The God You Worship Is My Cast-Off Clothing

Gale-force winds whipped razor-sharp raindrops against the steel deck of the Hidden Mist Village reconnaissance ship, producing a piercing crackle.

This specially reinforced warship bobbed amid mountain-like waves like a dead leaf that could be swallowed at any moment.

The elite ninjas aboard all wore grave expressions, clinging desperately to anything they could secure themselves to, barely managing not to be flung into the raging sea.

Only the figure at the bow stood like a statue embedded in the deck, utterly unmoved no matter how the wind and waves battered him.

Mei Terumi's red hair had long since been soaked through by seawater, plastered tightly to her cheeks as droplets continuously slid down her fair jawline.

Her emerald eyes ignored the natural disaster before her, fixed instead on the intelligence report in her hands, wrapped in oilcloth yet still slightly damp.

After several days and nights of effort by Hidden Mist Village's finest deciphering experts, the ancient inscription rubbed onto it had finally revealed its chilling meaning.

"Xuan is the beginning; when the eye opens, the world perishes; when the eye closes, reincarnation ceases."

She repeatedly turned those twelve words over in her mind. Every word seemed to carry immense weight, pressing down on her until she could barely breathe.

This was not the myth of some forgotten tribe. It was a warning unearthed from unrelated ancient ruins scattered across the continent!

A prophecy spanning thousands of years, aimed at one and the same existence.

"Captain!" A sensory ninja struggled to move behind her, reporting with a pale face, "The energy signature below us... it's too strange! It isn't chakra. It's more like... like some enormous creature is breathing beneath the seabed!"

Before he could finish, a deep, drawn-out tremor rose from beneath the ship, piercing through the thick steel hull and reaching everyone's marrow.

It was not the blunt impact of waves crashing against the vessel, but a... resonance.

As though some prehistoric beast sleeping ten thousand meters beneath the sea had been awakened by something and slowly shifted its body.

The waves across the entire sea seemed to grow more frenzied in rhythm with it.

Mei Terumi frowned even more deeply. She suddenly looked up toward the darkest heart of the storm, where an island absent from all maps seemed to flicker in and out of sight.

At the same time, a thousand miles away.

Xuan stepped onto the desolate island.

Beneath his feet lay slick black volcanic rock. Around him stood a primordial jungle that blotted out the sky, while the air was filled with the strange blend of rotting vegetation and pungent sulfur.

He ignored it all, merely lowering his head to look at the rusted bronze fragment in his hand.

He had found this object within the ruins of an ancient battlefield. From the moment he obtained it, the Mangekyō Sharingan in his right eye had never settled down.

With every step forward, a faint burning throb came from deep within his eye socket, as if it were synchronizing with the pulse of this land.

Warning: High concentration of soul remnants detected. Energy properties cannot be analyzed.

Notice: Ancient genetic match detected at 98.7%. Environmental suppression effect removed.

The system's cold prompts rang out one after another in his mind.

An imperceptible curve lifted at the corner of Xuan's lips.

After crossing into this world, he had awakened this system called the Devouring Evolution System. Along the way, he had devoured countless bloodline limits, yet the system had never given such a high genetic compatibility rating.

This place concealed the ultimate secret of his origins.

After passing through the final green curtain formed by giant ferns, his view suddenly opened up.

An ancient stone temple built entirely from black rock stood quietly within a basin at the center of the island.

Countless thick vines coiled around the temple like giant pythons, yet strangely avoided the center of the doorway's lintel.

There, three ancient characters heavy with the traces of time remained clearly visible even in the dim light.

Xuan Shrine.

He reached out, his callused fingertips gently brushing the stone doors. The cold, rough sensation seemed to span the endless ages.

As he exerted force with his arm, the massive stone doors—heavy enough to make ten strong men shrink back—slowly opened inward amid a teeth-grinding scrape.

Inside the temple, contrary to any expectation of splendor or eerie horror, there was absolutely nothing.

No statue, no murals, not even a speck of dust.

The only furnishing was an enormous mirror hanging at the very center.

The mirror was neither mercury nor glass, but a pure blackness capable of swallowing all light, like a piece of solidified eternal night.

Xuan walked before it, yet the mirror reflected no image of him. There was only bottomless nothingness.

He stared at it quietly for a moment, his eyes as still as an ancient well.

Suddenly, he held two fingers together like a blade and lightly sliced across his left palm. A bloody gash instantly appeared, and crimson blood rushed out.

Without the slightest hesitation, he pressed his bleeding palm against the cold mirror.

The instant the blood touched the surface, it did not slide down. Instead, like water absorbed by a sponge, it swiftly seeped into the darkness.

The next second, the entire temple—and even the entire island—began to tremble violently!

The mirror was no longer deathly black. Countless lights and shadows began to flow within it before finally settling into a clear, grand scene:

Atop a towering altar, a one-eyed youth who appeared no more than twelve or thirteen knelt there with a solemn expression.

His upper body was bare and covered in profound golden patterns. Both hands were raised high, and in his palms rested an eye blazing with black-gold flames!

Below the altar stood an endless sea of people. Without exception, their eyes were scarlet Sharingan, ranging from one tomoe to three tomoe, with even several pairs of strange Mangekyō Sharingan among them.

At that moment, these once-arrogant Uchiha Clan members were all devoutly prostrated on the ground, shouting in unison like a roaring tide, their voices filled with near-fanatical reverence:

"Welcome the Progenitor's return!"

At that moment, an aged, feeble consciousness, like a dying candle in the wind, quietly surfaced in the depths of Xuan's mind.

It was the remnant soul attached to an ancient stone stele he had devoured before, calling itself the Stele Spirit.

"This is not your past..." The Stele Spirit's voice was faint as a thread, as though it could dissipate completely at any moment. "This is... the lie they wove. A lie meant to conceal their fear and beautify their sins..."

"You were never the god they worshipped. You were... the source of calamity... feared by them all!"

"They feared your power, feared your uncontrollable evolution, so... they betrayed you. They divided you, sealed you away, forgot you... then stole your power and gave it the name Uchiha... all so they could live with peace of mind."

After speaking those words, the Stele Spirit's final trace of obsession completely vanished into nothingness.

Xuan stood silently where he was for a long time.

The temple had stopped shaking, while the scene in the mirror continued replaying that grand "worship."

After a long while, a soft laugh broke the dead silence.

"So..." Xuan slowly spoke. His voice was not loud, yet it carried a chill capable of freezing souls. "The so-called glory of the Uchiha Clan, the so-called pinnacle of eye techniques, was nothing more than a pack of despicable thieves wearing the tattered clothes I threw away long ago, dancing a clumsy, laughable dance atop my grave?"

He raised his right hand. Countless fine grains of iron sand appeared from thin air, instantly gathering under his Magnet Release control into a pitch-black blade.

Without the slightest hesitation, he swung his arm. The iron-sand blade howled as it tore through the air and slashed viciously at the mirror reflecting those lies!

Crack—!

The mirror shattered in response, but instead of exploding into scattered fragments, it instantly transformed into an incomparably vast torrent of soul information, surging like a rushing galaxy into Xuan's mind!

Pain! Tearing, unbearable pain!

Countless fragmented, genuine memory shards were forcibly unlocked:

In the image, the youth known as the "Progenitor" had not willingly offered himself as a sacrifice.

Instead, in a meticulously planned siege, he had been betrayed by all the elders of his clan.

His eyes were forcibly torn out by the cruelest means, while his body, containing the Primordial Power, was cut into eight pieces and sealed within the continent's various forbidden lands using the most powerful sealing techniques!

And one of those removed eyes was still sealed in some unknown hidden location... The final information in the memory shards showed that if he found that eye and reunited it with his existing right eye, he would awaken the complete Primordial Power—an ultimate force surpassing all bloodline limits, even chakra itself!

No one knew how long it took before Xuan finally broke free from that storm of souls.

He slowly walked out of the temple. Outside, wild winds howled and thunder flashed.

He looked up at the sky. As if the inky clouds feared his gaze, they split down the middle, and cold moonlight poured down like a waterfall, enveloping him perfectly.

He slowly closed his scarlet Mangekyō right eye and murmured in a low voice, as though making a declaration to those traitors and a vow to himself:

"Since you... fear my return so much..."

"Then let me see, when this grave is completely overturned, who will be the true master of this world."

Almost at the same moment, the fleet led by Mei Terumi had broken through the outer storm and arrived in the waters near the desolate island.

A ninja responsible for detection stared at the readings that had instantly maxed out on the radar screen and let out a ghostly shriek. "Captain! The target island's chakra readings... have exceeded the instrument's limit! This... this is practically like a star on the verge of erupting!"

At that very moment, the system's cold prompt sounded in Xuan's mind again, this time carrying a barely perceptible hint of excitement.

Composite ancient genetic template detected (Hidden Mist fleet). Threat level: Low. Initiate deep devouring protocol?

Xuan did not answer immediately. The new memory shards had pointed him toward the next destination.

He could sense that the lost left eye was producing a faint resonance with him somewhere in the distant south.

He raised his head, his gaze piercing through the layers of rain toward the southern sea, shrouded in an even denser and stranger fog.

The heart of the storm seemed to be shifting in that direction.

There stood a half-submerged artificial island reef absent from every nautical chart—Nether Eye Reef.