Opening Your Eyes to Hell

In the pitch-black, deathly silent underground temple, the heavy stone lid of a coffin sealed for a thousand years exploded with a deafening boom, shattering into countless fragments.

Amid the dust filling the air, a bloodless arm, pale as bone, suddenly thrust out. Its five fingers spasmed as they clawed at empty space.

Uchiha Xuan's consciousness was torn by a violent headache amid chaos. Countless fragments of memories that did not belong to him flooded into his mind like a breached dam, battering his modern soul.

He abruptly opened his eyes. The pupils that should have reflected the glory of the Uchiha Clan were hollow and confused, still devoid of the slightest trace of color.

His body felt like a dried-up well that had been empty for a thousand years. Not a drop of chakra remained, and every limb and bone felt as heavy as though filled with lead. Even lifting a finger was immensely difficult.

An invisible, crushing boulder seemed to be pressing down on his chest. Every breath carried a thick stench of rust and decay that made him nauseous.

This body had long since decayed beyond repair. Only an ancient sealing technique branded deep into its bones barely preserved its final thread of life.

Before he could fully sort out his thoughts, distant yet distinctly audible explosions pierced through the thick rock layers, pounding against his eardrums like war drums.

The entire underground temple shook violently, with rubble and dust raining down.

Mixed with the explosions were the shrill roars of countless shinobi, the bursting blasts of Fire Release techniques tearing through the air, and a... inhuman, terrifying roar that seemed to come from primordial antiquity.

The entire world seemed to be heading toward its end.

Uchiha Xuan used every ounce of strength in his body and struggled to stand by bracing himself against the coffin's edge.

Staggering, he walked step by step out of the temple ruins, most of which had already collapsed. When the sight outside entered his eyes, even with a modern soul accustomed to an overload of information, he could not help but freeze.

The sky was completely shrouded by ominous dark-purple chakra clouds. At the center of those clouds, a monster too enormous and grotesque to describe—the Ten-Tails—was rampaging wildly.

The earth had long lost its original color. As far as the eye could see, there was only scorched black land and shattered corpses piled like mountains.

In the distance, the Allied Shinobi Forces, dressed in uniforms from various nations, were engaged in a brutal slaughter against endless waves of white humanoid monsters—White Zetsu.

In the brief moment he watched, a Kage-level powerhouse whose figure moved like lightning had just evaded a fatal ambush when he was struck head-on by a Tailed Beast Bomb descending from the sky, condensed with destructive energy. Before he could even scream, he was instantly vaporized into a dazzling yet tragic mist of blood.

Closer by, a massive root system formed from twisted trees and the pallid faces of countless White Zetsu was slowly spreading toward the ruined shrine where he stood with an unhurried yet unstoppable momentum.

The strange fluctuations of Wood Release chakra made him recognize it at once. This was the surveillance network Yakushi Kabuto used to monitor the entire battlefield.

He immediately grasped the peril of his situation.

This was neither the Allied Shinobi Forces' position nor the core war zone of Madara Uchiha and Obito. It was an altar ruin at the edge of the battlefield, forgotten by everyone.

An absolute blind spot, which also meant a death zone where energy shockwaves were the most unpredictable.

If he did not act immediately, either the residual shockwave from the next Tailed Beast Bomb or the spreading Wood Release surveillance network could easily grind this decayed shell of his into dust.

Just as he endured the sensation of his body falling apart and attempted to retreat toward the relatively safe mountain rocks behind him, a hoarse, icy laugh suddenly sounded from behind.

"Found you... I finally found you... the Progenitor's blood!"

Before the words had even faded, the ground behind him exploded. A figure clad in a gray robe and wrapped all over in the yellow paper talismans unique to Impure World Reincarnation burst from the earth.

That person was Uchiha Kanku, an ancient powerhouse resurrected by Yakushi Kabuto using a forbidden technique.

Embedded in his left eye socket was a scarlet, sinister Mangekyō Sharingan that radiated an ominous glow. His right eye socket was hollow and bleeding, making him look incomparably grotesque.

Uchiha Kanku's greedy eyes fixed on Xuan's face as though admiring an unparalleled treasure. "Unbelievable... Within your body, which is about to rot away, you actually carry the purest, most primordial Uchiha Progenitor genes! As long as I devour you, I can use this primordial power to break free from the restraints of Impure World Reincarnation and reclaim true, eternal life!"

He gave Xuan no time to react. His hands had already formed seals at lightning speed.

"Fire Release: Flame Dragon Devour!"

With a low roar, scorching Fire Release chakra erupted from his mouth. In midair, it instantly condensed into a gigantic, ferocious flaming dragon that roared as it charged straight toward Xuan's face, carrying heat sufficient to melt steel!

The shadow of death instantly engulfed him.

Uchiha Xuan's battle instincts drove him to roll aside and evade it, but his decayed body simply could not keep up with his soul's reaction speed.

His movements were slow and clumsy. The flaming dragon almost grazed his shoulder, and its scorching breath instantly charred the flesh on his left shoulder black, producing a sizzling sound.

The piercing agony blanked his mind for an instant. The weakness of his body and fear of death intertwined, nearly suffocating him.

Uchiha Kanku clearly had no intention of giving him any chance to catch his breath. A second Fire Release attack, even more powerful than the first, was already gathering in his hands.

At that critical moment, an icy, emotionless voice rang out in the depths of his mind without warning:

"High-concentration resentful soul detected. Conditions for initial devouring fulfilled. Activate the Myriad Phenomena Devouring System?"

The voice had come so abruptly, yet it was incredibly clear.

Immediately afterward, Xuan felt his right arm jerk upward completely beyond his control. Rings of dark, profound black patterns appeared out of thin air across his palm, slowly writhing and spreading like living creatures.

The instinct to survive overwhelmed every thought. Before he could even consider what this "system" was, he used his last ounce of strength to grit his teeth and force a hoarse roar from his throat. "Devour him!"

The instant the command was given, thick black mist, dark as ink, surged from the patterns on his palm. In midair, it condensed into an enormous phantom hand that ignored the oncoming flames and, at a speed beyond the laws of physics, precisely seized the faint ripple of soul energy Uchiha Kanku had released from his body while casting his technique.

In an instant, Uchiha Kanku's expression changed drastically as disbelief and terror filled his eyes. "Impossible! What is this thing? A soul-devouring... Kekkei Mōra?!"

He tried to forcibly interrupt the technique and retreat, only to discover in horror that an unseverable soul link had already formed between himself and that cloud of black mist.

A terrifying suction force was frantically dragging at his soul core through that connection!

Uchiha Xuan had already gone mad. He knew this was his only chance to live!

Ignoring the warnings that his body was on the verge of collapse, he lunged forward without hesitation. In the instant Uchiha Kanku stiffened from the tug on his soul, Xuan's intact left hand turned into a claw and plunged fiercely into the other man's still-bleeding left eye socket!

"Squelch!"

With a muffled sound, Xuan's fingers accurately clamped around the Mangekyō Sharingan still spinning rapidly, then viciously gouged it out!

The eyeball was scorching hot in his hand, like a branding iron freshly pulled from a furnace, burning his palm.

At the same time, the system's cold notification sounded again in his mind:

Successfully devoured part of the target's soul and left-eye biological tissue. Analyzing...

Analysis complete! Obtained Bloodline Limit template [Inferno Illusion Realm] (unfused).

Obtained 50 base chakra points.

Health restored by 30%.

A warm current mixed with pure chakra instantly flowed from his palm into his nearly dried-up body.

His once-clouded and hollow eyes were suddenly infused with a streak of blood-red scarlet!

Blood vessels spread across the whites of his eyes. Within his pupils, two black tomoe slowly emerged and began to rotate before finally stabilizing—his Two-Tomoe Sharingan had officially awakened!

His vision underwent an earth-shattering transformation in that moment.

It was as if the entire world had been switched to slow motion. The paths of dust drifting through the air became clearly visible, and every explosion on the distant battlefield slowed down, becoming layered and distinct.

Every facial muscle twitching from Uchiha Kanku's agony, every minute movement, was infinitely magnified and analyzed in his eyes.

With this unprecedented perception, Xuan's body flashed sideways at an unimaginable angle, barely avoiding the poisoned kunai the other man instinctively thrust out in his death throes.

He swung his hand back and mercilessly poured every last wisp of black mist from his right palm into Uchiha Kanku's chest cavity, which was covered in Impure World Reincarnation talismans.

"Aaaahhh—!"

An inhumanly shrill scream echoed through the ruins. Kanku's soul was completely stripped away and devoured beneath the corrosion of the black mist.

The yellow paper talismans wrapped around his body tore apart inch by inch and turned to ash. The body formed from dust and sacrificial offerings also collapsed with a crash, scattering across the ground.

Uchiha Xuan's legs went weak, and he dropped to one knee, panting violently.

He lowered his head and looked at his trembling right hand, where the black mist patterns on his palm had already faded. A cold, lucid thought arose in his heart:

In this chaotic age where human lives were worth less than grass, the only way to survive was to keep devouring!

The violent fluctuations from the battle had already drawn the attention of the distant battlefield. Several powerful chakra signatures were speeding toward the shrine ruins.

The ground continued to tremble beneath even fiercer impacts, while massive rocks fell from the shattered roof of the shrine and crashed down beside him.

Uchiha Xuan endured the agonizing pain of his body nearly being torn apart by its newfound power and slowly rose to his feet. His scarlet Two-Tomoe Sharingan swept coldly across the chaotic battlefield.

He knew that the real trial had only just begun.