Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

Xu Shizang's sonic puppet horde was frantically reorganizing. Amidst the crisp sound of metal joints colliding, their limbs twisted and intertwined, eventually coalescing into a giant puppet ten feet tall.

Its chest cavity contained a half-red, half-gold embryo, and its face bore the overlapping outlines of Madara and the First Hokage. "The price of Otogakure... is to become the final vessel!"

Chapter 757 Sand Hidden in the Flowing Sands as a Guide!

The earth's veins suddenly emitted a dying groan.

The golden patterns on the surface of the embryo began to frantically absorb the energy of the earth's veins. The blue-gold Wood Release light stream and the scarlet chakra intertwined in the air, and the phantom of the fusion statue of the First Hokage and Madara slowly emerged on the ground—it was exactly the same as the one in the forbidden area of ​​Konoha, except that there was a bit more madness in its eyes.

Bai Ye's breathing suddenly became rapid.

He could feel the tremors surging in his veins in sync with the embryo's. The golden lines spread from his Adam's apple to the corners of his eyes, and under the reflection of his two pupils, they seemed to be assimilating his entire being.

Chiyo's slime burned in her blood vessels, acting like a firewall, temporarily halting the frenzy of fusion.

"It's getting out of control..." He looked down at the embryo and saw that fine cracks were appearing on its translucent shell.

The earth's energy was too immense, even the symbiotic core couldn't withstand it.

Lapis lazuli and scarlet light streamed wildly through the cracks, much like a fuse about to explode.

The sand suddenly became scorching hot.

A burning sensation came from the soles of Bai Ye's feet. He subconsciously took a half step back, but bumped into the embrace of the first phantom.

Wood Release: Roots wrapped around his waist, trying to pull him toward the embryonic stage; Madara's sound waves wrapped around his ankles, trying to pull him in the opposite direction.

As the two forces tore at him, he heard the cracking sound of his own bones.

"Choose..." The first generation's voice began to fade.

"Kill..." Madara's laughter gradually became distorted.

Chiyo's lingering image suddenly vanished.

The last fragment of the Magnet Release crystal she left on Bai Ye's wrist emitted a ghostly blue light in the slime, much like a countdown signal.

The cracks in the embryo are getting bigger and bigger.

As Bai Ye gazed at the gradually clearing phantom of the fused statue, he suddenly remembered what Chiyo had said—"The puppeteers have never disappeared; they have only changed their vessels."

At this moment, he finally understood that the so-called container was never a person, but rather this mass of energy fed by desire and obsession.

And he is becoming the final fuel for this energy.

The rumble of the earth's veins reached its peak.

The golden markings on the surface of the embryo suddenly lit up, so bright that it was blinding.

Byakuya felt something explode inside his body; the power of Wood Release and sound waves had finally broken through his defenses.

In his pupils, the lapis lazuli and dark blue patterns began to devour each other, and his sea of ​​consciousness churned into chaos.

Before he completely lost consciousness, he heard a soft sound of glass shattering from the embryonic core.

That was the prelude to an explosion.

As the roar of the earth's veins shattered into fragments beside his ears, Bai Ye's consciousness sank into the chaotic depths of the sea.

He could hear the cracking sound of his bones breaking, taste the rusty blood in his throat, and feel two forces like red-hot iron pincers drilling into his brain from his temples—but none of that mattered anymore.

Before Chiyo's afterimage dissipated, that faint blue light suddenly exploded in his memory. The forbidden puppet technique inscription on the magnetic crystal fragment in her palm was now crawling into his sea of ​​consciousness along his veins: "The puppet virus's human sacrifice requires a will anchor point... use your heart as a container."

"Use the Sands of the Hidden Sands as a guide!" He bit his tongue, and the sweet, metallic blood gushed into his chest cavity through his throat.

With his left hand, he gripped the puppet silk tightly to his heart. The golden patterns suddenly came to life in the shockwave of the explosion, piercing through his skin like serpents and weaving a fine net on the surface of his heart.

Her right hand grasped the dissipating afterimage of Chiyo. Her consciousness was like grains of sand scattered by the wind. As soon as her fingertips touched his wrist, a stream of cool information flowed into his meridians—fragments of memories from generations of puppeteers in Sunagakure, the essence of puppetry Chiyo had refined over her lifetime.

"Use the puppet silk to isolate the resonance!" Bai Ye roared, pressing the afterimage against his heart.

The shockwave from the embryo's explosion was surging in from all directions. The cyan-gold Wood Release light stream and scarlet chakra were tangled together in the air, each strand trying to penetrate his seven orifices.

But suddenly, the puppet threads on his wrist glowed with an amber light, like a living barrier, keeping the frenzied energy out of his body.

Chapter 758 The Will of Sunagakure

The moment the afterimage's consciousness touched his heart, he heard a soft cracking sound from his ribs—not pain, but a deeper tremor, as if something dormant had been awakened.

"No!" The phantom of Ban suddenly let out a shriek.

His translucent body was being eroded by the golden emblem, and tiny golden specks seeped from his originally scarlet chakra, as if he had been sprinkled with molten gold.

His right hand was still gripping Bai Ye's ankle, but it was breaking apart inch by inch. "You ant... how dare you use puppetry..." Before he could finish speaking, his facial features suddenly twisted into countless tiny specks of light, which were swept into the sky by the shockwave of the explosion.

The phantom of the first generation solidified at this moment.

His originally translucent body was suddenly coated with a layer of emerald light, his robes fluttered in the wind of the earth veins, and the wood-release vines wrapped around his hair were oozing a green liquid like grass juice.

His left hand pressed against the embryonic core, while his right hand's Wood Release Roots coiled around Bai Ye's waist like a giant python: "The ultimate form of the Puppet Virus... requires the symbiotic will of two people!" The moment the roots touched Bai Ye's skin, Bai Ye saw the leaves on those vines suddenly wither—the golden emblem had somehow climbed onto his chest and was spreading in the opposite direction from the First Hokage's roots. Wherever it passed, the Wood Release chakra sizzled and emitted blue smoke, like corroded metal.

"This is impossible..." The first crack appeared in the voice of the original.

He tried to pull the roots back, only to find that the golden patterns had already wrapped around his wrist. "The puppetry technique within you..."

“It’s the will of Sunagakure.” Byakuya gritted his teeth and tore off the Wood Release: Root system wrapped around his waist.

He could feel his heart pounding violently, each beat carrying the warmth of the afterimage consciousness—it wasn't chakra, but something far more ancient, the soul of a puppeteer nourished for a thousand years with flesh and obsession.

The golden emblem climbed up his face along his veins, moving between the Wood Release pattern in his left eye and the Sound Release pattern in his right eye, temporarily suppressing the two originally opposing forces.

The explosion of the embryonic core finally reached its climax.

In the blinding white light, Byakuya saw the First Hokage's phantom retreating frantically, his Wood Release: Root system carbonizing at a visible speed; Madara's afterglow, like shattered glass, scattered in the cracks of the earth's veins.

Meanwhile, his own heart was burning like a small sun—the consciousness of the afterimage had completely merged in, and the memories of those Sand Village puppeteers surged in his mind: Chiyo's nagging when teaching Konan to tie puppet strings, Ebizo's secret joy when he secretly improved the Magnet Release puppet, and even earlier, the piety of the first puppeteer when he sculpted the first puppet out of clay in the desert.

As the last wave of sound energy dissipated, the mask on Bai Ye's face suddenly glowed faintly.

He looked up and saw the image of Konoha's border floating on the surface of the mask—the golden flowers that had been burned by the war were blooming again, starting from the border of the Land of Fire, one by one, forming a whole, like a layer of broken gold spread across the earth.

The wind swirled sand across his eyelashes, and he heard a very faint sigh. When he turned his head, Chiyo's afterimage was just a faint ray of light, almost invisible.

"The puppeteer's will..." Her voice was like sand in the wind, "forever searching for a new vessel."

The moment the light disappeared, Bai Ye's heart suddenly ached.

He clutched his chest, and beads of blood seeping from between his fingers fell onto the golden emblem, only to be completely absorbed by it.

The hum of the earth's veins had changed its tune; it was no longer a dying wailing, but rather like the low growl of some sleeping behemoth before it awoke.

He could feel something surging towards him along the earth's veins—not Wood Release, not Sharingan, not even the Puppet Virus, but a much larger, more ancient power, like the earth breathing.

“The earth’s energy is calling…” he murmured, his fingertips gently tracing the golden emblem on his chest.

The emblem rippled under his touch, as if in response to his words.

The sandy land in the distance was still trembling, but this time the tremor contained a hint of life, like spring grass breaking through the ice.

The wind whipped sand past his mask, scattering his whispers into the air: "This is not the end."

Chapter 759 Puppet Technique

The sand was still trembling, but no longer in a destructive collapse; rather, it was like the earth stretching its limbs after a thousand years of slumber.

Bai Ye's fingertips touched the golden emblem on his chest, and he could clearly feel the temperature of the skin beneath it—three degrees higher than his body temperature, like a piece of molten rock that had been baked by the sun.

"The puppeteer's will... needs a new host."

A hoarse male voice suddenly exploded inside his skull, startling him so much that he staggered half a step.

The voice was both familiar and unfamiliar. The first half of the sentence was the First Hokage's calm and steady voice, like ancient wood, while the second half was mixed with Madara's coldness, as if two wills were forcibly kneaded into the same mouth.

His pupils contracted sharply, and he raised his hand to press his temple, only to see that the wood release patterns on the back of his left hand were turning bluish-black, as if they were being suppressed by some kind of force and almost extinguished.

"Is it you?" he hissed, tasting blood as his Adam's apple bobbed. "Weren't you dispersed by the earth's ley line energy before?"

He was met with another, even gentler tremor.

The consciousness of Chiyo's granddaughter's afterimage had somehow materialized again, but this time her figure was no longer transparent. Instead, it seemed as if she was sewn into the air by some kind of golden thread—those threads were extending from the emblem on Byakuya's chest.

She raised her hand, her fingertips brushing across the sand. The sand, which had been plowed into craters by the explosion, suddenly surged, and fine sand swirled and rose like living things, condensing into a semi-transparent puppeteer totem between the two of them: crisscrossing puppet strings wrapped around three puppets, the top one bearing a seven-tenths resemblance to the First Hokage in appearance.

"Grandpa's last words..." The afterimage's voice was clearer than before, but it carried a metallic scraping sound. "He said that puppetry has never disappeared, it's just waiting..." Her right eye suddenly glowed with blood, and a scene was reflected in her pupil: a battlefield a thousand years ago, Madara's Sharingan was as red as blood, he was holding the First Hokage by the throat, and the chakra blade in his palm was cutting open the other's chest, revealing a beating heart—the surface of that heart was wrapped with dense puppet threads, and each thread had a small puppet part tied to its end.

Bai Ye's breathing suddenly faltered.

He recalled the memories of Sunagakure that had flooded his mind earlier, in which the first puppeteer, while sculpting clay puppets in the desert, muttered, "Give the puppet a living heart"; he also recalled Chiyo teaching Konan how to tie strings, saying, "True puppetry is to let inanimate objects carry the soul of a living person."

It turns out that the so-called "living heart" wasn't a chakra core at all, but rather...

"It's the heart of the First Hokage!" he blurted out, his voice trembling with a start that even he himself was aware of.

"Your bloodline... is the ultimate vessel."

When the third sound rang out, Bai Ye felt the sand beneath his feet suddenly sink.

He looked down and saw that among the remains of the Juzo puppet, which had been carbonized by the explosion of the embryonic core, the puppet's heart, which had originally been broken, was being reassembled—black carbon dust was falling off, revealing the flowing golden patterns underneath, which were exactly the same as the emblem on his chest.

On the surface of his heart, markings resembling oracle bone script appeared. With each marking lit up, tiny fragments of memory pierced his mind: an infant in swaddling clothes being stuffed into a dark guild's bag and sent to the daimyo's mansion in the Land of Fire; a twelve-year-old boy digging out a bone fragment with puppet strings in a secret chamber, the same golden patterns appearing when blood dripped onto the fragment...

“This is…my memory?” He staggered backward, his back slamming heavily against a protruding rock.

The moss on the rock surface suddenly fell away in a rustling sound, revealing the puppet lines carved underneath—exactly the same as those on his chest and on the reconstructed puppet's heart.

The humming of the earth's veins suddenly intensified, like countless strings snapping simultaneously.

Chapter 760 The Forbidden Area of ​​Konoha Village

Bai Ye covered his ears and stepped back, only to see the sand dunes in the distance suddenly crack open like a spider web, and some enormous shadow was rising from the ground.

That's... a forbidden area of ​​Konoha Village?

His pupils dilated in shock—in the scene of Konoha's border that had just appeared on the mask, in the center of the burned golden flowers was the group of statues of Konoha's Hokage from past generations.

At this moment, the First Hokage statue at the very top is cracking with spiderweb-like fissures, and where the moss has peeled away, the metal outline inside the statue is revealed: it is not a stone statue at all, but a giant puppet covered with a rock shell!

The dark patterns on the puppet's surface suddenly came to life, resembling countless black snakes wriggling.

The moment Bai Ye saw those dark patterns clearly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end—those were Madara's Sharingan patterns, densely covering the puppet's limbs and torso, converging at the heart to form a closed three-tomoe.

"So the statue of the first generation..." His voice caught in his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing, "was it a puppet made by Madara?"

The emblem on his chest suddenly burned, so hot that he bit his lower lip until it bled.

He could feel three forces tearing at his body: the First Hokage's Wood Release was trying to take root in his blood vessels, Madara's sound waves were shattering his internal organs, and the Puppet Master's will was drilling into his heart along the ley lines, as if trying to turn his whole being into a new vessel.

“It must…” he pressed his hand to his chest, his knuckles turning white from the pressure, “It must come to an end.”

The wind whipped sand into the gaps of his mask, making his eyes sting.

He gazed at the first puppet gradually revealing its true form in the distance, then looked down at the increasingly bright emblem on his chest. He suddenly remembered what the puppeteer had said before the afterimage disappeared: "The puppeteer's will is always searching for a new vessel"—perhaps from the moment he was born with this emblem, from the moment he first strangled the Fire Country's secret guard with puppet strings, fate had already tied an inescapable thread to him.

The tremors in the sand grew more and more violent, and he could hear a sound like gears turning coming from underground.

The first puppet statue in Konoha's forbidden area completely cracked open. The moment the rock shell shattered, the three-tomoe Sharingan in the puppet's heart slowly opened, and dark red light pierced through dozens of miles of sand, heading straight for its face.

Bai Ye took a deep breath and slowly placed his left hand on the edge of the mask.

"Since there's no way to avoid it..." His voice was torn apart by the wind, but his right hand quietly reached for the short knife at his waist, the blade sliding along his clothes and into his chest. "Then I'll tear it open myself and see for myself."

The sand grains hit the blade, making a soft, rustling sound.

He could feel the sharp pain of the blade against his skin through the fabric, but it was nothing compared to the burning sensation from the emblem on his chest—a burning sensation mixed with anticipation, with a thousand years of obsession, and with the last words that countless puppeteers had etched into their blood before their deaths.

“This is not the end.” He chuckled softly, cold sweat beading on his palms as he gripped the hilt of his dagger. “It is… a new beginning.”

The soft sound of a dagger slicing through fabric, mixed with the hiss of sand scraping against metal, exploded into a thunderclap in Bai Ye's ears.

He could clearly feel the warm blood droplets sliding down the blade the moment the tip pierced his skin, gathering into a thin line of blood at his collarbone—more painful than the burning of the emblem on his chest, yet lighter than the shackles that had bound his blood for a thousand years.

"Does it hurt?" The afterimage's consciousness suddenly floated to his side, the golden threads at its fingertips wrapping around the hilt of the short sword, stabilizing his trembling wrist.

Her voice was no longer harsh, but rather like an old xylophone whose edges had been smoothed by sandpaper. "Grandpa said that the puppeteer's bones and blood are engraved with the patterns of sacrifice."

You didn't tear off skin and flesh, you tore off...

"It was fate that sewed it shut." Bai Ye gritted his teeth and continued, pressing the blade down another half inch.