Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

He didn't know whether what awaited him was a trap or the truth.

But he knew that the puppet battlefields that repeatedly appeared in his dreams, and the spiral runes etched deep in his memory, would all have their first veil lifted in the reeds of the Old Shadow Swamp.

Dusk, like an unyielding swamp of ink, swept up, carrying with it the putrid smell of old shadows and swamps.

When Bai Ye stepped into the first pool of black water, the soles of his boots felt sticky, as if he had stepped into rotting entrails.

He lowered his eyes and saw tiny bubbles rising to the surface of the water, each bubble glowing a dark red when it burst—the same color as the red light in the spore sacs in his palm.

"At this."

A hoarse female voice came from the reeds on the left.

Shuiyue's short knife was stuck diagonally in the mud, with undried blood droplets still clinging to its blade. She leaned against a half-broken stone tablet, her right hand covering her left shoulder, blood seeping from between her fingers and trickling down her forearm, staining the gray-black fabric in a hideous pattern.

Bai Ye's pupils contracted slightly.

He strode over and reached out to touch her wound, but she turned her head away. "Don't waste your chakra." Suigetsu's voice was colder than usual, but with a trembling tone at the end. "I just triggered the swamp's defensive technique, and those vines..." She looked down and plucked a blood-stained reed, "are even more troublesome than the Sea Demon Vines of Kirigakure."

Bai Ye then noticed several pieces of dark green vines scattered at her feet, their broken ends gleaming with a metallic sheen.

He gripped the spore sac tightly, and the fragments inside suddenly vibrated violently, the green clumps were knocked about and tilted, and red light shone through the spore cloth, casting distorted shadows at the feet of the two men.

“It resonated.” Shuiyue stared at the red light, then suddenly grabbed his wrist and pressed his palm onto the stone tablet.

The moss-covered stone surface immediately cracked with spiderweb patterns, revealing a bluestone slab engraved with spiral runes beneath. "The fragments started vibrating when I pried open this layer of moss." She released her grip, took two steps back, and held the dagger back in her hand. "Grey Shadow said that things in the swamp recognize blood."

"Gray Shadow?"

Before the words were finished, a crisp sound of a dry branch breaking came from deep within the reeds.

A hunched figure emerged from the mist, wrapped in a faded gray hemp robe, his face covered by a half-rotten wooden mask, revealing only the lower half of his wrinkled face.

The puppet he held in his left hand was even more chilling—its skeleton was made of rusty iron, with dried human skin hanging from its joints, and two dark red crystals embedded in its empty eye sockets, just like the fragment in Bai Ye's palm.

“You shouldn’t have come here.” The gray shadow’s voice was like sandpaper scraping against a stone slab. His puppet suddenly raised its right arm, the rusty iron joints creaking shrilly, pointing directly at White Night. “Especially the people carrying this thing.”

Bai Ye loosened the sporangia, letting them hang down at her waist.

Chapter 836 Reincarnation Technique

He took a half step forward, clasping his hands together in front of his abdomen—the highest form of respect that Sunagakure would show to an elder. "I need to know the truth about the 'Blood Pact Eye.'" His voice was calm, yet it held a burning urgency. "Those puppet battlefields etched in my memory, those cries that said 'They will tear the world apart'..." He lifted his sleeve, revealing a dark red spiral mark on his wrist. "It was guiding me here."

The gray shadow puppet suddenly trembled violently, and sparks flew from its two crystal eyes.

The old man's fingers dug deeply into his palms, his knuckles turning white: "The first generation of bloodline..." He suddenly coughed violently, his back hunched even more under his hemp robe, "Fifty years, finally..." He looked up abruptly, his rotten wooden mask falling to the ground, revealing a pair of cloudy yet bright eyes, "Come with me."

The swamp mist churned beneath their feet.

The gray shadow puppet walked at the front, each step digging its iron fingers into the mud to uncover hidden traps.

Shuiyue stood close to Baiye's right side, her short sword still sheathed. Blood was still seeping from her left shoulder, yet she managed to keep her breathing extremely shallow.

Bai Ye stared at the gray shadow's back, noticing specks of gold dust on the hem of his robe—the same color as the sealing pigment on the scroll of the first puppeteer.

"We've arrived." The gray figure stopped in front of an unusually dense clump of reeds.

His puppet raised its iron arm and drew complex hand seals in mid-air.

The reeds suddenly seemed to be torn apart by an invisible hand, revealing a dark hole below.

A damp wind carrying the smell of rust surged up, mixed with faint chanting, as if countless people were speaking at the same time, yet not a single word could be heard clearly.

The temperature of the underground ruins was ten degrees lower than that of the swamp.

Bai Ye's breath condensed into white mist. He looked up by the light of the tinderbox and saw that the four walls were covered with puppetry diagrams: some depicted controlling hundreds of puppets to form hand seals at the same time, and others showed people sewing human organs into puppets. The largest diagram at the deepest part showed a ninja wearing the First Konoha robe kneeling on one knee, with a giant blood-red eye floating in front of him. The surface of the eyeball was covered with spiral runes, which were exactly the same as the pattern of the Blood Pact Eye.

"This is the first generation of puppeteer." The gray shadow's voice suddenly became very soft, as if afraid of waking something. "He was originally a seal master of Konoha. In order to revive his disciples who died in battle, he stole Hashirama's cells..." He pointed to the blood-red giant eye. "This thing was made using the soul of his disciple, Hashirama's cells, and..." He paused, "and the entire bloodline limit of the Land of Whirlpools—the Rinne Resurrection Technique."

Shuiyue's short sword clattered to the ground.

She stared at the painting, her fingers digging into the stone wall: "Reincarnation Technique... that's the most forbidden of all!"

The Land of Whirlpools was besieged by the five great nations because of this technique...

"So he escaped here." The gray figure touched the painting, his fingertips almost touching the blood-red giant eye. "He said it was a key that could open another world and bring the dead back."

But he didn't know... "He suddenly trembled violently, and a sob escaped his throat," his disciple had no intention of being resurrected.

The child's soul was trapped in his eye for fifty years, crying every day, saying, 'They will use this thing to tear the world apart'...

A burning pain shot through Bai Ye's palm.

He looked down and saw that the spore sac had completely dispersed, and half a crystal fragment was suspended in his palm. The red light was ten times brighter than before, and it resonated with the blood-red giant eye on the stone wall—the spiral patterns of the two were rotating in sync.

"This is..." His voice was hoarse.

Chapter 837 Rewritten?

“These are fragments of the key.” The gray shadow suddenly grabbed his wrist, his nails almost digging into his flesh. “The First Generation divided his eyes into seven pieces and sealed them in the seven most dangerous places.”

"What you have in your hand is the first one." He released his grip, took two steps back, and said, "Now you know, it's time to go."

"No." Bai Ye gripped the fragment tightly. "I need to know where the remaining fragments are, and I need to know who's looking for them..."

"You should leave!" The gray shadow puppet suddenly sprang up, its iron arm sweeping towards Bai Ye's neck.

Shuiyue's dagger blocked the attack just in time, and sparks flew onto their faces.

Tears streamed down the old man's wrinkles: "It would have been too late if we had come any later!"

That old bastard Ebizo...

"boom--"

A muffled thud suddenly came from the top of the underground ruins.

Byakuya suddenly turned his head and sensed a familiar chakra rapidly approaching from above the swamp—it was Chiyo's Sand Release fluctuation.

He looked at the gray figure, but the old man suddenly slumped to the ground, and the puppet's crystal eyes went completely dark.

"It's too late..." The gray figure's voice was almost drowned out by the falling rocks overhead, "They're already..."

Shuiyue grabbed Baiye's arm: "Get out of here first! The chakra fluctuations above..."

Bai Ye took one last look at the giant blood-red eye on the stone wall.

The fragments were burning hot in his palm, and the spiral patterns spun even faster.

He didn't know why Chiyo had come, nor what Ebizo was plotting, but he did know—

The secret of the Blood Pact Eye has only just begun to be revealed.

The stone walls of the underground ruins trembled and fell stone chips. Bai Ye was pulled half a step back towards the cave entrance by Shui Yue, but stopped when he heard that familiar sand chakra.

Chiyo's voice, carrying fine sand, poured in from above like a taut string: "Byakuya!"

Take Shuiyue and step back to my side!

Before the words were even finished, several golden sand blades pierced through the gap in the collapsed cave ceiling, forming a protective net above the three of them.

Chiyo gracefully leaped down from the floating sand platform, her crimson kimono hem stained with swamp mud, yet she remained perfectly upright.

Her gaze first swept over the bloodstains on Shuiyue's shoulder, then fell on the puppet slumped over by the gray shadow, and finally settled on the red-glowing fragment in Baiye's palm—her pupils suddenly shrank to pinpoints.

“Ebi is hiding among the rogue ninja Akatsuchi of Iwagakure, the broken-sword Kisame of Kirigakure, and the remnants of the Lightning Bound Corps of Kumogakure.” Chiyo’s fingers unconsciously rubbed the puppet spool at her waist, the sand grains forming sharp prisms at her feet. “He used the First Puppet Master’s notes as bait, saying he could recreate the grandeur of the ‘Thousand Machine Burial’.” When she turned to Byakuya, anxiety seeped into the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. “That old man wants to rebuild the puppet army and use these monsters as the blade of his power.”

Bai Ye didn't respond.

His gaze was fixed on the mural of the giant blood-red eye on the stone wall. The red light from the fragments overlapped with the spiral patterns on the mural, leaving a double image on his retina.

The images that had been flashing through his memory suddenly became clear: hundreds of puppets lay on the scorched earth, black blood seeping from their empty eye sockets; a voice whispered in his bones, “It is not they who tore the world apart, it is you”—now, it seemed to fit perfectly with the inscription on the mural that read “Open another world”.

“If I’m not mistaken…” His Adam’s apple bobbed, his fingertips lightly tracing the spirals on the mural, “This isn’t for predicting the future.” The damp stone wall sent a cool sensation through his palm, “It’s for ‘rewriting.’”

Chapter 838 Rewriting History

"Rewrite?" Shuiyue's short sword clanged against the stone wall.

Fresh blood seeped from her hand covering her left shoulder, but she ignored the pain. "Rewrite what?"

life and death?

still..."

"history."

As soon as Bai Ye finished speaking, the fragment in his palm suddenly burst forth with a dazzling red light.

Shuiyue's exclamation mingled with the buzzing of the fragments—a blurry image emerged from the red light: a figure stood in the charred ruins, his long black hair soaked in blood, surrounded by hundreds of puppets, each puppet's eye socket inlaid with red crystals like the fragments.

The puppet in the front row raised its iron arm, the tip of its blade pressed against an unseen throat.

"That's...me?" Bai Ye's fingers dug deeply into his palm, blood seeping from under his nails.

He could clearly feel that familiar violence in the image, like a bee trapped in amber, frantically pounding against the barriers of his consciousness.

"enough!"

The gray figure suddenly staggered and lunged forward.

His withered fingers held a yellowed talisman and slammed it heavily onto the fragments.

The red light went out with a "sizzle," and the image shattered like water ripped by a stone, breaking into countless points of light.

The old man pressed his forehead against Bai Ye's hand, his heavy breathing spraying onto the spiral mark on Bai Ye's wrist: "You shouldn't have seen these."

"The 'Eye of Blood Pact' is not a witness to fate, but..." His Adam's apple bobbed, "...a time-altering manipulator."

The underground ruins fell into a deathly silence.

Suigetsu's dagger clattered to the ground, Chiyo's sand stopped flowing, and even the dripping sound of water seeping from the stone wall became clearly audible.

"You mean..." Bai Ye's voice was hoarse, as if he had a piece of red-hot iron in his mouth, "It can change the past?"

The gray figure slowly raised its head.

His eyes were red-rimmed, with murky tears hanging from the corners, yet his smile was more painful than a grimace: "When the first generation used the Reincarnation Technique to refine it, they changed the essence of the technique."

Reincarnation is about returning the dead to their rightful place, but this eye... "He pointed to the blood-red giant eye on the mural," it wanted the living to die in its place.

Use the blood of today to fill the pits of the past. "He suddenly coughed violently, his knuckles gripping the hemp robe at his breast," The soul of that child from fifty years ago wasn't crying from within his eyes, but shouting, 'Don't let them sacrifice human lives for time'...

“So the first generation divided the eyes into seven pieces.” Bai Ye looked down at the fragments in his palm and finally understood where the cries etched in his memory came from. “He knew this thing was too dangerous, so he sealed it.”

“But there are always people who want to break the seal.” Chiyo’s sand suddenly condensed into a sharp arrow, pointing out of the cave, “like Ebizo.”

He's spent years collecting puppet fragments and sending ninjas to excavate graves at the ruins of the Land of Whirlpools, all to piece together the remaining fragments. "Her gaze swept over the gray figure," she said. "And you, the gravedigger, know all the secrets."

Gray Shadow did not deny it.

He trembled as he pulled a rusty iron box from his pocket, which creaked open with a harsh sound.

At the bottom of the box lay a dark golden puppet core, its surface engraved with the same spiral pattern as the Blood Pact Eye, exuding an aura that had slumbered in the ruins for a hundred years.

"This is the core of the last puppet of the first generation." He shoved the iron box into Bai Ye's hand, his fingertips as cold as a corpse. "It can locate the other fragments."

But remember—"He stared intently at the spiral mark on Bai Ye's wrist," each use of it widens the crack in time.

"The self you see in those ruins..." His voice suddenly choked, "maybe that's the price of the cracks."

Chapter 839 Time War

The sharp cries of startled birds echoed from outside the cave.

Chiyo's sand suddenly tightened, protecting the four of them in the center: "Ebizo's people have arrived." She looked at Byakuya, her eyes filled with trust but also warning, "With the core in hand, we need to leave here first."

Bai Ye gripped the iron box tightly.

The core warmth seeped into the blood vessels through the palm, like the heartbeat of the first puppeteer across a century.

He stared at the blood-red giant eye on the mural, and suddenly remembered what the gray shadow had said about "the time-tamperer"—if rewriting history required human sacrifice, if he himself in those ruins was the price...

He looked down at the core inside the iron box, where dark gold patterns gleamed faintly in the shadows.

A low shout of a ninja forming hand seals came from afar. Suigetsu gripped his short sword again, and Chiyo's sand began to spin.

The gray figure had already turned and walked into the depths of the cave, its hunched back disappearing into the darkness, leaving only a single sentence, torn to pieces by the draft:

"Now you hold the key, and you also hold..."