Starting with rogue ninjas, building the insect kingdom.

Chapter 297 The First Cycle

The three of them sped into the underground palace and arrived at the dragon vein node. A vast amount of energy surged below. Because there was no time discrepancy like before, this time, Uchiha and the others prepared to jump into the dragon vein ahead of time.

Before leaving, he turned to Minato Namikaze and said, "Be careful of Shisei Aburame behind you, who is also known as the strategist Shiraki."

Having said that, he jumped in, preparing to manipulate time and space.

Just as Minato Namikaze was about to form a hand seal, darkness suddenly fell above his head. A gigantic woman's face appeared on the dome.

Uchiha Mamoru frowned. Because the spacetime dragon vein was blocked, they were trapped inside again. Fortunately, this time the seal was only half intact, but it would still take a lot of time to break it.

"The Queen of Loulan?" In the space-time rift, Uchiha Mori stared blankly outside: "We clearly staggered the time, we clearly moved it forward, so why is it still like this?"

Outside the underground palace.

Yu Nu Zhicheng walked to the centipede puppet's corpse, cut open its back, and saw a line of faint words.

"cycle?"

As he uttered those words, a strong sense of déjà vu suddenly welled up inside him, but he didn't dismiss it as a hallucination.

Instead, he curled the corners of his lips into a smile and murmured with a laugh, "Interesting. Looks like this isn't the first time."

Then, he waved his hand and summoned a swarm of insects, which devoured the puppet's remains. The insects then burrowed underground to lie dormant, while he headed towards the underground palace.

Shortly after he left, in a sand pit not far away.

Sarutobi Asuma tumbled headfirst into the sand again: "Ptooey! Where am I? Where's my master?"

Xi Rihong looked around and saw only yellow sand; there was no sign of Loulan.

Uchiha Mori walked past the sandpit, looking down and mocking, "You're really stupid, falling into the same sandpit twice."

He froze as soon as he said it.

Why did he say "again"?

A strange feeling crossed his mind, but he quickly suppressed it. He looked around and felt that the scene seemed familiar.

But he didn't think much of it, because the important matter was right now: "Let's go, Master should be in Loulan ahead."

The three of them headed towards Loulan again. When they arrived at the ruins, the scene was still dilapidated, and Asma was still surprised.

"We just left a day ago, how come it's so dilapidated!" He reached out to push the door open, when the sword of benevolence at his waist became slightly hot, and a half-crippled body was teleported to them through the Flying Thunder God technique.

Minato Namikaze raised his head, his pupils unfocused: "Go, get out of here quickly!"

The three of them froze in place again, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.

"Master!" Sarutobi Asuma lunged forward, but after taking only two steps, countless gray worms surged from the ground, instantly covering him. The skeleton, however, remained in the running posture.

"Ah—" Kurenai screamed and fell to her seat, staggering backward as the swarm of insects rushed in and quickly devoured her. Her screams came to an abrupt halt.

"ah--!"

Uchiha Mamoru stared at everything before him, his mind blank. His closest person had died in front of him; intense pain tore at his heart and lungs, spreading to his eyes.

The three tomoe began to spin and connect into a windmill shape, and blood flowed from the eye sockets.

He raised his head, his hatred and pain intertwined, and finally, his hands trembled as he aimed them at the skeletons.

"Eye Technique: Izanami!"

One eye suddenly went blind, and time began to reverse. Three skeletons visibly regenerated, growing bones and flesh.

Perhaps it was because of the experience, but his eyes seemed to have improved slightly after undergoing a baptism by the dragon vein.

At the location of the underground dragon vein, Aburame Shisei looked at the flashing white light around him, pointed two fingers at his forehead, and made a slash at the Uchiha.

"See you next time, my two friends!"

The power of the dragon vein was reset by the power of time, and time began to rewind again. Everything was like a rewind, returning to the starting point.

Minato Namikaze once again leaped from the whirlpool into the desert, where a giant centipede puppet blocked his way.

"Who exactly are you?"

He dodged the attack, but felt as if he had experienced this scene before.

Not long after, two more people entered the desert from the spacetime vortex; they were Uchiha Mori and the young man who had returned once again.

This time, he didn't rush to leave. Instead, he stood still. Seeing that he wasn't leaving, the young man turned around and asked, "What's wrong with you?"

Uchiha Mamoru raised his head and said, "It's no use. This is a vicious cycle. The only solution might be to kill Aburame Shisei."

"What nonsense are you talking about?" The young man was completely baffled as to why his companion had changed so much the moment they entered the time tunnel, and the sadness on his face seemed genuine.

"Do you know what you're saying? If it were that easy, we would have succeeded long ago."

"No, you don't understand. We're in a loop now, and only I remember the last time. Trust me, go help Minato Namikaze deal with Anroku-kun now."

Seeing Uchiha's determined gaze, the young man didn't ask any more questions, because he knew that the other party wouldn't do anything useless, and he would eventually find out the answer.

The situation remained the same, except that Anroku-kun's location had already been exposed this time. Uchiha Shou threw a kunai directly at that spot, and Namikaze Minato, as expected, understood and used the Flying Thunder God Technique to flash over, releasing the Rasengan in one go.

Goodbye, future Four Heavenly Kings!

The head was shattered, blood splattered everywhere, and the headless corpse lay on the ground.

This time, the three of them did not leave, but stood quietly together.

Uchiha Moritsu removed his hat, revealing his true appearance: "Long time no see, teacher!"

"Uchiha Mamoru, what are you doing?" the young man exclaimed in surprise. He never expected that he, who had always said he wouldn't expose himself, would actually be exposed so thoroughly.

Minato Namikaze, on the other hand, wasn't as surprised; he even had a sense of "I knew it."

Uchiha Shushou placed his hand on his shoulder to stop him, saying, "Let me finish what I have to say. What I'm about to say is very important."

"Every time we jump into the time portal, the Queen's image appears in the sky. She is sealing the portal with her soul. Time here is not fixed. No matter how long we linger here, the moment we jump in will be the moment the Queen sets the seal."

However, her seal is only half intact, and it can be broken in just a few hours. It's not that it's impossible to break it faster, but this is a dragon vein, and forcibly breaking it would only cause greater turmoil. The safe timeframe is more than two hours.

However, he still couldn't find out who was causing the spacetime disturbance. He always thought it was the spacetime worms created by Aburame Shisei that were the culprits.

After all, his kaleidoscope awakened during the Nine-Tails' rampage.

"What do you want us to do?" Minato Namikaze seemed to understand everything and didn't let him continue.

"The only way to break the cycle is to kill Shisei Aburame."

"Really? But I don't think you can kill me."

Aburame Shisei had appeared on the puppet and saw the word "cycle".