Upon seeing the embryonic Tenseigan held before it, the Giant Tenseigan instantly grasped Hyuga Yu's intent—
Hyuga Yu did not trust it, even if it adopted an extraordinarily subservient attitude.
For any program, what mattered most was always the core code rooted in its underlying logic.
The underlying logic of the Giant Tenseigan originated from Hyuga Hizashi's pair of purple Byakugan. With those purple Byakugan serving as the core, it had absorbed and devoured a massive quantity of other Byakugan, forming the foundation for the birth of this incomplete Giant Tenseigan.
What Yu demanded was for it to destroy those purple Byakugan and replace them with Yu's own eyes as the Giant Tenseigan's core.
By doing so, all operational logic subsequently derived by the Giant Tenseigan would take Yu's will as its absolute creed.
The Giant Tenseigan had no way to verify whether Yu truly possessed a method to save it, nor could Yu prove it.
Thus, Yu had deliberately dragged this standoff out until the very last moment.
Now, the Giant Tenseigan had two choices: either believe Yu's words, self-destruct its core, and substitute Yu's eyes as its new core to gamble on a chance at survival—
Or, with the bomb's fuse already lit and burning to its end, trigger an earth-shattering explosion and be thoroughly wiped from the face of the world.
The core question presented was simple: choose to live until the final second on its own terms, or gamble on whether it could survive?
The world seemed to freeze at this very moment.
In the center of the Forest of Death—where massive flames raged, thick black smoke rolled, and a dark-red mushroom cloud billowed high—there was no sharp clashing of weapons, no violent firestorms sweeping across the land, nor any signs of combat.
There were only two extraordinarily calm existences conducting a silent game of chess.
The storm abated abruptly.
Nearly 6,000 Konoha ninja surrounded the perimeter of the Forest of Death, looking up at the inferno rising from its center.
"What's the situation now?" Hiruzen Sarutobi gripped Enma's massive hand, rising from the rubble with a furrowed brow as he asked, "Did Danzō manage to hold that thing off?"
"No." Beside him, Minato Namikaze narrowed his eyes slightly and said, "Tennin has arrived."
"However, that eye seems to have been pushed to the verge of explosion by Elder Danzō as well."
"What about the Four Red Yang Formation?"
"There's no time. My Flying Raijin formula is marked at the center of the battlefield; I can only attempt to teleport it as far away as possible."
Hearing this, Hiruzen let out a breath of relief.
However, Minato continued with a grave expression, "With my capability, my absolute limit is teleporting it 80 kilometers away, but the blast radius will reach 120 kilometers."
"In the most ideal scenario, half of Konoha's urban district will be leveled. Lord Hokage, please make the decision... Which part should we abandon?"
Looking at Konoha's overall layout from the outer rim to the inner core, half consisted of civilian residential areas, while the other half was home to the major ninja clans.
Thus, it was an impossible choice.
Hiruzen choked instantly. In a flash, he foresaw that as the commander of this battle, he would bear the blame for Konoha's destruction, and Minato's prestige would suffer a devastating blow alongside his own.
Meanwhile, Danzō and his disciple—who had suppressed the Giant Tenseigan until the final moment—would reap an enormous amount of renown and support from this operation.
The Fourth Hokage election, which had originally seemed set in stone, would face unexpected turbulence.
"We..." Hiruzen took a deep breath, preparing to make the call.
Right at that moment—
Minato seemed to sense something and abruptly raised his head toward the burning center of the Forest of Death.
There, a powerful wave of pale green light suddenly expanded outward!
Wherever the wave passed, the raging fire was extinguished instantly, the violent gales ceased, and the sky filled with smoke drifted away after a slight tremor.
Their vision cleared completely. In the very center of the Forest of Death, a single figure was floating slowly up into the sky!
The Giant Tenseigan had deliberated for only ten seconds before giving its answer—
Completely surrendering control of its core.
The purple Byakugan serving as the structural core was merely a part of its entity; destroying the core did not mean the collective consciousness formed by the other Byakugan would perish.
Guided by its fundamental logic of survival, once it realized that death could yield a chance at living, it forcibly ejected the purple Byakugan core from its body.
Thus, Hyuga Hizashi's broken corpse, along with a pair of lusterless Byakugan, was squeezed out of the Giant Tenseigan and landed at Yu's feet.
Immediately after, Yu closed his eyes and reached his hand deep into the body of the Giant Tenseigan.
The glowing, pale blue-white embryonic Tenseigan sank into the center of the innermost, two-meter-tall gray stone.
Soon, as the eyes connected with the neural pathways inside the stone sphere, Yu instantly felt a brand-new field of vision!
A perspective observing the world directly from the vantage point of this incomplete Giant Tenseigan.
The incomplete Giant Tenseigan felt as though it had become an extension of his senses—a brand-new organ existing outside his body.
This signaled that Hyuga Yu had thoroughly seized control of the incomplete Giant Tenseigan.
In an instant, a vast influx of information regarding the Giant Tenseigan poured into Yu's mind. He rapidly received and processed it all while the sensory link allowed him to gauge its current status—
Structural damage, rapid loss of vitality, internal eye unit deactivated, information processing malfunction, core neural pathways severed, Tenseigan chakra circulating through meridians going berserk and burning, on the verge of exploding...
At the same time, the abilities of this Giant Tenseigan surfaced. Corresponding to the Giant Tenseigan on the moon, it likewise possessed Seven Great Authorities, yet appeared to represent the opposing side of Yin and Yang:
[Authority One: Mind's Eye]
[Authority Two: Geomagnetic Repulsive Force Manipulation]
[Authority Three: Dōjutsu Pulse]
[Authority Four: Spatial Pheromone Folding, Rift Coordinate Base Station]
[Authority Five: Silver Wheel Reincarnation Explosion]
[Authority Six: Lunar Core Reactor]
[Authority Seven: Celestial Shift, World Annihilation]
Based on the information Yu received, only three of these Seven Great Authorities—Mind's Eye, Geomagnetic Repulsive Force Manipulation, and Dōjutsu Pulse—were currently illuminated. The remaining four, each more terrifying than the last, were all grayed out and unusable, failing to even meet the activation threshold.
Furthermore, with a massive stack of debuffs weighing down on the incomplete Giant Tenseigan, even those three illuminated authorities were operating unreliably.
Yu's gaze immediately swept across the long list of negative status debuffs.
The top priority was to halt the continuous burning of chakra before the Giant Tenseigan reached the detonation threshold.
As for how to further develop this treasure that now belonged to him, that could be explored later.
With that thought, Yu used his hyper-sensing vision to confirm that the core consciousness inside the incomplete Giant Tenseigan was indeed vacant, and that his eyes had truly replaced its core.
Without further hesitation, he took a deep breath, raised his palm, and slammed it onto the surface of the Giant Tenseigan!
Following this action, a ring of platinum-gold eyeshadow instantly surfaced around the corners of Yu's eyes, and a platinum-gold circular mark quietly emerged upon his pristine forehead—now completely free of the Caged Bird seal!
"Sage Mode—Activate!"
————
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