The instant Ling pressed his right hand, wreathed in chaotic light, against the incomplete runes on the stone pillar, time seemed to freeze for a moment.
Then, centered on his palm, a blinding black light spread across the entire pillar like a spiderweb! The dimly glowing runes that had been circulating steadily on the pillar hissed shrilly like ice dropped into boiling oil, their light flickering violently, flashing on and off!
The chakra chains binding Xi hummed under the unbearable strain and began shaking violently! The light screen of the Six Binding Pillars barrier grew visibly thinner and distorted!
"It worked... it really..." Xi's dark red eyes widened in disbelief. She could clearly feel the connection that had been constantly draining her power and life essence being forcibly weakened and severed!
But that fleeting joy was instantly replaced by an even greater terror!
Deep underground, the Ryūmyaku, already destabilized by the erosion of the contract, lost the steady extraction and channeling provided by the Six Binding Pillars. Like a long-blocked volcano finding an outlet, it let out a deafening roar that seemed to come from the primordial past!
Rumble-!!!
The entire underground cavern shook violently, harder than ever before! Thick cracks spread across the rock walls like black lightning, and rubble rained down! A suffocatingly vast torrent of raging energy erupted from deep underground. It was no longer the guided stream it had been before, but an out-of-control, towering flood!
"This is bad! The Ryūmyaku... it's gone completely berserk!" Xi screamed as the violent shaking and the tugging chains flung her from side to side.
The sudden torrent of energy also struck Ling, sending his blood surging and nearly knocking him off his feet. He kept his hand pressed firmly against the pillar, maintaining the output of Purifying Erosion Power. He could feel the Fragment's power entering some dangerous resonance with the Ryūmyaku's raging energy. It was destroying the barrier, but to some extent, it was also... drawing in that uncontrolled energy!
This was anything but good! Once the Fragment drew all the Ryūmyaku's energy over, he would be the first to be crushed!
I have to leave now!
He abruptly increased his output, attempting one final push to destroy this crucial pillar completely!
Crack! The southeastern pillar gave a sharp snap. Its runes went completely dark, and cracks covered its surface! The two chakra chains connected to it snapped in response!
The chains around Xi's wrists instantly fell loose! She stumbled and fell onto the stone platform, so weak she could barely stand, but the fire of survival flared in her eyes!
"Quick! Come to me!" Ling reached out to her and shouted. Although the barrier had not been completely broken, its core was damaged. Its light screen had grown extremely thin and barely retained its shape; for the moment, it could no longer hold anyone inside.
Xi struggled to her feet and threw herself toward Ling with the last of her strength.
Just as she was about to pass through the thin light screen-
An indescribable, icy pressure, seemingly rising from the depths of the underworld, descended upon the entire underground space like a tangible mountain!
Under that pressure, the rock layers at the cavern's ceiling silently crumbled to dust, revealing... the gloomy sky over the Land of Rain! No, not just the sky, but also a figure with short orange hair floating in midair!
Deva Path Pain!
He hovered in the center of the vertical shaft he had forced open with his own power, his Rinnegan gazing indifferently down at the chaos below. Rain poured down the shaft, striking his body without wetting him in the slightest. His gaze first swept over the dim, crack-covered Six Binding Pillars before finally settling on Ling, who had just caught Xi's arm and was preparing to retreat.
His gaze remained indifferent, but the anger within it seemed to freeze even the surrounding air.
"Insects who profane the domain of a god..." Deva Path Pain slowly raised his hand, aiming at Ling and Xi below. "Know pain."
"Banshō Ten'in!"
An attractive force even more terrifying than the one in the temple erupted! This time, its targets were clear and its power concentrated! Ling and Xi instantly lost control of their bodies as an irresistible force dragged them upward toward that godlike, demonic figure in the air!
Ling's pupils contracted sharply. At this critical moment, his Sharingan activated on its own, spinning frantically as he tried to find a way to break free. But before the power of the Rinnegan, every technique and all his powers of observation seemed so feeble and helpless! Under the dual stimulation of the rampaging Ryūmyaku and Banshō Ten'in, the Fragment against his chest grew as hot as a branding iron, its violent resonance almost tearing his chest apart!
Xi closed her eyes in despair. She knew better than Ling just how terrifying the power possessed by the owner of those eyes was.
It's over...
At the critical instant when the two were about to be pulled before Deva Path Pain and caught by his power that could crush anything-
Another sudden change occurred!
Deprived of the Six Binding Pillars' steady guidance and drawn by the powerful resonance of the Fragment against Ling's chest, the Ryūmyaku torrent erupted into an unimaginably vast pillar of dark purple energy, mingling the power of the ancient contract with pure natural energy. Like a raging dragon breaking free of its cage, it shot skyward from a huge fissure in the ground! It rose directly between Ling and Xi and Deva Path Pain!
Boom-!!!
The dark purple Ryūmyaku energy slammed into Banshō Ten'in's invisible force field! There was no earth-shattering explosion, only the violent warping and annihilation of space! Like an out-of-control meat grinder, the raging energy turbulence instantly pulverized more of the rock walls along the shaft!
Deva Path Pain's Banshō Ten'in was actually disrupted and deflected by this sudden, uncontrolled Ryūmyaku torrent!
Ling and Xi felt their bodies lighten as the terrifying pull instantly weakened! Like kites with severed strings, the two were flung violently away by the shock wave from the colliding energies, hurled toward a narrow fissure freshly torn into the shaft wall that led who knew where!
"Go!" Fighting the excruciating pain that made his whole body feel as though it were falling apart, Ling gripped the utterly weakened Xi tightly with his left hand and drove the kunai in his right hand into the edge of the fissure to steady himself. Then, without hesitation, he dragged Xi into that unknown, narrow passage filled with turbulent energy!
Deva Path Pain hovered in midair, watching indifferently as the two disappeared into the energy turbulence and the fissure in the rock wall. He did not pursue them immediately. He lowered his head to look at the ceaselessly surging dark purple Ryūmyaku torrent beneath him, and a barely perceptible flicker passed through his Rinnegan.
The Ryūmyaku's complete rampage had disrupted his plans. His immediate priority was to stabilize it again, or the Rain Tiger at Will Technique would become difficult to sustain.
He slowly descended and stood at the edge of the raging energy torrent. His hands began forming hand seals, and powerful chakra bearing a sealing quality began spreading outward.
As for those two insects who had escaped by sheer luck...
His Rinnegan turned toward the fissure where Ling and Xi had vanished, as cold as ever.
"Run... under a god's gaze, you have nowhere to hide."
Before you continue