I Am the True Progenitor

The dust from the collapsed passage had yet to settle when Xuan stepped over the rubble and walked deeper inside as if on level ground.

The green fluorescence that had guided him through the underground water veins had long vanished, but his wildly throbbing right eye clearly told him that this was far from over.

The ocular technique known as Soul Siphon was detecting an unprecedentedly hidden fluctuation, like countless invisible roots spreading, intertwining, and constructing some vast, unknown existence beneath the solid bedrock.

He abruptly stopped, his slender fingertips lightly touching the icy rock wall.

What came through his fingers was not the dead stillness of stone, but a faint yet highly rhythmic pulse.

In an instant, the vision of his right eye pierced through the thick strata, sensing a massive chakra resonance roaring a hundred meters below.

The structure of that resonance was complex and precise, with countless energy nodes linked together in layers. It was clearly the core of an array.

This had not formed naturally. Someone had just activated it, and the traces were so fresh they still carried a hint of warmth.

At the same time, at the deepest level of the altar a hundred meters beneath Xuan's feet, a gigantic formation covered in ancient runes—the Soul Rebirth Array—quietly lit up with an eerie green glow.

The light flowed like rippling water, turning the entire underground space into a ghostly realm.

Kato Masumi, the Uchiha Clan traitor who should have been dead, stood silently at the heart of the formation in an Impure World Reincarnation body.

His hands formed an intricate seal unlike anything seen before. Across the dust-made surface of his body, layers of grotesque flesh buds began to squirm.

Like living creatures, those flesh buds stretched outward and slowly but firmly merged with white threads emerging from deep underground, threads belonging to the remains of the White Zetsu Mother.

With every fusion, his aura grew stronger—and more sinister.

He muttered to himself, his voice echoing through the empty altar with a madness and smugness that suggested he saw through everything. "The world thinks the seal at Naka River Shrine exists to protect the Uchiha Clan's secrets. How laughable... It was never meant to protect anything. It was meant to imprison! To imprison that power from ancient times, power that even surpasses the Sage of Six Paths!"

His gaze seemed to pierce through layers of rock and lock tightly onto Xuan in the passage above. His lips twisted into a warped grin. "And you, Xuan, are the Primordial Seed carefully chosen to bear that power!"

His goal had never been to destroy Xuan. He coveted him.

Using the Soul Rebirth Array, powered by the White Zetsu Mother and built upon the souls of countless dead Uchiha Clan members, he intended to forcibly strip Xuan's soul from that perfect vessel and implant his own consciousness into it.

What he sought was not merely Xuan's body and power, but the origin that carried that ancient bloodline, allowing him to achieve true immortality!

The disturbance in the underground energy grew increasingly violent. Xuan could clearly sense an immense malice rising from below, like a prehistoric beast about to awaken.

But he did not rashly descend. Years of combat instinct had made him smell the stench of a deadly trap.

He reached back into his ninja tool pouch and took out a palm-sized stone fragment. It was a piece he had chipped off from the stele forest earlier, still bearing faint carvings.

With a thought, he activated Magnet Release. Invisible repulsive force lifted the stone fragment and suspended it in midair.

Then, he activated Soul Siphon in his right eye, controlling its output with utmost precision as he aimed it at the fragment.

Buzz—!

In an instant, countless memory fragments that had long dissipated from the stone were forcibly gathered. A broken image unfolded before him like an ink painting: beside an active volcano spewing fire into the sky, a group of elders dressed in the Uchiha Clan's black robes knelt reverently on the ground, chanting obscure and forbidden incantations.

At the center of their worship stood a solitary young boy. His left eye was tightly shut, while blood streamed from his right. Two utterly different Mangekyō Sharingan patterns were painfully fusing under an indescribable force!

This was the most primitive and cruel true ritual behind the birth of the Eternal Mangekyō!

It was not some transplant between relatives at all, but a bloody sacrifice!

Xuan's gaze abruptly turned cold as ice, and a piercing chill rose from the depths of his heart. Did they treat me as an experiment? Or... a sacrifice?

At the instant his mind shook, the ground beneath his feet exploded!

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Thirty Impure World Reincarnation ninja exuding ominous auras burst from the earth. They wore ninja attire from different eras, their eyes hollow, yet they precisely surrounded Xuan in the center, forming a fatal circular formation.

Kato Masumi's voice, mingling smugness and mockery, seemed to come from every direction, rumbling through the underground space. "You possess the original bloodline, yet you do not understand its magnificent meaning at all! Let me show you what true 'ascension' is!"

The moment his voice fell, the Soul Rebirth Array fully activated!

"Roar—!"

As though countless resentful souls were roaring, innumerable eerie green chains formed from pure chakra shot out from underground like venomous snakes leaving their nests. Their target was not Xuan's flesh, but the deeper origin of his soul!

The chains carried immense stripping and devouring power. If struck, he would suffer mental chaos at best and become a walking corpse; at worst, his soul would be completely drained and turned into nourishment for the formation!

Life and death hung by a thread!

Yet in the face of this desperate situation, there was not a trace of panic on Xuan's face.

Not only did he not retreat, he stepped forward, doing something even Kato Masumi had never anticipated.

He deliberately opened his wildly warning right eye wider, using himself as bait and releasing without reservation the most intense emotions buried in his heart—his rage at being treated as an experiment, his resentment toward the unfairness of fate, and his towering fighting spirit that refused to yield even in death!

Those three extreme emotions erupted together, like a barrel of burning oil poured onto the flames of Soul Siphon!

A thunderous roar rang out!

The ocular power in his right eye was instantly driven to an unprecedented maximum output!

The chakra chains that had lunged toward him so fiercely came to an abrupt halt less than half a meter from his body, as if seized by an invisible black hole!

Then, an even more tyrannical force of attraction erupted from Xuan's pupil. The chains were dragged backward, wailing as they transformed into streams of pure black energy that poured madly into his right eye!

But that was not enough!

Xuan bit through the tip of his tongue, and the metallic taste of blood spread through his mouth.

Using his own blood as a catalyst, he activated a forbidden meditation technique deemed extremely dangerous by the system!

"System! In my name, activate maximum authority!" he roared in his mind.

"Devouring target: the myriad remnant souls beneath the entire stele forest!"

The system core let out a piercing roar, seemingly warning him of the danger of such an act.

The phantom figure of the old stele spirit hidden beneath the stele forest also shook violently at that moment, letting out a terrified scream. "Madman! You want to devour us too?!"

Xuan's response was cold and utterly emotionless. "You have long been dead. You are nothing but aggregates of obsession. But I am still alive—power can belong only to the living!"

The instant his words fell, the devouring began!

The roars of countless dead souls exploded in his mind like tangible waves of sound!

The memory fragments, combat experience, and negative emotions of innumerable Uchiha Clan ancestors became a torrent of memories capable of tearing apart any consciousness, brutally scouring his mind.

Yet beneath the system core's underlying protection, Xuan forcibly endured this inhuman torment!

The Mangekyō Sharingan pattern in his right eye, once complex, finally took complete form under the impact of massive amounts of soul energy!

Blood-red lines spun wildly, shattered, and then reassembled in an instant into an even more ancient, even deeper new totem!

An invisible wave of soul energy abruptly spread outward from him—

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The thirty Impure World Reincarnation ninja surrounding him did not even have time to react before their bodies burst apart like weathered sand sculptures, turning into dust that filled the air!

At the same time, the system shell embedded in Xuan's spine made cracking sounds, fractures spreading across it inch by inch.

Beneath those cracks was not flesh and blood, but a translucent crystalline structure emitting a faint blue glow, as though stars were being born and dying within it.

Warning: Host actions have caused system core overload. Forced evolution...

Myriad Phenomena Devouring System entering Phase II...

Ability unlocked: [Soul-Type Template] in-depth analysis function activated.

A string of system prompts sounded in his mind as Xuan slowly straightened his body.

He raised his head. The mismatched pupils in his eyes no longer held the confusion and uncertainty of before, leaving only a calm, indifferent clarity that saw through all things.

"I am not anyone's descendant... I am the beginning."

Deep underground, Kato Masumi, who had been controlling the formation with all his strength, suddenly froze. The fanatical smile on his face was replaced by endless shock and disbelief.

The energy feedback from the formation told him that the thirty elite Impure World Reincarnation ninja had been completely wiped out in less than a second!

And Xuan's soul aura had not weakened in the slightest. Instead, it was surging upward at an incomprehensible speed!

"He... he's still alive? And... stronger?!"

At the bottom of the altar, the air congealed. Xuan walked down the stairs step by step, and with every step...