boom--!
A deafening roar accompanied by a violent earthquake occurred as White Zetsu General's massive fist, powerful enough to split mountains and shatter rocks, finally slammed into Xuan's slender figure without any fancy moves.
The imagined scene of blood and gore did not materialize; instead, a duller, more muffled explosion occurred.
The [ One-Tail Defense Mode ] sand armor covering Xuan's body was pierced and crushed by the unparalleled power the moment it made contact. The golden sand grains mixed with the violent chakra shockwave turned into a destructive sand ring that spread wildly in all directions!
A sandstorm raged, with flying sand and stones turning everything around into a layer of yellowish-brown.
"Pathetic!" White Zetsu General roared in victory, his massive fist slamming deep into the ground, creating a terrifying crater tens of meters in diameter.
However, its laughter stopped abruptly.
Because in the center of that billowing smoke and dust, at the moment the sand armor exploded, Xuan's figure did not retreat but advanced, actually lowering himself down with that immense force, his right palm like a falling autumn leaf, gently yet firmly touching the cracked earth.
His posture was as devout as if he were caressing a lover's skin, yet the words he uttered were as cold as if they came from the deepest abyss.
"Void Devouring - Return to Ruins"
The target was not the White Zetsu General before him, but the vast land beneath his feet that bore witness to the entire battlefield!
Buzz--!
An invisible yet overwhelmingly powerful devouring force suddenly spread out from Xuan's palm, like ink drops into water.
This is not physical destruction, but a more fundamental form of stripping and plundering.
The earth groaned, and deep underground, the vast biological network formed by the intricate nerve tendrils of countless White Zetsu instantly sensed the threat from its natural enemy!
These neural tendrils are both their communication network and their root system for drawing nutrients from the earth.
At this moment, this devouring force, like a maggot clinging to a bone, relentlessly burrowed into these most sensitive nerve endings in a reverse direction!
At the same time, the Uzumaki Clan in Xuan's eyes spun rapidly. The incomplete fragments of the [ Soul Anchoring Technique ] that he had just extracted from White Zetsu General were shattered and reconstructed without hesitation, turning into "parasitic command packages" filled with malice and domination commands. These packages were then poured into the vast underground network along with the power of devouring!
The system notification sounds bombarded Xuan's mind, cold and efficient.
"Large-scale biological cluster consciousness link detected... Link strength: B+"
"Analyzing network structure... found master node x1, secondary nodes x12, terminal nodes x2378..."
"Injection packet detected... parsed as reverse protocol..."
"Perform injection?"
"Execute a level-three penetration test," Xuan's voice was completely calm, as if issuing a perfectly ordinary command, "Mark all nodes below level two and rewrite their underlying identification protocols."
In that instant, it was as if time had been paused.
Centered on Xuan, within a radius of ten miles, hundreds of ordinary White Zetsu who were besieging Saori's puppet group and Baba Tesshin suddenly stopped moving.
Their bodies were stiff, like puppets controlled by invisible threads. In their pure white pupils, a strange dark red color spread and permeated rapidly like a virus, eventually completely replacing the original color.
"Roar?"
A high-level White Zetsu, located a little distance from the heart of the battlefield, seemed to sense something amiss. It looked at its motionless companion with confusion.
However, the next second, the "companion" suddenly turned its head, its dark red eyes filled with a primal desire for flesh and blood. It opened its mouth full of sharp teeth and bit down on its neck!
One stone stirs up a thousand waves!
"Hiss! Aaaaaah--!"
The screams of agony rose and fell.
The hundreds of "infected" White Zetsu seemed to have awakened some kind of bloodthirsty instinct, and they turned around like madmen, pouncing on those who were comrades-in-arms just a second ago, but who had now become prey!
They tore and gnawed, and the scene instantly transformed from an organized encirclement into a bloody and chaotic internal slaughter!
"Treason? That's impossible!" White Zetsu General pulled his giant fist out of the deep pit, staring incredulously at the unbelievable scene before him. "You inferior goods have no self-awareness whatsoever, how could you possibly betray us!"
As the smoke and dust cleared, Xuan slowly straightened up, patted the dust off his hands, and a cold smile curled at the corner of his lips.
"I don't need them to have a self," he said, raising his eyes, his dark golden pupils like those of a god looking down upon all living beings, "... as long as they obey me."
One sentence sent White Zetsu General plummeting into an icy abyss.
"Seize the opportunity!" Saori reacted with lightning speed, instantly grasping this once-in-a-lifetime chance. Her fingers flew across the screen, and dozens of puppets instantly changed formation, spewing large swaths of gray-green poisonous mist from their mouths and arm armor. "Puppet Secret Technique: Heart-Corroding Silk Mist!"
This specially formulated poisonous fog has little effect on living ninjas, but it is remarkably effective against White Zetsu, a hybrid of plant and organism, rapidly accelerating the decay and decay of their cells and tissues.
Baba Tesshin didn't let this opportunity slip by either. Like a ghostly black shadow, he took advantage of the chaos in the White Zetsu formation to cut into the flank of the battlefield. His long sword drew an arcane trajectory like a gazelle's horns, and the secret swordsmanship of Sunagakure precisely severed several main nerve bundles buried underground, further exacerbating the chaos in the enemy's command system.
On a distant mountain cliff, Torune Aburame, responsible for recording the battle situation, calmly wrote a line on a scroll, "The enemy's group behavior exhibits a logical paradox, suspected to be a mind control attack. Some White Zetsu units have begun to devour their own kind to replenish energy, and the battlefield niche is undergoing restructuring. The target 'Mysterious's' abilities... need to be reassessed; danger level... extremely high."
In the center of the battlefield, Xuan had already sat cross-legged back on the stone platform that had been flattened by the aftershocks of the battle.
Behind him, three White Zetsu, completely under his control, knelt on one knee, humbly prostrating themselves before him. They opened their mouths and transformed and purified their chakra into streams of pure energy, continuously supplying them to Xuan for absorption.
He closed his eyes, letting the meridians in his body, which had been slightly depleted from the exertion, be quickly filled and expanded.
The system's reward notifications were the most pleasing melody to him at that moment.
"Devouring 87 White Zetsu below Kage Level..."
"Acquired a large number of basic Wood Release Cells... Cell activity is increasing..."
"Unlocked new state: [ False Divine Tree Symbiosis ] (Beginner). You have gained the ability to cultivate short-lived active root systems within your body, which can be used to draw upon Natural Energy or link to specific targets."
As a massive influx of energy entered, the rhombus-shaped " Divine Seed " mark between Xuan's eyebrows shone even brighter, almost solidifying into a tangible form.
Beneath his exposed skin, the black, vine-like patterns had silently spread upwards, crossing his collarbone and climbing up his neck, like living shackles, exuding an ancient and eerie aura.
Just as he was reveling in the thrill of his rapidly increasing power, a sudden change occurred!
The Silver Crow perched on his shoulder, which had remained silent until now, began to tremble violently without warning, as if it were enduring immense pain.
Its left eye, inlaid with golden liquid, churned violently within like boiling magma. A fragmented mental wave, filled with intermittent noise, pierced directly into Xuan's mind:
"Warning... Higher Dimension... Watch... Is... Intensifying..."
Xuan suddenly opened his right eye. In that eye, five-colored light wheels of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth slowly swirled, revealing a cold indifference that seemed to see through all things.
He whispered, "Looks like I ate too fast and it brought up stomach acid."
Before he finished speaking, he reached out and grabbed at the air, and a suction force appeared out of nowhere, pulling the torn remains of a high-level White Zetsu into his hand.
He suddenly exerted force with his five fingers, crushing its core into powder, and forcibly extracted a fragment of core memory that remained from before his death.
Light and shadow twisted and flickered in Xuan's palm, creating a blurry image.
The scene depicts a dark, underground chamber.
The " Fake Madara " wearing Spiral Mask was having a private conversation with a mysterious person whose face was obscured by a black robe.
"As long as he continues to devour, Kaguya's revival will be greatly accelerated." Fake Madara's voice was low and hoarse. "Our plan can move to the next stage... Let him continue; he will become the best nourishment."
Xuan stared blankly at the memory, then casually crushed it into shimmering specks of light, letting them dissipate in the wind.
A moment later, he let out a very low chuckle, a laugh filled with undisguised mockery and murderous intent.
"So that's how it is... You wanted to use my mouth to gnaw that old thing out of the coffin?"
He slowly raised his head, his gaze piercing through the battlefields and mountains, looking towards the far distance, towards the location of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, which he had already sensed through the White Zetsu network.
"Alright..." he murmured to himself, his voice as soft as a breeze yet heavy enough to crush a mountain, "Then I'll eat a few more bites, until you... regret letting me be born."
Having said that, he casually waved his hand at the hundreds of "new subordinates" in front of him who had already slaughtered all their kind and were staring at him with fanatical dark red eyes.
"Lead the way."
"Go to where you last gathered."
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, in the deepest part of the Moonshadow Forest, the raven perched on the branch of the Divine Tree, possessing a Sharingan and a half-finished Rinnegan, suddenly Rinnegan its wings and took flight.
It let out a sharp screech unlike any other creature, a screech filled with shock, anger, and a barely perceptible fear.
"... The container... has gone out of control..."
As Xuan gave the order, the massive White Zetsu Army began to turn, surging towards their former holy land like a receding tide.
The ground beneath Xuan's feet seemed to stir slightly, almost imperceptibly, due to the newly generated [ False Divine Tree Symbiosis ] power within him.
At the edge of the wasteland, beneath the earth, a pulse that had slumbered for millennia seemed to resonate faintly with the Divine Seed between his brows, and began to awaken.