Don't Talk Ideals with Me—I Only Believe in Results

In the eastern Land of Lightning, mountains wound like a dragon's spine, tightly locking away a deep valley.

Snowflakes mixed with violent winds, scraping across the rock walls like blades and letting out shrill howls.

Yet even more terrifying than this natural fury was the man-made thunder within the valley.

Nine gigantic obsidian pillars carved with intricate runes stood throughout the valley in a nine-palace formation, their metal tips spitting out horrifying purple arcs of electricity.

The arcs intertwined and collided in the air, forming an electromagnetic net that covered the entire sky.

This was the grave Hidden Cloud Village had meticulously prepared for that man—the Lightning Prison Cage.

At the deepest point of the valley, a figure stood silently atop the snow.

Darui tightened his grip on the Executioner's Blade strapped to his back. The chill of its hilt pierced through his gloves and sank into his bones.

As bait, the chakra within him was like a bonfire in the night, brazenly broadcasting its signal in every direction. Every fluctuation was an unabashed provocation aimed at the target.

"He'll definitely come... for more knowledge." Darui's expression was incredibly complicated, holding both the resolve of a shinobi and an irrepressible trace of fear.

He muttered to himself, his voice instantly torn apart by the wind and snow. "But can we really stop someone... who treats forbidden techniques like breakfast?"

Before his words faded, a terrifying pressure far beyond the valley's thunderstorm crashed down from the heavens!

A fierce wind suddenly rose—not a natural wind, but a black torrent formed from countless high-speed spinning grains of iron sand!

Like a black dragon descending from the ninth heaven, the torrent tore through the outer defenses of the electromagnetic net with unstoppable force, carrying a lone, proud figure as it smashed heavily into the center of the valley floor!

BOOM—!

The snow exploded into a massive crater. Iron sand spread outward like a tide, revealing the black-haired, black-eyed man at its center—Xuan.

He did not even glance at the Hidden Cloud shinobi lying in ambush around him. The moment he landed, his scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan had already opened.

He slightly closed his eyes, and a cold curve formed at the corner of his lips.

[Soul Devourer]!

An invisible devouring force abruptly erupted from him.

The high-voltage electricity emitted by the nine lightning pillars—enough to instantly char any intruder to ash—seemed to have found an outlet. It transformed into visible streams of purple light and flooded frantically into Xuan's body!

The chakra reserves within him were skyrocketing at an unimaginable rate!

"Attack!"

A furious roar rang out from the flank.

Raiga, wielding the twin blades Lightning Fangs, was wrapped in blinding lightning as he pounced forward like an enraged leopard.

The remaining members of the Seven Swordsmen formed a battle formation behind him, coordinating flawlessly.

"Secret Technique: Lightning Release: Thunder Tiger Massacre!"

Raiga crossed his twin blades. Violent lightning chakra condensed into a massive thunder tiger, which roared and opened its enormous, lightning-filled jaws, determined to devour Xuan along with the earth beneath his feet!

However, faced with this powerful S-rank Lightning Release, Xuan merely raised his right hand indifferently. He spread his fingers and gave the roaring thunder tiger a light wave.

"Playing with lightning in front of me?"

[Thunder Dust Explosion]!

This was not a counterattack, but an even deeper level of control!

In an instant, he analyzed the chakra structure of Thunder Tiger Massacre and used his own purer Lightning Release chakra to reverse-detonate the airflow surrounding the thunder tiger!

"BOOOOM!!!"

With an extremely muffled explosion, the imposing thunder tiger disintegrated in midair. Its violent lightning energy was forcibly detonated, transforming into a destructive shockwave that swept back toward its creator!

Raiga's pupils constricted. He only had time to cross his twin blades in front of his chest before he was violently blown away by the backlash of his own ninjutsu. He slammed into a distant rock wall and spat out a mouthful of blood.

At the same time, hundreds of puppets rose from the shadows atop the valley cliffs. Tough chakra threads shot from each puppet's fingertips, rapidly weaving into an enormous defensive barrier in an attempt to stabilize the Lightning Prison Cage disrupted by Xuan.

This was the work of the puppeteer Saori.

On the other side, demolition expert Baba Tesshin had precisely located the energy nodes of the remaining lightning pillars. Dozens of specially made insulated bombs were thrown out like a swarm of locusts, aimed directly at the pillars' weak points.

Hidden Cloud Village's response could not have been faster. Their tactical discipline was top-tier.

But in Xuan's eyes, it was all nothing more than children's play.

"You think this is a trap?"

Xuan stood at the center of the thunderstorm, a layer of incomparably condensed lightning armor appearing over his body. This was the result of what he had "sampled" from the Fourth Raikage, A, and improved upon.

His Mangekyō Sharingan slowly turned, reflecting every detail of the battlefield. Every shinobi's movement and every trace of chakra flow were laid bare before him.

"No. This is my testing ground."

As soon as he spoke, he suddenly closed his eyes.

A storm unlike any before was brewing in the depths of his mind.

The system's cold prompt echoed through his consciousness.

[Law Simulation, activated!]

[First-stage deduction: Loading Azure Dragon's theoretical model on energy-form conversion...]

[Second-stage deduction: Loading the ancient runic texts researched throughout the old guardian shinobi's life...]

[Third-stage deduction: Drawing upon the ultimate understanding of his own Wind Release chakra nature transformation...]

[Fourth-stage deduction: Integrating Yin Release spiritual energy to conduct conceptual interference...]

Four layers of ninjutsu logic and four entirely different systems of knowledge were forcibly fused and deduced under the terrifying computational power of [Law Simulation]!

Only three seconds passed in the real world, but within Xuan's consciousness, it seemed as though three years had gone by!

He abruptly opened his eyes. For an instant, his Mangekyō seemed to contain the birth and death of the universe!

His hands formed seals at a speed impossible for the naked eye to follow, finally pressing together before his chest.

A fist-sized sphere of chaotic-colored energy slowly emerged from between his palms.

At its core was lightning capable of piercing anything. Around it was wind that could slice through all things, mixed with fire on the verge of exploding. The outermost layer was shrouded in Yin Release power that distorted light and interfered with perception!

"New Technique: [Myriad Phenomena Thunder Core]!"

The moment the chaotic energy sphere left his hand, it tore through space, leaving behind a black vacuum trail. At a speed beyond sound, it pierced through three obsidian lightning pillars in succession!

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a teeth-grinding sound of annihilation.

The lightning pillars struck by [Myriad Phenomena Thunder Core], along with their runes and internal energy cores, seemed to have been erased from the very level of "existence." They instantly turned to dust and scattered into the wind and snow.

Three massive gaps instantly opened in the Lightning Prison Cage!

"Monster!" Baba Tesshin let out a despairing howl. The demolition techniques he had been so proud of appeared utterly laughable before this godlike ninjutsu.

"It's not over yet!"

Darui appeared behind Xuan like a ghost. He had pushed his speed and Lightning Release activation to the absolute limit.

This was an attack that wagered everything!

"Storm Release: Laser Circus!"

Dozens of slender yet deadly laser beams burst from his fingertips. They could bend and track with precision, sealing off every route Xuan could use to evade!

This was the Third Raikage's ultimate technique, one of Hidden Cloud Village's most powerful offensive ninjutsu!

Yet in Xuan's Sharingan, the flight paths, angles of refraction, and energy levels of the dozens of lasers were all clearly displayed and predicted as data.

Xuan did not even turn around. Just before the lasers touched him, he twisted sideways, shifted his waist, and stepped forward at an inconceivable angle.

Every laser beam passed by the edge of his clothes with mere millimeters to spare, shooting into the snowfield opposite him and melting deep, bottomless pits.

"It's over."

The icy voice sounded beside Darui's ear.

He turned back in horror, only to see that Xuan had somehow appeared at his side. Xuan's fingers were pressed together like a blade, and in his palm gathered lightning even purer, more condensed, and more violent than Raiga's Lightning Release!

Improved [Lightning Cutter: Gigaton Slash]!

Szzzt—!

Blood flashed!

Darui's right arm was severed cleanly at the shoulder!

Scarlet blood gushed out and splattered across the pure white snow, standing out with shocking clarity.

"Aaargh!"

The unbearable pain drove Darui to one knee. He clutched his severed shoulder tightly, his face twisted as he roared.

Xuan looked down at him without the slightest ripple in his eyes. "You say you do this for peace? Yet you burn books that might give birth to new ideas, hunt shinobi who thirst for knowledge, and use violence to block every possibility of progress... How are you any different from Madara Uchiha, who once intended to use the Eye of the Moon to impose peace by force?"

"We're different!" Darui endured the agony and raised his head, defiance burning in his eyes. "At least... at least we still believe in some kind of order! In the village, in the Kage, in inheritance!"

"That's too weak." Xuan sneered, his voice full of disdain and pity. "True order does not need to explain itself to anyone."

The excruciating pain and blood loss pushed Darui's consciousness toward the brink of collapse.

In his daze, he seemed to hear an aged, weary voice from the distant past whispering deep within his soul.

It was the final wail from the lingering fragment of Azure Dragon's consciousness, swallowed by Xuan and now crying out from the depths of the system:

"He won... because he isn't afraid of becoming a monster... while we... are still pretending to be human..."

In reality, Xuan no longer paid any attention to Darui's suffering. He slowly walked toward the final lightning pillar, the main pillar at the core of the entire Lightning Prison Cage.

He extended his right hand, ignoring the terrifying current capable of instantly vaporizing steel, and gently pressed it against the rune at the core.

[Myriad Phenomena Devouring]!

Bzzzz—!!!

The entire valley, along with the six remaining lightning pillars, seemed to have been frozen in time.

The next second, all the energy accumulated within the Lightning Prison Cage, along with the law structure that formed the barrier technique itself, was forcibly pulled away by an irresistible gravitational force. It transformed into an enormous stream of light stretching across heaven and earth, surging madly into Xuan's right Mangekyō eye!

The valley was completely illuminated by blinding light, as bright as day.

The system's cold roar exploded through the dimension of Xuan's consciousness:

"Large-scale barrier technique captured: Lightning Prison Cage ×1"

"Analysis completion: 100%. Cognition dimension upgraded..."

"[Rule Overwrite] basic permission unlocked (Effect: Cognition points may be consumed to locally modify the activation logic and fundamental rules of analyzed ninjutsu)"

As the light faded, all nine obsidian lightning pillars had turned to ash.

Xuan stood quietly amid the ruins, the Mangekyō pattern in his right eye becoming deeper and more sinister.

He raised his head toward Hidden Cloud Village. His voice was not loud, but through the precise transmission of chakra, it rang clearly in the ears of every surviving Hidden Cloud shinobi along the border of the Land of Lightning:

"Go back and tell A that I've sampled his armor, his blade, and his Lightning Release..."

"Not enough flavor."

With that, he turned around, his figure melting into the shadows and disappearing.

Behind him, the valley walls, having lost the support of their energy structure, groaned under unbearable strain and began to collapse and cave in on a massive scale.

And on the far side of the moon, within that eternal darkness—

Masked Obito silently watched everything unfold through the shared vision of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.

On the surveillance screen, dust from the collapsing valley rose like a declaration of an era's end.

"That man..." A never-before-seen gravity appeared in Obito's single eye. "He isn't someone idealists like Sasuke or Naruto can handle... He doesn't want to change this world at all..."

He muttered to himself, his voice echoing through the empty space.

"He wants to redefine it."

A crow with a Rinnegan embedded in one eye spread its wings from his shoulder and silently flew toward the blue planet.

In its beak, it carried a fragment of an ancient scroll that was still faintly burning.

The collapsing valley kicked up dust that filled the sky, obscuring the moonlight and concealing the despair of every survivor.

For them, this crushing defeat was only the beginning of the nightmare.