Pakunoda.
Specialist.
Her Nen ability was straightforward but terrifying: she could read another person's deepest, most guarded memories simply by making physical contact with them. Beyond that, she could extract those memories, convert them into up to six physical Nen bullets, and fire them directly into the brains of other people, sharing the information instantly.
Whether Liam considered himself a cautious Nen user who needed to protect his tactical information, or a transmigrator who absolutely did not want anyone discovering the secrets of his past life, he clearly did not want to ever be in the same room as Pakunoda.
Her specialist ability was just too damn dangerous to leave unchecked.
The moment Liam had seen the divination map glowing in Kurapika's Revelations book, he had spotted Pakunoda's exact location. He had made his decision instantly.
Forget everything else. Forget the other Spiders. Capture her first, before she even had a chance to react or touch anyone.
In the alley, the chaotic clash of Nen shook the air.
Nobunaga swung his katana, the steel ringing loudly as he deflected the giant, glowing skeletal hand that Kurapika had summoned. The intense aura surging through the Kurta survivor's body had completely transformed into the massive, hovering Skeleton Knight.
Across the pavement, Uvogin let out a grunt of effort. The jagged blades of Shizuku's chainsaw were wrapped tightly around his massive, muscular arm. The giant Spider was secretly shocked. His enhanced physical defense, which was notoriously tough enough to withstand direct hits from RPG missiles, was actually being torn apart by this bizarre vacuum-cleaner weapon. The spinning, shrieking blades cut deep into the knotted muscle of his forearm, drawing out a steady stream of gushing red blood.
Shizuku, however, was even more secretly shocked than he was.
The raw destructive power of "Blinky: Chainsaw Mode" had been explicitly confirmed by a martial arts master like Bisky. What truly surprised her was the fact that the screaming blades could not completely crush and sever the bones of this human-shaped beast.
"Pakunoda!" Nobunaga roared.
He swung his sword to clear the space and landed heavily on the ground. When he quickly turned his head to check on the others, his heart violently lurched in his chest. He watched in horror as Pakunoda was swept up and swallowed entirely by the humanoid Nen beast's impossibly wide, dark sleeve.
"Pakunoda's Nen ability... do they actually know about it?!"
The Phantom Troupe members present in the alley—Nobunaga, Uvogin, Feitan, and Phinks—all realized the terrifying implication instantly.
Pakunoda's raw aura capacity and physical combat skills were nowhere near threatening enough to warrant Liam's group prioritizing her capture over the heavy hitters. The only thing about her worth worrying about, the only reason to target her first, was her special memory-reading ability. They knew.
"It seems like you have a deep, dark secret you do not want others knowing," Feitan's sinister, raspy voice hissed from behind his high collar. He extended his arm and released his umbrella sword with a sharp click. Though he was incredibly short, his dark presence was overwhelming, suffocating the alley. He stared coldly at Liam. "Do not worry. I will make you talk."
"Hey, you. Give Pakunoda back right now."
Phinks cracked his neck, glaring at the floating Nen beast, and spoke in a tone that was an absolute ultimatum.
Jade ignored him. The porcelain side of her face, which had been heavily damaged by Phinks's initial punch, was rapidly regenerating. Her beautiful, flawless jade features reappeared in seconds. Aside from expending a small amount of aura for the repair, there was no change in her demeanor.
Phinks scowled and clenched his right fist tightly. An amazing, oppressive amount of aura surged from his body, swirling around his arm.
Judging by the heavy pressure in the air, Liam could tell that both Phinks's and Feitan's raw aura reserves were significantly higher than his own. And Uvogin's aura, still flaring wildly from the chainsaw attack, was so terrifyingly dense it easily surpassed the two of them combined.
Nobunaga's sword flashed in the dim light. He abandoned Kurapika and slashed aggressively at the chainsaw currently twisting around Uvogin's bloody arm.
Before his steel could connect, his blade was violently blocked by another incredibly sharp edge.
It was a blade made of pure, condensed aura. The Yin Nen Sword.
Liam smoothly deflected Nobunaga's katana with his own conjured blade. Shizuku's chainsaw could definitely be cut by his Nen sword, but Liam wasn't entirely sure if he could actually cut through Nobunaga's real steel. Nobunaga was a Master Enhancer. Judging by his precise, deadly fighting style, he had most likely enhanced his swordsmanship and his blade to their absolute limits. It was hard to say if the Yin sword would cleanly slice through it.
While Liam was occupied, a slender, incredibly sharp umbrella sword darted in from his blind side, stabbing viciously toward his exposed carotid artery.
Liam simply tilted his head slightly, his expression calm, and allowed the umbrella sword to pierce cleanly through the side of his neck.
Above them, Jade swayed gracefully, preparing to sink back into the solid ground to escape. But Phinks moved with blinding speed, grabbing the trailing edge of her sleeve and yanking her violently back into the air. He cocked his other arm back and punched Jade again with devastating force, completely shattering her left shoulder.
But for a Nen construct like Jade, this kind of physical injury could not really be called an injury. It was entirely harmless. The shattered porcelain would heal in seconds. She twisted in the air, trying to fly toward Liam to assist him, but was immediately intercepted and batted away by Phinks again.
Jade deliberately chose not to expose her talisman abilities. She also did not want to repeat the old trick of calling out Phinks's name to pull him into the sleeve. Whether Phinks would actually respond and get sucked in was highly uncertain, and attempting it would definitely expose the specific operating rules of "Universe in the Sleeve" to the rest of the Spiders. With her hands and feet currently tied down by Phinks's relentless assault, breaking through his guard to help Liam was going to be impossible.
Phinks smiled grimly, his knuckles glowing with aura. "Why don't you just recall your little Nen beast, kid? It seems like when it is holding Pakunoda hostage, you cannot pull it back into your body at all. Leaving such a huge, dense mass of aura outside your body weakens your own combat strength by at least twenty to thirty percent. You are way too arrogant for your own good!"
Despite his taunts, Phinks thought to himself: This kid released such a massive, complex Nen beast, yet his physical presence and aura output are still incredibly strong. How is that possible?
What Phinks did not know was that the thirty-three glowing runes originally lit up along the flat of Liam's Yin Nen Sword had already dimmed by ten the moment Jade was released. When Liam commanded the Nen beast to capture Pakunoda, he never intended to recall her for a while. To compensate for the massive drain, he had directly tapped into the Yin Nen Sword's built-in aura reservoir, instantly replacing the ten thousand aura deficit caused by releasing the beast.
Liam was not so foolishly arrogant that he would willingly face multiple heavy-hitting Phantom Troupe members with only sixty or seventy percent of his total strength. Not when there were so many of them trying to kill him.
Jade's true purpose in repeatedly trying to return to Liam's side was entirely a tactical smokescreen. Her only job right now was to tie down Phinks, keeping one of the Spiders' strongest physical fighters completely distracted.
Uvogin let out a deafening, earth-shaking roar. His raw power surged so violently that the concrete ground beneath his heavy boots cracked and spiderwebbed. Completely ignoring the agonizing pain of the chainsaw cutting deep into his flesh, he reached over and grabbed the screaming, spinning blades directly with his bare left hand.
Liam, who still had Feitan's umbrella sword skewered cleanly through the side of his neck, saw Uvogin's desperate move. Without missing a beat, he slashed his Yin Nen Sword directly at the section of the chainsaw still strangling Uvogin's arm.
Nobunaga immediately swung his katana to intercept, expertly deflecting Liam's Yin Nen Sword away. "Watch yourself, Uvo."
As their blades parted, Nobunaga quickly glanced at his own steel and frowned. The aura coating his sword had somehow been slightly weakened upon contact with the kid's glowing blade.
Uvogin wrapped his massive, bloody hand entirely around the body of the chainsaw and clenched his fist tight. The metal shrieked and groaned under the pressure.
The pure killing intent burning in Uvogin's eyes grew more and more terrifying by the second. His fist clenched tighter and tighter, crushing the machinery. The dense aura concentrated in his other fist grew stronger and stronger, glowing like a miniature sun. Then, with a terrifying bellow, he lunged forward and punched Liam directly in the face, completely ignoring the fact that Liam still had an umbrella sword stuck through his neck.
Although Shizuku's physical strength was incredible, easily comparable to a superhuman, it was absolutely impossible to compare her raw pulling power with a non-human Enhancement type monster like Uvogin. She was suddenly and violently yanked forward across the pavement as he ripped the chainsaw away.
Liam, with the umbrella sword still skewered through his flesh, smoothly swung the Yin Nen Sword up to block Uvogin's shockingly destructive, glowing fist.
Feitan instantly took advantage of the chaotic clash. He darted in close, grabbed the handle of his embedded umbrella sword, and yanked it out of Liam's neck with a vicious, twisting pull.
A thick spray of dark blood spurted aggressively from Liam's open wound.
"That is not the right amount of bleeding for that kind of wound," the thought flashed instantly through Feitan's highly trained mind.
But he did not pause. Without a second of hesitation, Feitan stabbed out with his umbrella sword again and again, raining a blinding flurry of deadly thrusts down on Liam's chest and face.
At the exact same time, Uvogin's massive fist, loaded with astonishing destructive power, finally collided with the flat of the Yin Nen Sword. Aside from violently deflecting Liam backward across the pavement, the incredible blow did not cause the sword to shatter or deal any significant damage.
"I knew it! There is definitely something wrong with his blade!" Nobunaga thought, his eyes narrowing.
As Liam slid backward from Uvogin's punch, the aura surrounding his entire body seamlessly transformed into swirling air currents. Wind gathered rapidly beneath his feet, lifting him slightly off the ground. He ducked, weaved, and smoothly dodged the raindrop-like barrage of umbrella sword thrusts from Feitan.
But Feitan's thrusts were not the only things moving like raindrops. The large amount of blood that had strangely sprayed from Liam's neck just moments before hung suspended in the air.
Suddenly, the splattered droplets of blood shifted. Under the precise control of Liam's Manipulation Nen, the liquid hardened into dozens of small, razor-sharp flying blades mid-air, instantly swarming and covering Feitan, who had just failed to stab him.
"Blood control?"
Feitan's eyes widened. He frantically dodged and jumped backward out of the swarm, shouting a warning to the others. "He is a Manipulator! Watch out for the blood that sprayed from his body!"
Phinks heard the warning and immediately strode over to support Feitan, but his path was instantly blocked by Jade, who chased after him relentlessly.
"Damn it! This thing doesn't want to come back to him at all. It is just holding me down!" Phinks cursed, throwing another heavy punch to keep the floating woman away.
Just as he thought this, a massive, chilling shadow fell over his head. Phinks looked up and saw the blond Kurta boy hovering above him, entirely wrapped within the glowing, giant Skeleton Knight. A huge, heavy bone palm was falling from the sky, aiming right to crush him.
Phinks gritted his teeth and raised both his thickly muscled arms to block Kurapika's heavy bombardment, while simultaneously throwing a vicious kick to knock the harassing Nen beast away again. Without the glowing Nen sword in her hand, Jade really did not possess much frontal combat capability, but she was incredibly annoying.
"Hey, did you forget," Kurapika's voice echoed coldly from within the glowing ribcage, "that there is another person fighting here?"
Phinks's eyes seemed to look right past the skeletal giant. He thought rapidly: Where the hell is Machi? She has not shown up to support us for so long. Has she been held back by someone else entirely? Wait...
He looked up again and noticed a terrifying change. The large skeletal hand pressing heavily down against his crossed arms had suddenly turned a deep, blistering red, burning like solid flames.
As for Phinks, the protective aura coating his arms that was currently in direct contact with the flaming bone skull began to burn away bit by bit, as if it were being violently incinerated by the heat.
"A Transmuter?"
Phinks cursed and quickly stepped backward, out from under the crushing weight of the flaming skull palm. At the same time, he ruthlessly cut away the burning layers of his own aura on his arms and threw them aside before the fire could spread to his flesh. "It burns the aura it comes into contact with. If the enemy is too stupid to notice, they will just burn to death. Even if they are smarter, they will be forced to sacrifice their own Nen reserves to get rid of your flames, exactly like I just did."
He cracked his knuckles, glaring up at the glowing giant. "You are a bit too extreme for a kid, developing this kind of relentless, self-destructive Nen ability."
"Really?" Kurapika asked, completely wrapped safely inside the Flame Skull Knight. The sheer hatred seemed to make actual flames burn deep within his scarlet eyes. "I never actually thought that filthy Spiders could speak human language."
While Phinks was talking and analyzing the new threat, he quickly glanced back over his shoulder at the main battle.
Feitan had already reacted to the blood trap. He had materialized a bizarre, heavy fireproof suit over his body, wrapping his entire form tightly in the bulky fabric, leaving only a small, dark hole for his pair of narrow, cold eyes to look through.
The flying blades of hardened blood rained down relentlessly against the suit, pinging off the thick material, but they had absolutely no significant effect on the assassin inside.
However, when Feitan glanced through his visor to the side of the alley, his heart sank heavily.
Nobunaga was standing perfectly still. He maintained a rigid posture of drawing his katana, his head buried down, completely motionless like a statue.
Liam, on the other hand, had already caught the swirling wind beneath his feet and easily avoided Feitan's initial attack. The glowing Nen sword in his hand spun in a tight circle and neatly cut through the long chain of Shizuku's chainsaw.
Shizuku, who had been nearly dragged straight into Uvogin's lethal range, stumbled backward and staggered to a safe stop. The small, severed piece of the chainsaw still wrapped tightly around Uvogin's bloody arm quickly dissolved into aura and dissipated.
According to their rapid tactical plan, Nobunaga was supposed to cooperate directly with Feitan, stepping in to smoothly chop off Liam's head the moment Feitan forced him to dodge. That had been the perfect, lethal plan.
However, the deadly sword light did not flash out the way it did day after day in their endless practice sessions.
No... Nobunaga's hand simply did not draw the sword and slash out the way his mind desperately wanted it to.
"This is..." Nobunaga's mind was already reeling in absolute turmoil, screaming at his muscles to move, but his facial expression remained entirely calm and frozen. His head stayed hidden in the deep shadow of his hair. Even his pupils refused to contract. He was completely paralyzed.
"Hey, Nobunaga, what the hell is wrong with you?"
Uvogin, annoyed by the delay, glanced coldly at Liam, then casually wiped the streaming blood off his arm where the chainsaw had strangled him. He turned and asked Nobunaga with genuine, gruff concern.
At that exact moment, the steel sword finally flashed.
But it didn't swing at Liam. The tip of the razor-sharp blade suddenly shot out and hovered inches over Uvogin's broad chest.
Uvogin's eyes widened in shock. His big, blood-stained hands instantly concentrated their aura. He reached out and caught the sharp, driving blade tightly between his bare, enhanced palms before it could pierce his heart. He stared in disbelief at Nobunaga, who had just tried to stab him. Nobunaga's eyes were bloodshot and wide with silent panic.
Uvogin gritted his teeth, the steel groaning between his hands. "I am asking you, what happened to you?"
Frustrated and confused, Uvogin let out a roar like a wounded tiger. His astonishing, explosive physical presence swept aggressively across the entire alley, rattling the windows of the nearby buildings.
Suddenly, there was an incredible, unnatural force pulling at the air in the alley, sucking everything inward like a giant whale opening its mouth in the ocean.
The lingering blood mist hanging in the air from Liam's neck wound rapidly gathered into a tight stream and rushed to the other side of the alley. It was Shizuku. She had fully materialized Blinky, the bulging-eyed fish vacuum cleaner, and its mouth was wide open.
The excess blood dripping from Uvogin's arm had long been sucked away into the machine, but the deep wound caused by the chainsaw was still actively flowing. The blood was being forcefully drawn out by the vacuum's immense suction force, pulling so hard it felt as if it wanted to drain every single drop of blood from the giant's body before it would ever be satisfied.
Uvogin snorted angrily, fighting the pull. He flexed his massive arm, and the thick muscles around his wound visibly squirmed and tightened, forcefully sealing the laceration and blocking the rapidly flowing blood from escaping.
Yet, despite his efforts, a thin stream of blood still defied gravity and flowed steadily toward the bulging-eyed fish vacuum cleaner.
Feitan, watching from inside his bulky suit, looked down and noticed tiny droplets of blood flying straight out of his own body toward the vacuum. He was secretly shocked. Was it coming from a wound Liam had caused during the chaotic clash? Was it an effect of that weird glowing sword? Or had one or two of those tiny flying blood blades actually managed to cut him before he materialized the suit?
Phinks shouted loudly over the roar of the vacuum, "Uvogin, Nobunaga is completely useless right now. He is being manipulated. It is time to go!"
Uvogin's eyes widened in pure rage. He tried to pull away, but from his side, the paralyzed Nobunaga's arm jerked unnaturally, and he slashed at Uvogin again with his trapped sword.
Above them, Kurapika controlled the Flame Skull Knight, turning the giant's five glowing fingers into sharp, burning swords and grabbing violently downward at Phinks.
At some point during the chaos, Feitan, still wearing that gloomy, bulky protective suit, had begun chanting strange, guttural incantations that no one in the alley could understand. He slowly began to rise into the sky above the fighting.
Suddenly, a blinding, searing heat erupted. It was as if a miniature, extra sun had appeared out of thin air directly above them, scorching everything in the alley under tens of thousands of painfully bright, burning rays of light.
When the blinding light finally dissipated seconds later, leaving black spots in everyone's vision, Feitan, Phinks, and Uvogin had all completely disappeared from the alley.
Only Nobunaga remained, standing perfectly still with his sword raised rigidly in the air, thick, bloodshot veins appearing in his wide, panicked eyes.
"They just disappeared?" Shizuku asked, looking very confused as she lowered Blinky.
Jade floated silently back to Liam's side, her task complete.
Phinks had been entirely right about one crucial detail. When "Universe in the Sleeve" actively contained a person, Jade absolutely could not be recalled back into Liam's body. Fortunately, Liam's massive aura capacity had been fully supplemented by the Yin Nen Sword's reserves, so he was not in any rush to take back the Nen beast.
Liam let out a long, heavy breath, his shoulders dropping. He shouted over to Kurapika, "That is it! We got as many of them as we possibly could. Your eyes have been glowing red for way too long. You cannot physically hold that form anymore, right?"
The massive Flame Skull Knight surrounding Kurapika slowly began to disintegrate, the aura scattering into the wind. Kurapika dropped to one knee, panting heavily, and simply nodded.
Miles away, the grand exhibition hall of the charity exhibition building was already descending into absolute, screaming chaos.
All the priceless exhibits had completely disappeared!
The high-tech security surveillance showed absolutely no trace of physical intrusion. There were no broken windows, no tampered locks. It was as if all the exhibits in all the reinforced halls had simply evaporated into thin air the exact moment the doors opened for business.
In the middle of the chaotic, noisy, panicking crowd of wealthy patrons, Chrollo Lucilfer stood calmly. He looked closely at an empty, shattered display case and said to himself, his voice mild and curious, "If it was some kind of Nen... when exactly do you think the exhibits disappeared?"
"I am not interested in your tricks."
Behind him, a massive, lion-like man with wild white hair stood completely still across the surging crowd. Silva Zoldyck stared at the Troupe leader and said calmly, "The person I was hired to kill is currently on your person."
Chrollo turned around slowly, a polite, entirely unbothered smile on his face. "What a surprise. Can you actually see him?"
Silva's expression did not change. "Anyone who stands in my way will die."
Chrollo's smile widened slightly, his dark eyes sparkling with anticipation. "Then let me give it a try."
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