Dragon Vein

In the vast, empty underground hall, only Yue Uchiha remained.

He slowly dissipated his Susanoo, the dark red chakra receding into his body like a retreating tide. The silence around him was deathly, broken only by the crisp sound of falling debris.

Yue tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and pushed his Mangekyō Sharingan to its absolute limit, waiting in silence.

One second.

Ten seconds.

One minute.

He felt as though he were awaiting a trial, waiting for an invisible thunderbolt to descend from the sky and erase him, waiting for the so-called "World Correction Force" to go berserk because of the butterfly that had flapped its wings so recklessly.

However...

Nothing happened.

There was no distortion of space, no divine punishment, and even his memories remained perfectly clear.

He remembered Naruto, he remembered Minato, he remembered every intersection that should never have existed.

"Heh... hehehe..."

In the silent ruins, a low chuckle from Yue Uchiha suddenly echoed.

The laughter grew louder, eventually turning into unbridled, raucous laughter that reverberated through the empty underground, carrying an indescribable sense of madness and exhilaration.

"So that's how it is... I understand now."

Yue snapped his eyes open, the scarlet Mangekyō glowing blindingly in the darkness.

The so-called World Correction Force is not some omniscient, omnipotent god!

It is merely a massive, sluggish "self-consistent system"!

If this system were truly flawless, he should have been erased the moment he stopped Minato from sealing those memories.

But the fact remained: he had survived, and Naruto had returned to the future with his memories intact.

This meant that as long as one does not directly use a blade to excise those critical "main plot nodes," the laws of this world are powerless—and unable to instantly erase him—for side-plot deviations like "knowing the plot in advance"!

The world can only passively "patch the lies" through the subsequent chain reactions.

Simply put, the main plot must be pushed forward, while optional side plots—or "theatrical version" plots—do not receive much attention from the correction force.

"It seems that I have finally pried open a crack in this game of chess."

Yue Uchiha tore off his tattered black cloak and let it be swept away by the subterranean winds of the desert.

He turned and strode toward the exit leading to the surface.

Swirling yellow sand hovered above the ruins of Rōran, but it was quietly blocked from the city's perimeter by an invisible chakra barrier.

When Yue Uchiha climbed the ruined stairs back to the surface, the entire city of Rōran was caught in the deathly silence of survival, followed by tears of joy.

Tens of thousands of rescued underground laborers were embracing their long-lost families.

In the center of the plaza, where ruins and wails had once intertwined, Queen Sara stood with her red hair, tears streaming down her face as she watched her people rediscover their smiles.

Hearing footsteps behind her, Sara turned around.

When she saw the fluttering black robe and those deep, dark pupils that had lost their crimson glow, her body instinctively tensed.

"You did it." Sara's voice was hoarse, yet filled with unprecedented respect and gratitude. "Anrokuzan is dead, and my people... have survived."

Yue Uchiha looked calmly at the queen who had finally undergone her transformation. He did not reach out to steady her, merely speaking indifferently: "I am only taking the reward I am owed. You haven't forgotten the terms of our contract, have you?"

"I haven't." Sara looked up, a firm light flickering in her emerald eyes. "From this day forward, the control of the Dragon Vein belongs to you, but the happiness of my people..."

Yue smiled faintly: "It won't be long."

The technology of his past life was far more advanced than what existed here; he didn't mind improving the quality of life for the people of Rōran—which, of course, included his own.

Compared to brainwashing with genjutsu, this voluntary submission built upon the debt of a life saved and the binding of interests was the most stable foundation.

His future plans would require a certain amount of manpower.

Over the next half-month, the deep desert of the Land of Wind completely vanished from the sight of the Ninja World.

Because Minato Namikaze and his team brought back intelligence that "Mukade is dead and the Dragon Vein has been sealed," combined with the increasingly brutal conditions on the front lines of the Third Shinobi World War, neither Konoha nor Sunagakure had the time to spare for these desolate ruins in the heart of the desert.

The wanted level for the criminal Yue Uchiha was upgraded from A-rank to an S-rank with no known upper limit, and his whereabouts, like the vast yellow sands, sank into the sea without a trace.

Yet, in the depths of this forgotten underground, Yue Uchiha stood alone before the massive Dragon Vein sealing platform, conducting a deep-level study that would overturn the entire Ninja World's understanding.

"What kind of power is this, really..."

Yue kept his Three-Tomoe Sharingan active, his gaze piercing through the royal seal Sara had placed, staring fixedly at the vast, ocean-like sea of purple-black chakra deep beneath the earth.

As a transmigrator with a god's-eye view, Yue's thinking was not limited to the superficial concept of "chakra," but rather focused on the cosmic ecology of a higher dimension.

"In the interstellar plundering model of the Otsutsuki clan, the 'God Tree' descends upon a planet, and its essence is to take root in the planetary core, draining all life and natural energy from the world until it finally bears a chakra fruit."

Yue's mind raced, deducing the underlying logic of the original work, his brows furrowing tighter and tighter.

"Under normal cosmic laws, once the God Tree blooms and bears fruit, the planet becomes a dead star, and all living things go extinct. However... the Ninja World is an absolute anomaly!"

Back in the day, Kaguya Otsutsuki planted the God Tree in the Ninja World, and even consumed the fruit it bore.

Logically speaking, the Ninja World should have long since turned into a lifeless, barren planet.

Yet the reality was that not only did the Ninja World not perish, but in the millennium since Kaguya was sealed away, it had remained vibrant and full of life!

Ancient monsters like the Toad Sage of Mount Myōboku and the White Snake Sage of Ryūchi Cave, who had lived for thousands of years, were completely unaffected by that great war.

And their essential energy was none other than natural energy.

A brilliant light suddenly erupted from Yue's eyes.

"The so-called 'Dragon Vein' is not some ordinary vein of chakra at all."

"It is a 'natural energy integration' formed by the accumulation and convergence of this planet over countless eons!"

"In other words, it is the purest and most massive source of senjutsu chakra!"

Because the density of the energy was so immense and its mass so high, when it was violently disturbed, the gravitational field it generated was enough to distort the surrounding space-time curvature, thereby creating the miracle of "time-space travel"!

"No wonder Mukade from the future could travel through time, no wonder Minato and the others were dragged into it... This isn't ninjutsu at all; it's a space-time collapse triggered by extremely high-quality energy!"

And now, this power was within his grasp, or rather, the opportunity to develop it was.

Yue took a deep breath, suppressing the wild joy in his heart.

However, Yue was not blinded by the power.

He knew very well that with his current body and Sharingan, if he were to rashly force the absorption of the Dragon Vein, there would be only one outcome: being assimilated by the violent natural energy and turning into a mindless stone statue.

His vision was already blurring; he feared his ocular power would not last until he mastered Sage Mode.

"One must eat a meal one bite at a time. If I want to control this power to traverse time and space, I must first master 'Sage Mode', or find a medium capable of perfectly fusing with natural energy. Before that... I must first make this 'laboratory' as solid as a fortress."