Death Tampering, Setup, and Prevention

Only Cang remained in the hall.

Torchlight flickered across his face, casting his shadow onto the relief-carved wall behind him. He sat in an old wooden chair, and the cold tea in his cup reflected the dancing flames like a small shard of shattered amber.

He did not move.

Not because he was tired, but because he was waiting—waiting for everyone to return to their posts, waiting for the footsteps to vanish completely beyond the end of the stone steps, waiting for this vast underground fortress to sink back into silence.

Then he set down his teacup and rose.

He walked toward the wall at the deepest end of the stone chamber. There was an inconspicuous stone door there, nearly blending into the surrounding wall. Cang raised a hand and pressed it against the door. Chakra surged from his palm, and the sealing formulas on its surface lit up one after another. Blue-white light flowed over the ancient stone like snakes awakening.

The stone door slid open without a sound.

Beyond it lay a long, narrow passage. Glowing ores were embedded in the walls on either side, casting a cold, ghostly blue light. Cang entered, and the stone door slowly closed behind him, shutting out all the firelight and sound from the hall.

At the end of the passage was a circular stone chamber.

The chamber was small, only seven or eight meters across. A complex formula array was carved into the center of the floor—not an ordinary sealing array, but a special formation Cang had spent years completing, one that combined the Rinnegan's ocular techniques with the ancient sealing arts of the Land of Whirlpools.

Floating above the center of the formula array was a crystal the size of a fist.

The crystal was faintly colored, nearly transparent, but