Hyuga Sousuke's cold laugh still echoed through the damp air.
His gouged-out eye sockets were like two pitch-black abysses, fixed directly on Hyuga Xiao's direction. Even on the verge of death, this Main House member's arrogance remained etched into every tense muscle.
Xiao ignored the mockery.
His left hand had already reached into Sousuke's robes—his touch met something cold, and his fingertips found a sharply edged hard object. It was small, about the size of a thumbnail, but its surface was covered in fine patterns, like traces of ancient writing worn away by time.
The instant his fingertips touched the fragment, the agonizing pain in his left shoulder abruptly subsided.
No, it had not subsided.
The two forces within his body had reached some bizarre balance—the burning sensation of the Caged Bird Seal receded like the tide, replaced by a chill emanating from the Covenant Stone Fragment, as though ice water had seeped into his marrow. That chill spread along his blood vessels, and wherever it passed, the flow of chakra became thirty percent faster.
"As expected..."
Xiao murmured, closing his hand around the fragment.
Almost at the same time, a muffled boom of exploding Lightning Release came from outside the warehouse—not an attack, but the aftershock of chakra bursting forth during high-speed movement. The sound rapidly drew closer, fast enough to make his scalp tingle.
"She's here."
Kurenai Yuhi's voice was kept low, her hands already forming the opening seal for a genjutsu. Her breathing was somewhat hurried, and fine beads of sweat covered her temples—using large-scale genjutsu repeatedly to trap the Hidden Cloud guards had cost her far more than it appeared.
Xiao did not look back.
His gaze was locked on the warehouse's only entrance. It had once been a heavy iron door, but the explosion he