Start with the Mangekyo Sharingan: Follow Lord Madara out of Konoha

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

Uchiha Kirito took a deep breath and exhaled a massive fireball, its crimson flames cutting through the air as it shot toward a rooftop.

A figure flashed by as a coldly elegant woman landed gracefully on the ground. Her crimson eyes snapped open, and with a wave of her hands, countless tiny blood blades scattered through the air like a deadly rain.

"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"

A fierce gale surged forth, forming a hazy wind barrier before Kirito. The blood blades trembled violently in the turbulent currents, swaying like fallen leaves in a storm. As the wind intensified, they were swiftly torn apart into fine droplets of blood and scattered into nothingness.

Orochimaru emerged from behind Kirito, flicking his sleeve to send three spinning shuriken whistling through the air!

"Shadow Shuriken Technique!"

"Fire Style—" Uchiha Nian had been waiting for this moment. With a single exhale, a tongue of flame licked across the swarm of shuriken, setting each one ablaze. "Phoenix Flower Claw Red!"

The woman's vision blurred as she found herself completely enveloped by the dense swarm of shuriken. The firelight illuminated her panicked face—in the next second, she would be riddled with bloody holes.

She curled into a defensive ball, raising her arms to protect her vital areas as the flaming shuriken rained down upon her like a storm.

"Tch!"

"Tch tch tch!"

Instantly, wounds crisscrossed her body—arms, thighs, sides of her chest—as warm blood sprayed from the intersecting gashes.

"You damn brats, you forced my hand!"

She gritted her teeth and activated her ocular jutsu, gathering all the blood from her body before her. As her eyes emitted an eerie crimson glow, a sharp blood spear pierced through all the shuriken, thrusting forward with blinding speed that left no time to react!

Orochimaru's vertical pupils constricted sharply. In that critical moment, Kirito suddenly tackled him to the ground, narrowly avoiding the fatal strike. However, the spear's tip grazed Kirito's back, tearing through his clothes to reveal a foot-long bleeding gash.

Nian and Orochimaru noticed the anomaly almost simultaneously. Having fought against the Blood Prison Clan for so long, they immediately understood the implications.

Orochimaru quickly covered Kirito's head to block his vision, but it was too late. Kirito's eyes had already reflected a pair of crimson horizontal pupils, his entire body becoming eerily still.

"Die!"

The woman revealed a sinister smile as she manipulated Kirito to crush Orochimaru's body. Simultaneously, dark bloody froth began bubbling from Kirito's back, and his body showed signs of swelling.

"STOP!!!"

In desperation, a wisp of ethereal energy shot from Nian's forehead like an invisible lightning bolt, instantly piercing the woman's body.

Nian's body collapsed completely out of control, while the woman's expression froze mid-action. All movement ceased abruptly—only her furious, shocked eyes revealed she still retained consciousness.

At this very moment, within her spiritual world, Nian's spirit form was rampaging wildly, engaging in a fierce chase with the woman's soul manifestation.

Having activated the Blood Dragon Eye, the woman's spiritual power was not inferior to Nian's. Though Nian's mental energy far surpassed that of her peers due to her training in the "Spiritualization Technique," she still couldn't instantly obliterate the opponent's soul.

Moreover, this was enemy territory—an away game. Without spiritual power that completely overwhelmed the opponent, she could only brace for a grueling battle.

The woman abruptly halted her pursuit. Suddenly, a pair of enormous eyes opened in the sky as the spiritual world was engulfed in rolling sandstorms. Golden lightning bolts angrily struck down, forcing Nian's spirit form to dodge frantically with panicked eyes, utterly defenseless against the onslaught.

The woman snorted coldly as the earth violently split open, with scorching magma erupting from the fissures. This move was extremely perilous, nearly obliterating Nian's spiritual form.

As a genjutsu ninja, she was no stranger to battles within the mental realm.

This was her world, also known as the "inner landscape." Through mental training, she could create and alter reality at will—truly embodying the concept of "mind over matter," where anything imaginable could be achieved.

With a wave of her hand, endless vines burst from the ground, forming a massive cage that trapped Nian.

The lightning gathered, and with a single snap of fingers, a dazzling golden thunder hung high in the sky, as a massive forked bolt descended toward Nian's head, which he barely managed to dodge by a hair's breadth.

The battle was completely one-sided. The woman wielded the power of wind, forest, fire, and mountain, employing various techniques in rapid succession. Nian had no means to counter them and could only dodge frantically, narrowly escaping death several times—each moment more perilous than the last, nearly being wiped out in a single strike.

This was his spiritual body, a manifestation of his soul to some extent. If it were obliterated, it would truly be the end for him.

Escaping the danger was actually quite simple - all he needed to do was withdraw from the woman's mental world, and all threats would cease to exist.

But he couldn't!

Though their fierce confrontation in the mental realm seemed prolonged, only a single second had passed in reality.

In that split second, Orochimaru pushed Kirito away from his embrace while simultaneously drawing a kunai and hurling it straight at the woman's forehead with full force!

The kunai sliced through the air, its cold metallic glint flashing as it embedded itself deep between the woman's brows, sending droplets of blood splattering onto the ground!

In an instant, the stormy landscape of the mental world vanished completely. With an expression of utter disbelief, the woman's soul began fading fragment by fragment until everything was devoured by abyssal darkness.

Nian immediately withdrew, his spiritual body bathing in sunlight once more as it retreated back into his own forehead between the eyebrows.

He quickly opened his eyes to see an exhausted Orochimaru and... Kirito, unharmed and back to normal.

"That was way too close..."

"Yeah... but we won." Orochimaru forced a tired smile at him.

Still slightly dazed, Kirito also recalled what had just happened, cold sweat instantly beading on his forehead. The three exchanged glances, each wearing the foolish grins of survivors who'd narrowly escaped death.

"Ha ha ha ha ha..."

...

In the southern district, within a forest, Hizure shielded the villagers behind him, his face grave as he confronted two puppets.

"Run!" he shouted, immediately throwing a smoke bomb forward.

The villager didn't dare hesitate. The moment white smoke billowed up, he turned and sprinted wildly, covering dozens of meters in one breath.

The two puppets, their vision obscured, charged forward blindly but were immediately tackled to the ground by a single figure.

Hiruko clung desperately to one puppet's body while simultaneously tripping the other enemy with his leg, rolling to pin both of them beneath him.

The Blood Prison's method of controlling human bombs was utterly predictable - since ordinary villagers lacked combat skills, they would manipulate the puppets to engage in close combat, creating wounds to inject chakra and create new puppets. But when facing shinobi, they'd detonate at point-blank range, trading one life for another.

Both puppets simultaneously swelled, crushing Hiruko beneath them as a blinding beam erupted outward - a tremendous explosion that shook the entire forest!

The storm flattened the grassland and dispersed the smoke, leaving only a deep crater behind, from which black smoke with a charred smell billowed out.

In the distance, the ground shifted slightly as Hizure overturned a stone slab and crawled out in disarray, his long white hair now stained pitch-black.

He approached the crater, gazing at the devastating scene while panting heavily with lingering fear.

For a ninja like him with little natural talent, the key to survival lay in skillfully utilizing ninjutsu. Had he not used a shadow clone to bait out the puppet's self-destruction in time, he wouldn't have even had the confidence to escape unscathed.

Suddenly, his eyes narrowed slightly—there seemed to be something at the bottom of the pit, reflecting a sharp dark-blue glint through the dappled sunlight.

Suspicion rising in his heart, he immediately stepped forward to investigate. When he leaped into the pit and brushed away the thick layer of dust with deep curiosity, his eyes widened in an instant.

It was a piece of metal with a deep, rich hue—no, to be more precise, it resembled a structure, a fragment of some colossal entity buried deep within the soil. If he continued digging along the edges of the pit, he might uncover even more!

He leaned in, cautiously tapping it with the hilt of his kunai before pressing his ear close to listen. A dull, muffled sound reverberated in his ears, followed by an unmistakable... hollow echo!

"Empty!"

He suddenly sat up, his face filled with intense shock.

"Could it be...?"

Abruptly, he recalled a certain phrase that exploded in his mind like a bolt from the blue, leaving him so exhilarated he felt almost dazed.

'Only by standing on the shoulders of giants can one see further. The threshold of this path has already been crossed by someone else, and his research results are currently in Konoha Village...'

Suddenly, urgent cries for help came from the distance, startling Hizure from his excitement. He immediately leaped out of the pit.

It was a father and daughter being chased by three puppets, clearly running in this direction.

Hizure turned pale with fright. Hastily grabbing scattered turf and branches, he covered the deep pit. Then, gritting his teeth, he rushed forward to meet them.

"I'll hold them off, you run that way!"

"Ah! Thank you, ninja-sama!"

-----------🌟-------------

ps:Support and join my Patreon

 patreon.c@om/chenc11 [Remove @]

 You can read up to 40 premium chapters.