That trace of inquiry and interest flashed through his mind like lightning, and was immediately replaced by absolute calmness.
Uchiha Xuan did not stay in place for long. In a flash, he returned to the secret room beneath Naka River Shrine that was beating like a heart.
Chiyo Saori had been waiting here for a long time. When he saw him returning, he immediately bowed and saluted, but he couldn't hide a trace of surprise in his eyes.
The scream that penetrated her soul just now, even though it was separated by layers of seals, shook her mind so much that she almost couldn't maintain the operation of the monitoring puppet.
"Retrieve all the monitoring data from Cloud-Thunder Gorge's site." Uchiha Xuan's voice contained no emotion, as if he was not the one who caused the sudden change just now.
"Yes."
Soon, a huge light curtain composed of chakra unfolded on the wall of the secret room.
Above the light curtain, from more than a dozen different angles, at a frame rate that exceeds the limit of the naked eye, every frame before and after Divine Erosion Flame hits the target is played repeatedly.
Uchiha Xuan stood in front of the light screen with his hands behind his hands, his silver pupils reflecting the dark golden flame trail, like two supernovae analyzing the laws of the universe.
He played it back over and over again, slowing down the flow of time to one thousandth, one ten thousandth, or even slower.
Finally, he caught the fleeting anomaly.
"Stop here."
The picture freezes. Chiyo Saori followed his gaze and his pupils suddenly shrank.
In the picture, the Divine Erosion Flame that was spurred out by Xuan from his shoulder blades indeed followed the straight path directed by his will during the first half of the journey.
But when it was still a few meters away from the center of the "stasis zone", it drew an extremely small, yet extremely precise arc without any warning!
It was not a deflection caused by external interference. It was more like a shark that smelled blood and adjusted its attack angle at the last moment. In the most cunning and deadly way, it locked onto the prey that neither the naked eye nor the senses could catch.
It... has its own hunting instinct!
"Keep playing until the flame goes out." Xuan's tone became colder.
The picture continued to flow until the dark golden flame completely burned the target, leaving scorch marks on the ground and then quietly annihilated.
Chiyo Saori controlled the perspective of a miniature reconnaissance puppet, zoomed in as close as possible, and focused on the ground around the scorch mark.
Under the disturbance of the scorching air, the ash that remains after the flame burns out and is finer than dust is slowly falling down.
However, the trajectory of these ashes is extremely strange.
They seemed to be pulled by some invisible magnetic field, arranged and combined themselves on the ground, and finally formed a line of twisted and ancient text.
That is the oldest cuneiform writing of the Uchiha Clan, and even today's Uchiha Clan people may not be able to identify it.
"God Eater, finally became a sacrifice."
Chiyo Saori struggled to identify the glyphs and read it softly, sending a chill straight from the spine to Tianling Gai.
This seems to be a curse from ancient times, an ultimate prophecy for "Devourer".
But there was no trace of fear on Uchiha Xuan's face, instead an almost cruel smile appeared.
"Sacrifice? Interesting. It just depends on whose altar is qualified to bear my weight."
He slowly closed his eyes, and in the next second, he suddenly cut off the deepest spiritual connection between himself and "Myriad Phenomena Devouring System", retaining only the most basic energy supply.
For the first time, he had the most primitive vigilance towards this accompanying golden finger.
This flame originates from the system, but shows an autonomy beyond the tools.
Is this a characteristic given by the system, or is the flame itself... a terrifying existence imprisoned by the system and now using his body as a nest to try to escape?
"Saori."
"My subordinate is here."
"Take the 'meridian probe' made of 'Deep-Sea Black Iron', control it with your puppet wires, and connect it to my body." Xuan's order was unquestionable, "I want you to... scan the flow pattern of all chakras in my body. Especially the path of the dark golden energy."
Chiyo Saori's face turned pale instantly.
Using a physical probe to directly penetrate the meridians of the human body for scanning is tantamount to torture. If you are not careful, your meridians will be severed and you will become a cripple.
But she didn't hesitate at all, and immediately took out a metal box covered with runes from the weapons arsenal nearby.
"As you command, Master Xuan."
Under the precise pull of the puppet silk, the cold probe pierced the skin and penetrated into the limbs and bones of Uchiha Xuan.
Severe pain was felt, but his expression remained unchanged, as if the body did not belong to him.
On the light screen, an extremely complex human body meridian map is constructed in real time, with countless light points flowing in it.
Soon, the results appeared before our eyes.
As Xuan expected, the dark golden energy flow belonging to Divine Erosion Flame, although it would be executed accurately when he gave the order, in the standby state, most of its energy was not evenly distributed, but like a hibernating snake, always entrenched and slightly tilted towards the area where his heart was on the left side.
There, it was the location where the system used to store its most original "divine core" after he devoured Kaguya Otsutsuki!
This flame not only feeds on God, it even covets the "surplus food" stored in his body!
Time passed in oppressive silence.
The fifth day, midnight.
In the secret room, Uchiha Xuan sat cross-legged, seemingly entering deep meditation.
His breathing was long and steady, but the pupils under his eyelids were trembling slightly, and it was obvious that he only retained a trace of his core consciousness to be on guard.
Like a devout believer, he surrounded himself with spiritual power and silently recited a forged prayer over and over again.
"... The supreme power, the existence behind the door... I am willing to sacrifice this god-killing flame in exchange for the qualification to glimpse the truth..."
He is acting.
He wants to use himself as bait to lure out the snoops hiding behind the scenes and the "uninvited guests" inside himself.
He wanted to see what it would be like when two hunters set their sights on the same prey at the same time.
At three o'clock in the morning, the time has come.
The temperature in the secret room dropped sharply without warning, and the air seemed to be drained, becoming thick and stagnant.
The shadow in the corner began to twist and squirm, and finally, a translucent phantom of a hand exuding the aura of death and nothingness slowly emerged from the shadow.
It ignored physical obstacles, passed through the wall, and quietly stretched toward Uchiha Xuan's chest with the indifference of a high-dimensional life overlooking low-dimensional ants.
Its goal is clear - to dig out the heart that is pregnant with Divine Erosion Flame!
The moment the cold palm was about to touch the skin--
Uchiha Xuan suddenly opened his eyes!
His silver pupils burst out with unprecedented brilliance, like two ignited moons!
"Ho--!"
A roar originating from the soul level exploded in his body, and the Divine Erosion Flame that was entrenched around his heart was completely out of control at this moment. Like a volcano erupting, it spewed out from the pores of his body crazily!
However, a strange scene happened!
This time, the target of the flames was not the incoming void ghost hand. Instead, it rolled back suddenly, like a living armor, and instantly wrapped around Uchiha Xuan's stretched out left arm, as if it was protecting its host at all costs, or... protecting its "trough"!
Immediately afterwards, at the moment when the ghost hand was slightly stagnant due to this sudden change, the dark golden flame wrapped around Xuan's arm suddenly condensed into a ferocious snake head, turned around like lightning, opened its silent giant mouth, and bit the phantom's wrist!
"Ji--!!!"
The shrill wail sounded again, a hundred times clearer than the last time at Cloud-Thunder Gorge!
The ghost hand struggled wildly, but was tightly clamped by the flames. Like plastic that had been burned through by a soldering iron, it quickly melted and decomposed, turning into the purest energy and being swallowed by the flames!
The entire secret room shook violently, the ground was cracked, and black smoke pillars rose from the cracks, converging into a blurry and painful face in mid-air.
The outline of the face vaguely bears the characteristics of the Ōtsutsuki Clan, and the lips open and close wildly, but no sound can be made.
When Uchiha Xuan saw this, a stern sneer appeared on his face.
Instead of retreating, he advanced, and actually took the initiative to press his left palm, which was wrapped in flames, against the face made of black smoke!
"Eat cleanly." His voice was low and full of unquestionable command, "I'm paying for this extra meal."
With a dull explosion, the painful face completely disintegrated. All the black smoke was sucked by the crazy rewinding flames, and finally condensed into a drop of pitch-black liquid, which fell into the fire and was instantly digested without a trace.
The flame slowly returned to Uchiha Xuan's body with a satisfied roar.
He only felt a sharp stabbing pain in his heart, and then, countless unfamiliar, broken, yet endlessly desolate and majestic images flooded into his mind: in the boundless sea of stars, ancient stars of life fell one after another; the splendid temple collapsed in the fire; a faceless giant with a towering figure was kneeling in front of a burning corpse of an ancient god, kowtowing devoutly...
Uchiha Xuan stood up slowly and moved his left hand.
On the back of that hand, a dark golden mark that resembled a vertical pupil flashed away.
Without looking back, he said to Chiyo Saori who was guarding the secret room, "From now on, don't come near the place where I practice without my order."
His voice was calm, but there was a hint of warning that could not be ignored.
"... unless you want to have your soul burned to ashes."
Chiyo Saori felt a chill in his heart and lowered his head deeply. "Yes."
In the figure of Uchiha Xuan with its back to the light source, the shadow is stretched very long.
No one saw that the dormant outline of the flame that had just feasted in his body vaguely outlined a cold, majestic vertical pupil at the position of his heart, as if it was slowly opening.
Uchiha Xuan ignored the changes in his body and walked straight to the deepest part of the secret room.
There, there are stored things that he personally excavated from the restricted area of the Uchiha Clan's oldest ancestral land.
He reached out and took out a scroll covered with traces of time from a heavily sealed storage shelf.
It's time to figure out the true secret of my body and Uchiha Clan from the root.