Your Temple Is My Family's Dump

The damp sea breeze carried the morning mist, slapping against the black reefs of a southern deserted island with a muffled wail.

Xuan arrived atop the surging waves, his steps as steady as if he were walking on solid ground.

With every step he took, the seawater beneath his feet instantly solidified into a patch of black iron sand before dispersing back into the waves.

Over his shoulder, he carried a metal case reinforced with multiple sealing techniques. Inside lay a fragment of the "Eye of Origin," giving off a faint, icy aura.

The crimson Mangekyo pattern in his right eye was covered by a thin film of chakra, concealing its unsettling glow that could shake the heart.

In his mind, the system's cold notification continued to echo.

"[Pseudo-Dead Bone Pulse Template] stability has risen to 67%... The fusion process is limited by a single sealed object source and has encountered a bottleneck."

"Warning: The rejection between the template and the host's soul is gradually intensifying. It is recommended that a second sealed object of 'Xuan' be acquired as soon as possible to accelerate the fusion process and stabilize the template structure."

Xuan's gaze pierced through the mist and settled on the outline of an ancient, dilapidated shrine along the distant shore.

That was Shadow Flow's last publicly known foothold in the mortal world. It supposedly worshipped the elusive "Ninja Shadow God," but Xuan knew full well that it was merely a cover.

The true core was the secret map scroll hidden beneath the statue, which recorded concealed routes leading to several other sealed objects.

Behind him, a frail figure was pulled along by invisible magnetic force, stumbling after him.

White Lotus's face was pale as paper, her lips trembling slightly in fear.

She stared toward the shrine, unable to suppress the terror in her voice. "That... that is Shadow Flow's holy land. The Twelve Shadow Stream Judges guard it year-round! Every one of them is a top-tier assassin with Kage-level strength, masters of the most extreme assassination arts... You, going in alone... how is that any different from charging straight into hell? You're throwing your life away!"

"Throwing my life away?"

Xuan did not pause in the slightest. An utterly disdainful sneer curved across his lips.

"The ones throwing their lives away are them."

Before his words had faded, he took a Haori Command Talisman from his robes, one he had found on Kazama Genichiro.

The talisman was made of special bone porcelain, etched with intricate blood-red patterns.

He gave it a light squeeze between his fingers. With a crisp crack, the talisman shattered, turning into a handful of pale bone ash that drifted away on the wind.

In an instant, a line of blood-red words formed from pure energy appeared in the air: "The High Priest has fallen. All branches return to silence."

This was Shadow Flow's highest-level termination command. Once it fully took effect, every Shadow Flow outpost scattered across the world, regardless of size, would activate its self-destruct procedure at the same time, and all members would carry out the final "Return to Silence" ritual.

It was meant to erase every trace that Shadow Flow had ever existed should its uppermost ranks be destroyed.

However, Xuan did not allow the command signal to spread completely.

The instant the bloody words took shape, the chakra film beneath his right eye silently faded away. Three tomoe spun rapidly before condensing into an eerie Mangekyo pattern.

[Myriad Phenomena Return to the Eye]!

An invisible force immediately enveloped the fading bloody words. It did not stop them; it reverse-engineered them.

The complex encrypted frequencies contained within the command were peeled apart layer by layer, their secrets perceived and deciphered by his ocular power.

The command itself was a master key capable of opening the core areas of every Shadow Flow outpost.

A few seconds later, red light flashed in Xuan's eyes.

"Found it," he murmured. His figure suddenly blurred, and in the next instant, he had crossed a hundred meters like a ghost, silently slipping into the shrine's shadows.

In the shrine's rear hall, the air was steeped in the strange mingled scent of stale sandalwood and blood.

The floor and walls were covered with traps and mechanisms invisible to the naked eye.

The first layer was pressure-sensitive plates linked to explosive tags. The second consisted of chakra threads coated in deadly poison. The third was visual traps that could instantly trigger an illusion barrier.

Yet none of it could escape Xuan's Sharingan.

As though strolling through his own backyard, he effortlessly avoided every lethal arrangement and walked straight to a massive statue of the "Shadow God."

He pressed one hand against a particular pattern on the statue's pedestal and exerted a little force. The ground split open at once, revealing a deep staircase leading underground.

The basement was cold and damp. It was not large, but its layout was exquisitely designed.

At the center of the room floated an enormous star-map scroll made from the hide of an unknown beast. Complex mountains, rivers, and celestial paths had been drawn on it in a special fluorescent material.

Three locations had been prominently circled in vivid red, each emitting ominous energy fluctuations.

Xuan's gaze swept across them one by one.

The first mark lay deep within the volcanic belt on the border of the Land of Lightning, where geothermal heat and thunderstorms intertwined year-round.

The second was buried beneath the foundation stones of the underground Great Wall in the Land of Earth, wrapped layer upon layer in countless rocks and seals.

As for the third mark...

Xuan's eyes suddenly froze. The corner of his mouth lifted uncontrollably into a faintly amused curve.

It pointed directly beneath a forbidden area of the Hidden Leaf Village in the Fire Country—to the depths of the abandoned old site of Naka River Shrine.

"Heh. So after going in such a huge circle, I never left home at all." He gave a self-mocking chuckle and reached to take down the star-map scroll.

The moment his fingertips were about to touch the scroll, the air throughout the basement seemed to freeze solid!

A suffocating killing intent surged in from every direction, thick as mercury and heavy as mountains.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Twelve pitch-black shadows appeared without warning from the shadows of the beams, floor, ceiling, and even the walls.

They seemed to be shadows themselves. They emerged without a sound, then transformed into twelve deadly streaks of light the instant they appeared.

The Twelve Shadow Stream Judges had all arrived!

Each of them held a specially crafted shadow blade. Its body was black and reflected not even the slightest glimmer of light, yet it was sharp enough to slice through steel with ease.

The twelve figures crossed paths, instantly forming a perfect killing formation—[Shadow Strangulation: Twelve Tribulations Formation]!

The moment the formation took shape, it completely sealed off every route of retreat. Every corner within it was filled with deadly flashes of blades.

The leading Judge spoke in a low, raspy voice, like two pieces of sandpaper grinding together. "Those who defile the holy land shall suffer the punishment of a thousand shadows piercing their hearts!"

Before his words ended, the twelve had already attacked!

Their speed completely surpassed the sound barrier. Within the cramped space, their bodies drew countless afterimages, moving so quickly that even an ordinary Sharingan could not capture their precise trajectories. All it could see was a blurred black storm sweeping toward the sole living being at its center!

Faced with this certain-kill situation, Xuan neither dodged nor retreated. Not even the slightest ripple appeared on his face.

His right eye, the Mangekyo holding the ultimate secret of death, had already activated the passive ability of [Bone Mirror: Life Severance]!

In his vision, the real world instantly slowed down.

Above each of the twelve lightning-fast black figures appeared an incomparably clear image of their "death preview"—

In one Judge's image, his throat was precisely pierced by a bone spear thrusting up from underground.

In the images of two others, invisible iron-sand whips pierced their hearts at the exact same moment, their bodies twisted into bizarre misalignment.

The images of another three showed their cervical vertebrae being snapped instantly from the side by a tremendous force, their heads drooping at impossible angles...

Twelve people. Twelve completely different deaths. Like a script written long ago, every detail was laid bare before his eyes.

"So that's how you die."

A cold smile lingered on Xuan's lips.

In an instant, he locked onto the only—and best—path through the killing formation.

In a flash, he violently raised his left hand. A vast cloud of iron sand burst outward like dense fog, instantly disrupting everyone's vision.

At the same time, his right foot stomped heavily against the ground!

The grains of sand he had secretly buried underground detonated with a roar. The immense shockwave hurled his entire body upward.

Borrowing the force, he performed a nimble flip in midair, perfectly evading the first wave of lethal slashes coming from every direction.

While airborne, he spread his five fingers and activated Magnet Release!

The iron sand that had just exploded did not disperse. Under his control, it instantly condensed into three ink-black iron whips, which lashed toward three Judges in the crowd at several times the speed of bullets, shrieking as they tore through the air with flawless precision!

The targets, angles, and timing of the three iron whips perfectly matched the "predicted death points" of those three Judges in Xuan's eyes!

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Three dull sounds of flesh being pierced rang out almost simultaneously.

The shocked expressions on the three Judges' faces had not even fully set when the iron whips tore through their hearts. Their bodies were hurled backward by the tremendous force, smashing heavily into the walls and dying on the spot.

Their postures in death were exactly the same as the images Xuan had seen in [Bone Mirror: Life Severance]!

This sudden, utterly bizarre turn of events left the remaining nine Judges horrified. Their assault stalled, and they instinctively retreated, opening up the distance again.

The smoke and dust slowly cleared.

Xuan stepped out at an unhurried pace. Not a speck of dust stained his body, and not even the corner of his clothes bore a wrinkle.

He slowly raised his head, allowing the Mangekyo pattern in his right eye to spin at high speed in the dim basement, radiating a chillingly sinister aura.

His voice was not loud, yet it reached every Judge with perfect clarity, carrying arrogance and contempt that seemed to rise from his very bones.

"This temple you worship is nothing more than a dump my family threw away."

"And you..." He paused, his gaze sweeping over the nine terrified faces. "You are not even qualified to serve as my stepping stones."

As his words fell, he waved a hand through the air.

The iron sand scattered across the ground seemed to gain life, transforming into a massive black hand that seized the floating star-map scroll and pulled it into his grasp.

Then he snapped his fingers.

BOOM—!!!

The entire shrine, beginning from its basement, was detonated from the inside out by the countless explosive sand grains he had planted in advance.

Towering flames tore through the morning mist. The violent explosion reduced the ancient structure—and the nine so-called Kage-level assassins within it—to dust in history.

Behind distant reefs, a white-haired youth with shark-like teeth—Hozuki Suigetsu—held up a specially made recording scroll, documenting everything that had just happened in full.

Watching the soaring flames and the destroyer's faintly visible silhouette within them, he could not help swallowing hard as he muttered to himself:

"This guy... he isn't a ninja at all... He himself is a walking calamity."

Three days later, the intelligence report titled "Xuan: The Lone Island Destruction of Shadow Flow Holy Land" was sold through a mysterious channel at three times the highest market price.

The first buyer came from the Hidden Rain Village.

Signed: Nagato.

Meanwhile, on the border of the Land of Wind, in Red Sand Canyon, upon that crimson land known as a forbidden zone of life, a solitary figure stood quietly atop a towering cliff, overlooking the vast world below that had been eroded by wind and sand.

His next target had already been chosen.