"Roarrrr—!!!!!"
The Nine-Tails' eyes instantly turned blood-red! An even more violent, chaotic, and purely destructive aura erupted! It completely broke free from the Sharingan's fragile control and temporarily shook off the fear-induced suppression of the Wood Release Buddha Statue! No longer controlled by anyone, it became a calamity beast born solely for destruction!
It no longer attacked the Buddha Statue, instead pouring all its madness onto Konoha! Its massive claws smashed the remaining buildings to pieces! Its tails swept across the ground, flinging countless burning fragments into densely populated areas! Though it did not fire a Tailed Beast Bomb, the scorching flames and Chakra torrents it spewed still caused enormous destruction and casualties!
"This is bad! It's completely out of control!" Minato's expression changed drastically!
"Damn it!" Duanmu Ci's heart sank as well! Obito intended to use the out-of-control Nine-Tails to destroy Konoha completely!
"Kushina!" Tsunade's anxious voice rang out! Under the impact of the Nine-Tails' utterly uncontrollable and even more terrifying Chakra, Kushina's already critically weakened body trembled violently. The consequences of the seal's total destruction began to backlash against her! The remaining sealing runes on her abdomen emitted an ominous glow as her life force drained away like floodwaters from a broken dam! Even as Tsunade poured Yang Style Chakra into her with all her strength, she could only barely slow it down!
"Kushina! Hold on!" Seeing his wife's condition, Minato felt as though his heart were being torn apart! He had to get to her immediately!
"Senior Minato! Go save Sister Kushina! Leave this to me!" Duanmu Ci shouted, his gaze resolute! He had to face this completely insane beast of World Annihilation alone! Taking a deep breath, he forcibly suppressed his exhaustion and the drain on his Eye Power, raising his Sage Chakra and Rinnegan power once more!
"Come on, beast! Let me see... just how strong you, the embodiment of hatred, really are!" Duanmu Ci controlled the Wood Release Buddha Statue as dozens of its giant arms rose again, meeting the completely crazed Nine-Tails with even greater resolve!
The Buddha Statue's golden radiance and the Nine-Tails' crimson flames collided even more brutally beneath the Blood Moon! Every clash shattered the earth and made space tremble!
At that moment, a cold and majestic voice seemed to cross the barriers of time and space, quietly sounding in Duanmu Ci's mind as he drove the Rinnegan at full power against the Nine-Tails:
"Hatred... chaos... destruction... familiar nourishment..."
"Eyes... of Samsara... Ōtsutsuki's legacy... why has it appeared in this world?"
"Vessel... will... interesting..."
"My name... is the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path..."
The broken, cold, ancient voice was filled with chaos and hunger, like a whisper from the deepest abyss, echoing directly within Duanmu Ci's soul! It was the distant and malevolent Chakra source from before! Now, as Duanmu Ci drove the Rinnegan with all his strength against the Nine-Tails and the Nine-Tails' hateful Chakra reached its peak, that connection had strengthened more than ever before!
The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path?! The Ten-Tails' shell?! It was trying to communicate with me through the Rinnegan?! Duanmu Ci's heart shook violently! This sudden Mental Interference caused even his control over the Buddha Statue to falter for an instant!
Boom—!!!
The Nine-Tails seized that fleeting opening! A giant claw wreathed in crimson flames smashed several of the Buddha Statue's arms apart, and the berserk force struck Duanmu Ci viciously through their energy connection!
"Pfft!" Duanmu Ci suffered a heavy blow and spat out blood. His body shuddered violently, and his face turned deathly pale! Even the Wood Release Buddha Statue's radiance dimmed for a moment! Maintaining such immense Sage Jutsu and ocular techniques while fighting the fully berserk Nine-Tails, on top of enduring this bizarre mental assault, had pushed him to his limit!
"Duanmu!" Tsunade, who was treating Kushina with all her strength, nearly broke down when she saw Duanmu Ci vomit blood! She wanted nothing more than to rush over, but Kushina's life was like a candle in the wind, ready to go out at any moment. She could not leave her side at all!
"Roar—!!!" The Nine-Tails let out a triumphant, savage howl and lunged even more fiercely at the dimming Buddha Statue and Duanmu Ci! Crimson flames of destruction swept across heaven and earth!
At that critical moment, Minato's heart-rending cry rang out: "Kushina!!"
At the instant the Nine-Tails completely lost control and its Chakra surge reached its peak, the remnants of the seal on Kushina's abdomen finally collapsed completely! Crimson light representing the Nine-Tails' Chakra burst from her body like a breached dam! Her life aura rapidly faded, like a candle snuffed out by a gale!
"No—!!!" Minato's eyes split with grief as he threw himself desperately to his wife's side! His remaining Chakra surged madly into Kushina's body, trying to preserve the flame of life that was about to vanish!
"Mi... nato..." Kushina's voice was faint as a thread. Her bloodied hand trembled as it touched her husband's cheek, her eyes full of boundless love, reluctance, and... a trace of relief. "Protect... Naruto... our... child..."
Before she could finish, her hand fell limply, and the light in her eyes went out completely.
"Kushina—!!!" Holding his wife's body, which still retained a trace of warmth, Minato let out a grief-stricken howl! Overwhelming sorrow swallowed him like a tsunami! He had lost the most important person in his life!
Yet at the very moment Kushina's flame of life went out and the Nine-Tails' Chakra was about to disperse completely back into nature, another change occurred!
Enduring his injuries and the mental assault, Duanmu Ci's Rinnegan rippled wildly! An extremely bold, nearly insane idea instantly took shape in his mind! He could not just watch Kushina die! He had to do something!
"Sealing Technique: Absorption Seal!" Duanmu Ci abruptly raised his hand toward Kushina's corpse! The Rinnegan's powerful ocular technique activated!
Hummm—!!!
A powerful suction force, born from the Rinnegan's laws, instantly enveloped the vast, unrestrained Nine-Tails' Chakra leaking from Kushina's corpse! This was not sealing—it was forcible plunder and absorption!
An enormous torrent of crimson Chakra, filled with hatred and violence, was forcibly dragged and devoured into Duanmu Ci's Rinnegan like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea!
"Aaargh—!!!"
Indescribable agony instantly swept through Duanmu Ci's entire body! It was the impact of the purest hatred and will for destruction! His Rinnegan felt as if scorching magma had been poured into it, bringing tearing pain! Every inch of his meridians seemed ready to burst from the violent foreign Chakra! Blood seeped from his seven orifices! He felt as though the Nine-Tails' hatred would completely consume and assimilate him!
"Duanmu! What are you doing?! Stop at once!" Tsunade was horrified when she saw Duanmu Ci absorbing the Nine-Tails' Chakra! This was no different from suicide!
"Duanmu!" Even Minato, consumed by grief, was stunned!
But Duanmu Ci clenched his teeth so hard that blood seeped from his gums! He frantically circulated his Sage Chakra and Rinnegan power, trying to suppress and channel the berserk energy! He was not trying to become a Jinchuriki. Instead, he intended to use the Rinnegan's Sealing Technique: Absorption Seal to temporarily contain this portion of Chakra, and then...
Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique... prototype... reverse! Duanmu Ci roared inwardly, driving the Rinnegan's power beyond its limits! He tried to imitate the principle of Rebirth Samsara, but his goal was not to revive the dead. Instead, he would use the forcibly plundered Nine-Tails' Chakra, which contained immense life energy—Tailed Beast Chakra was essentially a highly condensed mixture of life force and Nature Energy—and inject it into Kushina's body, whose flame of life had only just gone out and had not fully dissipated! He would reverse life and death!
This was an unprecedentedly insane attempt! The chance of success was minuscule! The backlash would be immense!
Boom—!!!
The instant Duanmu Ci remotely injected the portion of Chakra he had forcibly suppressed—its most violent hateful will filtered out by the Rinnegan's Eye Power, leaving relatively gentle scarlet-gold Chakra mixed with Sage Jutsu and Rinnegan power—into Kushina's body through their Rinnegan connection!
Kushina's cold corpse suddenly bloomed with blinding scarlet-gold light! A weak but unmistakable life aura, like a spark, was reignited within her body!
"Cough... cough...!" Kushina's chest rose and fell ever so slightly as she let out an almost inaudible cough!
"Kushina?!" Minato could hardly believe his eyes! His overwhelming grief was instantly replaced by wild joy! He could feel it—his wife's body... seemed to have regained a trace of warmth?!
And Duanmu Ci, having completed this defiance of heaven, could no longer hold on!
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