The weirdness of Moonshadow Forest goes far beyond the hyphae on the surface that are ready to move.
It is like a sleeping giant, and any intruder may awaken the nightmare lurking in its depths.
Three days later, when Xuan and his party stepped into the hinterland of the forest, the malicious nature of this land almost became reality.
The air was filled with the sweet smell of corruption and chakra, and the fog was as thick as lead, blurring the outlines of the towering ancient trees into hideous ghosts.
The ground was covered with a thick layer of gray-white mycelium, and when stepped on it made a tooth-breaking "squeaking" sound, as if one were stepping on countless tiny bones.
This is the former core stronghold of the White Zetsu organization, and every inch of soil is soaked in conspiracy and death.
Xuan squatted down under a twisted giant tree. He ignored the hyphae trying to wrap around his boots and reached out to push aside the layers of rotten leaves.
His movements were precise, as if he already knew where the target was.
Soon, a stone slab half buried in the soil was revealed.
The stone slab is dark blue in color and made of neither stone nor jade. The surface is covered with densely packed strange runes. Each stroke seems to contain some kind of rhythm. Looking at it for a long time will make you dizzy.
"Be careful, this is the third-level encrypted text of Akatsuki." Saori immediately stepped forward. Forcibly cracking it may trigger spiritual backlash."
Baba Tesshin Hearing this, he immediately tightened the handle of the knife at his waist and looked around cautiously.
However, Xuan didn't seem to hear Saori's warning.
He stretched out his right hand and pressed his five fingers directly on the strange rune.
There is no interpretation, no analysis, and no Hand Seals.
The moment his fingertips touched the stone slab, it seemed as if an endless abyss quietly opened in his deep right eye pupil.
[Myriad Phenomena Devouring System]--Start!
He is not reading information, but devouring the "concept" itself that carries the information!
In Xuan's perception, those complex runes are no longer words, but a "container" constructed of special Chakra that carries the fluctuations of residual consciousness.
All he has to do is chew and swallow the container together with the contents!
Buzz--
An invisible wave spread out from the stone slab.
In an instant, a torrent of broken and chaotic memories rushed into Xuan's mind.
It rained heavily, and the cold rain washed away the towering iron tower of Amegakure.
A young man with glasses and a haggard face knelt under the tower, rain mixed with tears sliding down his face.
He held tightly a diary that was curled and yellowed due to moisture in his hand, and screamed at the empty tower, his voice hoarse and desperate. "I'm not a traitor! I just... I just don't want to bear those damn lies for others anymore!"
The screen flashed suddenly and switched to a dark secret room.
The young man quickly recorded something in his diary with the help of weak candlelight. However, he was unwilling to participate in the 'Eye of the Moon' plan. He just wanted to go back... until, until the news of the girl's death came..."
The memory stopped abruptly, as if it was forcibly cut off by an invisible pair of scissors.
Xuan slowly opened his eyes, and the abyss in his eyes disappeared, leaving only a cold indifference.
He stated in an emotionless tone. "Amemiya Hayato, Akatsuki's former intelligence officer, was deemed a traitor and executed for trying to leak the truth about Obito Uchiha."
Before he finished speaking, Baba Tesshin suddenly shouted angrily, "Be careful!" The long knife in his hand instantly unsheathed, drawing a sharp cold light, accurately cutting off a hyphae tentacle that quietly emerged from the ground and tried to wrap around Saori's ankle.
After the tentacle was cut off, it was still twisting wildly on the ground. What flowed out from the break was not juice, but a thick, white paste-like substance.
"Damn it! These White Zetsu remnants are actually still moving!" Baba Tesshin looked disgusted and raised his feet to crush them completely.
"Wait." Xuan's voice sounded, with an unquestionable command, "Leave it alive, I want it to talk."
Baba Tesshin was stunned for a moment, looking at the twisted tentacles on the ground with a look of disbelief on his face.
How can this thing talk?
Xuan did not explain.
He walked to the tentacle that was still spasming, and his fingertips condensed a ray of chakra that was deeper than the night.
It was not pure chakra, but a special energy mixed with the origin of his eye skills - [Void Devour·Return to Ruins].
With a flick of his finger, he accurately injected this chakra into the broken end of the tentacle.
Zhila!
As if a drop of water was dropped into a hot oil pan, the chakra invaded in an instant and spread rapidly along the rudimentary neural network that remained of the hyphae!
The tentacles suddenly spasmed violently, as if they were suffering unimaginable pain.
Immediately afterwards, a horrifying scene happened - from the twisted fungi, a series of vague and weird human voices actually came out, as if they were made up of countless sounds superimposed:
"... Warning... Log update... Unknown target has contacted 'Forgetting Stele'... Threat level increased... Activated...End Protocol..."
The sound was intermittent, and after the last syllable fell, the entire tentacle turned into a pool of lifeless white powder with a "bang".
Saori's face became extremely ugly. "Forgetting Stele? End Protocol? This doesn't sound like the action code name of White Zetsu, but more like an emergency plan that has been set up long ago."
However, the corner of Xuan's mouth curved up with a cold arc. "It seems that what they are really afraid of is not how strong I will become, but how much truth I will know."
He stood up and cast his gaze deep into the forest, as if he had already locked onto the next target.
Passing through a strange woodland where even the cherry blossom trees were dead and rotten, a collapsed entrance to the underground palace appeared in front of the three of them.
The entrance was mostly blocked by huge vines and rocks. Only a solitary stone tablet in front of the door stood out under the gloomy sky.
It was a stone monument without words, its surface was covered with spider web-like cracks, and time had left mottled traces on it.
But if you look closely, you will find that the stone tablet was once full of names, but it was later deliberately and roughly chiseled away by some powerful force, leaving only dents of varying depths.
Xuan stepped forward slowly, stretched out his hand, and gently stroked the rough surface of the monument with his fingertips.
The moment he touched the stone tablet, the system's prompt sounded in his mind:
"Warning: High-strength composite spiritual seal detected."
"Sealed Core: Contains a large number of memory fragments of the Uchiha Clan tribe that were forcibly erased."
Sure enough.
Xuan did not hesitate, and activated the pupil power of his right eye again, this time the devouring power was more ferocious than before.
Black mist surged from his palm and wrapped around the entire stone monument like a hungry python.
The stone tablet shook violently, letting out waves of overwhelmed groans.
There seemed to be countless unwilling and resentful souls roaring in the dents that had been chiseled out.
In the midst of the black mist, the originally blank inscriptions reappeared one by one from bottom to top!
[Uchiha Rei]
[Uchiha Minghe]
Rows of unfamiliar names all represent a powerful tribe that has been completely forgotten by history.
When the inscription appeared near the top, a familiar name appeared:
[Obito Uchiha (original successor)]
Above this line of words, which is also the highest and most conspicuous position on the entire stone tablet, the last name appeared boldly with a dazzling bloody light:
[Uchiha Xuan (taboo recovery)]
At the moment when the last stroke of the character "Xuan" was completely formed, the entire underground palace, and even the ground for several miles around, began to roar and shake violently!
Rumble--
Bottomless ravines opened up on the ground, and countless figures shining with metallic luster slowly rose from the ground.
It was a ferocious mechanical puppet, with sophisticated chakra transmission lines connected to its joints, and its style was full of traces of Orochimaru-style crazy transformation.
And the most frightening thing is that the eyes of these puppets are without exception inlaid with scarlet Sharingan fragments!
"This is an automatic warning system linked to the stone tablet!" Saori's expression changed, and he quickly retreated, Hand Seals his hands, ready to launch a defensive formation, "As long as someone touches the taboo list, it will be activated immediately!"
However, Xuan did not retreat but advanced.
He faced the hundreds of the Puppet Legion that exuded an ominous aura, and the [Void Devour·Return to Ruins] in his right eye suddenly opened to the extreme.
In his vision, the real world faded away, leaving only the underlying logic composed of countless Chakra Threads strips.
He clearly saw that the actions of each puppet were not independent. They were linked together by some kind of invisible space node, forming a huge synchronized network.
The core of maintaining the operation of this network is three "coordinate anchor points" hidden in the air.
Found it.
Xuan's figure suddenly disappeared from the place.
He didn't draw his sword, and he didn't even make any seals.
When he reappeared, he had already shuttled between the gaps of the Puppet Legion, using only his index finger and middle finger together to lightly draw three beautiful arcs in the air.
The first line passed through the gap between the two puppets.
The second point is on a piece of suspended gravel.
The third path cuts towards a wisp of drifting mist.
The three seemingly meaningless strikes hit the three invisible "coordinate anchor points" accurately.
As if the puppet had its strings cut off, in an instant, all the puppet's movements stopped abruptly, the scarlet Sharingan fragments flashed wildly, and the chakra flow inside instantly fell into complete chaos.
They lost synchronization and began to attack and collide with each other.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A series of violent explosions sounded in front of the entrance to the underground palace, and smoke and flames shot into the sky.
When all the dust settled, Xuan stood in front of the stone tablet again, his whole body spotless.
He stared at his name on the monument, and his cold voice echoed in the dead ruins, "Do you think you can rewrite history and erase existence by erasing your name?"
He raised his hand, and the highly concentrated chakra condensed on his fingertips, turning into an invisible carving knife. He carved two new large characters behind his name on the top of the stone tablet.
[Uchiha Xuan·Reappearance]
At the same time, hundreds of miles away, on a towering watchtower in Kumogakure.
A ninja who was responsible for recording the border war situation was immersed in writing a report. Suddenly, the pen tip in his hand broke without warning.
He raised his head suddenly, looked blankly in the direction of Moonshadow Forest, and murmured to himself uncontrollably:
"... the monument... has moved..."
After finishing all this, Xuan didn't look at the stone monument again, turned around and said to his companions, "Let's go, there is no value here anymore."
The three of them quickly left this messy place and evacuated to the outskirts of the forest.
The commotion in the underground palace gradually subsided, and the dead woods returned to silence, as if nothing had happened.
However, when they walked out of the dead cherry forest, the scent of the forest that had been suppressed seemed to have undergone some subtle changes.
The wind stopped, the chirping of birds and animals completely disappeared, and the sweet smell of putrefaction in the air was replaced by a weirder and thicker smell.
It is a smell similar to the smell emitted when rust is soaked.
Saori subconsciously looked up at the sky.
The sky was still covered in leaden gray fog, with no clouds or sun visible.
But for some reason, the light in the entire world seemed to be a little dimmer than before, with an ominous dark red tone.
The air became extremely heavy, making people breathless.
Baba Tesshin also noticed something was wrong. He clenched the handle of the knife and asked in a low voice, "What's going on? The sky is so dark..."
At this moment, a drop of cold liquid fell on Saori's cheek.
She subconsciously stretched out her hand and spread her palms.
In the palm of his hand, there was a shocking, dark blood color.