Yue Uchiha's Mangekyō

The instant his words fell, the aura around Yue Uchiha changed completely.

If he had once seemed like a stealthy operative in complete control, now he was a demonic blade finally drawn from its sheath, ready to drink its fill of blood.

He wrapped one arm around Sara's waist and plunged from the high platform like a streak of black lightning, landing steadily at the edge of the Central Hub, which had been completely razed.

"Go along the blind spots at the edge to the control panel. No matter what happens, don't look back. My Shadow Clone will protect you nearby."

Yue released her and pushed her toward the enormous purple pillar of light. "As for this disgusting bug with far too many legs, I'll crush it one segment at a time."

Sara gritted her teeth and gave Yue a long look. Then, like a nimble cat, she ran toward the hub, keeping to the shadows of the ruins.

At the center of the hall, Minato Namikaze and Naruto Uzumaki had already been driven into a desperate corner.

"Hey! Watch your left!"

Naruto roared and instantly sent two Shadow Clones charging in, but Mukade's enormous metal tail swept them away in an instant, turning them into puffs of smoke.

Minato had escaped death time and again with the Flying Thunder God Technique, but the high-intensity teleportation and the compromises he made to protect Naruto had caused his chakra reserves to dwindle rapidly.

Against Mukade, who could recover endlessly and didn't even need to charge his Chakra Cannon, Minato's attacks were always too weak to do any real damage.

"Despair! Before the absolute power of the Dragon Vein, you Konoha ninjas aren't even worth the ashes you'll become!"

Mukade roared arrogantly, his colossal centipede body rearing high. Inside his abyss-like maw, a terrifying purple-black chakra sphere more than ten meters in diameter was rapidly compressing, its density enough to make one gasp.

It was an annihilating strike powerful enough to collapse this vast underground space and erase the entire city of Rōran along with it!

"Damn it, there's no time to teleport away this much energy!" Minato's pupils shrank. He gripped the Kunai in his hand, ready to activate the Flying Thunder God Technique and get the Konoha ninjas nearby to safety.

But at that very moment,

"Tap, tap, tap..."

The steady footsteps sounded especially out of place amid the chaotic, violent battlefield.

Minato whipped around. The young Uchiha in a black, high-collared robe was strolling through the flying rubble and raging winds, heading toward the space in front of them.

"Yue Uchiha? What are you doing here?"

Yue Uchiha didn't even turn his head. He merely raised his right hand, facing the terrifying chakra sphere swelling in Mukade's mouth.

Yue slowly closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the three Tomoe that had been slowly turning in his crimson eyes had undergone a chilling transformation.

The three black Tomoe stretched rapidly like drops of melting ink, intertwining until they became an extremely intricate, mysterious pattern.

It was a Star Array with what looked like a multifaceted die embedded at its center!

Mangekyō Sharingan, awaken!

A cold, immense ocular power erupted around Yue, so tangible it seemed almost solid. Even the air nearby groaned under the strain.

"That's... the Mangekyō Sharingan?!"

Minato drew in a sharp breath, waves of shock surging through his heart.

As one of Konoha's senior officials, he knew all too well what those eyes meant: a calamity spoken of in legend, the power of the Uchiha Clan that could rival a Tailed Beast!

He had to take this information back.

"A bug with Sharingan? No matter what eyes you change into, it's all futile before the Dragon Vein! Die!!!"

Mukade roared as the ten-meter Chakra Cannon, powerful enough to destroy the world, blasted forth like a purple meteor, hurtling toward Yue with an oppressive force that threatened to tear everything apart.

Facing the devastating attack, Yue Uchiha's right eye snapped open. Fresh blood trickled from its corner and ran down his stern cheek.

In a low voice, he chanted the name of the deity said to embody the foundation of the world:

"Amenominakanushi!"

"Vmmm!"

There was no earth-shaking explosion, nor any violent clash of chakra.

As Minato and Naruto watched in utter disbelief, the space dozens of meters in front of Yue Uchiha suddenly and eerily "caved in."

It was a distortion on a purely physical level.

A gravity sphere only the size of a marble appeared out of nowhere, so black it seemed to swallow even light.

Amenominakanushi—the ocular technique that controlled gravity!

Create a singularity, then pulverize everything in space.

Objects, ninjutsu, living beings, even the air—all would be crushed by gravity.

The area it affected varied with the wielder's ocular power.

In his future plans, Yue intended to use this extreme gravity to warp the curvature of space, eventually reaching the realm of spacetime where "gravity causes time dilation," so he could fight the invisible "World Correction Force."

Now, that gravity revealed its most savage, rudimentary form.

The enormous purple Chakra Cannon, powerful enough to destroy a town, was sucked into the gravity sphere the instant it touched it, as if dragged into a bottomless black hole!

The ten-meter torrent of raging energy was brutally compressed, torn apart, and stretched until it was forcibly drawn into the marble-sized black point. It didn't even spark.

"What?!" Mukade's face, embedded in his armor, twisted instantly. That attack had been fueled by the Dragon Vein's power—yet it had vanished without making a sound?!

Yue Uchiha gave a cold laugh and activated his right eye again.

"BOOM!!!"

Under the pull of absolute gravity, Mukade's dozens-of-meters-long body of solid metal was as fragile as a paper toy. A huge, ten-meter-wide hole was gouged straight through its middle.

Naruto and Minato stared at the sight, momentarily stunned. But their combat instincts quickly brought them back to their senses. Defeating Mukade was what mattered most; everything else could wait until later.

"Nice one!" Naruto shouted excitedly.

But Minato's expression remained grave. "It won't work. As long as his connection to the Dragon Vein remains intact, he can recover instantly..."

Sure enough, Mukade let out a pained roar, but purple light blazed from his wound. Tens of thousands of chakra lines wove together again, and the enormous hole healed completely in just one second.

"Ha ha ha ha! I told you! I'm immortal! As long as the Dragon Vein exists, your chance of killing me is zero!!"

Mukade laughed arrogantly and crushed toward Yue with the weight of a mountain, trying to flatten him with his massive body.

"Minato, Naruto, I know you two have another trick up your sleeves. I need you to work with me!"

Yue could have simply spent as much ocular power as necessary to release a large-scale gravity sphere and pulverize Mukade once and for all.

But in this spacetime, where the "World Correction Force" was keeping a close eye on him, it would be foolish to exhaust his right eye's power fighting head-on against a mere supporting character who was destined to be eliminated.