Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

The old advisor, who always talked about "the future of Sunagakure," now had even more pronounced deep wrinkles around his eyes due to his tense expression: "What do you need me to do?"

Chapter 848 Dark Squad Captain Raven!

Bai Ye turned to look at her, his gaze piercing through the mist of the swamp.

Chiyo saw a dark golden light swirling in his eyes, as if some ancient power had been awakened: "Help me restrain him." He stroked the patterns on the core with his fingertips, "I need time to set up a trap—to retaliate against him using his most proficient puppetry."

Gray Shadow suddenly coughed.

His hunched back cast a long, thin shadow in the moonlight. His withered hand covered his mouth, and the breath that escaped between his fingers carried a damp, fishy smell: "The trap... needs a trigger." His gaze swept over the burning core on Bai Ye's wrist. "Ebizo wants the power of the ancient puppeteers, but he doesn't know... that every reincarnated puppet carries the blood pact of the first generation."

Shuiyue's decapitation sword suddenly unsheathed half an inch.

The hum of shark teeth scraping against the scabbard startled several night owls. She tilted her head, examining the core in Bai Ye's hand, a dangerous smile playing on her lips: "Sounds like gambling with the entire Sand Village." But instead of pressing her fingers firmly against the hilt, she flicked the blade, a metallic tremor tinged with amusement. "But...it's much more interesting than waiting to die."

The sound of rapid wing flapping came from the depths of the swamp.

A crow covered in blood stumbled into everyone's view. Its left wing drooped, and the bloodstains seeping from its feathers gleamed blackish-red in the moonlight—it was the messenger crow of Sunagakure.

Chiyo's pupils suddenly contracted. She raised her hand and summoned Hiruko's chakra threads, gently catching the bird.

The paper slip clutched in the crow's claws had just been removed when beads of blood began to trickle down the paper, spreading across the words "border."

"Lord Rasa's army has been defeated!" A hoarse voice suddenly rang out.

Suddenly, a shrunken chakra communication talisman emerged from the crow's beak—a unique communication technique used by the Anbu of Sunagakure.

The voice was filled with heavy breathing and the clanging of metal, "Ebi hid on the border of the Land of Wind and completed the 'Puppet Reincarnation Technique'... The bodies of three ancient puppeteers have awakened... Their chakra... is more terrifying than Sasori of the Red Sand's back then!"

Chiyo's hand suddenly trembled.

The note rustled between her fingers. She stared at the fading background noise in the communication talisman, as if she could see Rasa's Wind Release technique easily crushed by the puppet's iron arm, and the Sand Village ninja's kunai striking bronze armor, sparks flying. "Where's Crow?" she suddenly demanded sharply. "The ANBU captain Crow who was sent!"

The breathing in the voice transmission paused, followed by the muffled thud of swords piercing flesh: "Crow... Lord Crow used his clone to lure away the pursuers, now he should..." The voice trailed off, leaving only a crackling sound like electricity.

Shuiyue's pupils shrank to pinpoints.

She suddenly turned to look at the desert beyond the swamp, her cleaver fully drawn, the shark teeth on the blade gleaming with a ghostly blue light: "It seems that before we can even make a move, Ebizo is already eager to overturn the chessboard."

Bai Ye closed his eyes.

The core temperature burned even more intensely in his palm, and he could feel the fluctuations of the flow of time wrapping around his consciousness like a spider web—that was the resonance of the "Blood Pact Eye".

In the illusion, the voice of the first puppeteer suddenly became clear: "The soul of a puppet is the anchor of cause and effect." He suddenly opened his eyes, and dark golden light burst forth from the depths of his pupils. "This time, I will personally end this game."

The gray shadow suddenly pressed down on his wrist.

The old man's fingertips were icy cold, yet carried a strange power: "Using the core will consume your bloodline." His gaze pierced through the white night, as if he saw himself a hundred years ago when he first touched the core. "The blood pact of the first generation was never given away for free."

Chapter 849 Your Ambition Ends Here

“Someone has to be the one to break the deadlock.” Bai Ye pulled away from Hui Ying’s hand, and the core incantation formed a complete circle in his palm.

Dark golden chakra surged up his arm like a living thing, outlining the totem of the first puppeteer beneath his skin.

He looked at Chiyo, his eyes filled with apology and determination, "Don't let them get close to the Kazekage's residence."

Before he could finish speaking, his figure suddenly blurred.

The swamp wind swept past where he had stood, leaving only the lingering warmth of his core in the air.

Chiyo gazed at the open space, her Adam's apple bobbing, before finally uttering only, "Hiruko, prepare the puppet army." As she turned, tears welled in the deep lines at the corners of her eyes. "The future of Sunagakure... cannot be ruined by a bunch of old fogies."

Shuiyue patted Huiying's shoulder with the back of her knife: "Hey, old man." She tilted her head and looked towards the desert, where dark red flames were spreading across the horizon. "The 'soul of the puppet' you mentioned, you wouldn't be referring to that madman, would you?"

Gray Shadow gazed in the direction where White Night had disappeared, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

He pulled out the faded puppet thread pouch from his waist, his fingertips tracing the spiral pattern on it—the mark of the original puppet workshop. "He knows better than any of us," the old man's voice was as soft as the wind, "The soul of a puppet is never bronze and machinery, but...the person willing to burn for protection."

The desert night wind carried the stench of blood.

In the distance, the outline of the Wind Shadow Mansion was faintly visible in the firelight.

At a high vantage point, a dark golden figure suddenly solidified.

He looked down, where the moonlight illuminated three floating bronze puppets—their joints radiated a dark golden light in sync with their cores, and the chakra threads on their backs were winding their way toward the main hall of the Kazekage's residence.

The moment the dark golden figure solidified under the moonlight, the tiles of the Wind Shadow Mansion emitted a soft, crisp sound.

Bai Ye knelt on one knee, his palm still burning hot, dark golden chakra creeping up his arm and down his back, staining his outline with flowing golden patterns.

Below, three bronze puppets were baring their fangs and claws as they approached the main hall. Their joints glowed with an eerie green chakra light—these were ancient, malevolent soldiers that Ebizo had forcibly awakened using the "Puppet Reincarnation Technique."

Rasa's voice came from the main hall, trembling and cracking: "Form...form the Earth Release Formation!" But his command was shattered by the bronze arm blade swung by the puppet. The Earth Release ninja was swept away as soon as he formed the hand seals, crashing into a pillar and spitting out blood.

Bai Ye's pupils contracted to slits, and his Adam's apple bobbed. Three days ago, when he heard Hui Ying say in the swamp that "the soul of a puppet is the anchor of cause and effect," he thought it referred to those ancient, sealed spells. But now, looking at Luo Sha's trembling fingertips, he suddenly understood that the so-called cause and effect was nothing more than the projection of human obsessions onto mechanisms.

"It's time to end this." He hissed, slamming his fingertips into the ground.

Dark brown spores burst from between the fingers, sweeping across the courtyard like seeds scattered by the wind.

Suddenly, the joints of the three bronze puppets emitted a sharp metallic screech, and their originally smooth movements were jerked into a jumbled shadow puppet effect—spores burrowed into the gaps in their mechanisms, rapidly growing into hair-thin vines between the gears, tightly binding the rotating shafts.

"Your ambition ends here." Bai Ye looked up at the tall tower in the southeast corner, where a gaunt figure stood.

Ebizo's black robe fluttered in the night wind. He leaned over the stone railing, his sinister gaze like poisoned silver needles: "You little brat, you think trapping three dead things will stop me?" His right hand suddenly clenched, and the ground trembled like muffled thunder. Twelve puppets covered in rusty armor burst from the ground, each with the same spiral pattern on its neck as Ebizo's cuffs—the forbidden seal of the first puppet workshop.

Chapter 850 You Lost

"Protect the Wind Shadow!" The crow's roar mingled with the clang of swords.

The Sand Village Jonin's short sword severed the right arm of a puppet, but the flying bronze shards grazed his left cheek, sparking as they flew across his armor.

His subordinates charged forward wielding kunai, only to have their ankles entangled by the chakra threads swung by the puppets, pulling them into the air and instantly slicing their throats open with the thread blades. "Get under the eaves!" Crow kicked away the onrushing puppet head, his back slamming heavily against a pillar, his clothes beneath his armor already soaked in blood—these puppets were no ordinary machines; each chakra thread was wrapped with Ebizo's chakra, and the more they resisted, the tighter the threads tightened.

"White Night!" An aged female voice pierced through the smoke of gunpowder.

Chiyo leaped across the courtyard, stepping on Hiruko's shoulder armor. Blood seeped from her fingertips, and the hand seals she formed left pale green afterimages in the air.

Twenty poisonous puppets burst forth from the scroll on her back, some spewing corrosive mist, others lashing out with barbed spider silk, instantly tearing a gap in the swarm of puppets. "What are you waiting for?" Her voice held an unusual urgency, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes taut with effort. "Use that core!"

If this drags on any longer, Rasa's heart will be shredded by the thread blades!

Byakuya's gaze swept across the main hall—Rasa was curled up on the ground, clutching his chest, dark red blood seeping from under his clothes, and the bloodstain was gradually expanding as the chakra threads trembled.

He took a deep breath, and the core in his palm suddenly burst forth with dazzling golden light. Runes crawled up the back of his hand like living things, forming a rotating ring on his wrist. "The blood pact of the first generation is never free." Gray Shadow's words rang in his ears, but his fingers had already pressed the core towards the spore puppet in the crook of his arm.

With a soft "ding," the interface between the core and the puppet fit together perfectly.

The dark golden power surged into his veins like molten lava, and Bai Ye's vision suddenly became a double image: one was the splashing blood and bronze before his eyes, and the other was countless shimmering particles of light, each containing a fragment of time—that was the "Eye of Blood Pact" analyzing cause and effect.

His temples throbbed with pain, yet he managed a faint smile: "I see..."

Ebizo's pupils suddenly contracted.

He saw dark golden flames ignite at Bai Ye's fingertips, and the chakra threads wrapped around Rasa began to retract backwards into his palm. "Impossible!" he roared, forming hand seals. The twelve puppets simultaneously turned towards Bai Ye, and the wind whipped up by the bronze arm blades stung his face.

But the next second, all the puppets suddenly froze—dark gold liquid seeped from their joints, the chakra threads being eroded by the core power and melting.

"You lost." Bai Ye's voice was like a blade chilled to the bone.

He raised his hand, and Ebizo suddenly felt a tightness in his throat as something flowed back into his body along the chakra lines—it was the puppeteer's soul that he had extracted using a forbidden technique, which was now tearing his meridians apart with searing pain.

“No…this is impossible…” Ebizo staggered and grabbed the stone railing, black blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

As he watched the approaching dark gold figure, he suddenly recalled the last words engraved on the dusty first core in the secret chamber of the Puppet Workshop fifty years ago: "Those who make blood pacts will ultimately be devoured by blood."

Bai Ye stood at the foot of the tower, looking up at him, dark golden chakra condensing behind him into the phantom of the first puppeteer.

He closed his eyes, and his consciousness was suddenly pulled into a chaotic sea of ​​light.

Chapter 851 I Don't Need to Rewrite History

A blurry image flashed before his eyes: in a secret room on a rainy night, Ebizo was wrapping chakra threads around the heart of the unconscious Rasa; three days earlier, in the ruins, he had personally inscribed the Reincarnation Jutsu incantation into the spine of an ancient puppet.

"Cough!" Bai Ye suddenly opened his eyes, tasting a metallic sweetness in his throat.

The core power was draining his bloodline, but a relieved smile appeared on his lips—at least this time, the anchor of cause and effect was in his hands.

Rosa's groans came from the direction of the main hall.

Byakuya turned and walked towards the courtyard, sparks flying from his dark golden chakra at his feet.

Under the moonlight, Chiyo was severing the chakra threads on a crow's body with a kunai. The old man looked up at him, the tears in his eyes scattered by the night wind, leaving only the resolute expression of the Sand Village advisor: "Next..."

"Save the Kazekage first." Byakuya interrupted her, the core of his palm still burning hot, but his gaze had already turned to a more distant place—there, the smoke of the Fire Country Daimyo's death had not yet dissipated, and the Lightning Country ninjas were approaching the border on thunderclouds.

At the top of the tower, Ebizo's fingers finally loosened their grip on the stone railing.

As he plummeted to the ground, he caught a glimpse of the dark gold runes flowing on Bai Ye's wrist and suddenly understood what the old man meant by "the soul of a puppet."

That is... the stubbornness of not being controlled by fate.

Bai Ye knelt on one knee on the bluestone slab, the dark golden chakra receding from the surface of his skin like the receding tide, leaving only the core in the crook of his arm still burning hot.

He gazed at the huddled figure beneath the tower—Ebizo's black robe was soaked in blood, like a crumpled rag.

The night wind carried the stench of blood into his nostrils, and he suddenly remembered what Gray Shadow had said: "The anchor of cause and effect is hidden in the folds that you least want to see."

The metallic taste in his throat hadn't yet dissipated when he slowly closed his eyes.

The moment consciousness sank into darkness, countless particles of light exploded like stardust.

He saw, fifteen years ago, a winter night, Ebizo crouching in the shadows of a secret room, his withered fingers wrapping chakra threads around the sleeping Rasa's heart, the ends of the threads tied to a bronze nail engraved with incantations; he saw, seven years ago, a stormy night, the old man digging out a rusty ancient core from the ruins of the puppet workshop, using the tip of a knife to pry open the skin of his palm, dripping blood onto the forbidden seal; he saw, three days ago, at dusk, he stood in the hidden compartment of the Kazekage's study, sprinkling powder that could aggravate chakra imbalance into Rasa's teacup...

Each scene felt like a red-hot iron skewer, pricking my temples with a throbbing pain.

Byakuya dug his nails deep into his palms until the taste of blood filled his teeth—it turned out that Ebizo's so-called "control over puppet power" was nothing more than using twenty years to turn the Kazekage, advisors, Jonin, and even the entire village of Sunagakure into his puppets.

"Enough." He suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils gleaming with a dark golden light.

The moonlight shattered into starlight in his eyes, but his lips pressed into a cold, hard line: "I don't need to rewrite history, I just need to put it back on the right track."

Before he finished speaking, his fingertips had already touched the spore sacs at his waist.

Dark brown spores fell like fine sand, condensing into a spiral-shaped curse mark on the ground.

Dark golden chakra surged from the core, drilling into the joints of each ancient puppet along the curse seal—the original program engraved in the core by the first puppeteer, the "command circuit" that Ebizo sealed with forbidden techniques for twenty years.

The first bronze puppet suddenly made a soft "click" sound from its neck.

Chapter 852 The Original Intention When It Was Created

Its arm blade, which had been aimed at Chiyo, slowly drooped, and its rusty head turned towards the tower in the southeast corner.

The second, the third... all twelve ancient warriors simultaneously rotated their joints, the sound of bronze rubbing together like countless knives scraping against the eardrums.

"You dare!" Ebizo staggered to his feet, the spiral pattern on his sleeves gleaming bluish-black in the moonlight.

His right hand gripped a bronze token engraved with incantations tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force: "I am your master!"

I gave you new life!

His response was a sweeping bronze arm blade.

Suddenly, sharp serrations popped out from the puppet's elbow, precisely severing three tendons in his right hand.

Ebizo let out a heart-wrenching scream, and the talisman fell to the ground with a clatter, bounced twice on the bluestone slab, and rolled to Baiye's feet.

“A true puppeteer,” Bai Ye bent down to pick up the command token, wiping the bloodstains on it with his fingertips, “is not one who controls destiny, but one who protects others.” Greenish-blue Wood Release chakra rose from his palm, a product of the First Hokage’s bloodline resonating with natural energy.

The talisman emitted a piercing scream in his hand, the incantations on its surface twisting and peeling off like living things, finally exploding into dust with a "bang".

Ebizo's body began to convulse violently.

He stared at the ripped flesh on his wrist and suddenly remembered the ancient book he had seen in the puppet workshop fifty years ago—the first puppeteer had used Wood Release to purify a cursed mechanism, and the life energy of Wood Release was the nemesis of all dark techniques.

"No..." His voice suddenly caught in his throat.

The twelve puppets simultaneously raised their arm blades, the tips of which were all aimed at his heart.

Moonlight reflected off the blade, casting dappled patterns of light on his face, much like the moonlight that fell on the young Kazekage's face when he manipulated Rasa with chakra threads in the secret chamber years ago.

"Ding--"

The moment the first blade pierced his left shoulder, Chiyo's low cry came from the direction of the main hall: "The Kazekage has awakened!"

Bai Ye turned his head to look.