"Then this will be even more fun."
Less than forty-eight hours after those words were spoken, Shengu Xuan's Shadowkhan had turned the moon's interior upside down. Three thousand Ōtsutsuki puppet bodies stood in neat rows on a flat stretch of the moon's northern hemisphere, usable equipment from the armory had been moved near the altar, and the chakra vein's precise coordinates had been marked.
Shengu Xuan himself lay on a large rock on the lunar surface that the shadow soldiers had deliberately ground flat, his head resting on his arms, a blade of grass from who knew where between his lips, his eyes closed as he dozed.
Toneri could no longer be bothered to comment on how he could chew grass without any air.
Shengu Xuan had casually tossed him a food pill, and he had spent the past two days by the altar as an unpaid commentator, occasionally answering questions about Ōtsutsuki Clan technology. Most of the time, he simply sat there, his pale blue eyes staring blankly toward Earth.
"Hey." Shengu Xuan's voice came from atop the rock, his eyes still closed.
"What is it now?"
"What's the teleportation radius of that altar of yours?"
Toneri thought for a moment. "The interstellar teleportation array can cover the three nearest star systems, but the receiving end must have a corresponding coordinate anchor."
"So anyone coming can only emerge from that altar?"
"In theory."
"That makes things easy."
Shengu Xuan rolled over and went back to sleep.
Watching him lie there so listlessly, Toneri felt an intense sense of absurdity. Two Ōtsutsuki harvesters who might be stronger than Kaguya were on their way, and this man's response was to keep sleeping.
"You're really not going to make any preparations?"
"What is there to prepare?"
The corner of Toneri's mouth twitched.