Who Lit an Everlasting Lamp for the Dead

Moonlight lay like frost, dyeing the broken walls and ruins of Naka River Shrine a deathly, desolate white.

Xuan Jing stood amid the ruins. Three tomoe-shaped crimson markings slowly revolved within his left eye, casting an ominous red glow.

Ever since he had devoured Madara Uchiha's shadow clone not long ago, the chakra within him had surged like a river bursting through its banks, every tide of power battering his limbs and bones.

Yet alongside that growing power came an unease that seeped deep into his marrow.

Whenever night fell, he would plunge into the same dream.

Upon an ancient, oppressive black altar, nine Uchiha ancestors clad in pure white feathered robes and bearing indistinct faces knelt in utmost reverence before a black coffin floating in midair.

They chanted obscure ancient syllables, their voices seeming to pierce through time and space and echo directly within the depths of his soul: "Use blood as the guide, souls as the fuel, and seal the Eternal Seed."

In the dream, he could not see the person inside the coffin. He could only see a pair of tightly shut eyes, beneath whose lids crimson markings glowed—identical to the Mangekyō Sharingan he possessed now.

Xuan instinctively raised a hand and lightly brushed his fingertips over his chest.

There, a burning mark that had existed since he awoke in this world was faintly heating up, as if a red-hot iron had been buried beneath his skin, resonating with the chanting in his dream.

He knew that the answers to every mystery lay buried beneath this cursed land.

"You're sure you want to go down?" Chiyo Saori's cool voice sounded behind him. Half-crouched beside a toppled Uchiha statue, her fingertips traced the final point where the signal sent back by Crow had cut off the night before. "The aura here... is deeply wrong. Even the residual chakra filth left behind by Kaguya deliberately avoided this place."

Xuan's gaze fell upon a bottomless fissure in the shrine grounds, his eyes firm as iron. "Precisely because it was deliberately avoided does it prove how important it is."

Before his words had even faded, he took a black scroll inscribed with intricate runes from his ninja tool pouch. Forming a seal one-handed, he slammed his palm against the ground.

Black mist-like seals instantly sank into the earth, activating the technique he had planted here long ago—Energy Mimicry: Magnetic Flow Barrier!

Amid a low hum, countless fine grains of iron sand emerged from the soil around the fissure passage, gathering into a flowing black protective wall.

This was not simple defense. It was a completely new defensive principle Xuan had developed after analyzing the core of the Third Kazekage's Magnet Release—it did not attempt to forcibly withstand attacks, but instead simulated the energy frequency of its surroundings, making it impossible for any sensory ninjutsu to lock onto targets within.

He knew full well that a forbidden place of this level could not possibly be unguarded.

As they descended vertically along the pitch-black passage for a hundred meters, the surrounding rock strata were gradually replaced by strange, ink-black crystals.

The crystal walls were covered in long-lost ancient Uchiha script, each character seeming to contain some ominous power.

Suddenly, Xuan's Inferno Perception sounded a piercing alarm.

Within thirty paces ahead, all chakra fluctuations had gone completely still. There was only deathly silence.

This did not mean no one was there. It meant something had used an exceedingly brilliant method to completely erase every sign of life!

Xuan abruptly halted. He gently pressed his right palm against the icy crystal wall and released a strand of black mist thinner than a hair, silently spreading it forward.

In an instant, distorted and chaotic images fed back into his mind: within a vast hollow, dozens of humanoid corpses sat cross-legged, arranged neatly into a bizarre formation.

Their eyes were empty, their skin a lifeless grayish white.

They were Impure World Reincarnation bodies!

And they had been deeply modified. Their souls had nearly been stripped away until they were transparent, leaving only immortal shells behind as energy conduits for some enormous formation.

At that moment, a cold, hoarse laugh echoed from all directions, as though it seeped from every crack in the crystal walls.

"At last... my long-awaited God's Embryo."

Accompanied by a thunderous crash, the rock wall ahead split apart. A man in white robes, with sunken eye sockets and a crazed expression, slowly emerged.

He was Kato Masumi, Yakushi Kabuto's most deranged subordinate, a specialist in soul coding and forbidden genetic arts.

In his hand, he held a long needle made from ghastly white bone. One end was deeply embedded in the earth vein, while the other connected to countless chakra threads extending into the bodies of those Impure World Reincarnation subjects.

Dark purple, foul-smelling liquid dripped from its tip.

"I spent thirty years researching soul coding and dissected over a thousand Uchiha corpses, trying to decipher the secret within those eyes." Kato Masumi's gaze burned like ghostfire as it fixed on Xuan. "But I discovered that every one of their gene chains contained a Terminal Breakpoint. Only you—only your gene chain possesses the legendary characteristics of a Primordial Activation Loop! You are no reincarnator. You are a chosen vessel!"

He greedily licked his cracked lips, his voice growing ever more feverish. "Give me your body! Let me use your perfect flesh and blood to rebuild my soul. We can both break free from death's shackles and gain true immortality!"

Before his words could fade, Kato Masumi drove the bone needle in his hand down with all his strength!

The entire underground space shook violently. A huge, intricate blood-red formation instantly lit up across the ground—the Soul Rebirth Array!

At the same time, the chests of the ninety-nine Impure World Reincarnation ninjas acting as conduits burst open in unison. No blood spilled forth. Instead, pale, twisted strands of soul energy erupted from within like an all-encompassing spiderweb, instantly coiling around Xuan's limbs and body!

Farther away, from deep within the Uchiha Stele Forest above the shrine ruins, waves of shrill wailing rang out.

Those were the souls of Uchiha Clan members who had died in battle here throughout the generations, forcibly awakened from their rest by this evil formation and about to become offerings and blades to strip away Xuan's soul.

With a thought, Xuan tried to activate the Devour system, only to discover in horror that an ancient sealing power from deep underground was firmly suppressing his core ability, leaving him able to wield less than thirty percent of his strength!

A terrifying pulling force came from the soul chains, as if they were about to tear his consciousness from his flesh by force.

He staggered back. Just as the densely packed soul chains were about to pierce his skull, an ancient, distant sigh suddenly rang out in his mind.

"Child... what they fear is not your awakening, but your return."

It was the voice of that mysterious old stele spirit in the stele forest!

In an instant, understanding dawned upon Xuan. A mad thought exploded in his mind—since they intended to use the souls of the dead as blades, then he would turn the tables and make these countless souls his own fuel!

He stopped resisting and instead spread his arms, allowing the soul threads to wind around him.

He bit through his tongue, spat out a mouthful of blood, and the blood transformed into black mist in midair. With all his strength, he let out a low roar that shook the soul itself: "Devour! Devour them all!"

In an instant, incomparably dense black mist erupted wildly from his seven orifices. No longer the tiny probes from before, it became a gigantic maw that blotted out the sky, swallowing all the remnant souls forcibly awakened from the stele forest, along with the ninety-nine strands of soul energy, in an irresistible display of dominance!

Boom—!

Countless fragments of memory crashed through his consciousness like a flood bursting through a dam.

There were bloody slaughters from the Warring States era, brothers turning against one another over power, desperate cries amid a sea of towering flames... the obsessions, hatred, and unwillingness of countless Uchiha Clan members throughout their lives all became his nourishment.

And at the deepest point of that torrent of memories, a majestic, ancient voice emerged with perfect clarity, seeming to transcend endless ages and resound directly within the source of his soul:

"You are the first to see the Eternal Eye... and the last."

The next instant, indescribable agony exploded from his right eye!

It was as if something had torn through the restraints of his eyeball, ready to burst forth from within.

Blood continuously seeped from the corner of his eye, drawing a glaring crimson streak across his pale cheek.

Blood markings spread and reformed wildly within the pupil of his right eye. At last, a bizarre pattern never before seen in this world slowly took shape—three tomoe rotating in reverse.

His right-eye Mangekyō Sharingan awakened at that moment!

The fervor on Kato Masumi's face instantly froze, replaced by almost deranged greed and fear.

He saw it. Deep within that reverse-spinning crimson eye, something... was awakening.