"Dirty makeup weirdo Grafino! You are finally here! Return the Pink Warrior to us right now!"
"That is really too bad for you, organizers! The Washing Powder Warrior has already been turned into one of our loyal companions by the black hot girl weirdo using her dirty makeup energy! You guys, and all humans around the entire world, will share the exact same fate!"
"Everything in this world will soon be covered with evil dirt because of the Dark King!"
Years ago, there had been a special movie screening organized at one of Meteor City's regular community gatherings. A worn video tape of the globally popular tokusatsu hero show Sweepers played on a jury-rigged television set near the central garbage mountain. Unfortunately, the cassette had a severe tracking error. The picture was fuzzy, and the sound was completely destroyed, leaving the characters moving in static silence.
Yonger Hakel, who was only four years old at the time, sat in the dirt and watched Chrollo Lucilfer pick up a cheap microphone. He stood on the makeshift stage with a few older friends to dub the silent show live for the crowd of children. Chrollo's versatile voice and incredibly expressive emotions shifted seamlessly with the action on screen. Sometimes he sounded wildly passionate and heroic, other times goofy and silly.
But it was when he dubbed the main villain at the very end of the episode that things changed. The pure, evil light that seemed to physically materialize from his eyes and voice shocked the entire audience into absolute silence.
Watching Chrollo completely become one with the evil actor on the screen was a scene that would never, ever be forgotten by little Yonger.
At that exact moment, sitting in the trash, she thought to herself that if she could just become one of the people standing on that stage with him in the future, if she could just accompany Chrollo wherever he went, she would gladly give him everything she had.
After that screening, Chrollo and his immediate circle of friends disappeared from Meteor City for a very long time.
They did not return until years later, and when they did, it was in the name of the Spider. They were the Phantom Troupe.
Not long ago, when Chrollo—who was already the undisputed, terrifying leader of the Spiders—returned to Meteor City and specifically asked her if she would like to join the Troupe, Yonger knew deep down that this might be her only real chance in life to stand by his side.
"You are a Conjurer, correct?" "You are a Conjurer correct?" Chrollo had asked her at the time.
He was standing near the intersection of the massive garbage mountain, casually holding a glass of dirty water in one hand. A dead leaf floated on the surface, and solids that looked like tiny fragments of broken toys precipitated slowly at the bottom. "So, tell me. What is your Nen ability?"
Yonger had raised both her hands high into the air with a bright, wide smile. "'Our Minds Are United!' As long as I shout that specific sentence out loud, no matter where my friends are, everyone will instantly fly over and physically become one with me!"
Chrollo had said nothing for a long moment. He just stared at her. The way he looked at her at that time, Yonger always felt that he seemed to be looking right through her, seeing the ghost of another girl entirely. A girl who had once had that exact same cheerful, innocent smile.
Present day. The underground garage beneath the charity exhibition.
Yonger had stayed down here alone to keep watch over their escape route and the loot.
Suddenly, without any warning, her small body deformed and folded in on itself, turning into a glowing, mechanical hub core that looked like a square metal box. Instantly, three massive spheres of concentrated aura appeared out of thin air around her. The spheres rapidly expanded and merged with the core, assembling together into a massive, glowing "Sweeper Warrior" robot that possessed only thick legs and a head, but absolutely no arms.
Why is Uvogin the head?
Phinks, who found himself acting as the robot's left leg, was immediately and intensely dissatisfied with the arrangement.
Almost as quickly as they had assembled, the bizarre fusion broke apart. Feitan, who made up the right leg, and Uvogin, who formed the head, turned back into masses of aura, separated entirely from the machine-like torso, and returned heavily to their original human forms on the concrete floor.
The central core component, Yonger, also unfolded and returned to the appearance of a small white-haired girl. She touched the top of her head, looking incredibly confused. "Why did you three suddenly fly all the way over here? What happened up there?"
Uvogin gritted his teeth so hard they audibly cracked. He clenched his massive fists, his eyes wide and bloodshot, but he remained completely silent.
Feitan adjusted his high collar, his narrow eyes completely cold. "Our initial prediction was wrong. The enemy possesses far too much tactical information about our specific abilities. We were forced to retreat temporarily."
Phinks cracked his neck, trying to play it cool. "Nobunaga has been completely taken out of the fight, and considering how long she has been gone, Machi is probably not doing very well either..."
Before he could even finish speaking his bleak assessment, the atmosphere in the originally empty underground garage shifted dramatically. On the bare concrete ground directly behind Yonger, it was as if the air itself had been wiped away by a giant, invisible eraser. A massive, towering pile of priceless artifacts, jewels, and paintings suddenly appeared out of thin air. The stolen exhibits.
Yonger was stunned for a moment, her eyes widening at the treasure. Then she quickly reached up and touched her shoulder, realizing it was bare.
"Wait, what happened to Linka?" Phinks asked, his brow furrowing as he looked around. "Where is the coward's core?"
Feitan scoffed quietly. "Do you even have to ask? Of course his core is still up there with the boss."
"The boss..." Uvogin murmured, finally speaking as he slowly raised his heavy head to stare at the concrete ceiling.
True experts could easily sense unusual, heavy auras, detecting killing intent and the distinct, prickling feeling of being watched from miles away. Not to mention highly skilled, battle-hardened Nen users like Uvogin and the others. When the giant raised his head now, he naturally felt it. Directly above them, somewhere near the very top of the massive building, two colossal, terrifying forces of aura were currently engaged in a fierce, lethal confrontation.
With a deep, resonant boom, the entire structure of the building seemed to shake slightly. A subtle, vibrating hum transmitted all the way down through the support pillars into the underground garage.
Yonger grew incredibly nervous, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She opened her mouth, wanting to call for Uvogin and the others to immediately go up and support Chrollo.
But as soon as she turned her head to give the order, she froze. She saw Phinks standing alone, staring steadily at the empty space beside him. The exact spot where Uvogin and Feitan had just been standing a second ago was completely empty.
Before she could even shout the command, were they already running back up the stairs to support the boss?
"So fast?" Yonger muttered, genuinely surprised by their speed.
However, Phinks clenched his fists tight, his knuckles turning white. His face looked even more grim and expressionless than usual. "They were tricked. They did not run anywhere. It seems like Uvogin and Feitan were actually taken down and captured from the very beginning..."
When exactly did I get infected?
That guy... he deliberately disguised his true Nen ability. He made it look like simple, brute-force blood manipulation, but the blood was just a carrier to control others?
No, maybe even the physical medium of the blood was just a visual disguise for the real trigger!
Feitan felt his vision violently flicker and tear. The gloomy scenery of the underground garage suddenly vanished, replaced by blinding light.
When his eyes finally adjusted, he realized that at some point, his physical body had been tightly bound with thick, heavy steel chains and hoisted high into the air. He was hanging helplessly.
When he lowered his head to assess his situation, he saw a dilapidated, burned-out village far below him. The geography and the ruins seemed eerily familiar to his memories of the Kurta massacre.
Sitting quietly among the ash and ruins directly beneath him was a young man with bright blond hair. Seeing Feitan finally wake up and struggle against the chains, the blond youth slowly turned his head. He stared up at the trapped assassin with fiery red, glowing eyes that seemed to burn with absolute, unquenchable hatred.
"Answer my questions truthfully, or die right now," Kurapika commanded. He raised his hand, and the heavy chains rattled as he materialized a new, thick book. The word Judgment was written in bold, bloody letters across the cover.
Back in the alleyway.
Hovering gently in the air directly in front of Liam and Shizuku was a fully materialized, ancient-looking book with the words The Abyss written across its leather cover.
A small, single droplet of mixed blood—belonging to both Uvogin and Feitan, collected by the vacuum—was carefully released from Blinky's metal nozzle. Kurapika reached out with a trembling finger, caught the drop, and deliberately smeared the fresh blood across the blank pages of The Abyss.
The magic activated instantly. Soon, two distinct spheres of bright aura flew in rapidly from a distance. The spheres collided with Kurapika, who had temporarily turned his own physical body into pure aura to facilitate the trap, and all three energies dove violently into the glowing pages of the book, disappearing into the pocket dimension within.
The rules of the ability were absolute. Unless Kurapika consciously chose to come out, this specific book could not be dismissed or destroyed from the outside. Naturally, his special, highly taxing Nen ability, "Absolute Time," would not be released either while he was inside. The burning red eyes would remain active, continuously burning away exactly one hour of his total lifespan for every single second it lasted in the real world. He was literally sacrificing years of his life to interrogate them.
As for Nobunaga...
Liam casually wiped the last of the blood from his neck and pointed a finger at the paralyzed samurai. "Just stay right there and do not move a single muscle."
Nobunaga had seen everything happen with his own eyes. His eyes were wide, the blood vessels nearly bursting from pure, impotent rage, but his physical body remained completely locked in a rigid posture of raising his katana. He did not twitch or move an inch, exactly as Liam had ordered through the blood control.
Anyone walking past the alley who did not know any better would genuinely think the fierce samurai was standing guard, loyally protecting the glowing book and Kurapika's vulnerable state.
Shizuku stayed behind in the alley, her vacuum at the ready, watching over the scene. Liam, however, was suddenly worried that something terrible had happened to Menchi during the chaos, so he quickly left the alley to look for her.
"What exactly is she doing?"
Standing out in public, with thousands of panicking tourists and locals running back and forth on the chaotic street, Liam deliberately chose not to release his En to search. Doing so in a dense crowd was incredibly dangerous. Instead, with a simple, focused thought, he commanded the dozens of small animals currently under his Star Mark control across several city blocks to take action, aggressively searching for any visual traces of Menchi's bright hair.
There were massive, philosophical differences between various investigative techniques across different worlds.
In the world of pirates, for example, there was only Observation Haki, and absolutely no such thing as counter-observation to detect someone watching you. The only way to successfully deal with a Haki user was if your enemy's IQ suddenly dropped below the baseline and they conveniently forgot they still possessed the ability. It was exactly like that ridiculous time when Big Mom went out of her way to snatch Devil Fruits from two small children, completely forgetting that she actually still had access to her devastating Conqueror's Haki to end the fight instantly.
However, although extending your En in the Hunter world provided excellent, radar-like detection effects, there was a massive drawback. When you actively detected other Nen users, they instantly knew you were detecting them. It was a two-way street. Therefore, just like surviving in a dark, predatory forest, it was always best not to let your En sweep around carelessly when idle. After all, who knew if some terrifyingly strong, psychotic individual was currently hidden in the random crowd? In case some monster thought your sweeping En was an offensive challenge and came directly at you to fight to the absolute death, wouldn't that be a totally unfair way to die?
Liam's highly trained brain processed these tactical thoughts in a split second. A moment later, a little street mouse controlled by a Star Mark transmitted a visual. It had already discovered Menchi. She was currently standing on the busy street corner right next to the exhibition building, and she was being actively watched.
Menchi was standing completely still, holding up a heavy, cast-iron frying pan. She supported it steadily underneath with one hand. Her eyes were completely vacant and glassy, looking exactly as if her soul had temporarily left her physical body.
What the mundane onlookers crowding around her could not see was the intense, invisible flame ignited by her Nen, pouring directly from her palms and aggressively baking the invisible world trapped inside the pan. Liam quietly squeezed his way to the front of the crowd of onlookers but deliberately did not step forward to intervene.
Soon, a concentrated sphere of aura violently flew out of the hot pan and landed on the pavement. It rapidly transformed into the shape of a cold, beautiful woman with messy pink hair. Machi.
What was truly unforgettable were her eyes. They were bright, cold, and filled with such intense killing intent that they looked as if they were about to turn into two literal knife-arrows and nail Menchi to the wall. But despite the fury, Machi still stood there, rigidly frozen without moving a muscle.
The surrounding crowd became even noisier for a moment, cheering and pointing. To their untrained eyes, this sudden materialization was nothing more than an incredibly elaborate magic trick happening right before them.
"Street magic, everyone! Thank you so much for your support!" Menchi's vacant eyes suddenly brightened with life. She quickly put away the heavy pan and waved cheerfully to the confused crowd with a bright, entirely fake smile.
The crowd was stunned for a second, then many people began to clap and cheer loudly before quickly dispersing to avoid the lingering police sirens. Soon, only Liam stood there on the corner.
Seeing that it was him, Menchi initially looked confused. But she quickly realized what must have happened and suddenly crossed her arms, looking deeply dissatisfied. "Why were you hiding so far away in the crowd? Did you honestly think I was going to lose to her? Lose in a pure cooking competition? Just who exactly are you looking down on here!"
Liam ignored her bluster. He stepped forward, looked closely at the completely paralyzed Machi standing opposite him, and asked casually, "Well, since you clearly won your little game, what three specific requirements did you give her as a penalty?"