Dragon Vein

In the vast underground hall, only Yue Uchiha remained.

He slowly dispelled Susanoo, and the dark-red chakra receded into his body like a tide. Deathly silence filled the surroundings, broken only by the crisp sounds of occasional falling rubble.

Yue tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and pushed his Mangekyō Sharingan to its limit as he waited in silence.

One second.

Ten seconds.

One minute.

It was as if he were awaiting judgment—waiting for invisible lightning to suddenly descend from the sky and erase him, waiting for the so-called "World Correction Force" to go berserk because of a butterfly like him, frantically beating its wings.

Yet...

Nothing happened.

There was no spatial distortion, no divine punishment descending from above. Even his memories remained crystal clear.

He clearly remembered Naruto, remembered Minato, remembered every connection that should never have existed.

"Heh... hehehe..."

In the silent ruins, Yue Uchiha's low laughter suddenly rang out.

His laughter grew louder and louder, eventually becoming unrestrained peals that echoed through the empty underground space, carrying an indescribable madness and exhilaration.

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

Yue abruptly opened his eyes, the scarlet Mangekyō gleaming painfully bright in the darkness.

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

It was merely a vast and sluggish "self-consistency system"!

If that system had truly been flawless, he should have been erased the moment he stopped Minato from sealing away his memories.

Yet the truth was that he had survived, and Naruto, with his memories intact, had successfully returned to the future.

That meant that as long as he did not directly erase those crucial "main plot nodes," the laws of this world had neither the power nor the means to erase him instantly over side changes like "knowing the plot in advance"!

The world could only passively "patch up the lie" through the chain reaction that followed.

Simply put, the main storyline had to continue moving forward, while optional side plots—or rather, "movie" plots—would not receive much attention from the Corrective Force.

"Looks like I've finally pried open a crack in this game."

Yue Uchiha tore off his already-damaged black cloak and let the dark wind beneath the desert carry it away.

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

Yellow sand swirled above the ruins of Rōran, but an invisible chakra barrier quietly kept it beyond the city's outskirts.

When Yue Uchiha returned to the surface by way of the broken stairs, the entire city of Rōran was caught between the deathly silence of surviving a catastrophe and the tearful joy that followed.

Tens of thousands of rescued underground laborers were tightly embracing family members they had not seen for ages.

At the center of the plaza, where ruins and wails intertwined, Queen Sara stood with her red hair flowing, tears already streaming down her face as she watched her people regain their smiles.

Hearing footsteps behind her, Sara turned around.

When she saw the black robe snapping in the wind and those deep black eyes, their red glow already faded, 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... survived."

Yue Uchiha calmly looked at the queen who had finally undergone her transformation. He did not help her up, merely saying indifferently, "I only took the reward I was owed. You haven't forgotten the terms of the contract, have you?"

"I haven't." Sara raised her head, steadfast light shining in her emerald eyes. "From now on, control of the Dragon Vein belongs to you. But the happiness of my people..."

Yue smiled faintly. "You won't have to wait long."

The technology of his previous life was far more advanced than this place. He did not mind improving the quality of life for Rōran's people a little—naturally, that included his own quality of life as well.

Compared to brainwashing them with genjutsu, voluntary submission founded upon lifesaving grace and shared interests was the most stable foundation.

His future plans would also require a certain amount of manpower.

Over the following half month, the depths of the Land of Wind's desert completely vanished from the Ninja World's sight.

Because Minato Namikaze and the others brought back intelligence that "Mukade is dead and the Dragon Vein has been sealed," and because the battles on the front lines of the Third Shinobi World War were growing increasingly brutal, neither Konoha nor Sunagakure had the time to concern themselves with these desolate ruins deep within the desert.

Fugitive Yue Uchiha's wanted level also rose from A-rank to S-rank, with no known upper limit. His whereabouts, like a stone sinking into the sea, disappeared along with the endless yellow sands.

And deep beneath this land forgotten by the world, Yue Uchiha stood alone before the enormous Dragon Vein sealing platform, conducting a profound study capable of overturning the Ninja World's entire understanding.

"What kind of power is this...?"

With his Three-Tomoe Sharingan activated, Yue stared through the royal seal Sara had placed, his gaze fixed on the vast purple-black sea of chakra deep underground.

As a transmigrator with a god's-eye view, Yue's thinking was not limited to the superficial concept of "chakra." Instead, he set his sights on the cosmic ecology of a higher dimension.

"In the Otsutsuki clan's model of interstellar plunder, when the God Tree descends upon a planet, its essence is to root itself in the planetary core and drain every living thing and all natural energy from that planet before finally bearing a chakra fruit."

Yue rapidly deduced the underlying logic of the original story in his mind, his brow furrowing tighter and tighter.

"Under normal cosmic laws, once the God Tree blooms and bears fruit, that planet should completely become a dead world, and all life should perish. But... the Ninja World is an absolute anomaly!"

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

By all rights, the Ninja World should have long since become a barren planet devoid of life.

Yet the truth was that not only had the Ninja World not been destroyed, it had remained full of life even in the thousand years after Kaguya was sealed away!

Ancient monsters like the Toad Sage of Mount Myōboku and the White Snake Sage of Ryūchi Cave, who had lived for thousands of years, had not been affected in the slightest by that war.

And their fundamental energy was natural energy.

An incomparably brilliant light suddenly burst from Yue's eyes.

"The so-called 'Dragon Vein' is not some ordinary chakra mineral vein.

"It is an aggregate of natural energy, accumulated and gathered by this planet over countless ages!

"In other words, it is the purest and most immense source of Senjutsu Chakra!"

Because the energy density was simply too great and its mass too high, when it was violently disturbed, the gravitational field it generated could even distort the curvature of the surrounding space, creating the miracle of "time-space travel"!

"No wonder Mukade of the future could travel through time and space. No wonder Minato and the others were swept into it... This wasn't ninjutsu at all. It was a spacetime collapse caused by extremely high-mass energy!"

And now, this power had fallen into his hands—or rather, the opportunity to develop it had.

Yue took a deep breath and suppressed the wild joy in his heart.

However, Yue was not blinded by power.

He knew very well that with his current body and Sharingan, if he rashly tried to forcibly absorb the Dragon Vein, there would be only one outcome—he would be assimilated by the violent natural energy and become a mindless stone statue.

His vision had already begun to blur. His ocular power probably would not hold out until he learned Senjutsu.

"You have to eat one bite at a time. If I want to control this power that travels through time and space, I first need to master Sage Mode, or find a medium that can perfectly fuse with natural energy. Before that... I need to make this 'laboratory' impregnable."