The Books You Burn, I Use to Light My Lamps

Within his field of vision, although the [Black Lightning: World Erosion] on Darui's body, powerful enough to tear apart heaven and earth, had already dissipated, the faint chakra trails it left behind flickered in and out of sight like ghostly threads in the deepest darkness before dawn.

Xuan did not move. He merely watched in silence, his Mangekyō Sharingan like an ultra-precision analyzer, breaking down and recording every fluctuation frequency, decay rate, and resonance pattern with natural energy contained within that residual power.

He raised his right hand slightly, and with a twitch of his fingertips, strands of black iron sand extended like living tendrils, precisely winding around the nearly imperceptible ripples of energy in the air.

The iron sand did not damage them. Instead, like the most sensitive of sensors, it felt out the unique imprint originating from Hidden Cloud Village.

"Storm Release frequencies retain memories." Xuan's voice was low and cold, as though he were stating a truth long proven. "Just as the Sharingan can read the colors of emotion, this natural energy formed from the fusion of high-purity water and lightning natures... also remembers the deepest imprint of its user's will."

As soon as he spoke, a dim blue screen visible only to him silently appeared before his eyes.

Detected residual high-level Storm Release frequency band ×1

Energy imprint analysis complete. Match rate: 99.8%

Reverse tracing possible to signal source—Hidden Cloud Village, Central Cipher Tower

Saori immediately unfolded a tactical map beside him. Her pale fingertips swept swiftly across the rugged terrain of the Land of Lightning before finally stopping at a marked point surrounded by mountains.

"The Cipher Tower is deep within the mountains directly north of Hidden Cloud Village. It is the communications and intelligence core of the entire village." Her voice was grave. "Intelligence indicates that it is sealed by three layers of super S-rank barriers. Energy flow inside and outside is completely isolated. Only the Raikage's highest-ranking personal couriers can access the core network through specific frequency bands."

Baba Tesshin's burly body was shrouded in the shadows of dawn. He frowned deeply and said in a muffled voice, "That place is even harder to enter than the Raikage's office. A frontal assault is suicide. Before we get within a hundred li, their sensory network will lock onto us."

Yet Xuan's lips curled into a cold arc, carrying a trace of almost mocking contempt. "Who said we were going?"

He did not even turn around. He simply sat down cross-legged where he stood.

The next second, an astonishing scene unfolded.

From the edge of his right pupil, countless crystalline nerve fibers finer than strands of hair suddenly spread outward, detaching from his body and rapidly intertwining and extending through the frigid air, forming a dizzyingly complex three-dimensional web.

This "network" shimmered with a faint glow, as though it had peeled a portion of space away from reality itself—this was the tangible manifestation of the [Cognitive Dimension] that had evolved after he devoured Azure Dragon's theory of "quantum entanglement"!

"Darui's residual chakra is the 'key' that unlocks the door."

Xuan murmured as he used the Storm Release energy ripples captured by the iron sand as beacons and activated [Law Simulation].

Inside his mind—no, within the manifested [Cognitive Dimension] before him—a phantom Cipher Tower made entirely of pure information streams began to be reconstructed at high speed.

He did not have the tower's blueprints, but he had the "signal" it transmitted.

By reverse-engineering the signal's trajectory, the structure of the entire communications circuit, its encryption methods, and its energy protocols... all of it was being forcibly cracked and virtually reconstructed by his mind at a speed beyond that of a supercomputer!

For a full three minutes, Xuan did not move an inch, like a stone statue.

When he opened his eyes again, the crystalline network instantly withdrew into his pupil, as if it had never existed.

A small pinch of gray-white powder had appeared in his palm.

It was the ash he had deliberately collected from the forbidden technique scrolls burned to ruin in the Thunder Library.

"The remaining pages of the Yin Seal personally burned by Danzō, combined with scraps of the Lightning Release: Ultimate Art that Hidden Cloud burned to destroy evidence..." Xuan pinched a bit of ash between his fingers. "This 'breath' is information."

He suddenly scattered the powder into the air!

The instant the ash spread, the Mangekyō pattern in his right eye flared. The strange black sun design seemed to come alive as it activated one of its most tyrannical abilities—[Soul Devourer]!

This time, what he devoured was not the souls or memories of living people, but the most fundamental lingering information fluctuations within the ashes that had once carried forbidden technique knowledge!

The system interface roared madly inside his mind!

Captured fragmented forbidden technique knowledge ×7

Analyzing information entropy...

Successfully assembled part of the casting formula for Storm Release: Myriad Annihilation Domain. Current completion: 83%!

It worked!

Xuan's hands blurred as he instantly formed several completely different hand seals.

Using Wind Release as the foundation, he constructed a carrier for the signal; using Lightning Release as its framework, he simulated Hidden Cloud's energy signature; then, using the principles of the Yin Seal he had just extracted from the ashes as a catalyst, he injected Yin Release power to distort, encrypt, and disguise the signal!

An invisible chakra signal containing a terrifying amount of information traveled back along that faint energy trail at the speed of light!

A hundred li away, in Hidden Cloud Village's Central Cipher Tower.

The Fourth Raikage, A, was flying into a rage over the destruction of the Thunder Library as he held an emergency meeting with the upper ranks.

Suddenly, his expression changed drastically!

Every screen used for communications and intelligence analysis before him, regardless of what it had been displaying, was forcibly overwritten at the same instant.

After a burst of blinding static, a line of words that seemed to have been written in blood and flame burned across every screen:

"You don't even deserve to leave ashes behind from the knowledge you lock away."

The words existed for only an instant before vanishing without a trace.

But immediately afterward, the Storm Release core power system that sustained the entire Cipher Tower fell into violent disorder without warning!

The lights on every device flashed wildly. Energy readings instantly dropped to zero before soaring madly upward, triggering a string of piercing alarms!

This horrifying silence and chaos lasted exactly seven seconds—not one more, not one less!

Seven seconds later, the system rebooted automatically. Everything returned to normal, as though it had all been an illusion.

"That's impossible!" Raikage A smashed the alloy control console worth tens of millions to pieces with one palm. His bulging muscles and face were filled with shock and fury. "That bastard never even came near the village! How did he do it?! How did he interfere with the core network?!"

At Thunder Throat Pass, Xuan had already slowly withdrawn his hands and risen to his feet. The ashes bearing the remnants of forbidden techniques had completely turned to nothing after fulfilling their purpose, scattering in the wind.

He gazed toward Hidden Cloud Village from afar, his voice as cold as ice. "I do not need to step through your gates. As long as you still remember what fear is, my signal can pierce every wall."

Saori lowered her voice, worry in her eyes. "He'll definitely retaliate like a madman."

The curve of Xuan's lips deepened, carrying the confidence of someone in complete control. "Of course he will. But by the time he mobilizes his troops and runs himself ragged, I'll already have memorized every word of the 'top secret' files he hides in his safe."

Night fell.

Thirty li outside Hidden Cloud Village, inside a long-abandoned wartime observation station.

Xuan sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. The [Cognitive Dimension] unfolded before him once more, but this time, it was no longer a simulation. It was rapidly sorting, analyzing, and digesting every stream of communications data intercepted during those seven seconds.

He cross-verified and completed this fragmented information against all the Lightning Release knowledge he had devoured in his mind.

Suddenly, the Mangekyō pattern in his right eye began to tremble violently. The mysterious outer ring representing "Eternal Cycle" finally completed its second full loop after absorbing an immense amount of information!

The system notification exploded in his mind like thunder!

Warning: Cognitive Dimension has undergone a qualitative upgrade!

New function unlocked: [Information Anchoring] (You may use any medium, such as a strand of chakra, a drop of blood, or even a name, to directly lock onto the source of ninjutsu associated with the target and analyze it!)

Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan awakening condition achieved: 93%!

At the same time, on the far side of the moon, within that eternal darkness.

Masked Obito stared fixedly at the surveillance image formed from Yin–Yang Release before him. On the screen was the entire process of Xuan's "information reverse intrusion."

Xuan's figure was reflected in his Rinnegan as he muttered in a voice nearly too soft to hear, "He isn't learning ninjutsu... He's exploiting the 'loopholes' in this world to patch the rules of the entire shinobi world..."

Before his words had faded, a crow circling above his shoulder, with a Rinnegan embedded in its eye socket, suddenly flapped its wings and flew up.

Clamped in its sharp beak was a faintly glowing fragment of communication data stripped from the surveillance image. It then turned into a black shadow and vanished into the endless depths of space.

The calm before the storm was always brief.

Biting winds carried goose-feather snowflakes as they lashed madly against the armored walls of the "Thunder Spine Defense Line" north of Hidden Cloud Village.

As the first line of defense against outside enemies, its fortifications were impregnable.

Inside the Seventh Outpost, the heating was turned up high.

A young Hidden Cloud ninja stared boredly at the surveillance screen, which showed nothing but a vast expanse of white snowfields.

He yawned and reached for the hot tea beside him.

At that moment, from the corner of his eye, he suddenly caught sight of the green indicator light on the dedicated communications channel—the one representing "absolute security"—going out... without warning.

Then came utter silence.