Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

"You..." His voice trembled, and the long staff fell to the ground, "How could you..."

“Because I am the last vessel.” Bai Ye’s puppet threads shot out like venomous snakes, wrapping around the black-robed man’s ankle. “And your contract ends here.”

The lingering echo of the First Generation's will pierced the incantation like a sharp blade.

The black-robed man was enveloped in a golden-red light. He stared at his increasingly transparent palm and suddenly burst into maniacal laughter: "This is just the beginning... If you kill me, there will be another vessel, and the one after that! As long as the rift in the ninja world remains, the contract will always have a host!" Before he finished speaking, his figure turned into black mist and was swept away by the wind to the end of the icy plain, leaving only the long staff on the ground, with the six tomoe still slowly rotating.

The ice field returned to silence.

Chiyo's puppet arm snapped down, and she held onto Byakuya's shoulder, looking up at the sky torn apart by the black mist—the dark clouds were dissipating, revealing a sliver of pale sunlight.

"Is it over?" she asked softly, her voice tinged with uncertainty.

Bai Ye bent down and picked up the long stick.

The jade pendant felt cool to the touch, yet a subtle vibration emanated from my palm, like a heartbeat.

“No.” He stared in the direction where the black mist had disappeared, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “He’s right. As long as the cracks remain…” He paused, then turned and walked toward the high ground of the ice field, his long staff leaving deep marks on the snow. “But at least, I know where to start patching them.”

On the snow, the shadows of the six magatama were still turning.

Byakuya stood on high ground, looking down at the land that was gradually returning to peace—in the distance, wisps of smoke rose from the direction of Sunagakure; further north, thunderclouds were gathering in the Land of Lightning.

He gripped his long staff tightly, the wind whipping his robes and carrying his whispered words to the sky: "Next vessel, I will find you."

Chapter 807 Thank you for always believing in me

The wind on the icy plains swept past her ears, carrying fine snowflakes, and Chiyo's puppet arm joints emitted a faint metallic scraping sound.

When she stood up, supporting Bai Ye's shoulder, the chakra conduction plate in her palm still retained the warmth from the battle—the chill that burst forth when the ice puppet disintegrated, mixed with the aftershocks of the incantation before the black-robed man vanished.

"What do you plan to do next?" She looked up at the young man standing high on the snowy hill.

The wind lifted the stray hairs on his forehead, revealing the golden light under his eyes that was exactly the same as that of the First Hokage, much like the sun emblem enshrined on the altar of Sunagakure.

Bai Ye's fingers unconsciously caressed the magatama on the long staff.

The six jade cores were still trembling slightly, each pulsation like a tap on his pulse.

He gazed at the smoke rising from the direction of Sunagakure in the distance, recalling the black-robed man's maniacal laughter before he disappeared—"As long as the rift remains, the contract will always have a host."

What is a crack?

Is it the greed of the powerful figures of various countries?

Is it the divide between ninja villages and ordinary people?

Or... He looked down at his palm, where faint red marks from the burning of his bloodline remained. The "Will of the First Generation" brought not only power, but also fragments of memory that transcended time.

“I will find their true source.” He gripped the long staff tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force. “I will sever all of this completely.” As the words fell, a metallic taste rose in his throat—the price of forcibly activating his bloodline was beginning to show, but he suppressed the surging chakra, his gaze still sharp as a knife.

Chiyo's pupils contracted slightly.

She had seen too many ninjas become complacent after a victory, but few could immediately lock onto a deeper target after defeating a powerful enemy.

The sharp glint in the eyes of this young man, who was often called a "spoiled brat," reminded her of her younger self—when she followed her grandmother to repair puppets on the battlefield, watching her comrades' blood soak the sand, she had the same look in her eyes.

She took out a scroll wrapped in faded red silk from her bosom, her fingertips tracing the scorch marks on the edge: "This was left by my grandfather." As the red silk was lifted, a few wisps of paper fluttered down. "He investigated similar puppetry experiments back then, and marked seven suspicious bases on it." The moment the scroll was unfurled, Bai Ye caught a glimpse of the dense markings on it—a map drawn with mineral pigments unique to Sunagakure, with distorted puppet skeletons drawn in key positions, and annotations in the handwriting identical to Chiyo's notes, clearly indicating that she had repeatedly repaired it.

"Why are you helping me?" When Bai Ye took the scroll, his fingertips touched the stitches at the corner of the scroll—it had been repaired in recent years, using camel wool thread unique to Sunagakure.

Chiyo's lips curled into a faint smile, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes like the surface of a lake rippled by the wind: "My grandson died three years ago in the Iwagakure ambush." ​​She spoke suddenly, her voice as soft as snowflakes falling on cloth, "The last thing he held in his hand was a paper puppet I made." The wind ruffled her silver hair, revealing an old scar behind her ear, "That day I was mixing chakra glue in the rear, and by the time I heard the news, his body was already cold." Her puppet arm gently tapped her heart, "From then on, I no longer believed in 'the big picture'."

But you're different—"She looked up and met Bai Ye's eyes, "You're mending the cracks, not widening them."

A crisp sound of ice cracking came from afar.

Bai Ye looked down at the markings on the scroll. One of them was circled three times with cinnabar, and the location was the Mist Hidden Mine, which was located at the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind.

His thumb traced the red circle, and he suddenly remembered what the First Generation had said in the ice coffin: "They are digging into the earth's veins." It wasn't a coincidence after all.

"Thank you for always believing in me," he said, his voice softer than the wind on the icy plains, yet it made Chiyo's puppet arm tremble slightly—this was the first time she had heard the word "believe" from someone outside of her mission.

Thunderclouds in the north suddenly exploded.

Chapter 808 Chakra Drug

Looking up, Bai Ye saw leaden clouds pressing southward at a visible speed, like the thunderstorm vane unique to Kumogakure.

At the same moment, in the council hall at the highest point of Kumogakure, the Fourth Raikage, A, crushed the teacup in his hand.

A shard of ceramic pierced his palm, and blood dripped from between his fingers onto the intelligence report, staining the words "abnormal fluctuations in the ice field" and "the black-robed man has vanished" a dark red.

“Darui.” His voice was like muffled thunder rolling over a rocky mountain.

The ninja in the green robe standing in the shadows stepped forward half a step: "Lord Raikage."

"What were the last coordinates sent back by the scouts from the north?" A pulled off the scarf at his collar and casually wiped the blood from his hands. "Have the outposts on the Land of Fire's border been reinforced?"

Darui unfolded a parchment map and used his chakra pen to mark the border between Fire and Wind: "Byakuya's movements overlap with those of the puppeteer who disappeared from Iwagakure three years ago. The leyline monitoring station further north reports abnormal chakra fluctuations in the last three months." He paused, "And... Chiyo, the advisor from Sunagakure, has left the village."

Ai's eyebrows furrowed into two small mountains.

He recalled the secret letter from Tsuchikage Onoki three days ago: "The Daimyo of the Land of Fire is preparing for a 'Peace Summit,' but his finance minister has been frequently contacting merchants from various countries recently." The so-called Peace Summit was nothing more than the Daimyo trying to consolidate his power by leveraging the influence of the ninja villages, while the finance minister... Ai sneered. Those people dared to embezzle even the merchants' money, let alone something like ley lines that could be exchanged for real gold and silver.

"Summon the Second and Seventh Squads." He suddenly slammed his hand on the table, causing the chakra pen on the map to jump three times. "Have Killer Bee stand by with the Tailed Beast Bombs."

"If the cracks in the Land of Fire open..." His gaze swept across the churning thunderclouds outside the window, "we must spread faster than the cracks."

The snow on the ice field had stopped sometime ago.

Bai Ye carefully tucked the scroll into his bosom and slung the long staff over his shoulder.

Chiyo took a palm-sized wooden box from her waist, and when she opened it, a faint scent of pine wafted out—inside were twenty neatly arranged puppet spores, each the size of a fingernail.

“This is made with my improved chakra gel.” She took out a spore, placed it in her palm, and infused it with chakra. The spore immediately turned into translucent threads. “Scatter them along the way, and they will attach to the fur of living things or the wheels of vehicles. Within three days, they can transmit information about the movements within a hundred miles.”

When Byakuya took the wooden box, his fingertips touched the calluses on Chiyo's palm—marks from holding puppet strings for sixty years.

He suddenly remembered what the man in the black robe had said about "the next container," which might be in the trajectory that these spores were about to cover.

“Let’s go.” He turned and walked toward the edge of the ice field, his long staff leaving a winding trail in the snow, like a road pointing to the unknown. “Let’s go to the Mist Shadow Mine first.”

Chiyo followed behind him, her puppet arm stealthily reaching for the kunai pouch at her waist—where her newly improved poison needles were hidden, their ends tied with camel hair thread unique to Sunagakure.

The wind lifted the hems of their clothes, stretching their shadows long, which overlapped with the reflections of the six magatama on the snow, like some ancient prophecy.

In the distance, thunderclouds from the Land of Lightning had already spread across the horizon, while in the forest on the border of the Land of Fire, at the entrance of an abandoned mine, a pair of eyes were watching two figures gradually shrinking through a telescope.

A cold wind swirled sand and gravel across the crumbling walls of the abandoned village, and Chiyo's puppet arm joints made a slight clicking sound.

Chapter 809 Valley of the End

She crouched behind the half-person-high ruins, the chakra detector on her fingertips slightly warm—the puppet spores she had just scattered were sending back unusual signals three hundred paces to the southeast. These were residual chakra attached to the fur of living creatures, but the frequency was 30% lower than that of ordinary wild beasts.

“There’s a problem.” She tugged at Bai Ye’s sleeve, the clay puppet’s fingernails scratching white marks on the wall plaster. “The chakra fluctuations from the spores have a burnt smell, like a thread that’s been burned.”

Bai Ye knelt on one knee, palm pressed against the ground.

The tremors of the earth veins crept into his bones through his skin. He closed his eyes—indeed, the flow of chakra here felt as if it had been cut by a sharp blade, with dark brown "scabs" still clinging to the cut surfaces, traces of residual curse magic.

He pulled out a long stick and pushed open the half-rotten wooden door. A musty smell mixed with the smell of rust hit him. Scattered on the ground inside were the remains of seven puppets. The copper nails at their joints gleamed with a ghostly blue, a special material forged from mithril mixed with cursed substances.

Chiyo's breathing suddenly quickened.

She removed the puppet goggles from her left wrist; the runes on the lenses glowed orange. She brought them close to the neck of the nearest wreckage—where a ring of twisted chains was etched, intersecting at a diamond-shaped emblem with a half-melted ring floating in the center. "The Ring of Contract..." Her puppet arm trembled uncontrollably, her metal knuckles tapping against the wreckage with a dull thud. "The experimental puppet from the Iwagakure explosion three years ago also had similar symbols on the inside of its joints."

But the old-fashioned contract ring was closed, this… “She picked up a fragment with her fingernail,” the broken part still stained with fresh chakra glue, lasting at most three days.

Bai Ye crouched down, his fingertips tracing the diamond-shaped badge.

Blood burned in his palms, fragments of memory flooded back: The First Hokage stood before the Tower of Blood Sand, the puppet strings in his hands entwined with the same chain patterns, "They used the souls of the living as seals, making puppets bear the curse for humans..." A metallic taste rose in his throat, forcibly suppressing the surging chakra, "The base should be at the border of wind and earth." His voice was low, yet like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, "The place where the First Hokage and Madara last met, the ley lines there are most suitable for sealing... or breaking the seal."

Chiyo looked up abruptly, her glasses sliding down to the tip of her nose: "How did you know?"

“Bloodline memory.” Bai Ye tore off the water pouch from his waist and took a swig. The icy water extinguished the burning sensation in his throat. “The First Hokage said in the ice coffin that the ‘crack’ that Madara buried back then could only be completely destroyed in the same way.” He tapped the chest cavity of the remains with his knuckles—where the chakra core should have been, now had half a charred fingernail embedded. “The core made by a living person means they were in a hurry to replenish the ‘vessel’.”

The wind suddenly changed direction.

Chiyo's puppet ears caught a faint rustling sound of paper. She flicked three poison needles with her backhand, only to see a yellowed letter lightly nailed to the broken pillar between the two of them.

The edges of the paper were charred black, clearly from being scorched by chakra flames and then forcibly cooled. The ink was still wet, and it read: "If you wish to truly end your fate, come to the 'Tower of Blood Sand'."

Chiyo's puppet arm snapped shut, and she stumbled forward, her fingertips almost piercing the letter—the seal at the bottom was a six-petaled sand flower, the petals perfectly matching her family's puppeteer's mark. "This is impossible..." her voice trembled, her right hand clutching the family talisman to her chest. "My grandfather was hunted down by rogue ninja, and all the family seals were destroyed in the fire, not even ashes remained..."

Chapter 810 Reclaiming the Family's Shame

Bai Ye bent down to pick up the letter, his fingertips tracing the subtle indentations on the edge of the seal—the kind of repair stitches he'd seen on Chiyo's scroll, made with the camel hair thread unique to Sunagakure. "Someone wants you to see this." As he handed the letter to Chiyo, he noticed the throbbing veins on her neck. "It could be a threat, it could be guidance, but at least..." He looked up at the sky, dyed blood red by the setting sun, "They're desperate."

Chiyo suddenly coughed violently, covering her mouth with her right hand, a trickle of blood seeping through her fingers.

She hurriedly wiped the blood away with the sleeve of the puppet arm, but Bai Ye grabbed her wrist. "Chakra backlash?" He frowned. "You just used a forbidden-level puppet detection technique?"

“When I shielded you from the ice puppet three days ago, the aftershocks of the incantation entered my bloodline.” Chiyo turned her face away, the puppet arm quietly retracting into her sleeve. “The old man’s life is worthless, but…” Her gaze fell on the six-petaled sand flower on the letter, “If it’s a traitor from my clan… the death of my grandson back then might not have been as simple as an ambush by Iwagakure.”

Bai Ye gripped the long staff tightly, and the six magatama on the staff shimmered faintly.

He could hear the rumbling of the earth's veins growing clearer, like the heartbeat of some ancient behemoth. "The Blood Sand Tower is at the border of wind and earth, which is exactly the direction of our predicted stronghold." He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. "Go there, whether it's a trap or the answer."

Chiyo suddenly smiled, her eyes glistening with tears.

She took out a copper bell from her bosom and shook it gently—it was the signal for the Sand Village puppeteers to summon messenger crows. "I'll send the crows back to the village to deliver a message, saying..." she paused, "that I'm going to avenge my family's shame." The sound of the copper bell was carried southeast by the wind, startling several crows. They flapped their wings and flew over the broken wall, and between the claws of one of them, a scorched black mark, the same as the edge of the letter, flashed.

"Let's go." Bai Ye shouldered his long staff, crushing a piece of bone from a puppet's remains with the sole of his boot. "Before it gets completely dark."

Chiyo followed behind him, her human right hand always resting on the kunai pouch at her waist.

The poison needle there was tied with camel hair, the same kind as the repair line on the letter paper—she should have thought of it long ago, when she was mixing chakra glue in the rear all those years ago, she always felt that there were a few cans of glue missing from the warehouse.

It wasn't a mouse, it was...

The setting sun cast long shadows of the two, overlapping with the shadows of the puppet remains on the ground, like countless hands pointing towards the Tower of Blood Sand.

The howling of wolves echoed from afar, but it couldn't compare to the increasingly clear sound of chains snapping beneath the ley lines.

Chapter 473 Old Shadows Beneath the Blood Sand Tower

A spark crackled from the campfire at the campsite, and Byakuya flicked away the ashes that had fallen onto the letter paper. The firelight made the wrinkles at the corners of Chiyo's eyes appear even deeper.

Her thin fingers traced the indentation along the edge of the seal, her knuckles turning white from the pressure. "This is my father's craftsmanship," she said, her voice as soft as sand blown by the wind. "In his later years, he went blind, and when sealing the seal, he would always sew three circles of silver thread around the edges—" She suddenly paused, her Adam's apple bobbing twice. "Back then, he used this method to seal a forbidden scroll, saying he would wait until I found someone who could bear the consequences before opening it."

Bai Ye's thumb caressed the magatama on the long stick, and the six jade patterns shimmered with a faint blue light in the darkness.

The tremors of the earth's veins came from beneath his feet, clearer than yesterday, like someone beating a death knell underground. "So the sender knew of this forbidden technique's existence." He looked up, the campfire reflecting two small flames in his eyes. "Or..."

“Or perhaps they were the ones who saw the seal back then.” Chiyo suddenly clenched the letter, the paper making a soft tearing sound.

Her human right hand rested on the kunai pouch at her waist, the camel hair thread tied there glowing dark red in the firelight. "Thirty years ago, only three people were allowed into my father's workshop—me, Ebizo, and..." She suddenly coughed violently, and just as the sleeve of her puppet arm was about to cover her mouth, it was pressed down by Byakuya.

Chapter 811 Unspeakable

"Has the injury from the chakra backlash not healed yet?" His voice deepened, his fingertips resting on Chiyo's wrist, able to feel the dark purple chakra surging beneath her skin, like a venomous snake gnawing at flesh.

“The old man’s life is worthless.” Chiyo turned her face away, but didn’t pull her hand back. “But if this letter is meant to lure us to the Blood Sand Tower…” She suddenly smiled, tears welling in her eyes. “That’s perfect. I’ve been wanting to see who the shadow behind the Iwagakure ninja was when my grandson died.”

Bai Ye released his grip, the long stick tracing a semi-circle on the sand. "Pack your things," he said. "We'll leave at daybreak."

The sandstorm was more severe than expected.

When Chiyo's puppet arm deployed its protective barrier, Byakuya could hear the crackling sound of sand grains hitting a metal surface, much like the hidden weapons used during the attack in Amegakure.

He walked ahead, his boots crushing sand and sporadic bone fragments—the remains of puppets, painted with the distinctive vermilion lacquer of Sunagakure. "Someone cleared the battlefield beforehand," he said to Chiyo, turning his head, "but not completely."

A cold glint flashed in Chiyo's puppet eyes. "Three years ago, a caravan went missing here. The Kazekage said it was caught in a sandstorm." Her human hand rested on the edge of the protective barrier. "Now it seems..."

Before the words were even finished, the sandstorm suddenly dispersed as if cleaved by a knife.

A tall tower, half-buried in the sand, came into view.

The tower is built of dark red sandstone, and its surface, worn uneven by wind and sand, is engraved with the totem of the Wind Tribe: a coiled sand snake and a soaring eagle, intertwined above the words "Blood Sand".

The part of the tower that protrudes above the ground is covered with withered vines, on which grow dark red fruits that drip tiny droplets of blood-like sap when they sway in the wind.

“The Tower of Blood Sand.” Chiyo’s voice trembled, her puppet arm rising uncontrollably to point to a half-open stone door at the tower’s base. “My father’s notes mentioned…this is the altar where the Wind Clan connects to the ley lines, used for…”

"Used to suppress the puppeteers who were sacrificed with blood."

A cold, hard male voice came from the shadows of the tower gate.