Beneath the dark crimson sky, the altar reeked of pungent blood.
Hyuga Xiao stepped across stone slabs engraved with spiraling star patterns, making his way toward the center of the altar. His gaze remained fixed on Kurenai Yuhi's spiritual body. The once radiant woman was now as frail as a candle flame that could go out at any moment, her dark crimson core consciousness warped by the constricting silver chain.
A silver-blue glow like rippling water flowed across the chain's surface. Every flicker made Hong's consciousness convulse violently, forcing a severely suppressed groan of pain from her.
Xiao's eyes were cold enough to scrape off ice. Without the slightest hesitation, he wrapped his right hand in boiling azure chakra and grabbed the silver chain.
The instant his fingertips touched the chain—
Boom!
An extreme chill shot through his finger bones and straight into his mind, as if he had grabbed liquid nitrogen barehanded. Then, the surrounding air became incomparably viscous.
Xiao's movements slowed. Not because he had slowed them himself, but because the flow of time around him had been forcibly stretched. He could clearly see the breath he exhaled hanging motionless in the air. Even the chakra cloak dancing over his body looked like a film playing in slow motion.
"Clatter—"
A crisp clash of chains rang out overhead, shattering the suffocating viscosity.
The silver-blue light above the altar abruptly gathered and twisted, ultimately forming a white-clad figure floating in midair.
Pale skin, pure white eyes, and two horns curving backward from either side of his forehead. He carried a fishing rod that radiated an eerie red glow over one shoulder, with a fish basket hanging at his waist as he looked down upon the altar.
The lingering shadow of Ōtsutsuki Urashiki's will.
"Where did this insect come from,