Forcibly Devouring the Killing Array! The First Hokage's Face Appears Underground!

Late at night on the northern ice plains of the Land of Iron.

The blizzard lashed across the glacier like a knife. Six Paths dark figures flashed across the snow ridge, leaving not a single footprint.

Naruto walked at the front, a faint golden light emanating from the bandage wrapped around his right wrist. That light was rapidly dimming with the frigid wind, as the Flying Thunder God spatial Coordinates left by Obito were almost completely washed away by Natural Energy.

"Stop." Naruto raised his left hand.

The group froze in place behind the snow slope.

Kurotsuchi squatted on the side of an ice rock, wiped the frost off his Forehead Protector, and peered ahead. A few hundred meters away was an abandoned mine built against the mountainside. Rusty, meat-grinding steel towers stood in the wind and snow, the entrance sealed off by a thick iron fence, with no sign of any living guards around.

"The Iwagakure scouts usually send out ground squirrels to scout ahead." Kurotsuchi pulled out a Kunai from her hand. "This place is unusually quiet; there's definitely something fishy going on at the main gate. Should I go first...?"

"No need." Kakashi knelt on one knee, his Forehead Protector already pushed up, his crimson Sharingan swirling in the snow. "Our team doesn't need to clear mines with our bare hands."

He had barely finished speaking when Karin pushed up her glasses.

"Target confirmed." Karin bit her right fingertip and pressed a simple perception rune onto the snow. "Seventy meters underground, there's a huge cavity. There's a large amount of Chakra activity inside... around five hundred. Very weak, like it's clinging to life on the verge of death."

Hinata took a half step forward, veins bulging at the corners of her eyes.

"Byakugan, open them."

Her pure white pupils pierced through the ice, rock walls, and steel bars in an instant. Hinata's speech was fast and steady. "Confirmed the underground cavity structure. Not White Zetsu, but humans. Their clothing is mixed; most are wandering ninjas from various countries' borders, but there are also some ordinary civilians. They are chained to the stone walls."

"Are there Explosive Tag behind the door?" Sasuke asked coldly, his thumb already pushing open the guard of the Kusanagi Sword.

"Behind the main gate are over three thousand Explosive Tag, connected to a poisonous fog trap. The trigger wires are buried in the bearings of the iron fence." Hinata's gaze shifted, sweeping towards the mountainside on the side of the mine. "The rock strata are twelve meters thick, with a loose internal structure. There's an abandoned ventilation duct in the southeast corner, a blind spot."

Kurotsuchi's hand, holding the Kunai, froze in mid-air.

She glanced at Karin, who was accurately reporting the number of people and their Chakra levels with her eyes closed, and then at Hinata, who could even see the trigger wire of the door lock.

What kind of god-like lineup is this? Compared to these two, Iwagakure's most elite Anbu reconnaissance squad is practically deaf and blind cripples. No wonder Naruto dared to bring such a small group to raid the Masked Man's lair.

"The intelligence is clear." Naruto lowered his wrist, turned to Kurotsuchi, and said, "It's your turn to work. Southeast corner, can you clear a path silently?"

"Underestimating me?" Kurotsuchi snorted, put away his Kunai, and quickly Hand Seals.

She pressed herself against the cold mountainside, Chakra into the rock layers through her palms.

"Earth Release: Earth Stalagmite Technique, Reversal!"

There was no violent roar, nor any large-scale landslide. The twelve-meter-thick rock layer blocking the southeast corner, under the subtle control of the Kurotsuchi's Chakra, moved like a piece of melted butter, silently pushing aside to both sides, carving out a smooth tunnel just wide enough for one person to pass through.

"Walk."

Kakashi led the way, and the group filed in.

Following the passage carved out of the Kurotsuchi, the team avoided the trap at the main entrance, which was powerful enough to collapse half a mountain, and successfully landed in a huge cavity seventy meters underground.

The moment it landed, a strong stench of blood mixed with the putrid smell of excrement hit me.

Under the dim light of miners' lamps, hundreds of ragged men were suspended upside down from the rock face by rusty chains. Each of them was in a deep coma, their faces ashen and lifeless.

Sasuke approached the nearest prisoner, his Mangekyō Sharingan slowly rotating. After just one glance, his expression turned completely grim.

"Using people as tools... the Uchiha Clan did it, and so did these people." Sasuke gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, a chilling killing intent emanating from his knuckles. "That Obito guy, all he has in his head is this disgusting scheming."

Naruto stepped forward, his gaze landing on the chest of the wandering ninja.

Two inches above the heart, Black Rod about half the thickness of a thumb was firmly stuck in the ground. Dark red, eerie Chakra was being continuously drawn from the prisoner's body along the Black Rod, gathering in the cracks of the stone slabs on the ground.

"Yugito also had this back in Lightning Cloud Gorge." Naruto's eyes were icy. This was a Yin- Yin–Yang Release Black Rod left behind by Madara Uchiha, or rather Nagato, possessing extremely strong Chakra suppression and transmission capabilities.

"Naruto, something's wrong." Karin suddenly exclaimed, cold sweat beading on her forehead. "The underground array is alive! All the Black Rod on the prisoners are connected to the Control Array in the center of the mine. Their life force is being drained away like nourishment."

Kakashi walked to the center of the field and used Kunai to remove the loose soil covering the stone slabs.

A dense array of Sealing Jutsu, glowing with a dark red light, was revealed.

"Chain Explosion Array." Kakashi's single eye showed a grave expression. "The Black Rod are not only conduits for extracting Chakra, but also fuses. If any Black Rod is removed from any one of the individuals, the Control Array will immediately Black Rod all of them."

"What if we just destroy the Control Array?" Kurotsuchi asked.

Kakashi shook his head. "The Control Array is connected to the Leyline. Forcibly destroying it will cause the entire underground mine to collapse and explode instantly. Not a single person here will survive."

The space fell into a deathly silence.

Kurotsuchi frowned. Obito's move was extremely insidious.

Hundreds of lives are laid out here, along with a bomb that cannot be touched. The choice is either to turn and leave, watching these hundreds of people slowly drained of their life force; or to try to save them, only to perish together in the explosion. This forces the assault team to make a choice, while simultaneously delaying their pursuit.

"Obito wants to play the trolley problem, huh?" Naruto suddenly laughed.

He walked to the very center of the Control Array, stepping on the dark red array eye.

"Kakashi-sensei, back in Hidden Leaf, Danzo also liked to play these kinds of games, forcing people to choose between two options." Naruto took off his black Hokage Haori and casually tossed it to Hinata, revealing the outline of his well-defined muscles. "Later, he died."

Sasuke's lips curled into a cold smile, "How?"

"If he won't let me demolish it, then I'll eat it all up."

Boom!

A surge of violent Pure Yang Chakra suddenly erupted from Naruto's body. The golden flames instantly illuminated the entire underground mine. The extremely terrifying pressure of life force caused Kurotsuchi to subconsciously take half a step back, her back slamming against the rock wall.

"Karin, keep an eye on everyone's vital signs!" Naruto clapped his hands together sharply.

"Adamantine Sealing Chains - Reverse Assimilation!"

Splash--!

Nine solidified golden Chakra Chains shot out from Naruto's back. But this time, the chains didn't attack any enemy; instead, they plunged fiercely into the dark red Control Array on the ground!

The Control Array seemed to have detected the intrusion. The dark red runes began to flash wildly, and a violent aura of destruction instantly rose, preparing to detonate the Black Rod on the chests of all the prisoners.

"Want to blow this up? Did you even ask me?"

Naruto's eyes widened, Yang Release Chakra, flowing along the chains of the Adamantine Sealing Chains, forcefully poured into the core of the Control Array with overwhelming force.

The Yin–Yang Release Black Rod are essentially the materialization of Chakra. How could Obito's Chakra reserves possibly rival Naruto's perfect Uzumaki Sage Body combined with half of the Nine-Tails?

The dark red array emitted a hissing sound that made one's teeth ache as it was washed over by the golden Chakra. The destructive Chakra that was originally going to flow back into the prisoners' bodies to detonate was forcibly pulled up from the Leyline bit by bit by Naruto's chains.

"Snap."

The first Black Rod hanging on the prisoner's chest made a crisp sound, its surface covered with cracks, before turning into a pile of ordinary powder and falling to the ground.

Then came the second one, the third one...

Like a domino effect, the Black Rod binding the chests of the more than five hundred prisoners hanging on the rock face shattered within ten seconds. The life force that had been forcibly drained finally stopped flowing out.

Karin breathed a sigh of relief, "The vital signs have stabilized."

Click click click--!

After losing all its connections, the ground-based Control Array could no longer withstand the Yang Release Chakra that Naruto poured in, and with a muffled roar, it shattered into pieces.

Kurotsuchi swallowed hard.

The Iwagakure believes in overwhelming force, but Naruto's unconventional approach of directly draining the enemy's ultimate attack formation like a power bank was something she had never seen before.

"It's resolved." Naruto put away the chains, and the golden flames around him slowly faded.

However, at the very moment the Control Array shattered, the lingering Flying Thunder God technique on Naruto's wrist, which was about to dissipate, suddenly throbbed violently.

A very thin golden light, like a compass, suddenly pointed to the deep hole exposed after the Control Array shattered.

Hinata immediately activated her Byakugan and looked in the direction of the light. The next second, her expression changed drastically.

"Naruto-kun..." Hinata's voice carried a rare hint of apprehension, "There's more space beneath the Control Array. All the extracted Chakra has been gathered in a special nutrient tank deep underground."

Kakashi stepped forward. "What's in the nutrient tank? White Zetsu?"

"It's White Zetsu's body, but..." Hinata's gaze was fixed on the ground, "... that White Zetsu has a face on its chest."

Sasuke suddenly turned his head. "Face?"

"Hmm." Hinata frowned, confirming the scene before her. "It's a face with closed eyes. And that face... it's exactly the same as the statue of the First Hokage."