Deep within the Forest of Death, moonlight was sliced into shattered patches of light by the overlapping canopy.
Hyuga Xiao knelt on one knee beside Kurenai Yuhi. A ball of deep-blue chakra light hovered above his right palm—life energy refined from the Tenseigan, continuously flowing into the wound on Hong's chest. The edges of the wound had turned an eerie purplish-black. The poison writhed through her blood vessels like a living thing, and every flush of chakra provoked an even fiercer backlash.
"No." Xiao's voice was cold, fine beads of sweat seeping from his brow. "This poison is bound to her chakra pathways. Forcing it out will tear apart her meridians."
Samui crouched on the other side, her fingers pressed to Hong's pulse at the neck. Her face was grim. "Her heartbeat is slowing. She has twenty minutes at most."
Deep within Xiao's pupils, that blue starlight flickered faintly. Through the Tenseigan's vision, every detail inside Hong's body was laid bare—the poison had already infected the three main chakra pathways surrounding her heart and was slowly seeping toward her chakra core. Worse still, fragments of a sealing technique had been mixed into the poison, like countless tiny chains binding its toxicity tightly to her vital signs.
"Aburame Clan insect poison, mixed with Root's signature sealing technique." Xiao withdrew his hand, and the sphere of light vanished. "They never intended to let her live."
Before his words had faded, rustling came from deep within the forest.
It was not the wind.
It was the sound of countless insect legs scraping against leaves, so dense it made their scalps crawl.
Xiao slowly rose to his feet, sweeping the Tenseigan toward the source of the noise. His sight pierced through layer upon layer of tree trunks, revealing twelve figures closing in in an