The blood inside the trench began to move.
At first, it rippled in small circles around the center of the ritual platform.
Then the ripples became waves.
The fresh blood poured from the altar in thin streams, running through the carved channels in the floor and joining the dark red pool. The bodies surrounding the trench shifted as the black stone beneath them trembled.
Genzo's face hardened.
"Everyone back," he ordered.
The shinobi obeyed, though none of them turned their eyes away from the circle.
Nathan stood at the front, Kyomei in his hand.
His entire body had gone tense.
The pressure in the chamber was unlike anything he had felt before.
Mitsuhide's transformation had been horrifying. The power inside Death God Valley had been corrupt, violent, and unnatural. But it had still been limited. Mitsuhide had only borrowed a fragment of something greater.
This was different.
The air itself was beginning to change.
It became thicker.
Heavier.
