These Ancestors Won't Do—I'll Have to Lay Them to Rest Myself

Crack—

A crisp shattering sound echoed through the underground palace, startling the dead silence.

Beneath Xuan's military boot lay a black tile engraved with the Uchiha Clan's fan crest. Like the mountain of bones piled beneath his feet, it had once been a symbol of glory. Now, it was nothing more than a silent accusation.

The air was thick with the scent of dust and decay, as viscous as congealed blood.

At the end of the passage, the space suddenly opened up into an enormous circular chamber.

In the center of the chamber stood a crude stone platform. Yet there was no physical object upon it—only a shriveled eyeball floating in midair.

The eyeball resembled a fruit dried for a thousand years, its surface covered in fine, spiderweb-like cracks. Yet strangely, wisps of golden-red blood mist seeped from those cracks, as though it were a dying heart unwilling to fall silent, still making its final pulses.

This was the second sealed object of "Xuan."

"The residual chakra here is too clean." Saori, the old priestess following behind him, supported herself against the wall. Her voice carried both wariness and exhaustion. "It doesn't feel like natural decay. It feels more like... someone purified it regularly."

Xuan's gaze remained fixed on the eyeball, a cold curve forming at the corner of his lips. "Danzo may be dead, but the Root he built is still operating in the shadows. What they fear isn't Madara Uchiha. It's me."

Before his words had even faded, he stepped forward, spread his fingers, and reached directly for the floating eyeball.

Just as his fingertips were about to touch the blood mist, a sudden change erupted!

Bzzzz—!

The walls of the entire circular chamber abruptly lit up with an eerie bluish-white glow, so blinding it was as if countless ghosts had opened their eyes at once.

Dozens of scarlet Sharingan patterns emerged across the walls, spinning and connecting into a massive, intricate composite sealing array that completely locked down the entire space!

Light and shadow rapidly gathered in the center of the chamber, twisting into a blurry humanoid figure.

Moments later, the figure became clear—it was Danzo Shimura!

He still wore that stern expression. His left eye socket was empty, while his right arm was tightly wrapped in bandages, as if it sealed the most evil power in the world.

This was not a physical body, but an afterimage formed from the immense obsession and chakra he had infused into this place while alive.

"Outsider," Danzo's afterimage said. His voice was dry and hoarse, like two pieces of sandpaper grinding together. "What you have touched is not an inheritance, but a taboo. The Uchiha Clan's power must be tightly controlled. Otherwise, it will surely destroy the Hidden Leaf Village!"

"Control?" Xuan gave a derisive snort, his voice filled with undisguised contempt. "No. You're simply afraid—afraid that the person who truly possesses these eyes... will awaken once more."

Danzo's afterimage did not continue the verbal exchange. His chakra-formed hands began forming seals at incredible speed!

With the completion of his final seal, the entire sealing array activated with a thunderous roar!

The ground shook violently and the stone floor cracked. Thirty shriveled corpses slowly rose from beneath the earth. They wore the traditional clothing of the Uchiha Clan, and their empty eye sockets revealed their final fate before death—they were all Uchiha elites secretly executed by Root under various pretexts on the eve of the coup!

Like puppets controlled by invisible strings, the corpses moved in perfect unison, stiffly forming the same hand seal.

An extremely scorching mass of chakra gathered and compressed before them!

Fire Release: Dragon Flame Jutsu!

Thirty flaming dragons roared forth at once. They fused and coiled through the air, becoming a colossal fiery beast capable of swallowing heaven and earth. Carrying the force to burn all things to ash, it lunged fiercely at Xuan!

The heat wave rushed toward him, setting even the air ablaze!

Xuan's pupils contracted as he rapidly retreated. With a thought, massive amounts of iron sand instantly separated from the bones and broken tiles beneath his feet, gathering into a heavy black barrier before him.

Magnet Release: Sand Iron Wall!

Yet when the flaming beast struck the iron wall, there was no violent impact as expected.

The blazing flames clung to it like gangrene on bone, effortlessly melting through and vaporizing the iron-sand barrier!

Xuan's heart tightened, and he immediately realized the problem.

These corpses were not physical entities. They were "mental puppets" driven by Danzo's obsessive conviction of "for the Hidden Leaf Village." Their attacks also contained a burning force that targeted the mind. Ordinary physical defenses were completely useless!

At that critical moment, the talent known as [Soul Devourer] deep within his soul seemed to have scented the most delicious feast in the world and activated on its own!

In an instant, Xuan's perception expanded without limit.

He could clearly "see" the intense unwillingness and resentment permeating those thirty corpses!

It was the rage of being betrayed by "family" from the same village, the despair of being mercilessly consumed by the system they had protected, and the ultimate humiliation of being unable to preserve even their eyes before death!

The cries of those souls formed a surging black ocean.

"So that's how it is..."

Xuan closed his eyes and abandoned all defense.

Beneath his eyelid, the Mangekyō Sharingan in his right eye slowly spun. An entirely different emotional force erupted violently from him!

It was not resentment, but rage that surpassed resentment!

It was not unwillingness, but contempt that ruled over all things!

It was not despair, but an absolute desire for control that stood above every rule!

This incomparably tyrannical emotional force was like a massive magnet thrown into a sandbox filled with iron filings.

In an instant, the movements of the thirty corpses visibly slowed, and the Dragon Flame Jutsu they had unleashed together faltered.

Their lingering resentment was actually drawn in and guided by the emotions Xuan had released. Like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea, it frantically poured back into Xuan's body!

The amount of chakra within Xuan's body surged by thirty percent at a visible rate!

Scalding energy coursed through his limbs and bones. His body temperature rose sharply, and mysterious crimson markings even emerged across his skin, as though lava flowed through his veins.

He suddenly opened his eyes. Those scarlet pupils now shone like two burning stars.

"I'll use your hatred for you."

He shouted lowly, his right eye locking onto Danzo's distant afterimage as he activated the terrifying ocular technique that could only be unleashed after absorbing resentment.

[Soul Devourer: Mental Backlash]!

An invisible ripple, impossible to detect by any physical means, exploded outward from Xuan!

The ripple possessed no earth-shattering spectacle, yet it precisely struck the core that formed Danzo's afterimage—the stubborn obsession that had lingered here for decades.

Like fire poured onto oil, like ice and snow melting away!

Danzo's afterimage let out a heart-rending shriek. His form began to distort and flicker violently, like a malfunctioning image. "Impossible! All of this was for the Hidden Leaf Village! For the protection of the Will of Fire!"

Before his words could finish, the figure condensed from his obsession crumbled apart inch by inch within the silent ripples, transforming into specks of light that scattered completely.

As Danzo's afterimage vanished, the dozens of Sharingan patterns on the walls rapidly dimmed as well, and the sealing array collapsed.

Having lost their source of power, the corpses of the thirty Uchiha Clan members became lifeless once more and crashed to the ground.

Xuan stepped forward, ignoring everything around him, and firmly grasped the shriveled eyeball still floating in the air.

A warm sensation passed into his palm, as though he were holding a living heart.

The next second, a cold system notification rang through his mind:

"Successfully recovered sealed object of 'Xuan' (right eye fragment)"

"Detected an extremely high compatibility with the host's soul origin. Compatibility: 99.6%"

"Mangekyō Sharingan evolution path stability +40%"

"You... you got it." At some point, Saori had followed him to the entrance of the chamber. Leaning against the wall, she gasped heavily. There was shock in her eyes, along with a lingering unease. "But he... left behind one final curse."

She raised a withered finger and pointed toward the base of the stone platform.

With Danzo's afterimage gone, a line of tiny inscriptions carved in chakra at the base of the platform finally revealed itself.

The writing was filled with resolve and venomous hatred:

"If Xuan returns, the Hidden Leaf Village shall perish."

The corner of Xuan's mouth lifted slightly, revealing a chilling smile.

He carefully placed the eyeball into a specially made crystal case, then raised his hand without looking back.

Rumble—!

The [Iron Sand Blast] buried at the four corners of the chamber detonated in an instant!

A violent flood of iron sand tore through the underground palace's load-bearing structure with overwhelming force.

Massive stones tumbled down and dust billowed. This den of sin, buried deep beneath the earth, began to collapse completely.

"We have to go!" Saori cried urgently, her voice swallowed by the deafening roar.

Yet Xuan remained standing where he was, allowing fragments of stone to fall past him.

Through the passage entrance that was about to be buried, he looked in the direction of the distant Hidden Leaf Village and murmured in a voice only he could hear:

"It isn't me who will destroy it... it should have perished long ago."

Amid the ear-splitting sounds of collapse, a black Crow spread its wings and flew from a gap in the ruins, shooting toward the dim sky.

Amid the chaotic dust and air currents, no one noticed the purple ripple pattern flash through the Crow's eyes—a pattern that did not belong to this world.

The underground palace was completely reduced to the dust of history, burying the Uchiha Clan's bones and Danzo's obsession.

And that figure fading into the distance carried a secret capable of overturning the entire ninja world as he vanished into the boundless wilderness.

A new storm was already brewing beyond the horizon.