Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

He gazed at the shards of crystal scattered across the ground, each piece reflecting a distorted reality—the corpse of the Fire Country's daimyo had vanished, the army on the Thunder Country's border was retreating, and the sandstorm from the Wind Country had suddenly turned towards the mines. "This is not the end," he murmured, his voice swallowed by the roar of the mine.

Chapter 832 Do you think I'm a three-year-old?

"White Night!" Luo Sha's roar came from the entrance, "Get the hell out here!"

Before the words were finished, a muffled thud came from the top of the mine as gravel tumbled down.

Bai Ye looked up and saw spiderweb-like cracks in the ceiling, with rainwater mixed with mud pouring down.

Shuiyue grabbed his arm and ran towards the exit, when a loud crash came from behind as the device completely collapsed.

"careful!"

Shuiyue's thrust caused Baiye to roll into the muddy water at the mine entrance.

When he looked up, he saw the last piece of bronze smash down where he had just been standing, splashing mud all over his face.

The sand wall formed overhead, blocking even more falling rocks.

"You'd better give me an explanation." Luo Sha's face appeared above him, his headband still stained with patina. "Where's that old bastard Ebizo?"

Bai Ye wiped the mud off his face.

He gazed at the smoke and dust rising from the mine ruins and heard a faint metallic scraping sound coming from deep within the ruins—like the soft sound of some kind of gears meshing again.

"It's not over yet," he said, his voice carried away by the wind.

Suddenly, the gravel rolled down again.

Bai Ye instinctively rolled to his side, and a bloody bronze fragment grazed his ear and fell into the mud.

He propped himself up on his knees and pressed his palm against something warm—half a piece of the Blood Pact Eye crystal, still containing lingering red light, like an eye awakening.

The mine ruins trembled beneath his feet.

The rusty copper slag mixed in with the muddy water hurt his knees. When Bai Ye got up, supporting himself on the rubble, drops of blood from between his fingers dripped onto the half-piece of crystal.

The red light, like a living thing awakened, meandered along the lines of his palm, leaving a faint red mark on his wrist—exactly the same as the pattern on the Blood Pact Eye device.

"Still alive?"

The sound of rubble churning came from the left.

Shuiyue's blade tip pried away the bronze fragments pressing against her leg. Her hair, stained with mud, hung down, and obsidian's blood still clung to the short sword.

She wiped her face and tapped the twitching chakra wire at her feet with the back of her knife: "That thing... is still ringing."

The puppet remains at the end of the wire were oozing a dark red liquid, pulsating rhythmically like a pulse.

Bai Ye gripped the crystal shard tightly, and energy fluctuations emanated from his palm, clearer than before, like someone typing Morse code from a thousand miles away.

He untied the puppet spore sac from his waist, scratched open the sac with his fingernail, and buried the fragments into the pale green spore pile—this was a living thing cultivated from first-generation cells, which should have devoured all external energy.

The spores exploded the moment they came into contact with the fragments.

Green, fibrous material enveloped the fragment, but spiral runes identical to those of the Blood Pact Eye appeared on its surface.

The clumps began to condense, and surprisingly, they grew into half a miniature crystal in Bai Ye's palm. Red light seeped out from the lines, burning the back of his hand red.

“It’s not dead yet.” Bai Ye whispered, pressing his thumb hard on the crystal, only to see red light drilling into his arm along his veins. “Someone… is remotely waking it up.”

"Who?" Shuiyue immediately placed her knife against his wrist, the tip of the knife less than half an inch from the red mark.

The sound of armor clashing echoed from the entrance to the ruins.

Rasa's crimson headband came into view first. He kicked aside the bronze fragments at his feet, followed by five members of the Kazekage Squad. The leader, Raven, held up half a bloodstained wooden plaque: "Ebizo's token, found in the collapsed dark room."

Luo Sha's temples throbbed.

He snatched the wooden plaque, his fingertips tracing the hidden script on the back—the coded word "steady" that Ebizo often used, the ink still wet. "That old bastard clearly said he'd come to help!" He squeezed the plaque so hard it cracked, the patina from his headband smearing his face. "Now he's playing hide-and-seek?"

Do you think I'm a three-year-old?

"Lord Kage!" the ninja on guard on the left suddenly shouted, "There's a chakra fluctuation to the east!"

The explosion was faster than the sound of a voice.

Chapter 833 Chakra Crystallization Layer

A towering wave of water rose from the ruins to the east, the water mixed with rubble crashing through the broken walls, and Kisame Gen, enveloped in a curtain of water, rode the waves.

His Samehada sword dripped with dark green water droplets, and the blade was wrapped with black snake patterns of the Contract Ring. Behind him were seven masked ninjas, each with a spiral mark of the Blood Pact Eye floating in their palm.

"Byakuya," Kisame Gen's voice was like being immersed in ice, "Hand over the fragments, and I'll let you die a quick death."

Shuiyue's sword was drawn instantly, the wind from the blade whipping Baiye's hair around his ears: "You know this bastard?"

“The Second Mizukage’s personal guard.” Byakuya took a half step back and pulled Mizuki behind the half-collapsed bronze support.

He stared at the mark on the ninja's hand behind Kisame Gen—it was exactly the same as the spiral that Kokuyo had drawn before he died. "The Ring of Contract hasn't broken. They've been waiting for this thing to awaken."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Shuiyue shook the water off her sword. "Cut them down!"

Before he could finish speaking, Kisame Gen's sword had already slashed down.

The water waves, carrying the aura of swords, crashed into the support frame, and Bai Ye pulled Shui Yue into a tumble, their backs slamming heavily against the puppet's remains.

Chakra wires wrapped around his ankle and suddenly tightened—it was Kisame Gen's subordinate forming the Water Prison Seal, and water droplets seeped from the wires, drilling into his veins along his skin.

"Don't move!" Bai Ye hissed, pulling out a kunai from his pocket and severing the wire.

Blood splattered on the crystal shards, the red light suddenly surged, and the green clumps in the spore sacs suddenly grew wildly, wrapping around the shards and breaking through his sleeves, condensing into a semi-transparent barrier in mid-air, blocking Kisame Gen's second strike.

“Good stuff.” Kisame Gen licked the water from the tip of his knife. “It seems that the cells of the First Generation can indeed suppress the power of the Blood Pact.”

Bai Ye's fingers quickly formed hand seals in his palm.

He watched as cracks gradually appeared on the spore barrier, his other hand reaching for the specially made puppet at his waist—a container crafted from the spines of ten puppeteers, capable of sealing off any energy.

He bit his fingertip, and the blood dripped onto the talisman on the puppet's forehead. The puppet's eyes suddenly moved, and its dark eye sockets were aimed at the fragments in mid-air.

"then!"

Shuiyue's sword flicked away a piece of rock, and as Guishaoyuan dodged to the side, Baiye threw the fragment at the puppet.

Green clumps carrying fragments crashed into the puppet's abdominal cavity, runes wandered across the puppet's surface, and finally settled at its heart—like a closing eye.

Kisame Gen's sword whistled past Byakuya's earlobe.

He staggered backward and saw red light emanating from the puppet's fingertips, drawing tiny spirals on the ground.

"It's not over yet." He heard his own voice, mixed with Kisame Gen's cold laughter and Suigetsu's sword clatter, "But at least... it can buy us a little more time."

The bronze support shattered into dust amidst the sword energy. When Bai Ye shoved the specially made puppet into Shui Yue's arms, his fingertips were still covered with green dust from the ruptured spore barrier.

A subtle tremor came from the puppet's abdominal cavity, as if something alive was gnawing at its bones—it was the struggle between the blood pact fragments and the first-generation cells.

"Go." He said in a low voice, pushing Shuiyue's back with his palm.

Shuiyue's wrist veins bulged, and a short knife was held between the two: "Do you think I'm a three-year-old?"

That thing almost burned through your blood vessels! "Her pupils reflected the spiral of the puppet's closed heart, its Adam's apple bobbing," I counted, Kisame Gen brought eight people.

If you stay here, you won't last even half an incense stick's time.

Byakuya tore off the chakra wire wrapped around his arm, and drops of blood dripped down the wire, drawing crooked talismans on the ground.

He watched Kisame's figure approach, crushing the crumbling walls, a faint smile playing on his lips. "That's why I'm leading them to the mine." He ran his fingertip along a dark green vein of ore on the rock wall. "Here lies a layer of chakra crystals, left uncleaned when the Sunagakure abandoned its mines—enough to uproot half a mountain."

Chapter 834 They will use this thing to tear the world apart

Shuiyue's knife tip trembled slightly.

She stared at the eerie light flickering in Bai Ye's eyes, a light that only appeared when someone was making a desperate gamble: "You plan to die together with me?"

"No." Bai Ye pressed the last explosive tag into the crevice of the mine. "I want them to think I'm dead." He unfastened the ninja tool pouch from Shuiyue's waist, took out two kunai, and tossed them into the air. "Watch closely—"

The moment the kunai struck the rock wall, all twelve abandoned puppets sprang up simultaneously.

Rust crumbled from their joints, and the severed arms unleashed chakra blades, tracing the same ninjutsu trajectory in the air as Byakuya.

Kisame Gen's blade grazed the top of the skull of the front-row puppet, and the sparks that flew up made his pupils shrink: "Shadow Clone?"

“It’s chakra mimicry.” Bai Ye slid along the rock wall toward the depths of the mine, his voice mixed with the roars of the puppets, “A feint created with the residual chakra from the wires—the faster you chase, the faster you’ll die.”

Kisame Gen's Samehada suddenly emitted a low groan.

He stared at the crooked blood-stained talisman on the ground, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end: "Withdraw—"

late.

When Bai Ye's palm struck the ore vein, the entire mine roared.

The dark green mineral sand seemed to come alive as it rushed into the rune array, spreading wildly along the bloodline that had previously dripped from him.

Just as the closest masked ninja was about to form hand seals, the ground beneath his feet suddenly cracked open, and chakra crystals pierced his soles like steel needles. Kisame Gen swung his sword to cleave through the incoming mineral sand, only to see dark red liquid seeping from the rock wall above him—the energy transmitted by the blood pact fragments through the puppet's remains, resonating wildly with the chakra in the mineral vein.

"You're insane!" Kisame Gen's greatsword shattered the attacking puppet, but the black snake patterns on the blade suddenly backfired, biting a bloody hole in the back of his hand. "The first generation cells can't suppress this thing at all!"

It will destroy even your soul—

The roar drowned out the second half of the sentence.

When Bai Ye was thrown by the blast wave and crashed into the rock wall, everything in front of him turned crimson.

He saw Kisame Gen buried under the collapsed rubble, with only half of his bloodstained arm showing, his fingertips still tightly clutching half a fragment of the Blood Pact; he saw the spiral marks of the masked ninjas twist into hideous faces in the explosion, and finally be completely buried by the mineral sand.

"This is just the beginning..."

The muffled voice crashed into my eardrums.

Byakuya coughed up blood and reached out to touch the chakra wire three steps away from him—it still retained Kisame Gen's chakra fluctuations.

But just as his fingertips were about to touch the wire, it suddenly burst into flames, burning out a line of charred words in the air: You think you've won?

The wind from deep within the mine blew in, carrying fine, bloody sand.

As Bai Ye stood up, supporting himself against the rock wall, he suddenly felt a burning sensation in his sleeve—it was a fragment of a sporangium that had not fully fused, burning his skin through the fabric.

He opened the pouch, and green fluff containing fragments crawled out, reforming into half a crystal in his palm. The red light was even brighter than before, casting a distorted shadow on the back of his hand.

“Memory…” he murmured.

The journey back to camp was slow.

With each step Bai Ye took, unfamiliar images flashed through his mind: a thousand puppets stood on the scorched earth, their joints engraved with the same spirals as the Eye of Blood Pact; a masked person stood in the center of the puppets, pressing crystal shards into spores cultivated from first-generation cells, saying, "This is the key"; and a voice cried, saying, "They will use this to tear the world apart."

The camp was empty.

Shuiyue's dagger was stuck in the embers of the campfire, with a note pressed under the scabbard.

When Bai Ye picked it up, the corner of the paper was still stained with undried blood—her blood.

"The third clump of reeds in the Old Shadow Swamp contains a stone box that can isolate the fluctuations of the blood pact." The handwriting was crooked, as if it had been written while running. "I know you won't listen to my advice, but at least let me help you put this thing in a cage."

Chapter 835 You Shouldn't Have Come Here

Don't chase after me, wait until I've set up the trap.

Bai Ye's hand, holding the note, was trembling.

He looked southwest—the Old Shadow Swamp is the border between Sunagakure and Kusagakure, where legend says the failed experimental subjects of the Kazekage of each generation are buried, and even their chakra is swallowed by the swamp.

But at that moment, the crystal in his palm suddenly became hot, and the red light from the fragments penetrated his skin, drawing an arrow pointing southwest on his wrist.

“It’s not an illusion…” He stared at his face reflected in the puddle, a dark red spiral flashing deep in his pupils. “It’s a memory.”

The wind blew from the direction of the swamp, carrying the fishy smell of decaying grass.

Bai Ye tucked the note into his pocket, his fingertips tracing the red mark on his wrist—a mark left by the blood pact fragment, and also a key to unlocking a past chapter.

He untied the puppet spore sac from his waist and reburied the crystal shard into the spore pile. The green clumps immediately enveloped the shard, but a clearer spiral appeared on the surface.

“Old Shadow Swamp…” he murmured the name, his boots crushing the blood-soaked sand beneath his feet. “I’m here.”

As dusk crept across the horizon, a bird's cry came from the direction of the swamp.

That wasn't an ordinary bird call, but a code imitating chakra—it was the voice of Suigetsu.

Bai Ye quickened his pace, and the spore sac in his palm suddenly vibrated. The red light in the fragments connected into a line, drawing a faint path in the air in front of him.