Snow and wind froze at Xiao's fingertips.
The black gravity sphere, no bigger than a fingernail, could devour even light and radiated a suffocating pressure. Orochimaru lay sprawled in the snow, his severed left arm hanging limply at his side as blood mixed with fragments of organs continuously spilled from his mouth.
"W-Wait..." Orochimaru rasped, his golden slit pupils filled with terror of death. Yet buried deep within that terror burned a morbid obsession with those azure eyes.
"Hyuga Xiao... Killing me won't do you any good." Orochimaru spat out a mouthful of bloody foam and forced an ugly smile. "Ryūchi Cave... stopped being the sacred land it once was long ago. That old snake swallowed something it shouldn't have, and now... it's a living labyrinth inside. Without me, you won't even make it through the first layer."
Xiao looked down at him as if he were a maggot writhing in mud.
"Are you telling me what to do?"
Xiao's finger pressed down slightly.
Boom!
The gravity around Orochimaru instantly increased tenfold. The snowfield abruptly collapsed into a half-meter-deep crater. Orochimaru's spine let out the sound of bones shifting under unbearable pressure, and his entire body was pinned in melted snow and purplish-black snake blood, unable to move. In the distance, Kabuto adjusted his shattered glasses. His legs had gone weak, and he could not even summon the courage to form hand seals.
"AAH—!" Orochimaru screamed as the bone in his right leg was crushed directly by gravity. Pale splintered bone pierced through his skin and was exposed to the freezing air.
"Orochimaru, know your place." Xiao dispersed the gravity sphere at his fingertips, slipped both hands into the pockets of his black trench coat, and slowly walked up to Orochimaru. His combat boots made sticky sounds as they stepped