The temperature inside the shelter was so low that exhaled breath froze into icy grains instantly.
On the stone platform, Kurenai Yuhi's eyes were tightly shut, her brows twisted in pain. Though the silver star pattern on her neck had been forcibly suppressed, the blood vessels beneath her skin still showed an unnatural grayish-white color, as if some icy liquid were flowing through them.
Xiao sat cross-legged beside her, a talisman paper covered in intricate runes held between his fingertips. It was no ordinary explosive tag, but an Uzumaki Soul-Sealing Talisman scavenged from Orochimaru's Laboratory.
"Smack."
He slapped the talisman onto Hong's chest. Azure chakra surged from his palm, tightly protecting the last trace of her original heart meridian.
"Listen, Hong." Xiao lowered his head beside her ear, his voice low and resolute. "I don't care whether you can hear me right now. Protect the last shred of your consciousness and leave the rest to me. I'm going in to chop down that bastard squatting in your nest."
Hong's lashes trembled faintly. A pained, muffled groan escaped her pale lips, as though she were answering him.
Xiao straightened, his ten fingers flashing through seals and leaving behind a blur of afterimages. He formed them so quickly that sharp cracks of grinding joints rang through the air.
"Uzumaki Forbidden Art: Heart-Layer Dive."
With a low shout, he pressed his joined index and middle fingers precisely against Hong's brow.
Bzzzz—
The instant his fingertips touched her, an extreme chill raced up his finger bones and drove straight into Xiao's mind. It was not physical cold, but the absolute rejection of lower-dimensional life by higher-dimensional laws. It felt as though he had thrust his hand into molten iron, and violent pain stabbed from the depths of his soul.
"You think a pathetic threshold