Northwest of the Land of Fire, Frostwind Canyon.
The blizzard was like countless fine ice blades, swept up by the gale as it frenziedly sliced through everything in sight. The temperature here had dropped so low that even chakra flow became sluggish.
Hyuga Xiao's black trench coat snapped loudly in the wind and snow. He made no effort to use Yang Release chakra to keep warm, allowing the bone-piercing cold to scrape across his cheeks.
This was to let his body adapt in advance to the abyssal environment ahead.
The Tenseigan's deep blue starlight flickered faintly through the snowstorm. In his sight, the blizzard had not formed naturally, but was a "repulsion field" created by the mixture of exceptionally violent Senjutsu energy and some foreign substance.
"Even the natural energy around the perimeter has been contaminated into this state." Xiao trudged through knee-deep snow, producing muffled crunching sounds. A trace of mockery colored his voice. "Looks like the God Tree Roots that old snake swallowed back then not only went undigested, but tormented him quite badly."
As he continued forward, a scent that did not belong here mingled with the snowstorm.
A heavy stench of blood, along with the nauseating reek of snake saliva.
Xiao stopped. The Tenseigan's range instantly extended, piercing through the dense wall of snow three kilometers ahead.
Before a massive ice cliff at the deepest point of the canyon, several figures were braving the blizzard as they worked.
The man at their head had skin as pale as paper, and undisguised fervor and greed gleamed in his narrow golden slit pupils.
Orochimaru.
More than a dozen shriveled corpses lay scattered at his feet. They wore Sound Ninja attire, and each bore a bitten Curse Mark on the neck. At that moment, the blood and chakra within