The night was as black as ink, and the outline of the Land of Iron's main city gleamed with a cold, metallic sheen beneath the moonlight.
Hyuga Xiao stood in the shadow beneath a roof three streets away from the Shogun's Estate, his pale eyes flowing with a faint blue glow in the darkness. The Tenseigan's vision pierced through layer after layer of buildings, taking in the internal layout of that heavily guarded estate.
Seven layers of composite barriers formed a colored glass dome. Each layer flickered with different chakra patterns—the outermost was a standard sensory barrier, the second was physical defense, and from the third onward, unfamiliar energy fluctuations began to appear. It was a power... similar to chakra, yet fundamentally different.
"Starry Sky Power?"
Xiao murmured to himself, recalling what he had seen during his investigation that day. Deep underground within the Shogun's Estate, the object known as the "Starfall Decree" emitted fluctuations from the same source as the Ōtsutsuki Clan Pact Stone.
He had left Hong and Samui at a concealed base in the western part of the city. For an infiltration like this, fewer people were better.
He took a deep breath. The Covenant Stone Fragments inside him trembled faintly as he began carefully adjusting the Tenseigan's ocular power. The barrier patterns in his vision gradually broke apart, revealing gaps in the flow of energy—like whirlpools in water, seemingly airtight yet actually possessing brief periods of energy vacuum.
"Third, fifth, seventh layers... three seconds between each layer. The vacuum period lasts half a second."
Xiao calculated the timing, and his body turned into an almost invisible afterimage.
At the first barrier, he slid in close to the ground. The instant the energy ripple swept past, he rolled sideways. The edge of his clothing brushed the barrier's