With their plan settled, the White Fang Squad lay silently behind a massive reef on the outskirts of Gray Bream Harbor, like four ghosts swallowed entirely by the night. Cold seawater washed over the rock again and again, leaving it thick with slippery seaweed.
The tireless waves battered the jagged reef, their monotonous, deafening roar now providing the infiltrators with the perfect natural sound barrier.
Scattered torches inside the harbor cast blurred, wavering halos through the impenetrable fog, like ghost lights drifting along the banks of the River Styx, eerie and sinister.
Hizashi had already activated his Byakugan. Veins bulged around his eyes as his vision pierced the heavy fog and the harbor's rough wooden perimeter wall, clearly relaying the detailed layout of its buildings, the current positions of its personnel, and subtle differences in chakra flow.
"Barrier energy field confirmed. It covers the entire harbor perimeter evenly-wait. In the southeastern corner, near that rusted metal drain, the barrier's stability shows slight, periodic fluctuations and drops. Its energy is roughly twenty-five percent weaker than elsewhere. Likely a maintenance blind spot or an inherent flaw worsened by prolonged exposure to moisture."
"Lock onto that position." Shinji's order was terse and cold.
Once the three reached the weak point, Shinji quietly activated his Two-Tomoe Sharingan. Black tomoe slowly rotated against scarlet irises, and the world before him was instantly laid bare.
He focused on the location Hizashi indicated. In his eyes, the invisible barrier became an energy network intricately woven from countless faintly glowing Chakra Threads.
Near the drain in the southeastern corner, several crucial threads were indeed dimmer and sparser than elsewhere, their energy flow showing an almost imperceptible sluggishness.
"Confirmed. The nodes are relatively weak, but a conventional breach would still cause an energy backlash and trigger the alarm," Shinji