Iron Sand Recognizes No Old Master

The first golden ray of dawn pierced the lingering smoke in the canyon like a sharp sword cutting through chaos, illuminating the devastated battlefield in all its ruin.

Xuan stood quietly amid twisted metal and shattered stone. Above his open palm floated a genuine iron sand core of the Third Kazekage.

No longer as violently unstable as the imitation, it had drawn all its deep blue radiance inward. The chakra within its core pulsed steadily and powerfully like the heart of a sleeping beast, every beat seeming to resonate with the magnetic field of the earth itself.

Though he had emerged as the final victor of last night's battle, two thorns lay buried beneath the fruits of victory.

First, the backlash from the violent energy he had forcibly devoured from the imitation core had yet to be completely purged. Like a dormant venomous snake, it could bite back at any moment.

Second, and more importantly, Chiyo Saori—the former pinnacle of puppet arts in the Hidden Sand Village—had not truly submitted.

Her obedience was merely temporary, a cautious wait-and-see response to absolute power.

She was waiting for a "result," one that would make her completely abandon her old convictions and wager everything she had, including her life, on him.

Time was running out. Before the ultimate threat known as "Kaguya" arrived, he had to forge this unstable chess piece into the sharpest blade he could wield.

Xuan slowly sat down cross-legged, and the wreckage beneath him let out a groan under the strain.

Ignoring everything around him, he immersed his entire mind deep within his consciousness. A cold system interface unfolded in his mind.

"System, begin an in-depth analysis of [Magnet Release: Living Core]."

"Command confirmed. Activating [Energy Mimicry: Advanced Simulation] pathway."

A strand of black mist deeper than darkness seeped from his palm. Like living tendrils, it gently yet firmly wound itself around the deep-blue core.

The mist did not merely envelop it. It transformed into countless microscopic probes too fine for the naked eye to discern, following the energy patterns on the core's surface and entering its intricate internal circuits.

System notifications rang out one after another within Xuan's consciousness:

"Warning: Composite chakra encoding structure detected..."

"Analyzing structure... Analysis complete. This core contains a triple-encryption system: [Basic Control Commands], [Personal Will Imprint], and [Specific Resonance Frequency]."

"Attempting to strip away non-hostile residual consciousness... Stripping failed! High-intensity chained self-destruction protocol detected..."

Xuan's brow twitched almost imperceptibly.

This thing was far more complex than he had anticipated.

The Third Kazekage had clearly not simply sealed his bloodline limit within it. He had practically digitized a portion of his own "personality," binding it deeply to the power of Magnet Release and creating a "personalized weapon system."

Any attempt to forcibly dismantle or erase its will imprint would be judged by the system as a highest-level intrusion, triggering the core's self-destruction and reducing everything to dust.

A frontal assault would not work.

Xuan immediately changed strategies. He began drawing upon another vast database in his mind—the treasury of knowledge extracted from the souls of countless shinobi he had devoured.

He quickly found his target: the underlying barrier logic of the [Adamantine Sealing Chains Formation], extracted from the deepest memories of Tsunade, princess of the Land of Whirlpools.

"System, use the [Adamantine Sealing Chains Formation] as a framework and reverse-engineer a virtual mental prison."

"Simulate an absolutely sealed environment within the system. Temporarily imprison the core's residual consciousness within it and sever its physical connection to the self-destruction protocol."

The moment the command was issued, the black mist changed form.

The tendrils that had entered the core no longer attempted to invade it. Instead, they swiftly wove an invisible, intangible golden net formed from pure energy around the outer perimeter of the core's consciousness.

This net was a soul prison that existed on the virtual plane and could not be physically destroyed.

At that moment, a cold voice came from nearby.

"You're taming it?"

Chiyo Saori had approached without anyone noticing. With her arms crossed, no emotion showed on her aged face. Only those sharp eyes remained fixed on Xuan's actions.

Xuan slowly opened his eyes. The three tomoe of the Mangekyō Sharingan in his left eye rotated slowly, eerie and profound.

"No." His voice was calm, but it carried unquestionable authority. "I'm rewriting it."

Before his words had even faded, his clenched right hand suddenly opened, and the iron sand core in his palm flashed.

The next second, the iron sand in his other palm responded instantly. Rather than taking the wide-ranging, satellite-like form Crow had used, it condensed in his palm with unimaginable speed and precision into an [Iron Sand Piercing Spike], as fine as a strand of hair and gleaming with cold metallic light.

Whoosh—

There was no sound of it cutting through the air, not even the slightest disturbance in the airflow.

The spike simply vanished into thin air. When it reappeared, it had already pierced through a hard rock wall thirty meters away, half the height of a man.

Only a finger-sized hole remained in the rock wall, its edges smooth as a mirror. There was not even the faintest trace of cracking around it.

Chiyo Saori's pupils suddenly contracted to pinpoints!

This absolute level of control over iron sand... this terrifying precision... far surpassed anything the Third Kazekage had ever displayed at his peak in any recorded battle!

"You... You achieved real-time regulation of chakra output and form?" Saeki Ryosuke, who had been standing behind her, could no longer contain himself. He stepped forward, his voice trembling slightly with excitement. "How is that possible? It took us ten full years of adjustment and optimization just to make a puppet core maintain stable output for three seconds..."

Xuan gave him a faint glance, as though looking at an ant incapable of understanding the movements of celestial bodies.

"You rely on inheritance and practice, fumbling through established rules. But I..." He slowly raised a hand. "I only need one look."

With the motion of his raised hand, the Iron Sand Piercing Spike embedded in the rock wall instantly broke apart and transformed into a streak of black light that flew back into his palm.

More iron sand was stripped from the wreckage in every direction and gathered together, forming a miniature, dynamic sand table above his hand.

Mountains, ravines, rocks... the entire terrain of the canyon was perfectly replicated atop it.

Even more chillingly, countless moving red dots appeared on the sand table, clearly marking every enemy's position from last night, their movement paths, and even the trajectories of each of their attacks.

"This isn't control." Xuan's voice echoed through the deathly silent canyon. "This is rehearsal."

Chiyo Saori fell completely silent.

Looking at that sand table, she felt as though she were seeing a merciless god looking down upon a chessboard.

Controlling power and rehearsing war—this was the difference between mortals and gods.

After a long while, she took a deep breath, as if making a momentous decision, and suddenly said, "I can help you. I can help you create a more powerful vessel—a new puppet body capable of carrying more and more complex mimicry energy."

She paused, her eyes burning as she stared at Xuan. "But you must promise me one thing. You cannot give this technology to any of the Five Great Nations of the shinobi world."

At that, a faint smile curved Xuan's lips, carrying a trace of mockery and boundless ambition.

"I have no need for nations," he said slowly. "What I want is an empire. And you, Chiyo Saori, will become this empire's first Chief Mechanist."

He extended a finger. A wisp of black mist condensed at its tip, eventually forming a black mark engraved with intricate runes.

"This is a sub-key for system access authorization. Merge it into your body, and your puppets will be able to receive my mimicry command signals and become extensions of my will. Try it."

Chiyo Saori's breathing stopped for a moment.

She looked at the ominous sigil, hesitated briefly, then reached out and accepted it. Without further hesitation, she pressed it into her palm.

The instant the mark touched her flesh, it transformed into a streak of black light and sank into her body.

In an instant, a cold and immense flood of information surged into her mind.

At the same time, the remains of Crow, a puppet in the distance with both legs severed and half-buried in the dirt, let out a soft creak.

Under Saeki Ryosuke's horrified gaze, the damaged puppet actually raised both arms on its own. The mechanisms in its palms opened, and slowly formed a swirling vortex of black iron sand—the entire process occurred without any chakra threads connecting it, even transcending the limits of distance. It was completely driven remotely by Xuan's will!

Saeki Ryosuke felt a chill shoot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, freezing his entire body.

This was no longer puppet arts. This was... a miracle, or sorcery.

Chiyo Saori stared blankly at the puppet that had once belonged to her but now obeyed another. Her throat was dry as she asked in a low voice, "What exactly are you now... a human, or a weapon?"

Xuan did not answer her.

He withdrew the will driving the puppet, slowly rose to his feet, and looked beyond the canyon at the vast land ravaged by war.

The wind lifted his black robes and swept up the iron sand on the ground, sending it flying like dust across the sky.

"I am neither human nor weapon," he murmured, his voice so soft it seemed ready to scatter into the wind. "I am the switch that will end this old era..."

As his words fell, the glow of the iron sand core in his palm completely faded, leaving it plain and unremarkable.

Yet an invisible will drifted away on the wind alongside those flying grains of iron sand.

One of the most inconspicuous grains broke away from the rest, attaching itself soundlessly to the wing of a vulture flying high overhead at a speed beyond the laws of nature. It flew with the bird toward the end of the horizon.

There, an even greater storm had only just begun to gather.

Those eyes, reflecting a crimson pinwheel, had already passed beyond this ruin and turned toward somewhere farther away—the dust-covered road leading to the heart of war.