Buzz—crackle...
The inhuman screech rising from deep underground was like an invisible tuning fork, precisely plucking at Hyuga Xiao's soul.
Standing motionless in the shadows of the attic, he let the night wind stir the hem of his clothes. Below, the bloody slaughter before the Ancestral Shrine had already ended. The thick stench of blood mingled with the charred odor wafting from the corpses, enough to make anyone vomit. But to Hyuga Xiao, it was merely background noise, cheap accompaniment for the real main course.
His entire attention had long since sunk underground.
The Tenseigan's vision pierced through layers upon layers of soil and stone, taking in the enormous Living Coordinate Formation. At this moment, the formation was completely different from before.
It had come alive.
After devouring the lives and blood of more than a dozen Hyuga Main House elders and six Root elites, the dim blue patterns that had merely been inscribed underground now pulsed madly like countless hungry blood vessels. Vast amounts of chakra and life energy surged and roared within them, eventually converging at the very center—the circular core more than ten meters in diameter.
That cold, hollow screech came from the core itself. It crossed the barrier of space and established a faint yet resilient connection with something in the distant starry sky.
"The time has come."
Hyuga Xiao's heart was utterly cold.
He knew very well that those "family members" on the moon had already used this Beacon activated by blood to calibrate their descent route. That fool Hyuga Hiashi had used the lives of the Main House and Leaf Village ANBU to lay out a red carpet straight to the heart of Leaf Village for their enemies.
And now, it was time for him, a "Branch House" member, to take over this grand