The bone-piercing agony receded like a tide, leaving behind a void and terror deeper than death.
Orochimaru lay sprawled across the cold, cracked stone floor, his body convulsing violently beyond his control. He gasped for air, each breath like swallowing shards of glass mixed with sulfur and blood, scraping his throat and lungs raw with searing pain.
He never wanted to experience the sensation of having his soul ground to pieces beneath a stellar millstone again for the rest of his life.
He no longer felt like one of the Three Legendary Ninja who coveted everything. He felt like a pitiful worm stripped of its fangs, with its spine shattered, only able to wriggle humbly across the ground.
And the man who had cast him down into the dust stood right before him.
Hyuga Xiao slowly withdrew the foot he had planted on Orochimaru's head. His movements were as elegant as though he had just finished a tea party rather than a bloody suppression. His immaculate robes stood in the most ironic contrast to the collapsed lava cave, the flowing magma, and the blood covering Orochimaru's body.
"Looks like you've learned how to speak to me properly now."
Hyuga Xiao's voice was soft, yet it pierced deep into Orochimaru's trembling soul like countless steel needles tempered in ice.
Orochimaru lay on the ground, without even the courage to lift his head. He could feel that cold, appraising gaze dissecting what little value remained in him inch by inch, like a scalpel.
Fear.
Pure fear, without the slightest impurity, completely drowned the heart that had once been so incomparably proud.
He finally understood what kind of monster he was facing. This was not prey that could be manipulated or tested. This was a true mastermind who toyed with human hearts and