Cold.
It was the first sensation that reached Hyuga Xiao's fingertips after he withdrew his ocular power. He rubbed his slightly throbbing temples, the piercing pain from forcibly tearing through space and subduing that Repulsion still lingering in his mind. The scorched smell in the air had yet to fade, and crushed gravel crackled beneath his feet.
"Come here." Xiao turned sideways and glanced at the girl standing at the edge of the altar. His voice stirred a faint echo through the vast, ruined Ancestral Shrine.
Hinata obediently stepped forward.
At that moment, earth-shaking changes were taking place within her body. The pure chakra and Main House bloodline Hyuga Hiashi had accumulated over most of his life surged through her meridians like scorching magma.
"Lord Xiao..." Hinata called softly. She closed her eyes in pain and pressed both hands to her temples. "My eyes... they're so hot."
"Open them. Look at me." Xiao raised his right hand, his cold fingertips lifting her delicate chin and forcing her to meet his gaze.
When Hinata opened her eyes again, the Silver Radiance within her once-pure white pupils had solidified into something tangible.
In that instant, the entire world changed within Hinata's sight.
The dim Ancestral Shrine, once filled with rubble, was ruthlessly stripped of its outer shell before her eyes. The walls, stone bricks, and wooden beams all turned into nearly transparent lines. Beneath those lines ran countless dark-blue veins, like the blood vessels of a human body.
That was the flow of chakra through the earth, the operational paths of the Hyuga Clan's barrier.
When she looked at Xiao, she could even see the unfathomable chakra core within him, vast as an ocean and blue as a starry sky. Its sheer immensity made the power within her instinctively want to submit.