When the alloy door on the tower's top floor peeled away on its own before Lin Ye, the raging torrents of contamination he had expected never came.
The top floor was a hollowed-out circular hall, its walls covered in translucent gelatinous pipes. Inside them flowed chakra from Kaguya's essence, already blackened and congealed. At the center of the hall floated a cloud of violet-gold light, tightly bound by thornlike energy cables-what remained of Kaguya's consciousness core. There was no lofty, divine indifference, no madness bent on destroying the world. She looked more like an exhausted woman who had spent so long trapped in amber that she had forgotten how to struggle.
At the sound of footsteps, the cloud of light trembled faintly.
"Another debt collector..." Her voice was so hoarse it was almost distorted, steeped in self-mocking exhaustion. "Has that useless Soval finally decided to send someone alive to clean up his mess?"
"Soval didn't send me." Lin Ye switched off his wrist guard's light and stepped into the gloom. "Before you lost control back then, you left a mark in Zerias's crystal yourself. That's what lured me here."
Kaguya's remnant core shuddered.
The thornlike energy cables binding her sensed the surge of emotion and immediately tightened. Violet-black toxins stabbed into the light, making her form briefly scatter with pain. Only then did Lin Ye see it clearly: Soval had never treated her as an ally or a prisoner of war-he had turned Kaguya's remaining consciousness into the corridor's "relay antenna," using her pain to power the Void contamination.
"...It's you." Kaguya stared at the Purification Prism on Lin Ye's chest, the faintest trace of uncertainty finally entering her voice. "The Uchiha brat who lit up the Ark with Naruto's and Sasuke's lives."
"Save the reminiscence." Lin Ye kept his