Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

Footsteps sounded behind him.

The sound was very soft, like the friction of puppet strings against the ground, or like someone wearing wooden clogs walking on his shadow.

Bai Ye didn't turn around. He could feel that the figure's chakra was both familiar and unfamiliar—it had the gentleness of Hashirama's wood, the ferocity of Madara's fire, and more than that, the mechanical rhythm unique to puppets.

"You chose to sacrifice." A hoarse voice came from behind both ears at the same time, "But fate will not let you have your way."

Bai Ye stopped in his tracks.

He could see his shadow stretched long in the moonlight at the exit ahead, and at the ankles of his shadow, the outline of a pair of wooden clogs. "So that's why you've been keeping that a secret all this time?" he said to the air, "because you knew someone would choose this path, so you mocked them beforehand?"

no answer.

But he could feel the figure raising its hand, as if to press on the back of his neck—the key acupoint for the puppeteer to control the puppet.

"Let's give it a try." Bai Ye suddenly turned around, the dual-elemental patterns under his eyes lighting up simultaneously. "Let's see if your reincarnation is stronger, or if my heart, nurtured by living souls, is harder."

The wind swept ashes across his hair.

The moment he turned around, the figure vanished, leaving only a newly carved line of words on the stone wall: "Tonight at midnight, the Daming Conference."

On a mountain ridge on the border of the Land of Fire, the Fourth Raikage, A, held the Lightning Blade to his waist.

He gazed at the golden flames rising in the distance towards the capital of the Land of Fire, his Adam's apple bobbing—a color only seen when Wood Release and Fire Release were unleashed simultaneously. "Prepare," he said to the Cloud Village ninja behind him, his voice like muffled thunder rolling through the clouds, "If that kid really does expose himself..."

He didn't finish speaking.

But everyone saw that tiny sparks of lightning rose from the Raikage's palm—a sign that he was about to personally intervene.

Chapter 766 Dog Walk

On the stone wall of the underground tomb chamber, the inscription "Tonight at midnight, the Daming Conference" still gleams with freshly chiseled stone dust.

Bai Ye looked up at the gradually rounding moon outside the vent, and let out a very soft laugh—it was midnight, three hours to go.

He reached out and caught the still-scalding golden ash on his shoulder. His fingertips could feel the faint patterns of puppet gears within the ash, the burning heart of the puppet he had nurtured with his living soul. Each piece of ash carried fragments of his soul.

"The Raikage has moved."

The voice seeped in through the cracks in the stone wall; it was from his informant left on the border of the Land of Fire.

Bai Ye's fingertips trembled slightly, and the ashes crumbled into gold dust in his palm, seeping through his fingers and accumulating into tiny starlight on the ground.

He had long anticipated that Ai wouldn't stand idly by. That hot-tempered Raikage always talked about "the glory of Kumogakure," but last time in Kumogakure, when Bai Ye blocked the water dragon bullet from the Mist Village for him, the wavering in his eyes was more real than the lightning—what he wanted was never control, but to prove that he could protect those who were worth protecting.

On a mountain ridge on the border of the Land of Fire, the Fourth Raikage A's combat boots crushed the last piece of the bloodstained Konoha headband.

Behind him, Cloud Village ninjas were burning three corpses with Lightning Release. They were Iwagakure ANBU, disguised as caravan drivers, with unused Earth Release scrolls tucked into their belts. "Foolish." A spat, the Lightning Blade dancing like a living thing in his palm. "Dare to intercept and kill Byakuya's spies right under my nose? Do you think Cloud Village's Lightning Blade is just for show?"

A mountain breeze carried the smell of burning, and a Cloud Village Jonin jogged over, holding a blood-stained note in his hand: "Kage, this was taken from the third corpse, a secret order from Iwagakure." A held the note close to the moonlight; the handwriting was soaked in blood, but the words "Control the target before midnight" were still legible.

His brows furrowed suddenly, and the lightning from Lei Qie shattered the paper strip, the fragments swirling as they fell into the valley: "Speed ​​up, get to the capital before midnight."

At the same moment, on the Tea Horse Road in the western border of the Land of Fire, twenty caravans covered with gray cloth were slowly passing through the checkpoint.

The elderly merchant at the head of the group lifted the curtain and handed gold coins to the soldiers of the Land of Fire guarding the city. However, his wrinkled eyes glanced at the last vehicle in the convoy—under the gray cloth there, half of a black iron device was visible. It was the Dust Release compression cannon, the latest development of Iwagakure, specially designed to cut puppet threads.

"Have you heard?" The city guard lowered his voice as he took the gold coins. "That white brat said this morning that he has completely absorbed the puppet's heart embryo." The old merchant tapped lightly on the carriage shaft, and a faint sound of a mechanism turning came from under the gray cloth—it was the elite Iwagakure soldiers adjusting the angle of the Dust Release Cannon.

He smiled even more kindly: "Young people just love to talk big. How can you absorb a heart embryo so easily?" But as soon as the caravan rounded the bend in the mountain, his face instantly turned cold, and he made a gesture to the rear of the caravan.

The three last trucks suddenly accelerated, the gray cloth shattered by chakra, and the black iron cannons were pointed at the woods ahead—where several sneaky Kirigakure ninjas were preparing to lay a water prison trap.

"The old folks from Iwagakure can't keep their tempers up."

Bai Ye stood in the ventilation duct of the tomb chamber, listening to the message relayed by his informant, when the puppet silk wrapped around his fingertips suddenly tightened.

He followed the silk thread and saw a figure wearing a black straw hat crouching in the rubble at the end of the tunnel, his fingers tracing the puppet silk on the ground—it was Inuzoku, a member of the Fire Country's Dark Guard, a "hunting dog" skilled in tracking.

Inuzo's nose twitched. He could discern three types of chakra mixed in this puppet thread: the chilling coldness of Byakuya, the gentle yet powerful strength of Hyuga Hiashi's fist, and a faint, almost imperceptible... life force of the First Hokage's Wood Release. "Finally found you." He drew his short sword from his waist, the tip pressed against the thread's tail. "Lord Hamura said, alive or dead..."

Chapter 767 A Road of No Return, Dare to Follow?

Before the words were finished, the puppet silk suddenly glowed with golden light.

Inuzo felt a burning sensation at his fingertips, and the short blade clattered to the ground. When he looked up again, there was a bronze mirror on the stone wall in front of him—his face was reflected in the mirror, but his mouth was moving, saying something else: "My lord, the target is in the deepest part of the tomb, where the defenses are weak."

"Good dog."

A soft laugh came from the mirror.

The dog wanted to shout, but its throat felt as if it were being strangled by an invisible thread; it wanted to move, but its limbs had already moved uncontrollably deeper into the tomb.

He could see his own shadow crawling on the ground, like a puppet whose bones had been removed, while the strings binding him were emerging from his fingernails and ear canals, gleaming with a golden-red light—these were puppet threads nurtured with living souls, capable of controlling even the soul itself.

A quarter to go before midnight, the moonlight suddenly dimmed for a moment on the ruins of the Fire Kingdom's capital.

Byakuya stood on the highest broken wall, watching the chakra fluctuations surging from three directions: to the east was the Raikage's lightning, as dazzling as day; to the west was the Iwagakure's earth release, as muffled as thunder; to the south... He narrowed his eyes, and ripples appeared in the accumulated water of the ruins. It wasn't wind, but the unique chakra of water release stirring.

“Hozuki Gengetsu…” he murmured the name, the Wood Release patterns in his eyes and the afterimage of his Sharingan lighting up simultaneously. “You came earlier than I expected.”

The wind swirled ash through his hair, and in the distance came the Raikage's roar, the Iwagakure caravan's dust-release cannons booming, and the footsteps of the Inuzoku puppet machines.

Bai Ye touched his chest, where the heartbeat had calmed down, like a piece of refined iron that had been tempered.

He tore off a piece of his clothing, dipped it in the golden blood of the puppet's silk, and wrote a line of words on the broken wall—

"There is no turning back above the bloodline, but do you dare to follow?"

The water in the ruins suddenly boiled, and half a pale face floated to the surface, the curve of its lips colder than a blade of water.

When half of Hozuki Gengetsu's face rose from the boiling water, the curve of his lips was still wet with water, like a poisoned blade.

His voice, imbued with the chilling quality unique to water-style techniques, echoed across the ruins: "Lord Byakuya is indeed punctual." Before he finished speaking, the accumulated water suddenly exploded into thousands of water needles, each tip glowing with a ghostly blue light—that was the puppet virus secretly passed down in Kirigakure, capable of invading chakra pathways through wounds and turning living people into controllable zombies.

Bai Ye's pupils suddenly contracted into vertical slits.

He had long heard of Hozuki Gengetsu's methods: ten years ago in the Hidden Mist Village, this old man used the same virus to make three hundred ninjas kill each other.

But as he looked at those water needles, a low laugh escaped his throat—the trajectory of the virus spreading in the air perfectly overlapped with the trajectory of the puppet spores he had buried in the seven ancient wells in the capital three days ago.

"Lord Huan Yue," the puppet threads at Bai Ye's fingertips suddenly taut like bowstrings, golden-red light shooting into the ground along the threads, "Do you think the water in this capital is still the same water as it was three days ago?"

Hozuki Gengetsu's eye twitched slightly.

He saw that the moment the water needle touched the ground, fine golden particles rose from the soil, like dandelions scattered by the wind.

That was... the life energy of the First Hokage's Wood Release technique?

No, it's more like spores nurtured by the puppet's core!

The virus and spores collided in mid-air, and the tangled blue and golden-red light mist exploded, making a sizzling sound like silk being torn apart.

"Damn it!" Thunder Shadow roared from the eastern mountain ridge.

Ai's Raiche had already reached the edge of the ruins, but was blocked by a sudden burst of light and mist.

His lightning chakra collided with the aftershocks of the virus, causing a string of charred blisters to explode in his palm. "What's the origin of that ghostly mist?"

The ninja tools from Kumogakure have all melted!

"Dust Release: Particle Style!" Onoki's furious shout came from the west.

Chapter 768 Soul Explosion

Iwagakure's Dust Release Cannon finally adjusted its angle, and three bluish-gray beams tore through the light mist, but suddenly deflected when they touched the center—Bai Ye had somehow wrapped himself in puppet threads on the broken wall, and the beams grazed his clothes, shredding half of the broken wall into dust.

"That's enough." Bai Ye's voice was carried by the shockwave of the explosion, so clear it seemed to be right next to everyone's ears.

He raised his hand to his chest, where the puppet's core was burning hot. "My turn."

A muffled rumble came from underground.

Hozuki Gengetsu was the first to notice something was wrong—a faint grinding sound suddenly seeped from the viral light mist that had been neutralized by the spores.

Just as he was about to form a hand seal, the ground exploded.

It is a fragment of a puppet's heart.

Bai Ye buried seventeen puppet heart embryos in the capital of the Fire Kingdom, nurturing each one with living souls for three years.

At that moment, they detonated simultaneously, and golden-red flames, enveloping the gear wreckage, shot straight into the sky, even staining the moonlight blood red.

The Raikage's Lightning Release armor was pierced by three fragments, and he staggered backward, his hair charred black; Onoki's Earth Shield was melted with honeycomb-like holes, and the Iwagakure ninjas covered their heads and lay on the ground, their ears filled with the shrill sound of gears grinding against their nerves; Hozuki Gengetsu's Water Shield was burned with a charred hole, and half of the skin on his face began to peel off, revealing the bluish-gray blood vessels underneath.

"Retreat!" Onoki roared at the top of his lungs, "This is a soul explosion! Chakra that gets into the fragments will be devoured!"

The Raikage's Lightning Flying Squad had already dragged him eastward, while the Iwagakure caravan had long since pushed the Dust Release Cannon onto the mountain path. Hozuki Gengetsu's Mizukage clone "poof"ed into mist, leaving only a muffled curse.

Bai Ye stood on the broken wall at the center of the explosion, letting the heat wave lift the corners of her clothes.

He gazed in the direction the various forces had retreated, and the Sharingan afterimages in his eyes slowly closed—the plan was going more smoothly than expected, and the aftershocks of the Soul Explosion were enough to keep them from approaching the capital for three days.

The place he was going to was an abandoned hot spring resort three kilometers northeast of the ruins, where the ancient sealing technique of the Hyuga clan was buried.

The smell of sulfur in the hot spring resort was particularly pungent late at night.

When Bai Ye kicked open the rotten wooden door, the hinges let out a dying scream.

Moonlight streamed through the broken window, revealing a Bagua formation drawn in blood—carved by the puppet he had sent with his dog three days earlier. At the center of the formation stood Hyuga Hiashi's headband, still stained with undried blood.

"Let's begin." He bit his fingertip, and a drop of blood dripped onto the center of the array.

Suddenly, the Bagua formation emitted a white light, and fine cracks appeared on the ground, as if something was surging up from the ground.

Byakuya could feel the First Hokage's Wood Release will surging within him, as if it were about to break through his skin; Madara's Sharingan remnant sneered, saying that he was ultimately just doing the work for someone else.

"Shut up." He hissed, pressing Hyuga Hiashi's headband into the center of the formation.

The bloodstains on the forehead protector suddenly came to life, spreading along the array patterns and covering the entire Bagua array.

Byakuya's pupils turned into the distinctive emerald green of Wood Release. He could see the First Hokage's will transformed into a golden ball of light, being drawn by array patterns and slowly entering his headband—that was the Hyuga clan's bloodline sealing technique, which could store an external will within a person of the same bloodline, sharing the host's burden.

The excruciating pain spread from my heart to my limbs.

Bai Ye's back was covered in cold sweat, and his fingernails dug deep marks into the stone ground.

He could hear the First Hokage's sighs, Madara's mockery, and his own heartbeat, each beat heavier than the last.

As the last wisp of golden light disappeared into his headband, he collapsed to the ground, tasting the metallic flavor in his throat—this seal had cost him a third of his chakra.

"Is it worth it?" he whispered to the empty hot spring resort.

The moonlight from the window shone on the headband, and the Hyuga clan's eight trigrams pattern gleamed coldly, as if in response.

Suddenly, a deafening roar, shaking the earth, came from afar.

Bai Ye suddenly looked up. He could sense that the chakra fluctuations at the border of the Land of Fire were abnormal—it was the chakra of a tailed beast, violent, scorching, and with the dryness unique to the desert.

Is it Shukaku?

No, more manic than Shukaku, even more...

“The Fourth Kazekage, Rasa.” He murmured the name, a sharp glint in his eyes.

In the moonlight, his shadow was stretched long, like a sword about to be drawn from its sheath.

Chapter 769 Life-Saving Weapons

The moonlight carved cold, hard lines into the broken walls of the hot spring resort.

Bai Ye knelt in the center of the Bagua formation, the metallic taste in his throat still lingering. But the moment he sensed that scorching chakra, cold sweat once again soaked his clothes—it was the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, carrying Shukaku's chakra, tearing through the defensive barrier of the Land of Fire's border with overwhelming force.

He pushed himself up, his knuckles leaving bluish-white marks on the bluestone slab.

Three days ago, when he infiltrated the Land of Wind, the puppet threads he planted in the water source of Stone Valley should now be climbing up the tailed beast's chakra circuit along Shukaku's drinking path. "Impatient." He chuckled, wiping the bloodstains from his lips with his fingertip. "Rasa thought it would be safest to strike when I was depleting my chakra, but he forgot that every sip of water Shukaku drank was swallowing my net."

On the battlefield a thousand miles away, Rasa's reddish-brown trench coat fluttered wildly in the scorching waves of Shukaku.

He stood on Shukaku's head, his palm pressed against the seal mark on the tailed beast's forehead, when suddenly a ringing sound filled his ears. "Foolish human." Shukaku's voice exploded in his mind, clearer and more piercing than ever before, "Your chakra is trembling, like crushed sand." Rasa's pupils contracted sharply, and the ball of chakra at his fingertips suddenly twisted into a tangled mess—when he shattered the third barrier, he clearly felt some kind of sticky thread mixed into Shukaku's chakra, drilling into his body along the tailed beast's chakra channels.

"Lord Kage!" The communication insect of the Anbu of the Land of Wind exploded in his ear, "Shukaku's chakra fluctuations are abnormal, and a puppet virus reaction has been detected in the fragments of the barrier!" Rasa's temples throbbed, and the veins at the corners of his eyes bulged.

He then realized with a start that ever since he stepped into the border of the Land of Fire, a familiar metallic taste had been lingering in his throat—the taste of the Stone Valley spring water, which he had drunk just yesterday morning.

Inside the hot spring resort, Bai Ye's fingertips traced shimmering silver puppet threads in the air.

He closed his eyes, the threads passing through the Bagua formation on the ground, extending in all directions along the earth veins he had previously buried. "It's time to close the net," he murmured, the emerald green of Wood Release flowing deep within his pupils. "The quarrel between Granny Chiyo and Ebizo should also come to an end."

The candlelight in the highest council chamber of Sunagakure flickered in the wind.