tremors suddenly increased, as if countless steel needles were piercing the earth.

Byakuya's temples throbbed, and his gaze involuntarily turned northwest—towards Iwagakure Village.

The chakra fluctuations there were distorting at an alarming speed, as if someone was forcibly tearing space apart.

"Kage-sama!"

The screams from the hidden mine pierced the rock walls.

The Fifth Generation Iwakage's right eye was in so much pain it felt like it was about to burst. She abruptly ripped off her headband, revealing puppet patterns covering half of her face.

Fine black blood seeped from the silver-gray metallic patterns, dripping down his chin onto the Rock Fortress emblem on his chest, burning holes in it.

"All Jonin, follow me down into the mine." Her voice was as cold as ice, and the puppet sword was drawn with a "hum".

The spiral pattern of the First Generation Wood Release on the sword gleamed with an eerie light, resonating with the puppet core in her right eye.

The moment her toes touched the edge of the mine, a series of "clicking" sounds came from below—hundreds and thousands of puppet miners simultaneously raised their heads, their empty eye sockets filled with a ghostly green light.

The puppets in the front row suddenly raised their mining picks, the sound of the metal blades slicing through the air like the whistle of death.

Yan Ying's pupils contracted sharply. She saw the same black liquid seeping from the joints of the puppets, corroding the rock walls with grotesque marks. "A living human mine modified with the puppet virus..." Her puppet sword pointed into the void, its tip trembling slightly, "...has already devoured half the border."

A wet, wriggling sound came from underground.

Bai Ye suddenly felt a chill on the back of her neck.

As he turned around, Orochimaru emerged from the Hyuga clan head's pool of black liquid, his pale fingertips covered in sticky fluid, and the skin on his chest protruding with a strange outline—a writhing puppet heart embryo, its surface still covered with blood vessels that had not completely detached.

"Surprised?" Orochimaru's snake-like eyes narrowed into slits, and poisonous mist poured out from his sleeves, condensing in mid-air into the afterimage of a golden butterfly. "You thought Uchiha Madara was just a puppeteer?" The embryo suddenly cracked open, revealing the wood-style chakra coiled inside. "The first 'living vessel' chosen by the First Hokage was him."

Bai Ye's puppet strings snapped instantly.

He flung out the puppet silk left behind by Chiyo's granddaughter, precisely entangled the puppet sword that Iwakage was thrusting at him.

But the moment his fingertips touched the patterns on the sword, he was struck dumb—those spiral patterns perfectly matched the scar on his chest that he had been born with!

"You knew all along..." Bai Ye's voice trembled as fragments of memory suddenly flooded back: the strange markings left after his knife wounds healed from being chased by Iwagakure ninjas when he was seven; the First Hokage statue in the Valley of the End three years ago, which turned out to be no coincidence, "The First Hokage's Wood Release... can backfire on Puppet Technique!"

Chapter 716 Wood Release is More Than Just a Sealing Technique

Rock Shadow's pupils contracted violently.

A burst of blood suddenly erupted from her chest cavity—the puppet heart, which should have been hidden inside her body, had pierced through her ribs and was now suspended between the two of them.

The surface of his heart was covered with patterns from the First Hokage's Wood Release, which resonated in a triangle with Byakuya's scars and Iwakage's puppet sword, causing the chakra in the air to begin to gather wildly.

A dull hum of gears turning came from deep within the earth's veins.

The puppet threads of Baiye snapped with a "crack".

He stared at the bloody hole in Iwagakure's chest, then at the writhing embryo in Orochimaru's chest, and suddenly realized that all the clues pointed to the same truth—Madara's thousand-year contract was never with Iwagakure, but with the First Hokage's Wood Release, and... with himself.

The puppet heart of the Rock Shadow slowly rotated in mid-air, and the wood release patterns on its surface began to recombine.

An ancient and powerful chakra fluctuation emanated from the depths of the earth's veins, as if something that had been dormant for thousands of years had finally been awakened.

The surging azure chakra within the earth's ley lines suddenly solidified into a tangible form. The moment Madara's phantom fingertip touched the puppet heart of the Rock Shadow, the organ, enveloped in Wood Release patterns, began to tremble violently.

Amidst the screech of metal against flesh, the spiral emblems on the surface of the heart peeled away and reassembled layer by layer, finally unfolding in mid-air into a vertical pupil covered in scales—the Eye of the Earth's Vein.

"Now..." Ban's voice was like rusty iron scraping against the eardrums, and the illusory fingertips pierced through the Eye of the Earth's Vein, "It's time to activate the Millennium Contract with a living sacrifice."

Bai Ye's breathing suddenly stopped.

The puppet carvings on his mask suddenly flared with a scorching heat, and the mirror-like headband reflected the First Hokage's cold smile—a majestic expression usually reserved for statues in the Valley of the End, but now tinged with mockery, as if laughing at him for only now realizing the truth.

"A sacrifice?" Rock Shadow's puppet sword clattered to the ground.

Her hand, clutching the bloody hole in her chest, trembled. Black blood seeped from between her fingers and congealed into tiny puppet gears. "The First Hokage's Wood Release... was it meant to counterbalance Madara's contract from the very beginning?" Sparks flew from the puppet core of her right eye, and the silver-gray patterns twisted into grotesque serpent shapes due to the violent tremors. "Then what about the thousand years of sacrifice by my Hidden Stone Village?"

“Consider this a catalyst.” Orochimaru’s snake-like eyes suddenly contracted to pinpoints.

He plunged his blood-stained fingers into the embryo in his chest, the putrid black liquid flowing down his arm into the puppet threads connected to Byakuya. "Give me half a quarter of an hour, and I can completely fuse the Wood Release with the puppet virus!" As he tilted his head back, golden-red saliva seeped from his forked tongue. "You think the First Hokage's Wood Release was a seal?"

No, it's a petri dish—Madara needs a container that can hold the power of the earth's ley lines, while the First Hokage... needs a weapon that can devour the power of the earth's ley lines!

Bai Ye's fingertips were burning hot from the poisonous blood.

He suddenly discovered that his golden blood was flowing backward along the puppet threads, intertwining with Orochimaru's poisonous blood to form dark golden chains within the threads.

With each tremor of the chains, the eerie light of the Eye of the Earth's Vein dimmed, while the scar on his chest throbbed as if burned by fire—the knife wound from when he was seven years old being chased, the golden light of the Valley of the End three years ago—all of these now exploded in his mind as fragments of memories: the gaze of the first statue was never on Madara, but rather pierced through time and space, locking onto him, this "accident".

"So I was the one who..." Bai Ye's Adam's apple bobbed, and a bitter smile tugged at the corner of his mouth beneath the mask, "The 'living vessel' chosen by the First Generation?"

The phantom of the spotted figure suddenly emitted a piercing shriek.

His palm pierced through the Earth Vein Eye, reaching straight for Bai Ye's heart.

Just as his fingertips were about to touch the scar, a deafening roar came from the ground—the First Generation's Wood Release Crest spread out from the mine beneath Iwakage's feet like vines, its verdant branches wrapping around rubble and breaking through the soil, precisely binding the Eye of the Earth's Vein, and nailing that vertical pupil deep into the earth's veins.

Chapter 717 What kind of wind can you, a butterfly, stir up?

"The true puppeteer... has never been Madara." The First Hokage's voice, mixed with the crisp sound of tree buds sprouting, came from the depths of the earth.

The puppet heart of the Rock Shadow struggled violently within the emblem, but was entangled more and more tightly by the Wood Release vines. "He is merely the key I use to awaken the 'vessel'."

Orochimaru suddenly burst into maniacal laughter.

The embryo on his chest exploded under the pressure of the Wood Release Crest, and black light, like splashed ink, instantly engulfed half of the mine.

The puppet threads of the White Night broke apart inch by inch in the black light, but the broken ends of the threads were stained with his golden blood and condensed into tiny golden butterflies in mid-air—just like the afterimage that Orochimaru had created with poisonous mist.

"Interesting... This is so interesting!" Orochimaru's figure appeared and disappeared in the black light, his voice carrying the scraping sound of metal, "Wood Release, Puppet Virus, the First Hokage's vessel... This stew, I want to see what it can produce!"

The black light suddenly receded.

Yan Ying slumped to the ground, the puppet core in his right eye completely extinguished, and the silver-gray patterns faded to deathly white.

Orochimaru's figure had vanished, leaving only a piece of his sleeve stained with poisonous blood lying on the ground.

Byakuya gazed at the gradually dissipating phantom of the First Generation deep within the earth's veins, then looked at the still-damp golden blood in his palm—a tiny golden butterfly floated in the blood, its wing patterns overlapping the clan emblem he had seen in the water mirror of Kirigakure.

A golden light suddenly appeared on the distant horizon, much like the poisonous mist butterfly that Orochimaru had just conjured.

A familiar chill ran down Bai Ye's neck—a warning sign of intense chakra fluctuations from a thousand miles away.

He clenched his fist, and the golden butterfly in the golden blood suddenly flapped its wings and flew away towards the direction of Kirigakure.

The moment the golden butterfly pierced through the sea mist of Kirigakure, Mei Terumi was standing atop the Mizukage Rock.

The coral barrier she had just created with Wood Release suddenly rippled—those palm-sized golden butterflies pierced through the light membrane interwoven with Water Release and Wood Release, their golden powder falling onto the barrier surface and corroding honeycomb-like holes.

"Chakra Erosion!" She bit her fingertip and pressed it against the water mirror. The mirror immediately reflected the entire Hidden Mist Village: fishermen in the harbor lay in pools of blood, golden butterflies burrowing into their seven orifices; children at the Ninja Academy huddled under their desks, golden butterflies like living gold foil, meandering down the ventilation ducts.

What made her pupils shrink the most was the lower right corner of the water mirror—a golden butterfly was perched on the forehead of a certain genin. The child's chakra orb was being drained at a visible speed, while the golden butterfly's wings were expanding, with Rinnegan patterns appearing on the edges.

"They are absorbing the chakra of living people to evolve!" Mei Terumi's wood-style vines suddenly grew from her palm, entangling the nearest golden butterfly.

The butterfly exploded into golden dust the moment it touched the vine. After the dust particles entered the vine, black curse marks began to appear on the green branches.

She abruptly turned her head to look into the depths of the water mirror, and the image reflected there made her gasp – Bai Ye's mask and Ban's phantom were superimposed in the mirror, and Ban's mouth was stretched open, perfectly matching the curve under Bai Ye's mask.

At the same moment, in the ruins of a mine thousands of miles away, Bai Ye felt a sudden chill on the back of his neck.

He gazed at the direction in which the golden butterfly in his palm had flown, his Adam's apple bobbing as he prepared to form a hand seal to track it, when suddenly the quicksand at his feet surged up.

Chiyo's puppet threads emerged from the sand, coiling around his ankle like living silver snakes: "Don't move!"

Grandpa's puppet threads can temporarily isolate Madara's will—"

Before she could finish speaking, the afterimage of Chiyo in her right eye suddenly twisted.

The once kind old woman's face was now covered by a golden emblem, and the six tomoe slowly rotated in her iris—it was Madara's Rinnegan mark.

Her fingertips rose uncontrollably, the tips of the puppet silk glowing with an eerie golden light, as if about to pierce the scar on Bai Ye's heart.

“Your eyes…” Bai Ye’s pupils suddenly contracted.

He saw cold sweat beading on the girl's forehead, her left hand gripping her right wrist tightly, her knuckles turning white: "When I caught the golden butterfly in your blood just now... it burrowed into your right eye."

Chapter 718 The Battle of Wills for the Body

Grandma Chiyo's lingering image resisted, but Madara's will... was eroding!

The rock walls of the mine were still seeping with the sap of the Wood Release vines, mixed with Orochimaru's remaining poisonous blood, forming dark red puddles at their feet.

Bai Ye suddenly grabbed the girl's wrist and used his other hand to hold the back of her neck.

He could clearly feel two streams of chakra tearing within that young body: one was scorching hot with the scent of puppet oil, and the other was as cold as permafrost, every strand of which was etched with the madness of "Uchiha Madara".

"The First Generation said I was a living vessel." Bai Ye's voice was low and hoarse, his eyelashes trembling beneath the mask. "But what Madara needs is a host, not a vessel."

He's searching for a 'new shell' to carry his will—and your eyes have been marked by the Golden Butterfly.

The girl suddenly choked out a mouthful of blood.

The mark of the freckles spread across her right eye, and golden lines appeared even on her left cheek: "Then...what should I do?" Her puppet threads began to loosen, but the golden light at her fingertips intensified. "I can feel...he's pushing me...to touch your scar..."

Bai Ye's fingers suddenly tightened.

He ripped open his shirt, revealing a gruesome scar—the golden light of the Valley of the End had burned here three years ago, and now a ghostly golden light pulsed beneath the scar, as if a heart were encased in flesh and blood. "The First Hokage's Wood Release can purify the Eye of the Earth's ley lines, and perhaps it can also purify Madara's will." He gritted his teeth, his nails digging into the skin at the edge of the scar, "but a living sacrifice is needed."