"Wash your necks and wait. The next time I see you rats in red-cloud cloaks, I'll pull your souls out bit by bit and burn them like sky lanterns." Shengu Xuan's utterly cold voice, like the whisper of the Shinigami, echoed over the ruins strewn with Glass Crystals.
Konan gritted her teeth, trembling all over from the agonizing burns the Dragon Talisman's demon fire had inflicted on the left side of her body. Yet she still shielded Deva Path Pain with her tattered paper wings, her beautiful eyes filled with extreme fear and humiliation. As the Angel of the Akatsuki, she had never felt so utterly powerless. Before Shengu Xuan, the sixty million Explosive Tags she took such pride in were nothing but an utterly ridiculous joke.
Inside a secluded tower in the distance, Nagato slumped in his mechanical apparatus, his purple Rinnegan fixed on Shengu Xuan's retreating figure as blood continued to seep from the corners of his eyes. Nagato's fingernails dug deep into his palms, and the despair within him gnawed at his reason like a venomous snake.
"Shengu Xuan... that heretic... who on earth is he...?" Nagato panted weakly. Nagato knew he had completely exhausted his chakra. He could not even make Deva Path Pain stand up and could only watch helplessly as Shengu Xuan left. The humiliation of being utterly at another's mercy brought this self-proclaimed god unprecedented pain.
Shengu Xuan paid no attention whatsoever to the two gazes behind him, filled with venomous hatred and fear. With his hands in his pockets, Shengu Xuan strolled over to Jiraiya, who lay in a pool of blood.
Jiraiya was already on the very brink of death. His left arm had been severed at the shoulder, and excessive blood loss had begun to blur his consciousness. Even the