This puppeteer is a bit... well...

Chapter 48 This Desert's Destiny Belongs to Me

They won, Ryuji won.

He shattered the fatalism of this world, or rather, the world itself has no destiny; what possesses destiny is merely the affairs of the Six Paths family that involve the entire world.

There were no sudden power spikes or unexpected interference during the battle. The reason Naruto didn't die was simply because he held back at the last moment.

Since it has been established that there is no fatalism in this world, or that fate can be broken, then Naruto's value in living is greater than his value in dying.

Whether it's the physique of the Uzumaki clan, or the chakra of the Nine-Tails or even Ashura, it has great research value.

At worst, he's an insurance policy for sealing Kaguya-hime in the future.

What would a ninja village do after discovering an enemy spy?

Kill him?

No, this is just the final execution.

Before that, the ninja village would pretend not to notice and then use enemy spies to pass on the messages they wanted to convey to the enemy.

To put it bluntly, it means keeping everything under your control.

After all, spies... as long as other ninja villages still exist, it's impossible to kill them all.

Rather than letting unknown enemies lurk in the village, it's better to pretend we haven't discovered them and keep a complete grasp of their movements.

Ryuji is now in a similar situation.

Killing Naruto will cause another Ashura reincarnation to appear, and it will be beyond one's control.

Although his very existence and actions are changing the future and leading the situation into the unknown, this unknown is predictable and is developing in the direction that Ryuji expects.

……

"Naruto!"

Upon seeing Naruto lying in the deep pit, Minato couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

The next second, the Flying Thunder God Technique was activated, and he appeared beside Naruto, ready to take him away.

But the moment he heard the exclamation, Ryuji guessed that Minato would do such a thing and threw a punch in advance.

"Bang!"

Minato flew out and disappeared in a puff of white smoke. Another Minato appeared on the other side, carrying Naruto away.

Minato has an extremely high level of combat awareness. Having suffered a loss once before, he knew that Ryuji possessed a very strong ability to predict the future.

My exclamation must have alerted the other party; if I had foolishly jumped over, I would have repeated the same mistake.

Therefore, we decided to use a counter-strategy, first using shadow clones to trick him into attacking, and then taking the opportunity to save him.

Ryuji reacted immediately and fired a burst bullet at Choji in the distance.

but.

The chakra gathered in his palm was halfway there when it suddenly stopped smoking, and the mechanical whirring also ceased.

Chakra is exhausted.

A single Rasengan shuriken consumes one-third of Naruto's chakra. The Exploding Rasengan, being a refined version of the Rasengan, consumes almost the same amount of chakra.

Just one shot consumed half of his chakra.

With the chakra depleted from the previous battle, using ninjutsu with less than one-fifth of chakra remaining would affect the basic operation of the armor.

This is why Ryuji generally doesn't use this ninjutsu.

After all, "A's" power arm possesses strength no less than Tsunade's, enough to deal with the vast majority of enemies.

Even the number of enemies that allowed Ryuji to fight while wearing armor was pitifully small, which was also a first.

but.

Since Ryuji would use this technique when he already had insufficient energy, it means that he no longer needs to worry about chakra consumption.

Give me chakra!

Long Er raised his hands, ready to welcome him.

Jumping back to Dingza's side, he heard the machine shut down. Just as he was considering whether to take the opportunity to take down the enemy's water gate, he heard the sound and couldn't help but look up.

A bolt of purple chakra, shaped like lightning, shot out from a tall tower.

"Crack!"

The lightning struck Ryuji, but he was unharmed. Instead, he absorbed the energy, filling his armor with purple chakra.

Yes, Silver has found Centipede's workshop.

Guided by the enslaved people of Loulan, they found the mechanism that controls the dragon vein's chakra.

Ryuji learned this through the Ocean of Spirits, which is why he used the Explosive Rasengan so extravagantly.

Otherwise, he would have had more than a hundred ways to counter Naruto's final attack.

"run!"

Without saying a word, Minato jumped away with Choji and Naruto.

"It's too late to leave now!"

Ryuji unleashed a powerful burst of chakra, and countless scarab puppets scattered in all directions.

The scarab golems that had been destroyed in the battle were automatically restored and joined the search operation.

Then, he raised his right arm and shot a purple ray from his palm.

The rays exploded in the sky like fireworks, but when these fireworks landed on the malfunctioning knight puppets, they opened their purple eyes and began to move on their own.

This is an artificial soul that Ryuji created in advance. It only carries simple combat memories and is a part used to repair puppets in emergency situations when outside.

Now, they have all been activated by Long Er and used on the puppets created by the centipede. There are as many as five thousand of them.

"Hahaha……"

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of them, Long Er couldn't help but burst into laughter. "Today I'm going to show you what this desert truly is!"

Centipede doesn't have autonomous puppet technology, nor the ability to control so many puppets at the same time, yet it created so many puppets to dominate the ninja world... Is it planning to stay near the Dragon Vein and exhaust the invading enemies with its infinite chakra?

What if the enemy ignores you?

You think you can dominate the ninja world with this?

That's incredibly stupid!

As Ryuji watched the puppet army's search operation through his surging mental ocean, he walked towards the Centipede Studio.

Silver caught a very interesting guy there.

Shortly after, an explosion was heard from the tower several hundred meters away.

But as hundreds of puppets surrounded them, the fighting quickly ended.

After destroying several puppets, Minato jumped away with his men.

But it wasn't long before they were discovered again.

The farther the Flying Thunder God Technique jumps, the more people it carries, and the larger the size of the device, the greater the chakra consumption.

After repeating this several times, Minato was exhausted and covered in sweat, with very little chakra left.

I jumped again and hid inside a tall tower.

Minato, pale-faced and panting, leaned against the wall.

He quickly swallowed a soldier's ration pill to rapidly restore his strength, while his brain raced, trying to think of a way to escape.

He didn't leave any coordinates outside Loulan, nor could he lead the three people to jump too far.

Just then, Naruto's figure began to fade.

Minato paused for a moment, then realized that Naruto was going back to the future.

Although he didn't know why, he still made a final effort to erase each other's memories.

In any case, it's best if the past and the future don't intersect.

After doing all this, the densely packed puppet army once again surrounded the place.

(End of this chapter)