Chapter Forty-Six: Xia Mi's Ability

Lively notes began to leap, and with each melodious sound, invisible blades of sharpness started to condense in the air. What Xia Mi played was not any famous piece; it was merely a spontaneous improvisation.

At this moment, Neji’s Byakugan came into play. As a bloodline ability inherited from Princess Kaguya, those eyes could perceive details utterly beyond ordinary human senses. As Neji took in the ripples in the air, the sonic attacks—like blades of wind—were also laid bare before his sight.

“From the Hidden Sound Village, are you?” Neji murmured to himself. His body spun like a top, and anything that touched him would be flung away by the force of his rapid rotation.

“So this is the Rotation? The energy efficiency seems rather low…” Feng Xue watched the battle on both sides with idle interest, taking the opportunity to critique Neji’s technique.

After all, this was only a technique Neji had created for himself. Though it was already very close to the original, it still differed noticeably from Hiashi Hyuga’s Rotation. When Hiashi performed the technique, it took on a form akin to a tornado, while Neji’s version created a perfect sphere. This wasn’t because Neji possessed more chakra, but rather because the main family’s Rotation had, through countless generations, been refined to the point where the chakra released from each acupoint was precisely controlled, minimizing unnecessary waste.

Neji, lacking such secret knowledge, had developed his Rotation purely by imagination. He could not control the output with such precision, nor could he determine from which acupoints chakra could be conserved. Thus, he was forced to release equal chakra from each point, resulting in his rotation naturally forming a ball of chakra.

Though visually more impressive than the main family’s technique, this approach brought with it a great deal of needless expenditure, making Neji’s Rotation unsustainable over longer periods.

Xia Mi was clearly aware of Neji’s lack of endurance, yet he had no intention of prolonging the match to exhaust him.

He’d played the weakling for far too long—if he didn’t show his hand soon, he really would become one!

The violin in Xia Mi’s hands began to shift in tone. The once lively notes grew chaotic, but this apparent disarray took on a peculiar harmony, creating the illusion that this cacophony was, in fact, beautiful.

But the true killing blow was not in the music itself—

Xia Mi’s concept belonged to the domain of vibrational phenomena. Superficially, it resembled the Tremor-Tremor Fruit wielded by Whitebeard, but in terms of power, there was a clear gulf between them. Even at his extraordinary level, Xia Mi could not, even at full strength, shatter so much as a brick wall.

The reason was that his concept allowed him to control existing vibrations, not to create them out of thin air.

In other words, he could manipulate vibrations that already existed, but he could not conjure them from nothing.

Therefore, unless he attained a level of mastery where he could directly interfere with molecular vibrations to produce resonance, he could never reach the heights of Whitebeard.

Yet Xia Mi had his own stroke of fortune—at the Central Academy for Travelers, he had obtained a musical heart.

Thus, he had turned his powers toward another manifestation of vibration—sound.

All sound, at its core, is vibration. To command vibration was to command sound itself. In Xia Mi’s hands, any sound could become an all-penetrating blade.

The bizarre and seemingly chaotic notes shifted and changed, their varying frequencies driving the vibration of the air, which, under Xia Mi’s influence, battered Neji’s Rotation. The rapidly shifting frequencies of these vibrations were something even the chakra sphere created by Rotation could not withstand. In the blink of an eye, Neji realized he was becoming dizzy!

It must be noted, to create his own Rotation, he had trained specifically to resist dizziness. Even a professional ballet dancer might not match his tolerance. Yet now, after spinning for less than two minutes, he was already disoriented?

For the first time, Neji began to doubt his own talent. But he quickly refocused on Xia Mi.

“Genjutsu? Or perhaps ninjutsu? No matter which, if you need both hands to wield your power, you’re definitely not a taijutsu user. In that case…” With this thought, Neji shot toward Xia Mi like a streak of white.

“Hand-to-hand?” Feng Xue, watching from the sidelines, showed not the slightest worry. Though Xia Mi started his body-forging discipline late, vibration itself offered unique advantages for physical refinement. Since forming his Dharma body, Xia Mi had been tempered constantly by the Tiger-Leopard Thunderclap. His physical strength was now in no way inferior to that of a martial arts master with over a decade of experience. (No matter how advanced their techniques, without external power, martial artists are still only at the ordinary level. Even at the Pill Embracing stage, they might at best reach the extraordinary. However, with the introduction of other powers, the exquisite mechanics of martial arts can immediately elevate the effectiveness of taijutsu by an entire tier.)

Xia Mi snapped his right-hand bow with a flourish. The bow seemed like a peerless blade that could slice gold and jade; even the air trembled and seemed on the verge of being split wherever it passed!

Xia Mi’s bow was not sharpened (whether it’s an erhu or a violin, old strings can be sharpened, and the damage can be severe—I once had a friend who was seriously injured by a secretly sharpened bow, and the culprit was never found), nor was it reinforced with any high-tech materials. Its devastating power came from Xia Mi’s eight years of training in a universal skill—Ripple Breathing!

That’s right, not the Dragon’s Dormancy, but the school’s standardized training: Ripple Breathing!

It was a special power that set the blood vibrating through breath, and with the blood, the entire body followed suit.

Its core was the ripple, and the essence of a ripple is vibration!

At this moment, Xia Mi’s attack could be called—the Platinum Ripple Overdrive!

The Byakugan’s reputation was well-deserved; Neji sensed the danger in an instant. Chakra surged from his fingertip acupoints, forming energy blades akin to chakra scalpels (which he had used against Kidomaru).

Just as the bow and fingertips, power and skill, were about to collide, a surge of sinister energy exploded forth, abruptly halting the fierce clash between the two combatants.

“So you’re finally awake?” Feng Xue muttered, turning toward the source of the dark eruption.

What he saw startled him greatly!

He had expected Sasuke’s power to surge rapidly upon entering the First State, but the scale of this ascent was beyond rapid—it could no longer be described as merely sudden. Originally, he’d estimated that Sasuke, even with the curse mark, might at most brush against the threshold of the Heroic rank. But now, Sasuke had clearly leapt straight past Extraordinary and entered the realm of the Hero!

“Hellfire!” Feng Xue unleashed his full aura. A predatory presence exploded from him, but unlike before, he did not direct it at his adversary; instead, he held it back, poised and unreadable—

“I have to admit, you’re stronger now,” Feng Xue said, tossing a scroll of the Earth into the dust. “I’ll leave the scroll for you. If you want to catch up, you can try. But when that time comes… be prepared to die.”

As his words faded, the force he’d been gathering surged out, carrying with it a mass of soul particles. The pressure was so intense that even Sasuke, in his curse-marked state, faltered.

And in that instant, Feng Xue and his companions vanished from where they stood.

“Making a flashy exit is such a thrill!” —by Feng Xue.