Therefore, Ryusei began cleverly and efficiently layering his power one piece at a time since the battle erupted minutes ago.
His single evolved Byakugan, on the level of Kanae's, tracking every micro motion in space since it started.
Slug Sage Mode bloomed first, his body shifting into that fluid, crystalline state filled with perfect chakra circulation.
Creation Rebirth pulsed under his skin, fueled by Yin Release, ready to overwrite any fatal wound or inner imbalance.
The Seventh Gate roared open, heat and pressure bursting from his muscles like an expanding sun.
Kokuō's boiling force surged through him, amplifying every motion.
He bent gravity with Earth Release weight manipulation, accelerating into blurring speeds and gaining full aerial maneuverability and punches and kicks, blackening and impacting as if gravity itself struck, already bending wind, natural energy, and even space itself around.
Vibration Release spread around him in a constant field, reinforcing his durability, sharpening his offense, and giving him a protective barrier that rippled with every strike.
And through his enlightened, perfect chakra transmission ability, Slug Sage Mode let him transmit unique, newly mastered Yin-laced genjutsu chakra in every direction, a silent, invisible shield of spiritual poison that pushed back both Ashura and Minato each time they tried to close in.
Additionally, Ryusei's physique had been reforged through the recent ritualistic Yin–Yang Chinoike procedure he performed on himself.
He used Indra's powerful late Six Paths body as the perfect sacrifice, along with the remnants of the Chinoike members Indra had swallowed just before his death, all of them ideal Yin–Yang fuel for the Crimson Rite.
The result was an additional reconstruction of Ryusei's body, pushing his durability and potential to an even more exaggerated physical limit.
It hardened every layer of his body, made him even more indestructible, and pushed his limits high enough to finally master the advanced two Gates and all of their techniques in practically no time by all accounts.
Not to mention how much the Shikkotsu's black-pool adaptation and those acids had changed and reinforced his body.
Without that evolution, he wouldn't have been able to endure the final two Gates nearly as well as he thought he could presently.
He could regenerate, disperse, and reinforce through every layer of micro–Eight Gates damage, in theory, and his long-standing Byakugan-level chakra control let him adjust it all in real time.
Hence, Ryusei stood there, wrapped in layers of power that no ordinary shinobi could even comprehend.
Meanwhile, the near-invisible aerial battle continued; however, Ryusei was increasingly solid when he struck out.
Increasingly fluid when they struck him as he got used to their entire rhythm.
Weightless when he moved more and more.
Soon, every attack became a counter, not just dissolved.
Every mistake they made, he punished back instantly.
Ryusei flickered between them, a blur of shifting mass and shimmering chakra.
His Slug Sage physiology adapted every second, dissolving chakra, bleeding off force, and repairing micro-damage from the inside thanks to those acids, before it formed.
At this time, Ashura's fist crashed into Ryusei's jaw, but the impact sank into a thin, very focused, small translucent membrane.
The force dissolved, scattered through him, then heavily expelled outward in a very disproportionate counterpulse that made Ashura skid back through the air far away.
Minato's Rasengan struck Ryusei's ribs a heartbeat later, but Ryusei's form softened on impact, his body slipping half-liquid so the spiraling chakra bored through harmlessly and burst out the other side.
Before Minato could blink, Ryusei had already reformed behind him with a whip-crack of dense muscle.
Minato teleported again, instinctively, his body barely reacting on time to dodge before his mind caught up.
He couldn't believe it.
That boy from the fuinjutsu shop.
That polite, narrow-eyed genin with a strange aura and hidden malice—
Now he was standing before him as something that didn't even obey physical law.
Minato's thoughts raced.
"What… what is this? He's not a shinobi anymore. He's not even a human combatant. His body, his chakra, none of it follows any normal structure."
Minato felt something he rarely felt on a battlefield.
Not fear.
But disbelief.
"He's changing states faster than I can perceive with my eyes. Damage really dissolves before it forms. Natural energy circulates through him like he's part of the environment."
He took in a sharp breath.
"That's not Sage Mode. That's… a different category entirely."
Below him, Ashura steadied himself in the air, shock also flickering through his eyes.
He clenched his jaw.
"His body isn't following mortal rules at all. He only solidifies when he chooses. He liquefies to erase force. He scatters pressure before it forms. He keeps shifting between flesh and chakra, a moldable biological mass powered by pure Yang–Water energy."
A pause.
"This is an evolution even my father's teachings did not describe."
He narrowed his gaze at Ryusei's form, now half-solid, half-fluid, moving in patterns that didn't match any established taijutsu rhythm.
"His essence is no longer fixed and increasingly harder to accurately gauge. He is adapting faster than I can analyze and target directly."
A bead of sweat traced down Minato's face.
If even the Sage's son said this…
Gamamaru's warnings suddenly felt far too real.
Hearing it was one thing.
Seeing it was something else entirely.
"…Ryusei," Minato whispered. "What… have you become…?"
Ashura's voice followed, low and dark.
"Something that should not exist."
Minato swallowed once more.
Even his most recent training at Mount Myōboku hadn't prepared him for this.
Not even close. "So this is… Slug Sage Mode?"
Neither of them had expected this.
At the end of the day, neither Ashura nor Minato, and probably even Hagoromo himself, had imagined the Slug Sage could reach this far.
After all, Shikkotsu had always been the most obscure and withdrawn of the three sage domains, never involving itself in worldly affairs.
Hashirama had only borrowed the method of Sage Mode from there; he never used their true essence. He never became one of them.
And the air around them shuddered again as Ryusei turned his gaze toward them, after hearing that, expression unreadable, body shifting as if reality itself had to adjust around him to keep up.
His narrow eyes curved slightly, almost amused.
"Something that shouldn't exist? Maybe. But I'm here anyway… and you two will have to deal with it."
He tilted his head, body rippling and recasting all over like it were second nature.
"I didn't ask the world for permission to grow."
With no more to say, the moment those words left his mouth, he entered into his active Sage Mode's full-on Sage Art: Transcendent Mirage.
His outline thinning and thickening like mist in motion, fading in and out of definition as he slipped past Minato's next instant teleports with growing ease.
At the same time, he also triggered Sage Art: Gravitational Shedding, next, unloading a space-bending burst of force that pushed Ashura back and opened a moment of time.
He took it instantly.
Dozens of divisions instantly peeled off his body in a silent transfer as he activated Sage Art: Myriad Cellular Division.
Invisible, weightless versions of himself scattered downward like drifting shadows.
His allies were being harassed by the ancient formations of monks and samurai, energy bodhisattvas forming giant fists, laido-style wind tornadoes slicing through the field, coordinated strikes locking them down.
Ryusei intended to break that momentum.
His clones didn't need much chakra.
Their stealth and their mirrored physiology were enough.
Dozens of unseen Ryuseis slipped behind the formation lines, creating blind spots, disrupting timing, and opening gaps for his allies to breathe.
He really had become the perfect support type, in the most terrifying sense imaginable to any group of enemies there was.
Not to mention how these clones now also served as potential spatial dynamic anchors as well, if he needed to, in some capacity, 'jump' somewhere quickly to save anyone in a pinch in the most critical moment.
The clone bodies, fused with slug essence, could also transmit their chakra far more efficiently than before.
He could send long-stored reserves or healing chakra to his allies instantly, with perfect compatibility and even affinity.
Slug awareness, fused with the environment itself, let him guide that flow across the battlefield in real time without wasting a single drop.
He had already pre-tuned it to each ally's chakra nature, making the transfer seamless.
The result was near-zero loss, far more efficient than anything he had before.
His chakra production had skyrocketed recently, and he had barely spent any of it.
The Yin Seal storing it was close to full.
All of this made his network way more effective than the old Katsuyu batteries.
Meanwhile, as if noticing all of this and the ripple it caused across the battlefield, right away, Minato and Ashura used the brief gap Ryusei created to regain their composure.
They adjusted to his new form as best they could, anchoring themselves against the chaos he created.
Minato's usually gentle, blue eyes narrowed.
"Ryusei… whatever you've become, whatever path you've taken… it ends today. I won't let you threaten this village or its future anymore."
Ashura's gaze was colder, older, carrying a weight that wasn't human.
"You diverge from the purpose of this world. From my father's will. From mine. Your existence bends fate in directions it was never meant to take."
Then Ashura moved decisively first, intent on flipping the tide below back in their favor again in a single, powerful motion.
His hands flashed through a sequence of short seals, so simple that they were almost primitive, yet carried an authority that made the air tremble.
Ryusei felt his senses sharpen instantly.
Not even he could decipher it on time.
But he understood one thing.
This wasn't a normal Yang Release.
It wasn't just Wood Release either.
This was a far higher variant.
The purest, most ancient form of life-forging chakra he had ever witnessed.
A power that only someone born from the Sage's own body and the God Tree itself could manifest.
Ryusei's eyes narrowed, remembering Indra's own strongest moves during their clash.
"Great… the highest-grade Yang Release in existence probably now, I should've known..."