Settling the Score

His other arm swung out in an instant, and several more ninjas were pierced clean through by the sharp blades of the trident, dead beyond doubt.

Miao slowly turned to look behind him. By now, all the other ninjas were dead, leaving only their leader. However, the ninja leader had already put a great distance between himself and Miao, sprinting rapidly toward the other side of the forest.

"Trying to run?" Miao said flatly. The ninja leader no longer had his earlier composure and smugness; his face was completely overtaken by terror.

"Run! Run! I have to get out of here!" Only fear remained on the ninja's face. Susanoo had terrified him senseless. He no longer dared to think about taking Miao's head. He only wanted to escape this place as quickly as possible!

A massive short-handled trident formed from black energy shot toward the ninja like lightning. The ninja leader's expression changed drastically, his terror deepening as he desperately accelerated. But no matter how fast he was, he could not outrun the trident.

"Pfft!" The trident pierced straight through his body. Its immense force carried him onward, sending him flying who knew how far and destroying who knew how many trees before finally nailing him brutally to an incomparably thick Big Tree. His body twitched a few times before going still. He was plainly dead beyond doubt.

"I said none of you would get away," Miao said coldly.

At this point, apart from the ninja Miao had kicked in the abdomen at the very beginning, all the others were dead. That ninja had several ribs broken by the immense force and could not stand up for the moment.

Susanoo's skin dissolved into countless motes of energy and scattered into the heavens and earth. The white Humanoid bone slowly sank into the black energy flames and vanished.

"Tap! Tap! Tap!" Miao's footsteps sounded as he slowly walked toward the ninja who was temporarily unable to stand. The ninja trembled all over, his face filled with terror as he looked at Miao. "Don't! Don't come closer!"

Miao shot out his right hand like lightning, seized the ninja by the throat, and lifted him up to meet his gaze. His right eye, which had returned to an ordinary Three-Tomoe Sharingan, was closed. Then it slowly opened. "Mm!" The ninja suddenly shuddered from head to toe, and his eyes became vacant. He began muttering, "Y-yes, the Daimyo of the Land of Mountains hired us to get rid of you! Encounter Wu, kill without mercy."

"Hmph!" Miao snorted coldly. At some point, his left hand had already gripped a kunai, which flashed across the ninja's throat like lightning. Blood splattered.

"You..." The searing pain in his throat jolted the ninja awake. His eyes filled with terror and unwillingness before his pupils gradually lost focus.

After tossing aside the ninja's corpse, Miao dropped to one knee, covering his eyes with his right hand. Panting heavily, he said, "The Mangekyō Sharingan's side effects are still this intense. I only used Susanoo for a little while, yet not only do my eyes hurt, even the cells throughout my body ache faintly. It truly is cursed power!"

Miao was fourteen this year. Five years had passed since he awakened his Mangekyō Sharingan, but because of its powerful side effects, he had rarely used it. Even so, his eyesight had begun to deteriorate. His vision would often blur or produce afterimages, and he could no longer see things as clearly as before.

Aside from the powerful Dojutsu housed within the eyes, the Mangekyō Sharingan's Dojutsu Power far surpassed that of the Three-Tomoe Sharingan. Whether it was the Insight Eye, Hypnosis Eye, or the ability to copy Ninjutsu and taijutsu, it was far above the Three-Tomoe level. Thus, when Miao first began using the Mangekyō Sharingan, it felt wonderful. It was vastly more powerful than an ordinary Sharingan. But as the number of times he used it increased, those side effects gradually began to show themselves.

Not every Uchiha Clan member with a Three-Tomoe Sharingan could awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan through negative emotional stimulation. Only those whose talent, bloodline, mentality, and other factors met the requirements for the Mangekyō Sharingan's power could achieve Opening Eyes.

Compared with the Uchiha Clan's enormous population, even those who awakened the Sharingan were few, and those who reached the Three-Tomoe level were fewer still. Even so, there were more than twenty of them. Yet only Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Shisui had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, which spoke for itself.

Moreover, throughout the Uchiha Clan's long history, there had been only a handful of Mangekyō Sharingan wielders. If every Three-Tomoe clan member could awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan, the Uchiha Clan would have dominated Konoha long ago and would not have been wiped out by Uchiha Itachi single-handedly. The conditions for the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan were even harsher. Besides requiring two pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan from oneself and a blood relative, the fusion of Dojutsu Power also depended on a certain degree of probability and carried risks. There was a chance of fusion failure, and once it failed, the eyes' Dojutsu Power would suffer tremendous depletion and damage, leaving almost no chance for another fusion. This was not without precedent. His father had told him that members of the Uchiha Clan had tried to imitate Uchiha Madara, but every one of them had failed. The risks were clearly enormous.

Although he had obtained his father's Mangekyō Sharingan, Miao had yet to make up his mind about transplanting it. On one hand, there was the risk of fusion failure. On the other, they were his father's eyes—his father's Relics. He simply could not bring himself to decide.

After resting beside a Big Tree for a while, Miao slowly rose to his feet. A Cold Smile tugged at the Corner of the Mouth. "Hmph! Land of Mountains, it seems the daimyo of Cherry Blossom Country will owe me another favor."

A few days later, at the Daimyo's Mansion of the Land of Mountains, the Daimyo of the Land of Mountains's head was found hanging from a beam in the mansion, placed there by some unknown person. It was discovered that morning by the servant attending him, and the entire Capital City of the Land of Mountains was immediately shaken. The daimyo's sons promptly tore off their hypocritical masks and openly began fighting for power and profit, plunging the entire Land of Mountains into chaos.

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