Star Shadow

"Sure enough, there's a mysterious power." Feeling the stirrings of chakra within his body, Long Ye muttered to himself.

As far as he knew, this meteorite emitted a kind of radiation. This radiation could affect chakra and promote its activation.

Of course, one had to cultivate in a specific manner to achieve twice the results with half the effort.

Otherwise, like Long Ye now, merely standing beside the meteorite could produce some effect, but it was disordered and irregular, so its effectiveness was naturally greatly reduced.

"What a good thing! What a pity it's too big. Even if I wanted to steal it, I'm powerless to do so."

He withdrew his gaze from the meteorite, lowered his voice, and spoke to Mei Terumi beside him without changing expression:

"We used this method to sneak in, and Raiga Kurosuki might have used the same method. Finding him without attracting attention won't be easy."

"Don't worry. If that missing-nin really came here to obtain the Mysterious Peacock Method, he definitely wouldn't try to acquire it peacefully."

"You mean he'll eventually make a move and seize it?" Long Ye asked.

"That's inevitable! The Mysterious Peacock Method is the secret art never passed down outside Hoshigakure. How could they give it away so easily? If he wants it, he can only take it by force..."

"The reason he hasn't acted yet is probably that he hasn't figured out which people possess this secret art."

Long Ye's brows furrowed slightly as he listened.

Because that didn't quite make sense.

If Raiga Kurosuki seized the secret art by force, he would expose himself, and would inevitably face a relentless pursuit. What use would the secret art be then?

Without the crucial meteorite, it would be impossible to cultivate chakra to its ultimate activation, either.

"Since we're already here, we can only wait and see."

Long Ye did not voice his doubts, because nothing had been answered yet.

Over the next few days.

Because the two of them were posing as members of the guard unit, they could only go through the motions and patrol during the assigned hours.

What relieved them was that the guard unit had more than a hundred members and was loosely organized. They did not interact much with one another, allowing the two to deceive everyone and live there for three days without being discovered.

On the fourth night.

Inside a rented room.

"It's already the fourth day. Raiga Kurosuki hasn't shown himself at all, and there hasn't even been the slightest sign of activity. Did we get it wrong? Did he never come to Hoshigakure?"

At this point, Long Ye had begun to doubt his original judgment as well.

Mei Terumi pondered for a moment, as if she had made up her mind:

"We nearly got exposed today. And unless something unexpected happened, someone has already started keeping an eye on us. That's a very bad sign..."

"Besides, the Shinobi World War is currently underway. Sneaking in like this could easily make us mistaken for people here to support the war effort. The consequences speak for themselves."

"You mean..."

"We can only leave for now. The mission is important, but the key point is that we haven't even seen the target's shadow. Throwing our lives away here for nothing would be a terrible loss."

Long Ye nodded in agreement.

He opened his mouth and was just about to say something.

Suddenly!

A thunderous boom rang out.

The room where the two were staying shook violently, and dust poured from the roof like a waterfall.

The two sprang to their feet.

"What happened?"

"Let's go out and take a look."

The moment they leaped out through the window, they heard an enraged shout:

"A thug is attacking the meteorite! Someone come quickly and stop him!"

Long Ye and Mei Terumi exchanged a glance, then leaped onto the roof together and hurried frantically toward the meteorite.

At the meteorite site.

"Lightning Release: Heaven-Splitting Lightning Serpent!!"

A man let out a loud roar, and his body transformed into a massive bolt of lightning as thick as a barrel.

Then countless lightning serpents flew from his body, striking toward the meteorite one after another.

"What's going on? Is this man crazy? He's actually attacking the meteorite."

"Wait! This Lightning Release isn't a ninjutsu of Hoshigakure. He's an outsider! He wants to destroy our meteorite and cut off the foundation of our village."

"Stop him!!"

Long Ye and Mei Terumi crouched on the upturned eaves of a house, witnessing the scene before them.

"It's definitely him! The missing-nin, Raiga Kurosuki."

Mei Terumi spoke with absolute certainty.

The moment the man in the distance used "Lightning Release: Heaven-Splitting Lightning Serpent," she had already confirmed his identity, because this technique was Raiga Kurosuki's strongest ninjutsu.

"Why is he attacking the meteorite? Could he be planning to smash it apart and take some fragments back to cultivate chakra activation?"

Long Ye asked, somewhat puzzled.

"That's not impossible. We shouldn't act yet. It would be best to wait until this missing-nin is beaten to death by the crowd, then take advantage of the opportunity to seize the Lightning Blade and settle everything at once."

Long Ye nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, his expression changed.

"Look! What's that?"

At the meteorite site.

"Break!"

The man attacking the meteorite unleashed his ultimate technique. Countless lightning serpents struck the meteorite, and amid a series of booming explosions, the rigid meteorite actually cracked before shattering with a tremendous blast.

After the meteorite exploded, a brilliant white, egg-sized core-shaped object floated in the air.

"Could that be... the Star Core?"

Long Ye was shocked as he stared from afar.

The meteorite itself had been a falling star, but no one could have imagined that it contained a Star Core. The meteorite's source of radiation was clearly this object.

"Hahaha... You managed to deceive everyone else, but you couldn't fool me. I was the first to uncover the meteorite's secret. I'm taking the Star Core."

Just as the man was about to seize it, an enraged roar suddenly rang out:

"Villain, you're courting death!"

As soon as the voice fell, there was a thunderous boom!

The roof of a distant house exploded, and something leaped out from within.

It was a white ape.

Once the white ape soared into the air, its body grew larger. It quickly surpassed five meters in height, then crashed to the ground, blocking the man's path before throwing a punch.

Raiga Kurosuki merged with the Lightning Blade, transforming into a bolt of lightning. At that moment, the best defense was offense.

Boom!!!

The giant ape's punch was powerful enough to shatter mountains and split the earth.

The man was struck by the punch and sent flying as if he had no weight at all. He smashed through a house and was buried beneath the rubble.

Just as everyone thought he was dead, a bang rang out, and someone burst from the ruins.

By then, blood dripped from his entire body. His face in particular looked as if it had been flattened.

"Star Shadow!!"

His eyes were filled with shock.

According to the information he had obtained, the Star Shadow was merely a self-important title adopted by someone who imitated the Five Kage of the Five Great Nations. He was not supposed to have much strength.

Yet that punch had nearly killed him.

He could naturally tell that the giant ape had been formed entirely from chakra. A chakra thread extended from the giant ape's tail all the way to a distant house.

There was no need to think about it. The person in that room had to be the leader of Hoshigakure: the Star Shadow.