The writing on the stone tablet seems to contain an unquestionable law of the end, and in the silence of Naka River Shrine, it declares the complete end of an era.
However, what Uchiha Xuan wants to cut off is far more than just the oracle on the stone tablet, it is also the inertia rooted deep in the human heart.
Seven days later, the empire center, Throne of Heaven.
The figure of Chiyo Saori is like a precise ghost, appearing quietly under the throne.
Her pair of electronic eyes composed of precision Gigai flashed with cold blue light, and data streams flew through them.
"Master." She bowed slightly, her voice flat and emotionless, "According to the data fed back by the 327 'Sacred Embryo Observatory' and 'Ember Monitoring Post's throughout the empire, in the past seven days, there have been a total of 1,074 private private establishments of 'Xuanlin Shrine' and enshrinement of 'Primordial Ancestor Xuan Lord' tablets."
Her report continued, and every word was like a precise weight. "Among them, there are ninety-two remote villages where survivors gather, and they have even begun to spontaneously imitate the initiation ceremony of the Fireheart Academy, holding a 'lighting ceremony' for newborn children, trying to pray for your protection and blessing."
The logical core of Chiyo Saori analyzed the safest plan. "Lord, this kind of spontaneous religious fanaticism can easily get out of control and may lead to wrong interpretations of doctrine. I suggest that <Faith Unification Act> be promulgated immediately, and Thought Inspection Squad be sent to various places to strengthen the control of the spiritual field and bring all sacrificial behaviors under the direct jurisdiction of the empire."
On the throne, Uchiha Xuan slowly opened his eyes.
What a pair of eyes those are!
The left eye is the eternal gear that observes the laws of all things, and the right eye is the lavender reincarnation containing half of Tomoe.
Just a glance seemed to penetrate the boundary between matter and soul, causing the ultra-high-precision sensor of Chiyo Saori to send out a slight overload alarm.
He did not answer immediately, but instead cast his gaze on a huge light curtain suspended in front of the throne.
On the light screen, a scene from a mountain village was being played in real time: several old men in ragged clothes were leading the whole village, young and old, to a simple shrine hastily built with stones and with "Primordial Ancestor Xuan Lord" written in charcoal on it, kneeling three times and prostrating nine times, with enthusiastic and pious expressions.
"They think I care about these incense?" Uchiha Xuan's lips curled up with a cold sneer.
He stood up from the throne. His naked upper body was covered with perfect muscle lines. Under every inch of skin, there seemed to be dormant terrifying power that could tear apart the stars.
He walked up to the light curtain and with a tap of his finger, the image of the mountain village instantly enlarged.
"Chiyo." He finally spoke, his voice calm but with irresistible majesty, "Your suggestion is ridiculously wrong."
The blue light of Chiyo Saori's electronic eye flashes violently. This is because her logic core is performing ultra-high-speed calculations, trying to understand the master's intentions.
"Send my order." Uchiha Xuan's voice suddenly turned cold, and the murderous atmosphere filled the entire hall, "All private shrines will be sealed! All 'Primordial Ancestor Xuan Lord' tablets will be burned in public! Those who take the lead in organizing sacrifices, regardless of age, will be punished with thirty sticks, expelled from the settlement, and will not be allowed to return within three days!"
This order is a hundred times more powerful than the "thought control" proposed by Chiyo Saori!
For the first time, her absolutely rational thinking felt some kind of emotional fluctuation called "surprise".
"Lord, such a cruel method... I'm afraid it will trigger a large-scale backlash of faith. They are out of worship for you..."
"Worship?" Uchiha Xuan sneered and interrupted her.
He turned around and stared at Chiyo Saori with the eyes of the god and demon Piyi, "Do I need their begging worship?"
"I'm not asking them to worship me -" his voice was full of absolute dominance and control, "I'm asking them to only trust me!"
"Bowing means praying, looking up, and expecting a response. And faith means acknowledging, obeying, and accepting the established rules!" Uchiha Xuan said word by word, as if he was explaining a brand new law of creation. "For the former, they still have other options such as 'ancestors' and 'gods' in their hearts; for the latter, I am the only truth, the only source, the only... rule itself!"
The logical core of Chiyo Saori instantly became transparent.
She finally understood the horrifying true intention of Uchiha Xuan.
What he wants to do is not to become a new god, but to completely destroy the concept of "god" and make himself a "reality" that overrides belief!
"I understand, Lord." Chiyo Saori bowed again, this time, her posture was more humble, "I will draw up <Worship Ban Edict> immediately."
"Go." Uchiha Xuan waved his hand, "Remember, let everyone understand that Uchiha Clan's greatness has nothing to do with blood, ancestors, or any illusory gods. It only depends on one thing - I am still alive."
<Worship Ban Edict> With thunderous momentum, it was promulgated throughout the Uchiha Empire.
The content of the decree is simple and crude: from now on, any form of ancestor worship, statue creation, collective prayer and private sacrifices are strictly prohibited.
No citizen of the empire is allowed to have any genealogy, tablets, or statues in their homes.
The naming of all newborns must be registered in 'Fire Mark Registry', and all words related to past legendary figures should be eliminated.
Violators will be punished as "crimes of splitting beliefs"!
Under the decree, lamentation and confusion arose everywhere.
But under the bloody suppression of Empire Twelve Puppet Legion, all resistance seemed feeble.
Countless shrines were smashed, memorial tablets were burned, and the leading old man was tortured in public. The screams became the most effective propaganda for the new code.
However, there are always some people who value the glory of blood more than life.
Land of Wind, an oasis new city built on the ruins of the original Sunagakure.
In front of the "Truth Proclamation Platform" established by the empire, a young Uchiha Clan wearing a Fire Seal certified lecturer uniform was reading loudly < The first rule of Xuanlin Codex>: " The beginning of the Uchiha Clan is not in the past, nor in the bloodline. Only the strong ones in the present world are the true ancestors! Our glory does not come from the shadow of our ancestors, but from bathing in the glory of the true ancestors in the present world!"
"What nonsense!"
An old roar sounded like thunder.
An old man Uchiha Clan with gray hair and wrinkles on his face, holding a thick roll of sheepskin genealogy, rushed to the podium tremblingly and pointed at the lecturer with wide eyes.
"I, Uchiha Yu, is the direct descendant of Lord Izuna! This records the inheritance of our family's bloodline for thousands of years! The glory of the Uchiha Clan is Sharingan, it is Mangekyō Sharingan, is a legend written by Lord Madara and Izuna with their lives! He Uchiha Xuan, an awakened person of unknown origin, has mixed blood, and even the activation of Mangekyō Sharingan is so weird, how can he deserve to be called an ancestor?!"
Before the words were spoken, a sudden change occurred!
"Uh-huh--!"
Uchiha Yu let out an extremely painful groan. He lowered his head suddenly and was horrified to see that the Fire Seal mark on his chest, which was forcibly branded by the empire, was suddenly emitting a hot red light!
A high temperature hot enough to melt steel erupted from Fire Seal, instantly rushing into his limbs and bones, burning crazily along his meridians network!
"Zila--"
The chakra meridians he was so proud of were as fragile as dry straw in the face of this power originating from the "True Ancestor", breaking every inch and turning into coke!
With a "pop" sound, the old man collapsed to the ground, twitching all over. The Three-Tomoe Sharingan in his eyes spun rapidly in severe pain, and then the light dimmed and turned back into ordinary black pupils.
A cold shadow quietly appeared in front of him.
It's Chiyo Saori.
She looked down at the lingering old man on the ground, without any pity in her voice. "The pedigree you worship has long been tainted by Kaguya Otsutsuki's so-called 'Primordial Blood', and is full of curses and flaws. Now, the master uses himself to The Godhead reshaped the genes of the whole clan and washed away this filth. From that moment on, all the surviving Uchiha Clan clan members, regardless of men, women, old or young, are genetically direct descendants of Master Xuan - including your newly born grandson, who you have high hopes for."
"You... you..." Uchiha Yu's eyes widened, and he made a "ho ho" sound in his throat, as if he wanted to say something, but could not spit out a word.
He was horrified to see that the sheepskin genealogy he was clutching in his hand spontaneously ignited without fire, and plumes of black smoke rose up.
The thick history quickly turned into ashes in the flames, and only a remaining piece of ashes the size of a fingernail, with a line of small words left after burning, landed lightly in front of his eyes.
"Ancestors are not ancestors, but those who are here today."
Uchiha Yu's pupils suddenly shrunk to pinpoints, and he couldn't take his last breath, completely expiring.
This turmoil is just a microcosm of Uchiha Xuan's iron-blooded policy of "de-ancestralization".
Three days later, he personally presided over the first and last "de-ancestralization" ceremony in the empire.
The location is at Naka River Shrine.
In front of the stone tablet inscribed with "If the sacrifice is cut off, the fire will cease", Uchiha Xuan ordered the erection of a taller and larger pure obsidian stone tablet.
On the front of the stele, four large characters - "This fire begins" are deeply imprinted with molten Chakra Metal.
On the back, another line of words is engraved - "The rest are all gray".
Under the watchful eyes of all the high-ranking officials of the empire and representatives from various regions, Gen Uchiha walked expressionlessly into the shrine's ancestral hall, where the memorial tablets of all Uchiha clan chiefs since the Warring States Period were displayed, including those of Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Fugaku and others.
Without any hesitation, he held his right hand empty.
"Click! Click! Click!"
All the souls shattered at the same moment and turned into dust!
Then, with a wave of his hand, these ashes and sawdust that symbolized Uchiha Clan's old glory, mixed with all the sacrifices and scrolls found in the ancestral hall, were rolled up by an invisible force, and they were all thrown into a temporary giant furnace.
The raging flames rose, melting all the remnants of history into one.
Eventually, these ashes were fused with molten metal and cast into a giant Fire Seal pendant with a diameter of more than 100 meters!
The pendant was lifted into the air by the powerful repulsion, and finally hovered directly below the sky fortress "Throne of Heaven". Like a black sun, it radiated chakra fluctuations unique to Uchiha Xuan towards the entire Shinobi World continent day and night.
This fluctuation is not only a declaration of power, but also a kind of continuous suppression on the spiritual level, used to interfere with and erase all chakra frequencies that may resonate with old memories.
However, the memory of blood is far more stubborn than imagined.
That night, an alarm suddenly sounded in "Ember Monitoring Post", a remote mountain village in the empire.
A child who had just awakened from Fire Seal in less than a month suddenly cried loudly in his sleep. No matter how his parents tried to comfort him, it was of no avail.
They were horrified to find that the stable Fire Seal mark on the child's forehead was twisted violently at this moment, and two blurry and unruly afterimages of faces appeared under the skin - they were Madara Uchiha and Izuna Uchiha!
"Alert! The phenomenon of 'blood inheritance memory recall' has been detected!"
Chiyo Saori received the report immediately and immediately dispatched a decontamination team to deal with it.
But she soon discovered that the system monitoring panel showed that this phenomenon was not an isolated case. There had been dozens of similar reports across the country.
This is the mark that remains in the deepest part of the Uchiha Clan gene chain and belongs to the strong men of the old era. It is naturally traced back and cannot be eradicated by simple physical removal or mental intervention.
On the throne, Uchiha Xuan looked at the synchronized images and fell into deep thought for a moment.
"There is no need to erase it." He suddenly said, with a hint of chilling playfulness in his tone, "Since it can't be erased, then... transform it into a 'warning illusion'."
The order is issued.
Three days later, a new program was quietly implanted in the bodies of all the children in the empire who had awakened the Fire Seal.
Late at night, the afterimage of Madara Uchiha appeared on the forehead of another child.
But this time, before the afterimage was clear, a severe, needle-like pain erupted from Fire Seal, causing the child to wake up from his dream in an instant.
At the same time, a cold, emotionless mechanical synthesized voice sounded directly in his mind:
"Warning: This is a false ancestor and has been sentenced to death. The true ancestor is mysterious and cannot be confused."
The children's cries stopped suddenly, replaced by a bone-deep fear.
From then on, whenever images of the old era try to emerge, they no longer bring memories of glory, but severe pain and warning.
Ancestors, in their cognition, for the first time equated "sin" and "punishment".
You are not allowed to call my seed your ancestor.
It was also on this night that, in the deepest part of the bottomless Mariana Trench, the seven crystallized eyeballs abandoned by Uchiha Xuan, symbolizing the last remaining divinity of Kaguya, flickered with a weak white light for the last time in the darkness.
Then, as if they had completed their final mission, spiderweb-like cracks appeared from the inside out.
Bang... Bang... Bang...
One after another, they burst silently and turned into the most insignificant cosmic dust, sinking forever into the mud of the ocean trench.
The old gods have completely returned to ruins.
And in the sky fortress "Throne of Heaven" above the clouds, deep in the core secret room, the genetic embryo that merged all the origins of Kaguya and was taken as its own by Uchiha Xuan, after absorbing the last trace of the divine aftertaste from the old world--
"Boom."
For the first time, a weak but yet full of endless vitality of heartbeat was heard.