Massacre

The first to attack were the five Ketsuryūgan awakeners.

They knew full well of the Sharingan's resistance to genjutsu, so they did not use the Ketsuryūgan's most basic illusion ability.

They all let out hoarse roars, using the sharp weapons in their hands—or simply their teeth—to viciously slash open their arms and chests. Blood immediately gushed forth.

Strangely, that blood did not fall. The instant it left their bodies, it seemed to be controlled by an invisible force, rapidly gathering and shifting into sharp blood-red arrows, spears, and even twisting whip-like shadows.

Carrying a pungent stench of blood and an evil fluctuation that disrupted chakra, they shot toward Shaoyu like a torrential downpour.

This was the Ketsuryūgan's second ability: the Blood-Control Secret Art.

"Ten Shadows Technique: Tiger Funeral!"

With a thought from Shaoyu, the shadow beside him twisted violently.

The swift and ferocious figure of the shikigami Tiger Funeral, wielding twin blades, instantly leaped from the shadows.

It let out a silent roar, its twin blades whirling into a frigid curtain of steel as it precisely and efficiently met the incoming blood-red attacks.

Blood arrows and blood spears collided with metal blades, producing sizzling corrosive sounds and ringing clashes of steel. Most were intercepted and cut apart by Tiger Funeral.

At the same time, Uchiha Shaoyu moved! At some point, a completely black kunai had appeared in his hand. It looked ordinary, yet was exceptionally sharp.

His figure became a blurred streak of black lightning as he charged straight into the crowd.

The Mangekyō Sharingan granted him unparalleled dynamic vision and foresight, allowing him to weave through the dense barrage of attacks and the frenzied mob like a fish, evading deadly lunges and crude weapons by the narrowest margins.

His movements were simple, efficient, and lethal.

"Splat!"

"Crack!"

"Aah—!"

The kunai slit throats, severed tendons, and pierced hearts.

Fists and kicks struck vital points. The sounds of shattering bones and shrill screams rose and fell one after another.

Shaoyu was like a tiger charging into a flock of sheep. Every strike either claimed a life or completely robbed someone of their ability to fight.

There was not the slightest hesitation in his movements. He was calm to the point of cruelty.

Tiger Funeral fought alongside him, its twin blades flashing as it harvested the enemies trying to ambush him from the sides or behind.

Though the Chinoike Clan members were filled with hatred, their long imprisonment had left them physically weak. Their ninjutsu inheritance was likely incomplete as well, and they lacked any effective coordination or tactics.

Otherwise, they would have already dealt with Kumogakure's people and fled. Why would they have remained in this hellish place?

Before the absolute gap in strength and the Mangekyō's insight, their resistance appeared so pale and powerless.

The battle—or rather, the massacre—did not last long.

Before long, corpses lay strewn across the basin.

Blood soaked the gray-black ground, mixing with the already heavy stench of blood in the air and making it nauseating.

The last old man who tried to seize Shaoyu from behind was pierced through the heart by a single strike from Tiger Funeral, then collapsed in convulsions.

More than twenty Chinoike Clan members, including the five Ketsuryūgan awakeners, were all dead.

There were no survivors left in the basin. Only the howling wind and the distant roar of lava remained, as though mourning a clan that had vanished completely into the dust of history.

Uchiha Shaoyu stood amid the pile of corpses, his body spattered with blood and his kunai still dripping red.

His expression was calm, as though he had merely done something trivial. He put away the kunai, and Tiger Funeral returned to the shadows.

He walked over to the five corpses of the Ketsuryūgan awakeners and crouched down.

His Mangekyō Sharingan carefully observed the five pairs of Ketsuryūgan, which had lost their luster but still retained their dark-red, sinister color.

"Another ocular bloodline limit..."

Shaoyu murmured as he took out a processed sealing container he carried with him.

His movements were practiced and precise. He carefully removed the five pairs of Ketsuryūgan intact, placed them in a specially made preservative solution, then sealed them inside a scroll.

The bloody wind of Hell Valley had yet to fully disperse, and the air was filled with the pungent blend of blood and sulfur.

Uchiha Shaoyu stood among the corpses, the sealing scroll in his hand faintly warm. Within it lay four pairs of dark-red Ketsuryūgan that had just been removed and soaked in preservative solution.

Yet just as he prepared to place the final pair of Ketsuryūgan into the container and completely seal away this ocular relic from an extinct clan, a sudden change occurred.

The pair of Ketsuryūgan resting in his left palm, which had already begun to lose the light of life, lit up.

Just as Shaoyu's fingers were about to touch them and place them into the container—

Buzz!

An extremely faint yet exceptionally clear tremor, as though it directly touched the depths of his soul, came without warning from that pair of Ketsuryūgan. It traveled along Shaoyu's fingers and instantly spread throughout his body.

More precisely, it directly stirred the core power of the Mangekyō Sharingan deep within his eyes.

The sensation carried neither malice nor temptation. It felt more like... a faint resonance between powers of the same origin?

An instinctive attraction when a dormant bloodline encountered a similar trait?

Uchiha Shaoyu's movements abruptly froze.

The strange bands of light in his eyes accelerated uncontrollably, his gaze fixed tightly on the dark-red eyeballs in his palm.

At such close range, especially at this delicate moment when Shaoyu had personally ended the Ketsuryūgan host's life and its ocular power had not yet completely dissipated, the two powers—both belonging to the realm of ocular abilities—produced an indescribable interaction.

Shaoyu could clearly feel the faint, sinister remnant ocular power within the Ketsuryūgan in his palm being invisibly drawn in by his own Mangekyō Sharingan.

It was as if his Mangekyō instinctively wanted to absorb, even assimilate, this similar yet different power.

After a moment of hesitation, Uchiha Shaoyu's eyes were quickly overtaken by a cold, resolute desire to investigate.

He had never been someone who feared risk.

From defecting from Konoha, to challenging the Raikage, and now...

Seeking higher realms of power had always been a pursuit carved into his bones.

"Let's try it..."

He murmured, no longer hesitating.

He raised his right hand and carefully pinched one of the Ketsuryūgan between his fingertips. Then, with an almost ritualistic focus, he slowly pressed the cold, slick eyeball, still carrying traces of evil aura, toward the pupil of his Mangekyō.

Of course, he was not truly going to force the foreign object into his eye.

The instant the Ketsuryūgan touched his eyelid, Shaoyu used his chakra and Mangekyō ocular power in an exceptionally delicate, probing manner to actively meet the remaining foreign power within the Ketsuryūgan.

The instant they made contact!

"Boom—!!!"

A shock hundreds or thousands of times stronger than before erupted in Shaoyu's spiritual world and eyes like a volcanic explosion.

Dark-red and crimson light frantically intertwined, collided, and tore at each other before his eyes.

The remnant ocular power of the Ketsuryūgan was filled with the resentment of imprisonment, a warped desire to control blood, and a sinister sensation of draining life force.

Shaoyu's own Mangekyō ocular power, meanwhile, contained Uchiha pride and his own cold will to pursue power and protect.

The two forces, both belonging to the domain of ocular abilities yet utterly different in nature, clashed fiercely and underwent a degree of forced fusion within the special crucible of his eyes.

"Urgh—!"

Shaoyu could not help letting out a muffled groan as his body shook violently.

A pain like being seared by a branding iron and pierced by an ice spike erupted from his left eye.

His vision was instantly covered by alternating blood-red and darkness, while countless venomous curses and wails from Chinoike Clan members at the moment of death seemed to echo in his ears.

An unfamiliar, strange perception of blood and desire to control it also tried to slither into the depths of his consciousness like a venomous snake.

Pain! Chaos! The risk of contamination!

But Shaoyu gritted his teeth, and his right eye instantly activated its Mangekyō as well. Double the ocular power surged at full force.

The extreme energy control and mental stabilization granted by the "Six Eyes" trait played a crucial role at this moment.

Forcibly suppressing, guiding, and analyzing the invading foreign ocular power, he stripped away and annihilated the chaotic resentment and negative emotions within the Ketsuryūgan's power, retaining only its most fundamental rules and energy information concerning the control of blood.