These Eyes Are My Original Creation

The violent surge of power did not last long.

Xuan's consciousness was like a block of ten-thousand-year ice, precisely and ruthlessly suppressing every inch of restless chakra.

The spinal crystal system within his body resembled a precise tuner. With every flicker of its deep-blue glow, it forcibly tamed, sorted, and filed away a burst of violent energy.

At the center of the ruins, he sat cross-legged like the eye of a storm. Though the surrounding energy ripples churned wildly, he remained utterly unmoved.

Deep within his mind, a simple luminous interface slowly unfolded, displaying three streams of information with perfect clarity:

[Storable Template Two: Soul-Type Template · Stele Forest Remnant Souls (Status: Partially Consumed, Nearing Dissipation)]

[Storable Template Three: Slot Pending Activation (Requires Specific Conditions to Unlock)]

Xuan's attention did not linger on the system interface for long. His mind was immersed in the vast torrent of memories he had just devoured.

They were not merely the memories of the old stele spirit, but the resentment and obsession woven over countless years by innumerable Uchiha Clan remnant souls sealed here.

At the deepest point of those fragmented memories, a "Volcanic Ritual" stained red with blood and fire played out again and again.

Within the scene, two identical young faces confronted each other atop an active volcano.

They were twins, and also the most exceptionally gifted brothers the Uchiha Clan had produced in centuries.

Their Mangekyō Sharingan bore identical patterns, their abilities complemented one another, and together, they were nearly invincible.

Yet in pursuit of the legendary light that would never fade, they ultimately stepped onto the path of a forbidden ritual.

Upon the altar, the younger brother's body was sacrificed and his soul forcibly stripped away. The elder brother used his own ocular power as a vessel, attempting to fuse that complete soul into himself.

Miserable wails pierced the entire memory. Xuan could clearly feel the extreme agony of a soul being forcibly torn apart, then violently stitched back together.

In the end, the ritual failed.

An unprecedented Eternal Mangekyō pattern did indeed emerge in the elder brother's eyes, but his personality split apart as well, and his soul fell into eternal incompleteness and madness.

So that's how it is... The Eternal Mangekyō was never some heartwarming story of brothers transplanting eyes. It was the most vicious, cruel act of life alchemy, using the souls of twins as fuel!

Xuan suddenly understood. Many mysteries surrounding Uchiha Clan history were resolved in that instant.

Just then, the old stele spirit's weak, intermittent voice sounded in his mind one final time, like the last flame of a candle in the wind. "We... once thought you were the one who had returned... the boy who failed in the ritual, returning with the other half of his remnant soul... Only now do we understand that you are not."

The voice paused, as if gathering its final strength.

"You are... the restarter. Back then, his soul split in two. One part was feared by the clan and sealed here, becoming us undying stele spirits, guarding this secret of failure. The other part—his purest obsession and power—became a symbol, a name—'Xuan.' From then on, this name was branded deep into the Uchiha Clan bloodline like a nightmare, becoming the darkest reflection in the hearts of every powerful descendant who awakened the Mangekyō, and the obsession they most longed to surpass."

"You are not his reincarnation. You are a 'completion' that began anew atop the ruins of his failure. You inherited all the potential and curses represented by the name 'Xuan,' but you... are yourself."

As those words faded, the old stele spirit's presence vanished completely.

Xuan slowly opened his eyes. There was not the slightest ripple in those deep pupils, as though he had merely heard a story unrelated to himself.

He raised his right hand and stared at his palm. Beneath the flesh and blood flowed endless chakra and genetic sequences containing limitless possibilities.

A completion? Perhaps. But he preferred to believe he was the terminator who devoured everything.

His goal was clear: to cultivate a Mangekyō Sharingan ability uniquely his own and "materialize" it, rather than merely keep it at the level of an ocular technique.

With a thought, he selected the [Basic Cell Regeneration Template], preparing to deeply fuse it with his Uchiha Clan bloodline.

White Zetsu's cells originated from the Divine Tree and possessed astonishing vitality and plasticity. They were precisely the catalyst he needed most right now.

However, the instant the fusion command was issued, a cold prompt appeared on the system interface:

"Warning: High-intensity genetic fusion carries enormous risks and may result in cellular chain collapse. It is recommended to pair it with high-concentration soul energy for stabilization and guidance. Consume Template Two [Soul-Type Template · Stele Forest Remnant Souls] as a catalyst?"

Xuan's gaze fell upon the words "nearing dissipation," and he fell silent for a moment.

He knew that once he confirmed it, the old man who had guarded this secret for a thousand years, along with all the remnant souls here, would become part of his strength. Even the final traces of their existence would disappear.

But the hesitation lasted only a second.

Confirm, he murmured inwardly.

With his decision, the old man's phantom, which had just dispersed, unexpectedly gathered in the air one last time. He gave Xuan a relieved smile, then burst apart, turning into dazzling motes of light that shot like a meteor into Xuan's right eye!

A pain far greater than anything before stabbed viciously into his cerebral cortex like red-hot steel needles!

Xuan's body jolted. The blood vessels in his right eye socket ruptured instantly, and a trail of scorching blood slid down from the corner of his eye and dripped into the dust.

Yet something bizarre happened.

Before the fallen blood could coagulate, it seemed to be drawn by some invisible force, flowing upward and being reabsorbed by his wildly spinning pupil!

The three-tomoe Mangekyō pattern in his eye gradually blurred and reorganized amid its rapid rotation.

The infusion of blood and soul energy was like the final tempering and sharpening of a peerless weapon of slaughter.

The rotation grew faster and faster. Then, everything abruptly stopped, settling into an entirely new form never before seen in history—three pitch-black tomoe were no longer separate. Instead, they orbited a spiral vortex at the center of the pupil like satellites. The vortex collapsed endlessly inward, bottomless as though it could devour all light and souls, like a miniature black hole.

An invisible force field suddenly expanded from Xuan's right eye!

The rubble and remains scattered across the ground instantly lost their gravity and slowly floated upward.

Then, upon reaching midair, they made no sound at all as they silently turned into the most primitive dust, completely broken down!

[Template fusion successful.]

[Talent ability [Soul Siphon] has completed evolution. Based on its characteristics, it has been renamed: [Myriad Phenomena Return to the Eye].]

[[Myriad Phenomena Return to the Eye]: When actively activated, it forms a soul-gravity field with a ten-meter radius around the user. It forcibly extracts the emotional fluctuations, overflowing chakra, and even faint fragments of consciousness from all living beings within the field. Extracted matter may be used for self-devouring completion or as an energy medium to counter all mental attacks (genjutsu).]

Xuan slowly rose to his feet, feeling the terrifying gravitational pull in his right eye, as though it could draw heaven and earth themselves into it.

His gaze swept over the area and landed on a White Zetsu limb in the corner that had not yet fully decayed.

His right eye narrowed—[Myriad Phenomena Return to the Eye]!

In an instant, the severed limb convulsed violently, as though seized by an invisible hand!

The green paste-like substance contained within it transformed into a visible current of life energy. Like a tide, it was forcibly extracted from the limb, gathering into a thin green ribbon of light in midair before flowing precisely into his right eye!

[Successfully devoured a trace amount of Divine Tree cells. Genetic database analyzing... A potential Wood Release activation path has been discovered.]

Vitality far purer and more immense than before surged through his body, repairing the meridians damaged by the fusion.

A cold curve formed at the corner of Xuan's mouth.

"So that's how it is. It wasn't that I inherited their power..." he murmured, his voice echoing through the empty underground chamber. "It was I who allowed them to live again under my rules."

He walked to the altar's exit. Chakra gathered at his fingertips, mixed with the Divine Tree energy he had just absorbed and his own Magnet Release power. He carved a brand-new rune into the stone wall—a tightly shut vertical eye, surrounded by iron sand representing Magnet Release and woody patterns representing vitality.

This was his declaration, and also his tombstone.

After finishing all this, he did not look back. He suddenly brought his hands together.

"One final gift of thanks—[Magnet Release: Sand Iron Tornado]!"

Rumble!

The entire underground ruin began to shake violently. Countless grains of black iron sand were forcibly extracted from the surrounding rock layers and gathered into a black tornado that connected heaven and earth.

Rampaging magnetic force tore apart every supporting structure as enormous boulders crashed down without end.

At the center of that destructive storm, Xuan calmly walked toward the surface step by step.

Behind him, the ancient altar that had buried the darkest secret of the Uchiha Clan, along with all its history and remnant souls, was completely and permanently entombed deep beneath the earth.

At the same time, at the heart of the distant Fourth Shinobi World War battlefield.

"Roar—!!!"

The Ten-Tails' roar shook heaven and earth. Every movement of its massive body caused mountains to collapse and the ground to split.

The sky was torn open by pitch-black fissures, and at the highest point of those cracks, a figure wearing a mask marked with white Rinnegan patterns silently looked down upon the hellish scene below.

Suddenly, Madara Uchiha, standing atop the Ten-Tails' head with his arms folded and an air of utter supremacy, stiffened.

Without warning, he raised his left hand and tightly covered his left eye, his brows furrowing.

An inexplicable palpitation shot through his heart like an electric current, making his heart—which had long since stopped beating—seem to fall into a moment of disarray.

A name buried in the deepest part of his memories, one he himself had thought forgotten, surfaced in his mind without warning.

"That name... Xuan?"

He murmured softly, his tone carrying a trace of confusion and... vigilance that even he had not noticed.

"Why... has my heartbeat become erratic?"

No one could answer his question.

The undercurrent had already crossed the dam of time and silently surged toward this final battle.

The center of the storm was no longer merely this bloodstained battlefield.

In a place even farther away, a force capable of overturning the entire board had already broken through the earth.