Mechanism

Amidst the turbulent currents of spacetime, the purple radiance distorted wildly.

I do not know how long had passed, accompanied by a violent sensation of weightlessness.

"Bang!"

The four of them smashed heavily onto a patch of muddy ground, one that emanated a thick, pungent stench of blood and the scent of rotting leaves from a primeval forest.

Greeting their eyes were ancient, colossal trees that blotted out the sky, alongside a desolate crescent moon sinking behind lead-gray storm clouds. The chakra fluctuations pervading the air were exceedingly wild and primitive, filled with the iron-blooded aura of slaughter and turmoil.

This was the Warring States Period!

Moreover, judging from the few remaining corpses of ninja clad in ancient, layered laminated armor scattered around, this was the late Warring States era!

The very eve of the era when Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha were about to end the troubled times and found Konoha!

The exact year remained temporarily unknown.

"Cough, cough... Pfft!"

The moment Yue landed, he violently coughed up a large mouthful of fresh blood.

His left eye was grayed out to the extreme, blood smearing over most of his mask, yet he simply could not spare any attention for his own injuries. Instead, he immediately closed his eyes to perceive the omnipresent "rules of the world" around him.

One second, two seconds.

Silence.

Deathly silence.

The malevolence that felt like needles pricking his back, as if he were locked onto by the entire world during the fifty-first year of Konoha, at the very moment he crossed the space-time passage and landed upon this Warring States soil... unexpectedly melted away like snow, completely vanishing without a trace!

Successful survival probability: 100%!

"Hahaha... hahahahaha!"

Yue tilted his head back, leaning against the rough tree trunk, and laughed audibly and recklessly, laughing to the point that he disregarded the injuries aggravating his internal organs.

"Yue? Are you alright? Your eyes are bleeding so much..."

Hikari knelt half-sided on the ground with some worry, using her sleeve in a flustered scramble to wipe the blood from his face.

"I'm fine, Hikari. I'm doing great!"

Yue grabbed Hikari's hand, his single eye burning with extreme madness and ecstatic joy.

"I verified it! I completely verified the underlying logic of this corrective force!"

"The 'world corrective force' of different spacetimes—its eradication mechanisms are mutually independent! It's a dead program tailored solely to the current era's script!"

"In the fifty-first year of Konoha, they were untouchable core NPCs, and the world will had to stare at them until they died."

Yue lowered his head, looking at the Minato couple who had collapsed into the muddy water and whose souls had already been forcibly anchored by him using Yin Release so that they did not dissipate.

"But! When we bring them to the late Warring States period of decades ago, they become 'stowaways' outside the jurisdiction of this era's script!

In the historical script of the Warring States, the names 'Minato Namikaze' and 'Kushina Uzumaki' do not exist at all, so the world will doesn't care whether they live or die, let alone descend with malevolence to eradicate us!"

This meant that as long as one dragged those "destined to die" away from their original spacetime, they could perfectly jam the bug of the corrective force!

As long as he did not return the Minato couple to the fifty-first year of Konoha to affect the plot, this realm would not cross the river of time to hunt him down!

"Hikari, do you understand what this means?"

Yue calmed his hurried breathing, carried the bodies of the Minato couple into a relatively dry hollow in a tree, and his hands immediately lit up with dark-green medical chakra and Yin Release light, beginning to stabilize their battered physical bodies and soul forms.

"It means..." Hikari gripped her short sword, vigilantly scanning the late Warring States forest around them, "we can casually 'snatch people' from other eras in the future?"

"That's right! Not just snatching people, we can 'go stock up' at any time node!"

Yue looked at Minato's blond hair, the corners of his mouth curling into an extremely dangerous arc.

"We can rescue those doomed geniuses, and seize those Bloodline Limits destined for destruction. As long as we drag them into the space-time passage at the very last moment, we can build an 'undead legion' unbound by any fate!"

Moreover, it wouldn't be that castrated Impure World Reincarnation, but fully fledged original bodies capable of operating at 100% strength.

Having undergone multiple life-and-death crises, he had also found three rules of the "corrective force."

First, the [Absolute Mainline and Fault Tolerance Mechanism] (verified multiple times).

Core nodes of the main storyline were ironclad laws; forcibly blocking them would inevitably invite ruthless eradication by the corrective force.

However, on the premise of not changing the "established outcome," a certain degree of "wool-shearing" was permitted.

As long as the magnitude of the deviation did not cross the line, this world program would automatically apply patches, "patching up" the plot with various coincidences.

Second, the [Independent Spacetime Erasure Law] (in the process of being proven).

Corrective forces of different spacetimes were not networked with one another, only responsible for monitoring the current era's script.

Someone destined to be "deleted" in one spacetime, once crossing into another, would become a legal undocumented person that the corrective force could not recognize. Minato Namikaze and his wife before his eyes were the most perfect living examples.

Third, the [Non-Plot Sandbox Blind Spot] (verified multiple times).

For non-mainline plots (such as the Rōran theatrical version, or partial side plots that did not affect the main storyline) or corners and fragments not recorded by the "plot," the corrective force was like a blind person.

In these blind-spot sandboxes, no matter how much he thrashed about and courted death, he would not trigger any alarms.

"However, the second rule still has a core closed loop that needs to be verified..."

Yue's eyes narrowed slightly, a fanatic thirst for knowledge flashing in the depths of his gaze.

What if he brought the Minato couple back to their original spacetime of Konoha Year 51?

When the established "death node" had already passed, would this rigid program issue an eradication order once again against two ghosts already marked as "cleared" in this spacetime?

Would it ignore them, or would it trigger an even more terrifying logical collapse?

"There's no opportunity to explore that right now."

Yue withdrew his gaze, temporarily suppressing this dangerous conjecture deep in his heart.

At the very least, he had to wait until these two figures emerged from life-and-death danger before he had the capital to initiate this final experiment.

"First, find a safe place to settle them down. Minato Namikaze, Kushina Uzumaki... these two future figures are our top-tier combat reserve forces. Besides, my left eye needs to recover, too."

The Nine-Tails' Night just now had not only consumed all the pupil power previously stored in his left eye, but the pupil power within the Yin Seal was also not left with a single drop. If not for the tiny bit still stored in his right eye, he would have been completely blinded by now.

To put it simply, he had once again become blind.

Under collisions of this magnitude, his pupil power was consumed far too quickly.

Even though the Ming Seal stored a great deal, it was still a drop in the bucket.

As for the world malevolence aspect, even though he reduced it significantly by returning the Nine-Tails' chakra, the survival rate going from 99% to 100% still consumed the majority of his pupil power.

Yue stood up and put his mask back on properly.

Uchiha Yue's original intention had been to travel to an arbitrary spacetime and then travel back through the Dragon Veins, but since it was this era, he had a reason to linger.

Madara Uchiha and Hashirama, ah!

The two strongest individuals below the Six Paths level in the pre-shinobi era (excluding Boruto).

Only, it was unknown whether this was their childhood period or their middle-aged period.

"Hikari, carry that red-haired woman. Move gently; her inner vitality could scatter at any moment."

"Mhm." Hikari nodded obediently, biting the heavy short blade in her mouth, and carefully carried Kushina Uzumaki onto her back. Meanwhile, Yue shouldered Minato Namikaze.

The two of them shuttled through the dense primeval forest for about an hour.

The natural environment of the Warring States period was extremely harsh, but precisely because of this, there were extremely many concealed places. Relying on the insight remaining in his right eye, Yue found a deep, natural karst cave located behind a secluded waterfall.

"Earth Style: Earth Wall!"

Yue formed handseals with a single hand, raising two flat stone beds deep within the karst cave, and subsequently deployed three layers of concealed barriers at the cave entrance to isolate chakra and scent.

Having finished all this, Yue leaned against the rock face, practically exhausted, panting heavily.

He laid Minato and Kushina flat on the stone beds, carefully examining the condition of these two "corpses" with the aid of the faint Fire Release light flickering at his fingertips.

The situation was even worse than he had imagined.

The enormous claws of the Nine-Tails had pierced straight through both of their chests, and their internal organs suffered extremely severe damage. If they were ordinary shinobi, they would have been dead thoroughly long ago.

Because Kushina was of the Uzumaki clan, her constitution was special; even though the tailed beast was extracted and her chest was pierced, there was still a trace of extremely faint cellular vitality stubbornly supporting her.

As for Minato Namikaze, he was even more miserable. Although his soul was forcibly severed from his connection with the Death God by Yue and dragged back into his body, it still suffered the erosion of the Death God's aura, not to mention the massive wounds on his body.

If not for Yue's sufficiently high attainment in Yin Release, the souls of these two people would have already dissipated to the Pure Land.

"Such heavy injuries..."

Hikari stood to the side, looking at the startling bloody holes in the chests of the two people.

"Yue, even if you used Yin Release to lock their souls and their final breath, this physical body has 'died.' How do you plan to save them?"

"Conventional medical ninjutsu is naturally useless; even the Mystical Palm Technique cannot accomplish the feat of bringing someone back from the dead."

Yue pulled a sealing scroll from his bosom, which contained the "Hashirama Cell Serum" traded from Orochimaru.

"Fatal injuries on the physical body must be filled with extreme vitality, which is Yang Release."

Much like Naruto saving Guy after the Eight Inner Gates, Chiyo's One's Own Life Reincarnation, or the Rinnegan's Samsara Heavenly Life.

Ultimate Yang Release truly could resurrect deceased physical bodies.

Yue looked at the green serum in his hand, his brows furrowing tightly.

"Although Orochimaru's Hashirama Cells have undergone modifications, they possess extremely powerful aggressiveness.

Minato and Kushina are currently in a near-death state and possess no resistance whatsoever.

If this stuff is injected directly, the most likely outcome won't be wound healing, but rather them being instantly devoured by the Wood Release cells and turning into two large trees."

Hikari tilted her head: "Then what should we do?"

"We need top-tier Yang Release, and that depends on whether the Senju clan is willing to muddy this waters, plus time is very tight."

Hopefully, Hashirama Senju has already grown up during this time period.