The aftershocks of the two colliding powers had yet to fade, but the mirrorlike crust on the moon's surface had already cracked into a spiderweb. Vast swaths of debris floated in the gravity-free vacuum, refracting the pale, cold light radiating from Kaguya.
Shengu Xuan withdrew his fist and shook the white energy residue off his wrist, as though he had just touched something dirty.
"That's it?"
Kaguya stood at the temple entrance, her white hair drifting slowly without any wind. No emotion showed on her exquisite face, but a fine crack had appeared in the palm of her raised right hand.
The crack was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye, but Shengu Xuan had seen it.
"Interesting." He slipped both hands into his pockets and tilted his head as he studied Kaguya. "That shell of yours is pretty tough, but what's inside..."
His gaze pierced Kaguya's body and settled on the unimaginably vast Chakra core deeper within. The Ten-Tails' primordial power churned and seethed there, sustaining this divine body that had slumbered for a thousand years.
"All Chakra, no soul," Shengu Xuan concluded, his tone like someone judging a dish that looked good but tasted bland. "You can't even use thirty percent of your power right now, can you, Kaguya?"
A flicker of change finally appeared in Kaguya's pale purple eyes-not anger, but scrutiny.
"You can see through my condition." Her voice remained cold. "The first in a thousand years."
"Of course." Shengu Xuan yawned. "I can even see exactly how the Ten-Tails' Chakra flows through your body. How many years that son of yours, Black Zetsu, spent setting everything up, how much Tailed Beast residue he stuffed into you-it's all laid out before my eyes like a peeled onion."
Kaguya said nothing. She merely raised her