My Prey, and the Hidden Leaf Village Thinks It Can Collect the Corpse?

The prelude to death played soundlessly through the canyon.

Before Baba Tesshin had finished speaking, the youngest Hidden Sand Village ninja at his feet let out a short, muffled groan. His body stiffened, as though an invisible giant hand had seized him by the throat.

Tesshin spun around sharply and saw a dark-blue chakra thread, thin as a hair, deeply embedded in the ninja's neck. Before the blood could even spray out, his head had already drooped limply, all life extinguished in an instant!

"Enemy attack!"

Tesshin roared hoarsely, slamming his massive shield into the ground with a thunderous crash that sent a ring of sand surging outward.

However, the warning had come too late.

The canyon walls, once solid and unyielding, were now pierced through as easily as tofu. Dozens of iron wires gleaming with metallic coldness crisscrossed through the air, instantly weaving an inescapable net that sealed the remaining three of them, along with the old ape on the stretcher, in the center.

Every iron wire had been precisely nailed into a weak point in the rock at tricky angles, cutting off every possibility of evasion or escape.

High atop the cliff, Chiyo Saori's ten fingers moved faintly. The three miniature puppets beneath her cloak had long since slipped deep into the sand.

Like underground ghosts, they silently released weak magnetic fields, completely blocking the Hidden Sand Village squad's attempted distress signal talismans and distorting them into meaningless static.

Her task was to clear the field and cut off communications, creating a perfect stage for Xuan.

And the star of that stage, Xuan, had already shed the chakra membrane from his right eye. That bizarre Mangekyō Sharingan was operating at extremely low power.

Within his [Myriad Phenomena Return to the Eye] vision, the entire world had turned into lines of flowing chakra.

The Hidden Sand Village ninjas' terror, Tesshin's vigilance, even the sand grains swept up by the wind—all were analyzed in his mind as data.

But his true target was the dying old ape on the stretcher.

Through the old ape's cracked skin, Xuan clearly "saw" a wisp of chakra utterly different from the Four-Tails' violent lava.

It was as fine as a golden needle, yet contained astonishing vitality and a gentle aura, carrying a trace of pure Yang-nature resonance.

That fluctuation seemed to echo across a thousand miles with another, far greater source of spiritual power.

Xuan understood instantly. This was the unconscious spiritual call Naruto Uzumaki, the Hidden Leaf Village's Nine-Tails jinchūriki, was sending out toward the other tailed beasts!

It was the bond left behind by the Sage of Six Paths!

[Residual fragment of Six Paths Yang Power detected. Purity extremely low, but possesses uniqueness.

Proceed with devouring?]

The system prompt was cold and mechanical.

A frosty curve formed at Xuan's lips. Without the slightest hesitation, he gave an affirmative answer in his mind.

The next second, the pupil of his right eye abruptly contracted, like a miniature black hole.

An invisible, formless gravitational field instantly enveloped the old ape's head.

The old ape on the stretcher let out a pained groan. A wisp of crimson mist, almost impossible to detect with the naked eye, slowly seeped out from his nostrils. Like a tiny snake answering a summons, it struggled and twisted before finally transforming into a streak of light and plunging with perfect accuracy into the depths of Xuan's right pupil!

At the very instant the devouring was complete, a tearing pain erupted violently from Xuan's left eye!

He grunted and instinctively covered the left side of his face.

His once-normal black pupil began changing uncontrollably. The pupil was forcibly stretched into a crimson vertical slit overflowing with savage intent, uncannily like the eye of the legendary demon fox!

[Warning: Foreign high-grade chakra has triggered neural resonance and bloodline conflict, activating a temporary mutation state.

The left eye's optic nerve is suffering irreversible damage!]

"Suppress it!"

Xuan barked inwardly, immediately activating the system's [Bloodline Suppression Module].

An even purer, more ancient power surged from the depths of his bloodline, washing over the nerves of his left eye like an icy flood.

The violent mutational power was forcibly suppressed and contained. The scarlet glow in the vertical pupil receded as well, but the slit remained stubbornly in place.

Enduring the waves of stabbing pain from his left eye, Xuan did not pause for even a moment.

He formed a seal with one hand. A handful of iron sand rapidly gathered on the ground, and he forcibly shaped it with Magnet Release into a black square stone engraved with layer upon layer of Rinnegan patterns.

The stone embedded itself in the ground with a heavy thud. At the same time, his Sharingan spun at high speed, projecting a blurry yet imposing phantom into the center of the canyon—the outline of Pain's Deva Path!

A broken sealing technique pattern, as though it had just been interrupted, flickered faintly beneath the phantom's feet, centered around the black stone.

A perfect frame-up!

"Boom—!"

Just then, a violent flash of lightning tore through the sky. Accompanied by an earthshaking roar, Morikawa Raion and five Hidden Leaf Village ninjas finally arrived!

Before Raion had even steadied himself, his gaze locked onto Pain's phantom in the field and the conspicuous Rinnegan symbol on the ground.

The lingering tailed beast chakra in the air was mixed with an evil aura he had never felt before, making his eyes blaze with fury.

"Akatsuki! So it really is you traitors who betrayed the Allied Forces!"

He gave no one any chance to explain. All the evidence pointed to a single conclusion.

He took Xuan and Saori, standing atop the cliff, for Akatsuki accomplices—or rather, the masterminds behind it all.

"Lightning Release: Chidori Sharp Spear!"

Raion roared as the lightning gathered in his palm transformed into a deadly blade, tearing through the air straight for Xuan's heart!

Yet in the face of that lethal strike, a cold smile of success appeared on Xuan's face.

He neither dodged nor met it head-on. Instead, just as the lightning spear was about to strike him, his body drifted backward at an unbelievable angle, while his toes lightly tapped the cliff face.

That retreat was perfectly timed. Morikawa Raion's Chidori Sharp Spear lost its aim and grazed past Xuan's body.

But it was not over yet!

As Xuan leaped backward, his fingers twitched. An iron wire that had been laid out long ago instantly tightened, precisely slicing across the old ape's arm on the stretcher below!

"Splurt!"

Blood sprayed everywhere!

The blood of the Four-Tails jinchūriki, rich with tailed beast chakra, splashed squarely onto the forged Rinnegan black stone!

Bzzzz—!

As though some forbidden switch had been triggered, the blood array activated instantly!

A violent, extremely condensed tailed beast chakra aftershock erupted, forming a visible shockwave that blasted away all the surrounding sand and rocks.

This aura was exactly like the energy fluctuations said to occur when Akatsuki extracted tailed beasts!

"Bastard!" Morikawa Raion's pupils shrank sharply. He had personally witnessed his attack "complete" the enemy's ritual. Fury surged through him, fully confirming his judgment that they were using tailed beast blood to activate some evil ninjutsu.

At that critical moment, Saori moved.

She no longer hid herself. Her hands beneath the cloak turned into blurs.

Two miniature puppets burst from the earth like ghosts, silently circling beneath the feet of the two Hidden Leaf Village ninjas following behind Raion. Poison needles flickering with a dim green glow instantly pierced their ankles!

The two screamed. Their bodies immediately went numb, and they collapsed to the ground.

Then Saori formed another seal with her other hand and detonated dozens of explosive tags planted beforehand along the canyon walls!

"Rumble—!"

The mountains crumbled and the earth split!

Boulders tumbled down and sand flew everywhere. A localized collapse formed in an instant, forcibly separating Morikawa Raion from his remaining subordinates.

Baba Tesshin, who had witnessed it all, wore a look of struggle and resolution on his weathered face.

He had seen the Hidden Leaf Village ninjas' reckless attack, the other side's bizarre "ritual," and Saori's merciless interception.

At last, he understood that this so-called "joint escort" had been a conspiracy from the very beginning.

Whether it was the Hidden Leaf Village or this group of mysterious people, neither harbored good intentions toward the jinchūriki.

But at least the latter had not tried to kill them yet.

"Clang!"

Tesshin gritted his teeth and swung his long blade, cutting in two the signal flag representing the Hidden Sand Village squad's contact with the Hidden Leaf Village!

He turned, using his broad body to shield the jinchūriki's stretcher, declaring his stance through his actions.

Alone, Morikawa Raion had been cut off by the collapse and was already on the verge of madness.

He circled around the fallen rocks and charged toward the cliff again, only for a petite figure to block his path.

At some point, Chiyo Saori had landed in front of him, a poisoned short blade in her hand.

"I'm not a traitor..." Her voice was as cold as frost, without the slightest trace of emotion. "I am the cleaner of the Hidden Sand Village's future."

The blade flashed, too fast for anyone to react.

Morikawa Raion's charge came to an abrupt halt. He lowered his head in disbelief and looked at the blood seeping from his chest before finally collapsing unwillingly onto the yellow sand.

Atop the tallest distant dune, Xuan slowly closed his eyes, ignoring the slaughter and chaos below.

He was quietly sensing the newborn yet domineering power within his body.

The wisp of Six Paths Yang Power he had devoured was slowly being assimilated and analyzed by his bloodline.

[Devouring complete. Bloodline adaptability analysis in progress... New function unlocked: Chakra Purity Filtering.]

[Function description: Can actively separate and purify source components from mixed energy, removing impurities and spiritual imprints.]

The night wind howled past, stirring his black robe.

When he opened his eyes again, the final trace of crimson in the demon fox-like vertical slit within his left pupil silently faded away, returning to a bottomless ink-black.

There was not the slightest ripple in his gaze, only abyssal calm and indifference.

The first step of the plan had concluded perfectly.

His gaze passed over the chaotic battlefield below and turned toward the distant, windblown sands, where a broken chessboard awaited new players to enter the game.