Chapter 221: The Limit and Collapse

Chapter 221: Chapter 221: The Limit and Collapse

Uchiha Hideki’s face was drenched in blood, and an icy, forbidding aura radiated from his entire body, warning anyone from coming near.

At that moment, he seemed to have truly transformed into a vengeful demon from hell!

Hyuga Kagami quietly activated his Tenseigan and silently observed Uchiha Hideki.

Through the vision of his Tenseigan, Kagami could see that the chakra within Hideki’s body was surging violently like an erupting volcano. His crimson three-tomoe Sharingan spun at tremendous speed, seemingly only a single step away from the cursed Mangekyo Sharingan.

At the same time, the Four Symbols Seal Kagami had placed on him seemed to have lost its effectiveness.

The sealing formulas, which had originally been clear and intact, appeared to be under assault from some inexplicable force. In the blink of an eye, strange distortions began appearing across the formulas.

"This...!?"

Kagami subconsciously frowned.

Ever since he had mastered the Four Symbols Seal, this was the first time he had encountered something like this.

Of course, he had previously encountered situations where a sealing formula was forcibly overwhelmed by an enormous amount of chakra.

For instance, back when he had opened the Dragon Vein seal left behind by the Fourth Hokage, the Dragon Vein had once used its tremendous volume of chakra to batter against the seal, forcibly breaking apart its sealing formulas.

But Kagami had never seen chakra distort sealing formulas like this before. He had never even heard of such a phenomenon.

Sensing the chakra within Uchiha Hideki growing increasingly violent and increasingly sinister, Kagami took a few steps back, a look of anticipation appearing on his face.

At this point, even without using his Tenseigan, Kagami could clearly sense Hideki’s ocular power rapidly increasing.

But just then, the chakra within Hideki’s body suddenly went berserk.

Immediately afterward, large amounts of white foam spilled from his mouth, while his entire body began convulsing uncontrollably, as though he were suffering from a seizure.

"Not good!"

Kagami immediately stepped forward and injected Hideki with a sedative.

After the sedative was administered, the convulsions gradually subsided. Hideki then fell into a deep coma, completely losing all response to the outside world.

Looking at the utterly exhausted Hideki, Kagami let out a disappointed sigh.

Intense emotional stimulation could indeed draw out the potential of an Uchiha, allowing them to unlock the treasure trove hidden within their bloodline and genes.

But ultimately, there was a limit to how much a person’s mind could endure.

No one could withstand emotional stimulation without limit. Once that threshold was exceeded, mental collapse would be right around the corner.

Hideki’s condition just now was clearly a sign that he had been on the verge of a complete mental breakdown.

It was almost as if everyone possessed a SAN value representing their sanity.

Any kind of negative emotional stimulation would cause that SAN value to decrease. And once it fell to zero, that person would completely lose their reason and descend into mental collapse.

The fact that Uchiha Hideki had still failed to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan even after enduring emotional stimulation intense enough to push him to the brink of mental collapse undoubtedly proved that his innate aptitude was indeed still somewhat lacking when it came to awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan.

"Clean this up!"

After giving the puppet beside him the order, Kagami turned and headed toward the office.

The "Uchiha Ryota" that Kagami had killed in front of Hideki just now had merely been a crude clone. It could not even truly be considered a living being—it was nothing more than a prop.

If Hideki had not been mentally weakened and restrained by the Four Symbols Seal, a clone of such poor quality would have had a very difficult time fooling his senses.

After all, this crude clone did not possess the real Uchiha Ryota’s chakra, much less Ryota’s pair of three-tomoe Sharingan.

The Sharingan was the "Eye that Reflects the Heart." It required spiritual energy to awaken. Thus, even if Kagami could perfectly clone Uchiha Ryota’s body, a soulless clone would still be incapable of awakening even a single-tomoe Sharingan.

This was also why, with the current level of cloning technology, neither Kagami nor Orochimaru could clone genuine Sharingan or Byakugan.

After arriving at the office, Kagami recorded Hideki’s physical reactions to the stimulation just now in his notebook.

Closing the notebook, he glanced at the Uchiha Hideki clone placed nearby.

Including the Uchiha Ryota clone he had personally destroyed just now, these two Uchiha clones had been forcibly cultivated over the past half month using enormous quantities of nutrient solution, with absolutely no regard for the cost.

Kagami had no idea exactly which part of the process had gone wrong. In any case, both of these Uchiha clones had an extremely low degree of completion. By Kagami’s standards, they were nothing but defective products.

Considering that Uchiha Ryota was far more cunning than Uchiha Hideki, Kagami had chosen to experiment on Hideki first.

Although the results had been quite promising, the experiment had ultimately fallen short at the final hurdle. Now, Kagami could only place all his hopes on Uchiha Ryota.

Walking over to Uchiha Hideki’s clone, Kagami pondered for a moment before using a pen to draw numerous marks across its body.

Then he called the puppet over and instructed,

"Create wounds along the marks I drew."

The puppet immediately obeyed Kagami’s instructions, mechanically following the lines he had drawn and creating wound after wound across the clone’s body.

Before long, Uchiha Hideki’s clone was covered in injuries.

Although all of them were fresh wounds, because medical ninjutsu existed in the shinobi world, healing a prisoner’s old wounds before repeatedly torturing them again was a common practice during interrogation. Therefore, Kagami was not worried that this detail would expose the deception.

Kagami circled Uchiha Hideki’s clone once more.

For some reason, he still felt that something was off, but for a moment, he could not quite put his finger on what it was.

Uchiha Ryota’s cunning forced him to be especially cautious, so instead of rushing into action, Kagami calmed himself and carefully considered exactly what was giving him that strange feeling.

Suddenly, Kagami’s gaze settled on the clone’s tightly closed eyes.

At last, he realized what had been bothering him.

Immediately, Kagami instructed the puppet,

"Dig out the eyes too."

The puppet immediately carried out Kagami’s order, gouging out both eyes of Uchiha Hideki’s clone.

Once the clone’s tightly shut eyes had been replaced by two bloody, hollow sockets, the visual impact immediately became far more gruesome, and the entire scene looked considerably more convincing.

Although Uchiha Ryota was shrewd and cunning, he was still an Uchiha. By nature, he was easily influenced by his emotions, and once those emotions spiraled out of control, his judgment would inevitably decline drastically.

Letting out a soft breath, Kagami thought,

"Whether this succeeds or fails... it all comes down to this one shot!"

With that, he headed toward the cavern where Uchiha Ryota was being held...