Extreme Cellular Reorganization and the Preliminary Leap in Life Level

The night wind rushed forward, carrying the acrid, charred scent of burning buildings from the distance.

Baishi stood atop the canopy of a giant tree dozens of meters high, his pitch-black eyes fixed intently on the pillar of blood-red chakra shooting into the sky from the center of Konoha. The shrill wail of air-raid sirens tore through the night, and Kushina, in a state of partial Tailed Beast transformation, was crushing everything in her path into ruins with a reckless, frantic intensity.

Wanted by the entire village.

A cold, mocking smirk tugged at the corner of Baishi's mouth. When that woman went mad, even Namikaze Minato couldn't suppress her.

He had just prepared to weave the hand signs for the Body Flicker Technique to head toward the ANBU base when his heart contracted violently without warning.

"Thump!"

A muffled sound, like a heavy hammer striking a broken drum, exploded from deep within his chest. Baishi's vision went black for an instant, his body lost all balance, and he slammed heavily onto the rough tree trunk on one knee. Sharp wooden splinters from the bark instantly pierced through the fabric of his ANBU uniform and drove into the flesh of his knee.

"Damn it... it's not over yet?"

A nauseating, metallic tang rose in Baishi's throat. He bit down hard on his lower lip, forcing himself to swallow the scream that was about to escape.

He had severely underestimated the overbearing nature of the "Uzumaki Clan Sage Body Constitution."

The half-hour of torture in the basement had been nothing more than a preliminary remodeling of his skin and muscle tissue. Now, the terrifying life force originating from the Asura bloodline was truly beginning its most violent consumption and reorganization deep within his bone marrow and genes!

This wasn't fusion at all; it was one-sided plunder and assimilation!

An indescribable, agonizing pain radiated from deep within his bone marrow, as if millions of army ants were frantically gnawing at his hematopoietic stem cells. His previously steady flow of chakra instantly went berserk, its temperature skyrocketing and scorching his meridians until they nearly twisted out of shape.

Baishi's body temperature soared to a terrifying critical threshold in mere seconds. His exposed skin became rapidly congested, turning a burning, deep red. Sweat had barely seeped from his pores before it was evaporated by the intense heat radiating from his body, turning into clouds of white mist that carried a pungent, sour, and bloody stench.

"You want to devour my sanity? Keep dreaming!"

Baishi's eyes were bloodshot, with tiny capillaries bursting at the corners. He curled his fingers into claws and dug them deep into the hard tree trunk, wood shavings and blood oozing out from between his knuckles.

The extreme pain did not break his will; instead, it ignited the deepest, most ruthless instincts in his bones. He knew all too well that if he couldn't survive this deep, genetic-level reorganization, his body would collapse entirely under the weight of such immense life force, turning into a puddle of mindless pulp.

He couldn't resist it head-on; he had to channel it!

Baishi forced himself into a state of extreme calm. He immediately mobilized the "Top-tier Space-time Perception" and "Vast Chakra Control" he had just intercepted from Namikaze Minato.

In his internal vision, the dark red Sage Body chakra within him was like a violent beast, rampaging unchecked. Using Minato-level precision, Baishi turned his own chakra into countless fine nets, cutting, guiding, and soothing this foreign life force bit by bit.

This was an incredibly perilous psychological and physiological gamble.

The slightest carelessness would result in the chakra nets being shattered and his meridians being completely severed.

Time stretched infinitely in that moment. The explosions in the distance and Kushina's desperate roars were all blocked out of Baishi's senses. In his world, there remained only the brutal war of flesh and blood taking place within his body.

Nourished by the massive life force, his bones were forcibly shattered, only to heal again at an incredible speed, their density increasing exponentially. A continuous "crackle" sound erupted from his joints, as dense as popping beans.

Black impurities mixed with waste blood were forcibly expelled through his pores, forming a thick, foul-smelling scab of blood on his skin.

He did not know how much time had passed.

When the final trace of dark red chakra completely merged into his heart, transforming into a single drop of pure golden liquid energy, the soul-tearing pain finally receded like a tide.

"Hoo—"

Baishi exhaled a breath of scorching, turbid air, his entire body looking as if he had been fished out of a pool of blood. He slowly relaxed his fingers, which had been dug into the tree trunk, and stood up straight.

As the night wind blew, the thick layer of black blood scabs on his skin instantly cracked and turned to dust, scattering in the wind to reveal the newborn, fair, yet incredibly resilient skin beneath.

He flexed his wrist casually.

"Crack."

The air was instantly compressed by the extreme power and speed, emitting a crisp sonic boom.

Baishi looked down at his hands, his pitch-black eyes flashing with undisguised ambition and fanaticism.

His meridians had been forcibly widened by more than three times! The chakra that had once been gaseous was now so dense it approached a liquid state, surging through his body with a roar like a bursting river.

Even more terrifying was his self-healing ability. The bloody hole in his knee from the tree bark had vanished without even a scar, as if it had never happened. This inexhaustible life force had brought his physical vitality to an unfathomable realm.

"This is... the preliminary leap in the hierarchy of life."

Baishi donned his cold ANBU mask, hiding the sneer on his lips.

There was no mindless crushing by raw numbers, only an equivalent exchange survived on the edge of life and death. From this moment on, he had completely escaped the fate of a "low-level cannon fodder" who could be used as a disposable consumable by the higher-ups at any time.

With this bottomless chakra reserve and the terrifying error-tolerance of the Sage Body, he had firmly crossed the threshold of a Jonin and stepped half a foot 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.

In his perception, the world instantly stripped away its colors, transforming into countless silver threads representing spatial dimensions. Following these threads, his perception spread rapidly toward the ANBU base like ripples in water.

The scene one kilometer away was clearly reflected in his mind.

The heavy steel gates of the ANBU base had been completely torn apart, with twisted metal debris scattered across the ground.

Kushina was enveloped in three dark red chakra tails, her red hair dancing wildly in the night sky like a blooming spider lily. She was gripping the neck of a Root elite with one hand, slamming the person violently into the wall.

"Where is he?! Where is Baishi!!"

The voice was hoarse and shrill, filled with an extreme, paranoid despair over the loss of a loved one, shaking the surrounding ANBU ninjas so much that they retreated repeatedly, not daring to step forward and face her edge.

Above the base, a golden flash flickered at high frequency. Namikaze Minato held a Flying Thunder God Kunai, his face ashen, his eyes filled with suppressed, deep exhaustion and disbelief. He tried to approach Kushina, only to be ruthlessly swatted away time and again by those violent Adamantine Sealing Chains.

"Has Minato been pushed to this point?" Baishi watched coldly from the canopy, his heart devoid of any ripples.

So what if he is the protagonist of the original story? So what if he is the Child of Prophecy?

When the most core bonds are forcibly tampered with, and the name of another is carved into the depths of his most beloved woman's soul, even the most perfect genius will fall into an abyss of self-doubt.

This was precisely the shuraba Baishi wanted.

The more chaotic things became, the more room he had to maneuver. He had to enter the game under the identity of "Owl," stir these waters until they were completely muddied, and incidentally dispel any suspicions the Third Hokage and Danzo might harbor.

Chakra erupted beneath Baishi's feet as he prepared to use the Body Flicker Technique to depart.

Suddenly!

His Space-time Perception, having just completed its transition, sharply captured an extremely faint, yet chilling fluctuation that made his marrow run cold.

That was not chakra.

It was a bizarre energy entirely distinct from the existing power systems of the ninja world, like some kind of thousand-year-old sludge lurking in a gutter, carrying extreme malice.

Furthermore, it was incredibly close!

It was right inside the tree trunk beneath his feet!

Baishi abruptly halted his forward momentum. He did not look down, but instead used the corner of his eye to lock onto the shadow of the tree bark two meters below him.

Under his microscopic space-time perception, that seemingly ordinary shadow was undergoing a strange distortion. A mass of black, highly viscous substance was slowly wriggling along the grain of the tree trunk, climbing upward bit by bit.

Immediately after, a fissure opened without warning in the center of the black mud.

A golden slit pupil, filled with scrutiny, confusion, and profound malice, snapped open and stared fixedly at Baishi, who stood atop the canopy!

The pupils beneath Baishi's mask constricted sharply.

Black Zetsu!

This ultimate schemer, who had manipulated the ninja world from the shadows for a thousand years, had actually set his sights on him at a time like this!

"How is it possible... how could a mere piece of ANBU cannon fodder exude such a pure aura of the Asura bloodline?" From within the shadows, Black Zetsu's hoarse, grating murmur drifted out, barely audible, carrying the extreme shock of having his understanding shattered.