The swirling desert sands slowly settled, leaving only the whistling wind and the sound of heavy, ragged breathing.
Standing behind his dense perimeter of Lion Sealing puppets, Ebizo's eyes flared with a predatory ferocity. Hearing Ren Uchiha's arrogant declarations and seeing his defiant posture, the elder's face trembled with rage. He ground his teeth, sucking in the cold desert air to force himself into a state of calm.
At a crossroads like this, he had to think logically. He couldn't afford to fall for a brat's provocation. In a battle between top-tier shinobi, a single hair's breadth of error could lead to a catastrophic defeat.
As the high commander and the strategic "brain" of the Sand, he could not allow a few words to strip away his reason. On the contrary, with his decades of experience and sharp intuition, Ebizo quickly realized something.
This Uchiha brat was bluffing!
He was trying to deceive him, to goad him into abandoning the meticulous defensive environment he had created.
Ebizo took another deep breath and squinted at Ren through the sealing formation, letting out a cold, knowing laugh.
"Brat, I have to hand it to you—you have a silver tongue. The intelligence in your words is all true, yet when it comes out of your mouth, it turns into a massive lie!"
"Even I was almost fooled!"
Ebizo glanced toward the horizon beyond the barrier, noting the various pillars of signal smoke rising into the sky. A smirk touched his lips as he began to dismantle Ren's logic.
"Minato Namikaze is coming—that is true!"
"Your mission is to pin me down here—that is also true!"
"Even the fact that only one of us leaves this barrier alive—all of it is true!"
"By layering multiple truths to 'kindly' warn and mock me, you've constructed a logical trap. You're trying to convince me that I'm in danger, that my time is short, and that I must rush out and kill you immediately to survive."
"But is that really the truth?"
Ebizo's gaze turned razor-sharp, boring into Ren. "You skillfully hid the key information. You didn't mention that this is the Sand's deep rear! You didn't say exactly when Minato will arrive—likely because you don't actually know! And you certainly didn't mention that Sand reinforcements might arrive much faster than him!"
He hissed coldly, "The one truly desperate to end this fight is you! Meanwhile, I have already established an invincible position!"
Ebizo's fingers twitched.
Clack-clack-clack-clack!
The three puppets circled him, the sealing array flared with light, and invisible, lethally sharp Wind Blades gathered at his fingertips. An impenetrable wall of sealing jutsu and spectral blades that could strike a vital at any moment—this was Ebizo! A Kage-level master of strategy, Wind Style, Sealing, and Puppetry.
As Ebizo methodically tore apart his deception, Ren let out a frustrated "Tsk." He dropped the exaggerated mask of arrogance. This old fox was indeed harder to trick than a hotheaded brat like Mangetsu Hozuki.
However, even with his bluff called, Ren's expression didn't falter. Instead, he grinned and nodded.
"You're right, old man."
Ren took a deep breath, his crimson snake-eyes narrowing. He crouched low, his body tensing like a coiled spring. He looked up, a savage smile splitting his face.
"But... I was waiting for my peak to arrive."
"What exactly are you waiting for?!"
As the words fell, a violent surge of high-intensity chakra erupted from Ren! A sudden whirlwind kicked up a storm of sand that spiraled toward the heavens. The natural energy from Ryuchi Cave, after being refined through the Cursed Seal, had finally pushed his state to the absolute max.
Inside him, the zero-tailed construct had finished gathering enough chakra for one full-burst Fire Style: Chakra Mode.
And the surplus natural energy within the Cursed Seal...
Exploded!
The dense black markings instantly blanketed Ren's body, turning his skin jet black before it flashed to a deathly, ghastly pale!
Ren felt the natural energy screaming through his veins, rewriting his physical structure. White scales erupted across his skin, his muscle density multiplied, and his physical strength and flexibility shot upward with frightening speed.
As the mutation reached its peak, it felt as though a massive tail was about to sprout from his tailbone, and a sharp, piercing pain throbbed at his forehead. He looked as if he were about to transform into the Sage Mode version of Kabuto.
But because his "Immortality" locked his soul into a specific framework, the energy could not break the original human shape. Instead, the power surged upward through his blood vessels, flooding directly into his Sharingan!
"AAAAAAAGH!!!"
A pain far worse than having his heart pierced or burned erupted in his eye sockets. Ren clutched his face, falling to one knee and howling in agony. A faint purple eyeshadow gradually manifested at the corners of his eyes, extending toward his nose, making the vertical slits in his Cursed Sharingan appear even sharper and more demonic.
From Ebizo's perspective, the boy's muscles were bulging and compressing like a shifting mass of raw meat. The black markings had turned into a layer of sickly white skin. It made his skin crawl.
He didn't know what was happening, but his instincts screamed that this was bad.
"I can't wait! Kill him now!"
Ebizo's eyes flashed. He swung his hands, commanding the lion-headed puppets to open their mechanical maws, revealing hidden ballistas, kunai, and long spikes.
"Puppet Style: Thousand Blade Volley!"
He roared, slamming his palms onto the sand.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Nearly a thousand projectiles aimed at Ren. Triggers clicked.
Fwish-fwish-fwish-fwish!
A torrential rain of steel tore through the air, creating sonic booms as it crossed the fifty-meter gap. In a split second, Ren Uchiha—kneeling and screaming in pain—was turned into a human pincushion.
Blades pierced his heart, his legs, his palms, and his arms, pinning him to the ground in a spray of blood and dust.
The boy's screams stopped abruptly.
Ebizo squinted through the dust, whispering to himself, "Is he dead? The projectile speed of those puppets is over a thousand meters per second. Under that fire, even steel would be turned to Swiss cheese."
However, as the dust cleared to reveal the field of impaled weapons, Ebizo's face froze in shock.
There, pinned to the ground like a corpse, the boy suddenly snapped his crimson snake-eyes open.
His head rotated 180 degrees with a sickening crack, looking back at Ebizo. He unhinged his jaw, and a pair of hands—dripping with saliva—tore their way out of the "corpse's" mouth.
A fresh, pale Ren Uchiha crawled out from the skin of his old self.
As he stood up, the new Ren opened his eyes, the purple markings glowing under the desert moon.
Lines of text flickered in his vision:
[You have mastered: Cursed Seal Level 2 · Mythic Serpentine Body (A+)]
[In this state, you have gained an instinctive understanding of the Molting Technique.]
[Your Molting Technique has upgraded to: Orochimaru-Style Substitute (A+)]
[Your Sharingan has been invaded by natural energy, triggering a subtle mutation.]
[You seem to have awakened a Sage Visual Prowess...]