The night in the Forest of Death was deeper than anywhere in Leaf Village.
Hyuga Xiao darted through the shadows of the trees, each step landing precisely in the gaps between rotten branches, deliberately suppressing even the faintest sound. Moonlight filtered through layer upon layer of leaves, casting mottled fragments of shadow across the ground like runes from some ancient ritual.
The Caged Bird Seal on his forehead still throbbed faintly.
The pain had changed from its initial burning sensation into a deeper, dull ache, as though his marrow were being drawn out. The Curse Mark Fragment torn from Kimimaro's body gave off a slight heat in his chest, like a compass pointing toward some destination.
"Beneath the Forest of Death... an altar..."
Xiao's Byakugan glimmered with a pale blue light in the darkness, his vision piercing through the ground as he scanned the tangled roots and layers of stone below. The underground structure of the forest was far more complex than its surface—ancient roots intertwined like a network of blood vessels, and at certain junctions, he could sense abnormalities in the flow of chakra.
It was an extremely subtle fluctuation, similar to natural energy, yet carrying traces of deliberate artifice.
Like... a barrier.
Xiao stopped before a massive cedar that would take three people to encircle. The tree was at least three hundred years old, its trunk covered in moss and vines, no different from the surrounding forest. Yet his Byakugan clearly saw it—inside the trunk was a vertical hollow leading downward, with sealing formulas carved along its edges that were invisible to the naked eye.
"Hidden well."
Xiao pressed his hand against the trunk, chakra seeping in through his palm. The sealing formula flickered faintly, then dimmed again—it required a specific chakra frequency to open, like a lock.