Outside the Ancestral Shrine, the slaughter feast personally orchestrated by Kurenai Yuhi had already come to an end.
The chakra fluctuations belonging to Root shinobi, mingled with death and forbidden techniques, vanished completely like the last candle flame snuffed out by a gale.
Inside the Ancestral Shrine, atop the altar.
The wrinkled old face of Hyuga Hiashi finally turned away from his vigilance toward the outside and back toward the heart of the ritual.
The vermin outside had already been cleaned up. Now, it was time to complete this grand undertaking concerning the Hyuga Clan... no, concerning the glory of Hyuga Hiashi for the next thousand years!
His gaze became feverish and greedy once more. Both hands pressed firmly against the altar's runic nodes as the Main House chakra within him surged forth without restraint!
"Hinata! The only value a piece of trash like you has is serving as the step that carries me to godhood!"
"Offer up your ocular power! Offer up everything you have!"
He let out a crazed growl, yet the scene he had expected—Hinata's pure Byakugan ocular power being forcibly stripped away and poured into the formation—never appeared.
Instead.
An icy, tyrannical force of attraction filled with ravenous hunger suddenly surged back from the altar runes beneath his palms!
"What?!"
Hyuga Hiashi's pupils contracted sharply. Before he could react, that force of attraction became like a primordial beast awakening from slumber, brutally tearing apart the chakra circulation within his body through his meridians!
"Urgh—!"
A shrill scream burst uncontrollably from the Hyuga Clan head's throat!
He felt as though his body had instantly become a leather sack riddled with countless holes!
The chakra within him—the pure energy he had cultivated for decades, taken pride in, and regarded as the symbol of the Main House's supreme bloodline—was