Who Dares Touch My Ancestor's Coffin?

The three tomoe in his right eye slowly converged, transforming into a strange blood-red pinwheel. Every remaining chakra fluctuation in the underground world, no matter how faint, was like iron filings drawn to a magnet, flooding madly into his vision and ultimately forming an incomparably clear diagram of the energy structure.

Thirty-six Impure World Reincarnation ninja corpses were embedded into the earth like nails, forming the foundation nodes of the array.

Their bodies had long gone cold, yet sinister chakra threads forcibly linked them together, maintaining their specific poses like puppets on strings.

At the convergence point of all those threads, at the heart of the array, Kato Masumi sat cross-legged. He himself was the switch and core of this soul-grinding machine.

The sinister nature of this [Soul Rebirth Array] lay not only in its ability to forcibly strip away the souls of intruders, but also in its ability to drag those souls into an eternal reincarnation illusion built from the resentment of countless dead, wearing them down through endless despair and pain until they became the purest nourishment for the array.

This was one of Yakushi Kabuto's most closely guarded forbidden techniques, a technique passed down from Orochimaru. Xuan had never expected Kato Masumi to have learned it.

"Heh heh..." A dry, grating laugh came from the center of the array, shattering the deathly silence underground.

Kato Masumi forcibly suppressed the unease stirred by Xuan's strange eyes and squeezed out a vicious sneer. "You think devouring a few stray remnants of souls lets you see through everything and control the whole situation? Don't be naive! You have no idea what kind of noble body you've taken over! It was never yours to begin with, you petty thief!"

His voice abruptly rose, filled with pathological fervor. "This body is a 'Divine Fetus,' painstakingly cultivated over nearly a thousand years using the genes of countless elite ninja! Its existence was meant only to await the descent of a truly perfect consciousness, to become the 'god' of a new world! And you are nothing but a cuckoo in another bird's nest, a pitiful vessel temporarily residing here!"

Before his words had even faded, murderous intent flashed in Kato Masumi's eyes. He slammed both hands down onto the ground beneath him!

"Array, Reversal: Abyss of Souls!"

Bzzzt—!

The bottom level of the entire altar shook violently. Above the thirty-six Impure World Reincarnation nodes, the chakra threads originally meant to strip souls instantly changed color, turning from ghostly blue to pitch-black.

The hard rock beneath Xuan's feet melted like water. A black vortex several meters wide formed out of thin air, as though countless vengeful souls were wailing within it. An incomparably cold suction force erupted from its depths, seeking to drag him, body and soul alike, into an endless abyss of the mind!

Yet in the face of this sudden killing move, Xuan showed not the slightest panic. He did not even raise an eyebrow.

Not only did he not resist the terrifying pull, he abandoned all defenses and allowed his body to slowly sink along with the vortex's attraction.

At the same time, the blood-red pinwheel pattern in his right eye suddenly began spinning faster!

"Soul Siphon, activate!"

A devouring force even more tyrannical than the abyssal vortex erupted from his pupil!

The massive accumulation of resentment and obsession within the vortex, originally intended to corrupt and tear apart the core of an enemy's consciousness, now became visible streams of black air like floodwaters finding an outlet, swallowed whole by Xuan's right eye!

These negative energies, enough to drive any Kage-level expert mad, were rapidly filtered and transformed by a mysterious force the instant they entered his body.

[ Ding! Absorbed 300 units of Impure World resentment. Converting into pure energy... ]

[ Conversion successful! Host's total available chakra has increased by 15%! ]

A warm current instantly spread through his limbs and bones. Xuan could clearly feel the sea of chakra within him rise another level.

A mocking curve formed on his lips as he looked up at the dumbfounded Kato Masumi. "Your array tastes pretty good. Unfortunately... it can't fill me up."

"Y-you... what kind of monster are you?!" Kato Masumi's composure was finally ripped apart completely, his face filled with incredulous horror.

He had never seen anyone treat a spiritual attack like a nutritional supplement!

In the instant he lost focus, Xuan's counterattack descended.

"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Realm!"

Xuan spread his ten fingers, palms facing down.

In an instant, dense rustling sounds rose from beneath the ground across the altar's lowest level.

Countless grains of iron sand buried deep underground seemed to come alive, bursting from the earth as torrents of black!

They did not attack Kato Masumi. Instead, like maggots clinging to bone, they wrapped themselves around the thirty-six Impure World ninja corpses serving as the array's nodes with absolute precision!

The iron sand moved like venomous serpents and savage chains, instantly binding the corpses tightly. It then burrowed through their chakra pathways, forcibly twisting and altering the flow of control established by Kato Masumi!

The bodies created through Impure World Reincarnation were puppets that relied on the caster's chakra for control.

Once that external control was violently disrupted by a stronger force, the result was immediate loss of control!

"Crack... crack-crack..."

One after another, bone-twisting sounds that set teeth on edge rang out.

The thirty-six corpses, which had originally faced outward, stiffly turned in unison under the iron sand's forced control, their pale hands aimed at the caster in the very center of the array—Kato Masumi!

"You..." Kato Masumi's pupils shrank sharply, and a chill shot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

"You think too highly of yourself." Xuan's voice was cold and devoid of emotion as he walked step by step out of the vortex that had lost its suction. "You say I'm a vessel? Perhaps. But what would you call a vessel capable of devouring the power of a 'Divine Fetus' in return?"

He stopped, his eyes locking onto the terrified Kato Masumi. His tone was filled with disdain and contempt. "The truly pitiful vessel is trash like you, who can only cling to life by relying on other people's corpses and borrowed power."

The moment his words fell, the Mangekyo in Xuan's right eye slowly completed a full rotation. An unprecedentedly terrifying ocular power poured forth like a river bursting through its banks!

"Have a taste of the full version of Soul Siphon!"

This time, there was no clever guidance or conversion, only the purest and most brutal direct tearing!

"Aah—!"

Kato Masumi let out an incomparably miserable scream.

He felt a monstrous tempest rise in his sea of consciousness, as though a cold, brutal giant hand had reached directly into the depths of his brain, seized the source of his soul, and was about to forcibly rip it from his body!

The agonizing pain of his soul being torn apart inch by inch far surpassed any torment of the flesh!

He frantically formed hand seals, trying to sever his connection to the array and protect his soul, only to discover in horror that the chakra within his body had begun flowing in reverse under the suppression of Xuan's ocular power!

Not only could he not protect himself, it accelerated the stripping of his soul!

Just as his consciousness was about to be completely extracted, Kato Masumi suddenly slapped his chest and detonated the final trump card he had planted within himself!

"Pfft!"

A writhing green mass of flesh burst from his chest, spraying vast amounts of viscous spores that carried a sickeningly sweet, fishy stench!

The moment those spores touched the air, they rapidly multiplied and spread wildly in all directions. Whether rock or metal, anything contaminated immediately hissed as it dissolved into pools of green pus.

This self-destruct attack formed from fused White Zetsu cells possessed terrifying corrosive power!

Xuan frowned slightly. The corrosive aura rushing toward him instinctively made him sense a trace of danger.

He was forced to interrupt Soul Siphon. With a tap of his toes, his figure retreated like a phantom, avoiding the core area of the spores' spread.

In that brief moment of respite, Kato Masumi seized the opportunity. His body quickly sank into the ground, leaving only hoarse, venomous words echoing through the empty altar.

"This is only the beginning... Xuan! Lord Madara has already noticed the secret on your body as well. No matter where you run, even to the ends of the earth, you won't escape!"

His voice gradually faded before disappearing completely.

Xuan stopped at a safe distance, staring at the spore-contaminated area before him that continued to corrode and expand. His brows were tightly furrowed.

A spore had splashed onto his arm. Although the black chakra mist around his body immediately blocked it, that stubborn corrosive force still made his skin sting.

He raised his hand and condensed a purer strand of black mist over that patch of skin, muttering softly, The Wood Release resistance granted by the First Hokage's cells still isn't strong enough... It seems I need to fuse with the second template as soon as possible.

The bottom level of the altar fell completely silent.

Only the hissing from the green corrosive area proved that the brief yet dangerous clash had not been an illusion.

The air was thick with the smoke of battle, the stench of White Zetsu cells, and a faint lingering energy resonance originating from the level of the soul.

Xuan stood still, his gaze sweeping across the completely ruined Soul Rebirth Array and the thirty-six Impure World corpses twisted out of shape and pierced through by iron sand.

That battle just now, especially the massive resentment he had devoured at the end and the burden from forcibly using the full version of Soul Siphon, meant his body was far from calm within.

The enormous, chaotic power he had just absorbed was like an untamed, ferocious beast, rampaging through his chakra pathways.