The night wind carried the scorched stench of burning buildings from afar straight at him.
Baishi stood atop the crown of a giant tree dozens of meters tall, his pitch-black eyes fixed on the blood-red pillar of chakra shooting into the sky from the heart of Konoha. The shrill air-raid sirens tore through the night as Kushina, in a Partial Tailed Beast Transformation, crushed everything in her path into ruins with reckless madness.
Wanted by the entire village.
A cold sneer tugged at Baishi's lips. When this woman went mad, even Namikaze Minato could not restrain her.
Just as he was about to form the hand seals for the Body Flicker Technique and head to the ANBU Base, his heart suddenly clenched without warning.
"Thump!"
A dull boom, like a heavy hammer smashing a broken drum, exploded from deep inside his chest. Baishi's vision went black, and he completely lost his balance, one knee slamming heavily against the rough trunk. Sharp bark splinters pierced through his ANBU uniform and stabbed into the flesh of his knee.
"Damn it... not over yet?"
A nauseating metallic sweetness rose in Baishi's throat. He bit down hard on his lower lip and forcibly swallowed the scream that nearly escaped.
He had severely underestimated the tyranny of the Uzumaki Clan Sage Body.
The half hour of torment in the basement had merely been the initial alteration of his skin and muscle tissue. Now, the terrifying vitality originating from the Asura bloodline had truly begun its most violent devouring and reorganization deep within his marrow and genes!
This was not fusion at all. It was one-sided plunder and assimilation!
Indescribable agony surged from deep within his bone marrow, as though tens of millions of army ants were frantically gnawing at his hematopoietic stem cells. His once steadily flowing chakra instantly went berserk, its temperature soaring and nearly warping his chakra pathways from the heat.
Baishi's body temperature shot up to a terrifying threshold within seconds. The exposed skin rapidly became congested, turning red and scorching hot. The instant sweat seeped from his pores, the heat of his body evaporated it into clouds of white mist carrying a thick, sour stench of blood.
"Trying to devour my sanity? Dream on!"
Baishi's eyes were bloodshot, and tiny vessels even burst at the corners of his eyes. His fingers curled into claws and dug deeply into the hard tree trunk, wood chips and blood squeezing out through the gaps between them.
The unbearable pain did not break his will. Instead, it stirred the deepest ruthlessness in his bones. He understood all too well that if he failed to endure this deep genetic reorganization, this body would completely collapse under the overwhelming vitality and turn into a mindless lump of flesh.
He could not resist it head-on. He had to guide it!
Baishi forced himself into an utterly calm state. He immediately mobilized the Supreme Space-time Perception and Vast Chakra Control he had just stolen from Namikaze Minato.
Within his inner perception, the dark red Sage Body chakra inside him was like a rabid beast, rampaging wildly. Using Minato-level precision control, Baishi transformed his own chakra into countless fine nets, little by little cutting apart, guiding, and soothing that foreign vitality.
This was an exceedingly dangerous contest between mind and body.
One misstep, and the chakra net would shatter, leaving his chakra pathways severed.
Time stretched infinitely in that moment. The distant explosions, Kushina's desperate screams—all of it was shut out from Baishi's senses. His world contained only the brutal war of flesh and blood being reorganized within him.
Nourished by immense vitality, his bones were forcibly shattered, then healed at an unbelievable speed, their density increasing severalfold. Dense crackling explosions continuously sounded from the gaps between his bones, like beans popping in a pan.
Black impurities mixed with stale blood were forcibly expelled through his pores, forming a thick layer of foul-smelling blood scabs over his body.
He did not know how long passed.
When the final trace of dark red chakra completely merged into his heart and transformed into a drop of pure golden liquid energy, the soul-rending agony finally receded like the tide.
"Phew—"
Baishi exhaled a scorching breath of foul air. He looked as though he had just been pulled from a pool of blood. Slowly releasing his fingers from the tree trunk, he stood upright.
As the night wind blew, the thick black blood scabs over his body instantly cracked apart and scattered into powder, revealing fresh, fair skin beneath with an exceptionally tough texture.
He casually flexed his wrist.
Crack.
The air was instantly compressed by his tremendous power and speed, producing a crisp sonic boom.
Baishi looked down at his hands, undisguised ambition and fervor glinting in his dark eyes.
His chakra pathways had been forcibly widened by more than three times! His originally gaseous chakra had now become so dense that it was nearly liquid, rushing endlessly through his body with a roar like a river bursting through its banks.
Even more terrifying was his regenerative power. The bloody hole in his knee from the bark had not even left a scar; it was already completely healed. This endless vitality had brought the activity of his flesh to an unimaginable level.
"So this is... the initial leap in life level."
Baishi put on the cold ANBU mask, concealing the sneer at the corner of his mouth.
There was no mindless numerical crushing, only an equivalent exchange earned by surviving at death's edge. From this moment onward, he had completely escaped the fate of being a lowly cannon fodder that the higher-ups could use up at any time.
With this bottomless reserve of chakra and the terrifying fault tolerance of a Sage Body alone, he had already firmly crossed the threshold of Jonin and stepped halfway into the realm of Kage Level!
Now, it was time to deal with that mess.
Baishi closed his eyes and fully released his newly acquired Space-time Perception Ability.
The world instantly lost its colors in his perception, turning into countless silver threads representing spatial dimensions. Following those threads, his perception spread like rippling water toward the ANBU Base.
The scene one kilometer away was clearly reflected in his mind.
The ANBU Base's heavy reinforced steel gates had been completely torn apart, twisted metal wreckage scattered across the ground.
Kushina was wrapped in three dark red chakra tails, her red hair dancing wildly through the night sky like blooming red spider lilies. With one hand, she gripped the neck of a Root elite and viciously slammed him into the wall.
"Where is he?! Where is Baishi?!"
Her voice was hoarse and shrill, carrying the utmost despair and obsession of someone who had lost her beloved. It shook the surrounding ANBU ninja into retreating again and again, none daring to step forward and face her edge.
Above the base, a Golden Flash flickered rapidly. Namikaze Minato held a Flying Thunder God Kunai, his face ashen, deep exhaustion and disbelief suppressed in his eyes. He tried to approach Kushina, only to be mercilessly sent flying time and again by the berserk Adamantine Sealing Chains.
"Minato has been pushed this far?" Baishi watched coldly from the treetop, his heart utterly unmoved.
So what if he was the original protagonist? So what if he was the child of destiny?
When the most vital bond had been forcibly altered, when the name of another man had been carved into the soul of the woman he loved most, even the most perfect genius would fall into the abyss of self-doubt.
This was exactly the chaotic tragedy Baishi wanted.
The greater the chaos, the more room he had to maneuver. He had to enter the fray as Owl, thoroughly muddy the waters, and incidentally dispel any suspicions the Third Hokage and Danzo might have.
Chakra erupted beneath Baishi's feet as he prepared to use the Body Flicker Technique and leave.
Suddenly!
His newly completed Space-time Perception sharply caught an extremely faint fluctuation, one so cold and sinister that it chilled him to the marrow.
It was not chakra.
It was a bizarre energy entirely different from the existing power system of the Shinobi World, like millennia-old sludge lurking in a gutter, carrying boundless malice.
And it was very close!
Inside the tree trunk beneath his feet!
Baishi's forward motion came to an abrupt halt. He did not look down, instead locking onto the shadow in the bark two meters below with the corner of his eye.
Under his microscopic perception of space-time, that seemingly ordinary shadow was twisting strangely. A mass of black, extremely viscous matter slowly squirmed along the grain of the tree, climbing upward bit by bit.
Then, without warning, a slit split open at the center of the black sludge.
A golden vertical eye, filled with scrutiny, confusion, and profoundly deep malice, snapped open and stared directly at Baishi standing in the treetop!
Baishi's pupils abruptly contracted beneath his mask.
Black Zetsu!
The ultimate schemer who had manipulated the Shinobi World from the shadows for a thousand years had actually set his sights on him at this moment!
"How is that possible... How could an ordinary ANBU cannon fodder radiate such a pure Asura bloodline aura?" From within the shadows came Black Zetsu's hoarse, grating murmur, so faint it was barely audible, carrying extreme shock at the shattering of his understanding.