It was not a flicker stirred by the wind, but true, absolute stillness.
The flames froze in midair. Even light and shadow stood still.
Then everyone felt "something" in the air grow thick and viscous.
It was not a drop in temperature or a change in air pressure, but... the flow of chakra.
It grew sluggish and strained, as though caught in an invisible mire.
"What's going on?!" A sprang to his feet, lightning flaring around him.
"No..." Ōnoki rose into the air as well, his expression changing sharply. "This isn't ninjutsu... this is..."
"Lord Raikage!" Shi, the sensory ninja seated in the guards' section behind A, suddenly screamed and clutched his eyes. Blood seeped between his fingers.
"Outside... something's coming from outside! Chakra... no, that's not chakra! It's... it's an abyss... aaah!"
He passed out before he could finish.
Almost at that very instant-
Crack.
The dome shattered.
It was not smashed by a blow or blasted apart.
Like fragile glass, it silently disintegrated from a single point at its center, cracking and peeling away.
The hard basalt ceiling crumbled into countless tiny fragments, raining down like a biscuit crushed by an invisible giant hand.
The blizzard poured through the gaping hole, the freezing wind howling.
But everyone's eyes remained fixed on the space beyond the dome-
Ten pure-white figures hovered silently amid the blizzard and the night sky.
They wore matching white robes and bone masks, each mask different from the others.
Some were tall and burly, some slender and graceful, and some hunched like beasts.
But every one of them radiated terrifying reiatsu that made their souls tremble.
And at the center of those ten figures, higher still-
Liuyu sat upright on a throne formed from pure reishi.
The throne hovered in midair, its back towering high,