Saiyu raised his head, silently calculating in his mind.
There should be six Nen users attacking him.
The one above who was firing Nen bullets.
The one below with a blade, using En to attack within a fixed range.
The one controlling the waiter.
The one creating the buildings.
And the man and woman with similar abilities who had broken in earlier.
He wasn't worried about straightforward breakthrough-type fighters.
But these special-ability types were genuinely troublesome.
The Ruyi Staff thrust upward, and Saiyu, who had just descended, quickly began climbing back up.
Below the building, the Phantom Troupe members also began rapidly ascending.
Two people had not entered the building: Kortopi, who was responsible for creating the duplicate building and trapping Saiyu, and Shalnark, who was holding his phone.
The first team to charge into the building was Nobunaga and Franklin.
They were the first to find Saiyu. Franklin aimed his Double Machine Gun at him and unleashed a massive barrage of Nen bullets.
The Sight Monkey appeared behind Saiyu, spinning the Ruyi Staff Saiyu had thrown to it, knocking away every Nen bullet that could have hit him.
At that moment, Nobunaga sped up.
He did not pass the Sight Monkey. Instead, the instant he closed in, he assumed an iai-draw stance. His long blade left its sheath and slashed directly toward the Sight Monkey's neck.
But the instant before he moved, the Sight Monkey raised its hand and untied the red ribbon over its eyes.
The moment the ribbon drifted down, a pair of dazzling eyes entered Nobunaga's gaze.
His draw froze.
The sharp focus gathered in his eyes scattered.
In that instant, the Sight Monkey tossed the Ruyi Staff backward, while its own body slammed into the Nen bullets.
The Sight Monkey's body was rapidly torn apart by the bullets, but a loud shout came from behind it.
At the same time, Nobunaga and Franklin both felt warmth at their ears, and their heads instantly became heavy and dazed.
The Hearing Monkey and the Speechless Monkey had acted at the same time.
One removed the headphones from its ears.
The other let out a tremendous shout.
Chrollo, who had been wearing headphones the entire time, felt them vanish from his head the moment the Hearing Monkey reappeared.
He knew perfectly well that Saiyu had canceled the control on him and activated the ability again elsewhere.
The figures of Nobunaga and Franklin kneeling on the floor soon entered Chrollo's sight. Blood flowed from both men's ears, and even as they tried to stand, their bodies swayed unsteadily.
Not far ahead, the three large macaques had been torn apart by Nen bullets.
Those monkeys, formed from hair and Nen, still hadn't disappeared immediately?
Chrollo, Pakunoda, and Machi didn't pause at all. They didn't even carefully check Nobunaga and Franklin's injuries before continuing to chase Saiyu upward.
During that process, Chrollo completed his analysis of Saiyu's ability.
The Sight Monkey, Hearing Monkey, and Speechless Monkey could not only steal a target's sight, hearing, or speech when they landed an attack. They could also unleash special effects by removing the restrictions on themselves.
However, when they used the ability in that way, Saiyu's own eyes, ears, and mouth would also change.
And if they were defeated after activating those abilities, they would enter a relatively long "dead" state.
During that state, Saiyu could only rely on his own body to fight.
Now there was only one key question.
With all three large macaques temporarily unusable, what kind of state was Saiyu himself in?
They only needed to see Saiyu from the front to confirm it.
Saiyu's condition was terrible.
At this moment, his eyes were hollow, pitch-black voids. His ears had vanished entirely, and even the ear canals were sealed shut. The area where his mouth should have been was also perfectly smooth.
He could not hear.
He could not see.
He could not speak.
That was Saiyu's current state.
But his speed showed no sign of slowing. At the same time, he silently counted in his mind.
Forty-five.
Forty-four…
After a large macaque unleashed its ability and was killed, he would enter a one-minute backlash period.
However, he had already calculated his direction and all the situations he might encounter in advance.
As long as he followed the plan, he would reach the rooftop when the countdown ended.
The Ruyi Staff thrust upward.
The ceiling shattered, and Saiyu could sense something crashing down near him.
His knees bent slightly, and with a leap, he reached the sixteenth floor.
The hotel had twenty-four floors in total.
The person who created this building could not temporarily alter its internal structure, and that gave Saiyu room to maneuver.
He stepped forward twice, then thrust the Ruyi Staff upward again.
Seventeenth floor.
From the broken ceiling, Chrollo could not see Saiyu's movements above.
Fortunately, En let him know clearly that Saiyu had not set an ambush at the hole.
And with the corpses of the three large macaques still not gone, he felt even more certain.
Fourteenth floor.
Fifteenth floor…
When Chrollo and the others reached the eighteenth floor, Saiyu had already reached the twenty-first.
The distance between the two sides had closed enough that they could sense each other with En.
But none of them relaxed.
Chrollo frowned slightly. Saiyu's movements were too smooth, and that shook his earlier suspicion that Saiyu was currently in a state where he could not hear, see, or speak.
At that moment, Pakunoda raised the revolver in her hand.
Bang.
The bullet left the chamber, pierced through the ceiling above, and continued shooting upward.
Saiyu's movements paused for the first time.
The number he was counting in his heart had already reached seventeen. His foot stomped hard, and fragments of shattered floor were quickly wrapped in Nen and sent crashing toward the incoming bullet.
But during that process, Nen threads silently entered the floor where Saiyu was and wound toward him.
It was Machi.
The Nen threads she released had been hidden with In. Sensing them with En was almost impossible.
Only by using Gyo to enhance one's vision could someone discover their presence.
But the instant the Nen threads wrapped around Saiyu's body, the Ruyi Staff he had been using to smash through the ceiling suddenly reversed direction and inserted itself between the threads and his body before they could tighten.
Nen vibrated along the Ruyi Staff and quickly transformed into a blade-like edge. In that brief instant, it cut through Machi's Nen threads.
Even so, by the time Saiyu reached the twenty-second floor, Chrollo and the others had already reached the twentieth.
The distance between the two sides had closed again.
More importantly, the moment Saiyu reached the twenty-second floor, his body suddenly stiffened.
His hand stopped at his waist.
At that moment, he was clutching an antenna in his hand.
But less than ten centimeters from his fingers was another antenna.
The antenna in his hand had been attached to Machi's Nen thread.
But the one that had stabbed into his body seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
If Saiyu could see at that moment, he would have discovered a circle drawn from Nen thread around his waist.
And the antenna had been planted right inside that circle.
Not far away, Chrollo had already climbed onto the twenty-second floor.
In one hand, he held the open Skill Hunter, marked with a bookmark.
In his other hand, he held a blowpipe.