Chaos.
Utter chaos.
For the first time, Hyuga Xiao's Tenseigan had captured such a disorderly sight.
There was no longer a single, unified "present" in the air.
The white vapor he exhaled split into hundreds of unrelated fragments the instant it left his lips. Some drifted away as slowly as snails, while others completed the entire cycle of evaporation and condensation in an instant, turning into ice crystals before returning to vapor the very next moment.
Beneath his feet, the dim blue glow of the Extreme Cold Formation flickered madly, each interval between flashes utterly irregular, like a shoddy light bulb on the verge of burning out.
Dripping water, cracking rock, the hum of chakra flowing... every sound had lost its continuity, sliced into countless tiny syllables and crammed chaotically, frantically into his ears, forming a piercing symphony of noise without the slightest logic.
This was the Temporal Maelstrom.
An absolute Forbidden Zone where even light and sound were twisted and torn apart.
And the source of it all lay at the center of the formation: the woman nailed down by dozens of chakra chains—Kurenai Yuhi.
Hyuga Xiao's gaze pierced through the bizarre spectacle and locked firmly onto her.
Then, for the first time, his pupils contracted violently.
He saw the most horrifying sight he would never forget for the rest of his life.
Kurenai Yuhi's body was crazily "flickering" in a manner that transcended the boundaries of life and death.
One millisecond earlier, her skin was still taut and full, her black hair cascading like a waterfall. She was the image of a mature woman in her prime.
One millisecond later, the collagen in her face rapidly vanished. Deep wrinkles crawled across her cheeks like dried riverbeds, her dark hair turned into withered white grass in an instant, and