His will turned into invisible instructions, which instantly spread throughout the Scarlet Eye Tower suspended above the sea of clouds.
"Start 'Zeroing Protocol'."
A cold voice sounded in Chiyo Saori's headset, making her heart skip a beat.
Zeroing Protocol, the highest martial law order in the empire, means that the target area will be completely cut off from all physical and mental links with the outside world, entering an absolute "information island" state.
This is the first time since the establishment of the empire.
"Buzz--!"
The energy shield invisible to the naked eye was like an inverted giant bowl, instantly covering the huge Scarlet Eye Academy in the middle of the mountain.
The light of all external communication arrays was extinguished one by one, and the huge hub connecting the spiritual network of millions of children fell into deathly silence for the first time.
Inside the Academy, the alloy gates crashed down, dividing tens of thousands of instructors and students into their own areas. Puppet troops covered in pitch-black armor appeared silently at every key intersection. Their scarlet eyes scanned everything, and any abnormal movement would be instantly obliterated.
"Sir, the goal is..." Chiyo Saori's voice contained an imperceptible tremor.
"Retrieve the brainwave data of all children who have received 'Purification Hearing' in the past thirty days," Xuan's order was emotionless, "Screen out all individuals with abnormal resonance in the 'gamma-theta' frequency band."
"Yes!"
A huge data stream refreshed on the light screen in front of Chiyo like a waterfall.
Every child in the empire will be implanted with a micro brainwave monitor since birth. Every time they meditate, every time they recite <Scarlet Eye Canon>, every time they have mood swings, they will be recorded, archived, and analyzed.
This system was originally used to screen geniuses and monitor mental health, but now it has become a ruthless dragnet.
In less than ten seconds, seventeen names were highlighted in red.
They are distributed in different grades of the Academy. The oldest is only eight years old, and the youngest has just learned to speak.
The only thing they have in common is that in the recent "Purification Hearing", there was a fleeting and faint spike on the brain wave map, which was highly similar to the fluctuation characteristics when Suzu awakened her precognitive ability just now.
They are potential "bells", seventeen ungerminated seeds that can glimpse "reality".
"Sir, these seventeen people are just showing signs, and they are not even aware of them. They may not pose a threat..." Chiyo Saori looked at the immature faces on the list and couldn't help but persuade.
She is loyal to Xuan's absolute power, but as the administrator of the empire, she instinctively hopes to avoid unnecessary losses.
The corner of Xuan's mouth curled up in a cold arc. Through the surveillance light curtain, he seemed to be able to penetrate layers of rock walls and see the seventeen children sleeping or playing in their respective rooms.
"Threat?" he asked softly, with a hint of mockery in his tone, "When the wheat in the field can hear the sound of farmers sharpening their knives, it has lost its qualifications as food. When they can hear my heartbeat and see the cracks deep in my soul, it will be too late."
"I... understand." Chiyo said no more and bowed to accept the order.
"Secretly transfer them to the isolation cabin in Area A on the seventh floor underground. Activate the reverse mental interference matrix to isolate any possibility of deep meditation."
The order was given and the puppet troops in the shadows began to take action.
There was no alarm, no noise. The seventeen children were taken away silently in their sleep or in a moment of confusion, as if they had never existed.
The seventh underground floor, codename "Sea of Stasis".
This is the deepest cage in the empire. The cold alloy walls are engraved with layers of Sealing Jutsu patterns, and even the air seems to have been drained of all emotion.
Uchiha Xuan's figure appeared in front of the light curtain in the main control room, and he wanted to witness the first case of "purification" with his own eyes.
In the isolation cabin, a six-year-old boy slowly woke up.
He looked blankly at the pure white environment around him, with no fear in his eyes, only confusion.
The crystal on the top of the cabin lit up, and a huge, counter-rotating Sharingan projection enveloped him.
Invisible waves of mental interference flooded into his brain, preventing him from concentrating and shattering any idea he had of trying to construct a picture.
However, at a certain moment, the boy's pupils suddenly lost focus.
From Xuan's surveillance perspective, the curve representing the boy's brain waves was beating wildly, and a chaotic illusion was forcibly captured and presented on the secondary screen.
It was a high platform with countless believers kneeling on the ground, shouting the name "Xuan".
On the high platform, a grown-up boy, who was clearly himself, was holding a copy of "Scarlet Eye Canon" high, with determination and grief on his face, and violently tore it into pieces!
The picture flashed away.
Xuan's eyes did not waver at all, as if he just saw an ant deviating from the preset trajectory.
"Inject G-01 inhibitor." He ordered calmly.
"Sir!" Chiyo Saori lost his voice, "That is Hashirama Cells's highly concentrated inhibitor. It will permanently destroy the connection between the cerebral cortex and the chakra pathway. He will become..."
"A qualified imperial citizen." Xuan interrupted her.
The cold mechanical arm penetrated the boy's neck, and the green medicine was instantly injected.
The boy's body trembled suddenly, and then he fell softly.
Three minutes later, the medical puppet scan confirmed that his pupils had completely dilated and his brain waves had turned into a straight line with no fluctuations.
He will not die, but he will no longer be able to think, have any illusions, or even remember his own name.
His soul was "purified".
In an independent observation room, Ling witnessed the entire suffocating process through a one-way observation mirror.
Her little body was curled up on the chair, not crying or fussing, just watching quietly.
When the boy's brainwaves completely disappeared, she suddenly turned her head, faced the inconspicuous surveillance camera in the corner, and said clearly in a calm tone that was inconsistent with her age:
"You can't turn off the sound."
As soon as he finished speaking, a piercing alarm sounded throughout the entire main control room!
"Alert! Alert! Unauthorized collective resonance signal detected!"
The system's mechanical sound sounded rapidly, and a scarlet waveform occupied the main screen.
"Signal source: Isolation cabins No. 2 to 18 in Area A! The brain waves of seventeen subjects were forcibly activated at the same moment. The frequency... the frequency is exactly the same as the resonant frequency of 'Northern Three Towers False Bell Event'!"
What made Chiyo Saori's scalp numb even more was the data annotation given by the system--
"Signal duration: thirteen minutes."
No more, no less, just the complete duration of the imperial sacred song <Xuan's First Tone>!
This is impossible!
They are obviously suppressed by the reverse mental interference matrix and cannot enter deep consciousness at all, let alone form such a stable and powerful collective resonance!
"Boom!"
The alloy door of the main control room was knocked open by a huge force, and the figure of Uchiha Xuan stepped in with a bit of cold air.
In his eyes, the silver Eternal Mangekyō pattern was spinning crazily, emitting a heart-stopping light.
He didn't even glance at the panicked Chiyo. His figure disappeared instantly, and the next second he appeared in the isolation zone corridor on the seventh floor underground.
He stretched out his hand and pressed it on the door of the first isolation cabin.
"Kamui·Virtual Realm!"
Eternal Mangekyō's eye power exploded without reservation, forcibly tearing open the barrier between reality and spirit.
His consciousness instantly invaded the strange mental space built by seventeen comatose children.
It was an endless nothingness, no sky, no earth.
The consciousness bodies of seventeen children, holding hands, formed a perfect circle.
They had their eyes closed, with an almost holy serenity on their faces, and they were singing a song in unison that Xuan had never heard before.
The lyrics were vague, as if shrouded in a thick fog. There was only one sentence, like a spell that penetrated time and space, echoing repeatedly in the depths of his soul:
"The name is the chain, but the cry is the key..."
"Names are chains, but cries are keys!"
This voice seems to be calling for some forgotten ancient existence!
"Pretend to be a ghost."
Xuan's consciousness condensed and formed in the void, his eyes were extremely cold.
He saw through the essence of this resonance - these children were not resisting him, but were unconsciously looking for a "coordinate" that he had erased with his own hands through this instinctive gift of foresight.
He cannot tolerate any "variations" beyond his script.
"Banshō Ten'in·Soul peeling off!"
No need Hand Seals, his eye power turned into an invisible giant hand, grabbing hard at the seventeen consciousness bodies!
This is not a physical attack, but a surgery that directly targets the origin of the soul!
Each neuron representing the talent of "precognition" was forcibly ignited, analyzed, and then burned in their mental structure!
"Ah--!"
The shrill screams sounded in the void for the first time, but stopped abruptly.
The consciousness bodies that formed a circle were like dolls that had their skeletons removed. They collapsed and collapsed one by one, turning into the purest spiritual particles and dissipating into the invisible.
The operation is completed.
When Xuan returned to the main control room, Chiyo Saori was standing outside Ling's observation room with a complicated expression.
"Sir, Ling just said..."
"I heard it." Xuan said calmly.
In the observation room, Ling seemed to sense something. She lay on the observation mirror, tapped the glass with her little hand, and said to Chiyo Saori who looked solemn outside, "They don't want to resist... they are just... looking for their mother."
Chiyo was startled and subconsciously asked, "Whose mother?"
Ling shook her head, her eyes full of sadness. "Everyone's... the one in the burned history, mother."
The history that was burned... Chiyo's heart twitched hard, and she suddenly thought of the "Fire of Purged History" that swept the entire Shinobi World at the beginning of the establishment of the empire and burned all the ancient books and clan scrolls.
Could it be...
She was about to report this astonishing discovery, but when she looked up, she found that Uchiha Xuan was standing in front of her at some point.
In his hand, he held a new document that had just been generated and still exuded the luster of energy.
Chiyo saw the title of the file--
<Preliminary Soul Encoding Implementation Plan>.
She only glanced at it, and the first rule made her feel as if she had fallen into an ice cave:
"Article 1: In order to maintain the ideological unity and spiritual purity of the empire, from now on, all inheritance of emotions, memories, and instincts that are not authorized by 'Scarlet Eye Canon' is prohibited."
Xuan ignored her pale face and walked straight past her.
Seven days later.
Scarlet Eye Academy On the seventh underground floor, the seventeen soulless bodies were transformed into the latest "honeycomb" communication puppets.
Their bodies are connected to the core array of Scarlet Eye Tower, becoming brand new signal relay nodes in the empire's spiritual network.
On the top of the towering tower, whenever the bell representing the will of the empire rings, the seventeen puppets fixed on the wall will have a viscous liquid as black as ink flowing out of their eye sockets, which will slowly flow into the energy pool below along the conduits that have been laid, providing insignificant but never-ending "nourishment" for this great spectacle.
Uchiha Xuan stood on the edge of the tower, overlooking the huge empire he had built.
The strong wind blew his black robe, making a hunting sound.
He is testing the modified mental network, and its stability and transmission efficiency have been improved unprecedentedly.
At this moment, a breeze blew past his ears, and there seemed to be a very light and subtle murmur mixed in the wind, as if it were the voices of countless children gathered together.
"Do you... remember?"
Xuan's movements didn't pause at all, and he didn't even look back.
His eyes were still looking straight at the Fire Country symbolizing the old era on the distant horizon, his eyes as deep as an abyss.
He just gave a new order to Chiyo Saori behind him in an indifferent tone without any emotion.
"The order is passed. From today on, the first cry of all newborns in the empire must first be filtered by 'Silencing Seal' to confirm that no abnormal information is included before it can be entered into the file."
The moment the words fell, it was as if an invisible command spanned time and space.
In the distant direction of the Scarlet Eye Academy Child Care Center, the sound of babies crying that had just started to come and go, seemed to be suddenly strangled by an invisible big hand, and stopped abruptly in an instant.
The whole world fell into a uniform and eerie silence.
Xuan slowly turned around, his silver pupils reflecting this cold and efficient empire without any trace of ripples.
Crying is the key?
Then completely melt all the locks, together with the keys.
"Chiyo," he spoke, his voice echoing far away on the top of the dead tower, "Pass my order to summon all registered clerks, custodians of history, and... the elders of the ancient clans that have been passed down from Warring States Era to the present day within the empire's jurisdiction."
"Let them come to Scarlet Eye Tower and see me with all the things that can prove the 'past'."