Lead-gray poison clouds rolled across the summit of Sensui Mountain like a living thing.
The entire back mountain villa complex disappeared beneath the gray shroud, but a massive statue of Thousand-Armed Guanyin rose vaguely through the toxic haze.
The Guanyin swept a palm through the air. The motion cut clear space through the dense poison cloud like an eraser removing chalk from a blackboard. A moment later, the air seemed to catch up with what had happened, and a fierce wind kicked up from the sudden pressure differential.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The shadow of the Hundred-Type Guanyin's palms swept through the gray mist again and again. Then a calm voice called out through the haze.
"Blinky..."
A powerful suction force immediately vacuumed up all the remaining gray poison cloud.
The toxic wind roared. In the span of a single blink, the gray mist got swallowed by a mouth full of sharp rotating teeth.
Netero, who'd been holding his breath and planning to clear away the poison as quickly as possible, saw this and looked over. The black-haired girl with glasses, one of the two young people who'd come to watch the battle up close, had manifested a strange vacuum cleaner and was sucking up the poison mist he'd dispersed.
Spatial-type Conjuration ability? Rare.
Netero exhaled. The airflow shot out like an arrow, carving a shallow crater in the ground.
He raised his eyes to look at the sky. Goya's unique Nen clone "The Solitary Shadow in Heaven and Earth, Drunk Dreaming of Death and Life" seemed to be making one final struggle before quietly disappearing along with the explosion of snake shadows filling the sky.
Netero stared at the clear sky for a while. Then he heard the vacuum cleaner's buzz again.
Shizuku cut small wounds on both her own and Liam's arms, held up the large-mouthed head of Blinky, and extracted all the trace amounts of gray mist poison they'd inhaled from their bodies.
Liam's wound healed within seconds. He frowned. "What kind of poison is this? I don't feel anything at all."
With the Star Mark on his body, even if he got infected with Poor Man's Rose radiation, he'd probably be able to hang on long enough to heal. He wasn't worried about being poisoned to death by the so-called Kakin Emperor's final self-destruction.
The combination of Star Mark and Blinky was basically the ultimate counter to any poison.
"I don't know." Shizuku shook her head. After the detoxification finished, she casually dispersed Blinky into a sphere of aura and dismissed it.
Netero walked over. "Can you two do me a favor and check on the conditions of the other people who participated in the Sensui Mountain conference in the back mountain villa?"
The old man smiled. "If possible, I'd like to trouble you both to remove the poison from them as well."
Liam figured that even if he and Shizuku refused to help, Gel the Snake Zodiac could still cure everyone on the mountain. After all, she was a Poison Hunter. This was literally her specialty.
He didn't argue. He nodded in agreement. "Of course. If nothing else, we still need to save Wing and his junior brother."
Though this gray mist poison didn't seem particularly violent.
As soon as Netero heard the young man's words, he understood that Liam knew something about the relationship between Shingen-ryu, himself, Wing, and the others. Not particularly surprising, given that he was a young man who'd come to participate in the Sensui Mountain conference.
"That's good." The old man smiled. "I wonder which school you're disciples of? It's impressive to have such strength at your age."
"No school. We came from Heavens Arena." Liam couldn't hold back his curiosity. "President Netero, Sky Master... who is he exactly? Why did all those things you were fighting merge into one person claiming to be the Kakin Emperor? Is he really the former emperor of the Kakin Kingdom?"
Netero thought for a moment, stroking his distinctive goatee, and smiled slightly. "Want to know? That's fine. Do me this small favor and I'll tell you."
Liam said honestly, "President Netero, you could tell us first, and then we help. Same result, isn't it? We can't exactly refuse you anyway."
"Let's handle the poison situation first."
Netero waved his hand and walked toward the front mountain with his sleeves flowing. "I'll go check on things over there."
"Wait, how are we supposed to find you again?" Liam shouted at the old man's back.
"Someone will come looking for you."
Liam didn't even see Netero run. The old man's speed was like teleportation, leaving behind only an afterimage as he rushed toward the front mountain villa, where the gray mist and poison gas in the sky still hadn't fully dissipated.
Liam looked away and subconsciously pressed his hand against his chest, over his heart. "I hope nobody got poisoned to death..."
Shizuku originally wasn't particularly enthusiastic about saving other people, but after hearing him say that, she immediately became motivated.
She followed Liam as they quickly returned to the back mountain, heading to the practice ground first.
Tetsuro and the other martial artists lay scattered across the ground in confused states, like they'd passed out from exhaustion. With the demise of the figure calling itself the Kakin Emperor, the materialized dreams around them had also disappeared.
Shizuku raised her hand and manifested Blinky with its chainsaw modification active.
The sharp-toothed chainsaw roared to life. Shizuku carried the terrifying vacuum cleaner as she walked along, leaving wounds of varying depths on the skin of each sleeping martial artist one by one. It looked like she was going around slaughtering pigs and sharpening knives for a butcher shop, but her expression showed no emotion whatsoever.
Finally, Shizuku turned on the vacuum function. "Suck out the poison in their bodies, Blinky."
After cleaning up the practice ground, Liam and Shizuku quickly headed to the hotel without bothering to check if these people would wake up.
Without the waiters created by the gray snake transformations, the entire back mountain area and hotel had become large, empty, deserted, and eerily quiet. Shizuku used the same method to eliminate poison from the unconscious people they found in corridors, rooms, and the lobby. Finally they located Wing and Hart.
Hart was still sleeping, but Wing had already woken up and was staring in confusion at his tattered clothes and glasses that had been crushed by someone.
Hearing footsteps, he turned around and saw two vaguely familiar figures approaching.
Wing didn't have any spare glasses to replace his broken ones. Out of desperation, he concentrated aura directly in his eyes, relying on Gyo-enhanced eyesight to compensate for the extremely poor vision caused by severe nearsightedness. Then he clearly saw it was Liam and Shizuku.
"What happened?" he asked quickly, while shaking Hart awake from where he lay sleeping on the floor.
Liam briefly explained what had happened, covering only what he could understand and had seen with his own eyes. Finally he looked at the tops of Wing and Hart's heads. Sure enough, just like the others, the peach petal marks had disappeared along with the five-in-one so-called Kakin Emperor.
It was interesting though. Both were created by Nen. The dreams and marks disappeared, but the gray mist poison didn't. Curious.
Hart heard the roar of some kind of machine in his ears. He opened his eyes in confusion and immediately saw sharp rotating chainsaw teeth hanging right in front of his face. He woke up instantly, every hair standing on end. He jerked back and nearly pissed himself.
Actually, Shizuku was just holding the chainsaw without moving it.
After learning that they'd both been poisoned by some kind of gray mist, not just Hart but even Wing felt uncertain, because neither of them felt any physical discomfort.
"Really?" Liam thought for a moment and raised one finger suggestively. "I'm thinking the same thing. Why don't we do an experiment? We'll detoxify you first and see what changes happen to you both over the next day or two?"
Wing nodded. "That's fine."
Hart's face went pale. "This, this, senior brother, is that really necessary?"
Wing smiled. "It's fine. Since Smith suggested this, even if something happens, he won't just watch us die from poison."
He used his eyes to signal his junior brother to stay calm.
Hart wanted to say something but hesitated. Senior brother Wing wasn't wearing glasses right now. He was just staring at people with pure Gyo. His eyes looked really unsettling...
Wing naturally had his reasons. According to Liam, President Netero had brought Gel the Snake Zodiac with him, and the front mountain had also been affected by a large area of gray mist poison. Presumably Gel, as a top Poison Hunter, would have methods to eliminate the toxin. In that case, if they could avoid asking about Liam and Shizuku's detoxification methods, they should try their best to avoid it.
Liam had similar thoughts. If it was his own ability, he wouldn't care about letting Wing and his brother know about it. But the detoxification relied on Shizuku's Blinky.
After all, Wing wasn't like Kurapika, who'd joined their organization and recognized Liam as his boss...
Kurapika pulled his hand back. Two snake fangs withdrew from the back of his hand, leaving two shallow bloody holes. The long black snake hissed and flicked its tongue. What was connected to its tail was the arm of Gel, Snake member of the Twelve Zodiacs of the Hunter Association.
Kurapika also didn't think there was anything seriously wrong with his body.
But unlike the others, he hadn't been affected by the materialized dream and naturally hadn't fallen unconscious when the dream released. He'd been awake the entire time and had watched the gray poison mist enter the room through gaps in the door and windows. He was very aware that he'd been forced to inhale the suspicious gray fog.
Gel walked around their room, detoxifying all the sleeping people with the snake-transformed arm using the same method, then prepared to leave.
Kurapika was about to close the door when Liam's voice came to his mind. "Why are you only taking care of yourself? What about detoxification over here?"
"Don't you have Shizuku helping you?" Kurapika thought back in confusion. When he looked around, he saw the little gray rock sparrow chirping and turning its head to stare at him with bird eyes.
So Liam had regained control of Jaku at some point. The one waiting to be detoxified was the bird.
Kurapika felt embarrassed and hurriedly called Gel back, asking for one more favor.
Gel nodded, saying she didn't mind. She also liked small animals. The little gray bird flew over and fluttered in front of her. Gel extended her hand. The rock sparrow landed on her raised index finger and turned its head to look at her. Gel's other arm flickered and transformed into a vivid snake again.
Conjuration type... Through Jaku's eyes, Liam thought this as he let the snake on Gel's arm open its mouth and bite him.
It almost swallowed the bird in one gulp.
The two snake fangs, like miniature hoes, pierced the skin under the bird's feathers with just enough force.
Liam clearly felt something get injected from the tips of the two fangs into the flesh and blood under his, uh, the rock sparrow's skin.
So that's how the detoxification works?
Not long after, when Gel came to Wing's room at the back mountain hotel and used the same technique to detoxify Wing and his brother, Liam and Shizuku watched and couldn't help but analyze silently.
Gel's graceful figure moved like a beautiful snake. Liam suspected that as a Conjurer, she'd somehow transformed her body into a humanoid pharmaceutical laboratory, allowing her to create poisons and antidotes at any time, then deliver them through the materialized snake from her arms...
When the snake's mouth released Wing's arm, leaving two small bloody holes, Wing asked, "What are the final effects of this poison?"
"Currently, it looks more like a type of hallucinogen." Gel kept her explanation simple.
In truth, according to her analysis, the gray poison mist left behind by "The Solitary Shadow in Heaven and Earth, Drunk Dreaming of Death and Life" had obviously been influenced by the strange poison from the Dark Continent that Sky Master himself had been exposed to, sharing similar characteristics.
After all, the exotic poisons of the Dark Continent weren't easy to replicate. Even a top poison master like Gel was at a loss for a while. The gray mist poison imitated by "The Solitary Shadow" was just a pale copy.
Gel had swallowed a small amount of the gray mist toxin through the poison snake her arm transformed into, then quickly created the corresponding antidote.
After detoxifying Wing and his brother, she'd only come here as an afterthought when she noticed Liam and Shizuku hadn't been treated yet. Gel had specifically come to find them.
"President Netero would like your help with something." Gel asked, "Can you come with me?"
She couldn't help but look at Shizuku, a quiet black-haired girl with glasses who looked cute and gentle. Especially her figure. Her chest pressed against the black sweater, creating a striking contrast with her innocent face.
Shizuku felt confused by the stare. A question mark practically appeared over her head. She couldn't help turning to look at Liam.
Liam quickly held down her hand to prevent her from twirling her finger around her temple again. That gesture looked like she was mocking Gel for having something wrong with her head...
"Okay," Liam agreed.
Gel nodded. Of course she didn't have any strange interests. She was just curious about cute and beautiful things.
Liam and Shizuku followed Gel. As they walked, a small gray bird flew over, fluttered its wings, and landed on Liam's head. Liam grabbed it, held it in his hand, and flicked the bird's head with his finger.
"Chirp chirp!" Jaku protested.
Gel glanced at the little gray bird in Liam's hand.
It seemed too late to pretend he wasn't familiar with the bird at this point. Liam quickly ignored her look and tossed Jaku onto his shoulder to perch.
Soon, Liam, Shizuku, and one bird followed Gel into a cave and through twisting tunnels, heading steadily downward.
Both Liam and Shizuku were in good shape, and they followed Gel's footsteps smoothly.
Gel led the way with a flashlight. After a while, Liam and Shizuku finally saw light ahead inside the complex mountain passages. A more hidden cave appeared before them.
Shizuku poked Liam's arm with her finger.
Liam nodded. He'd also noticed the traces of divine script on the stone walls inside and outside the cave.
It made his scalp tingle. Could there be divine script like this throughout the entire mountain?
Liam immediately thought of the dream ability that could affect all of Sensui Mountain. If it was amplified by divine script, it would make sense for that ability to have such a powerful effect.
In the cave, Netero and another figure familiar to Liam stood with their backs to them. The latter was the rabbit-ear girl who Liam had also met by chance in the cave before.
Pyon turned around when she saw them coming. Her eyes quickly fell on the little gray bird perched on Liam's shoulder.
Netero's gaze also glanced at Jaku before he spoke to Liam. "Let me introduce you. This is Sky Master and the former Emperor of Kakin, Goya Hui Guo Rou..."
He stepped aside.
Liam finally saw the decrepit old man with gray cracks covering his entire body, huddled against the inner wall of the cave.
"The remains of..." Netero finished.
Though Liam's expression didn't change, he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
If this really was a Hui Guo Rou, a former emperor, then obviously this was a previous winner of the Kakin succession war.
Which meant this Goya Hui Guo Rou, Sky Master, should also have a Nen beast obtained through the Seed Urn ritual...
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