Chapter 122: When This Feitan Is Sent to the Graveyard, He Returns Directly to the Bottom of the Deck
What if the Phantom Troupe had received systematic Nen training back when they were young, and each of them had developed their abilities by pushing their natural strengths to the absolute limit? What level of combat power would that have produced?
Setting the others aside for now, the Post-Mortem Nen Beast Feitan could, at least in part, serve as a test case for that hypothesis.
Mapping the Sonic template onto him was effectively amplifying a speed advantage he already had. Of course, it also infinitely amplified his near-death disadvantage.
In his current state, the HP-Nen bar was essentially decorative. With the full Sonic template mapped and not a single gold coin on him, one clean hit would kill him on the spot.
But if you couldn't land that hit, it didn't matter at all.
Phinks had the second strongest grip in the entire Troupe. His natural hand strength was immense, enough to crush bone without any Nen behind it. And one look at his build made it clear: this wasn't a pure power type. He was a well-rounded fighter who happened to lean heavily toward strength.
His ability was Ripper Cyclotron, a straightforward and highly practical Enhancement-type technique. By rotating his arm in full circles, he wound up the force behind his next strike. In theory, if he wound it enough times, the punch could exceed even Uvogin's Super Destruction Punch, provided his body could handle the load. The catch was the winding motion itself, a steady full-arm rotation like winding a coiled spring. That large preparatory movement put him at a disadvantage against opponents with meaningfully superior speed.
But with the Sonic template temporarily mapped onto Feitan, the gap had shifted. Feitan wasn't just faster now. He had also gained a force capable of meeting Ripper Cyclotron head-on.
Spin Dash.
Speed is power.
That said, with Feitan's remaining bar this low, there was no room for anything elaborate. Ross didn't bother with anything fancy. He had Feitan bleed off his momentum, dropping from a dead sprint to a complete standstill, and faced Phinks from a distance across the open ground.
Then he dropped into a standard crouching sprint start.
At the same time, Nen saw-blades began forming across Feitan's body. They grew sharper and more defined with every passing second, the threat they carried building visibly.
The technique's specs and level were inherited directly from Ross as the mapping source, matching the exact version he had developed through his own grinding.
Phinks and the watching bystanders all had the same reaction: eyes going wide with surprise. None of them had ever seen Feitan use anything like this.
Was it something he had kept hidden all along? Or some new power acquired through death and return?
Either way, they could roughly sense it: whatever Feitan was building right now shared a fundamental mechanical principle with Phinks's own Ripper Cyclotron. Both used rotation to accumulate force, both released everything at once at the peak. Different forms, same underlying logic.
"Fei! Let's end this!"
"Come on."
Feitan shot forward like a black meteor.
Phinks, arm wound past ten full rotations, drove his fist straight ahead with everything behind it.
Boom.
A shockwave like a small explosion radiated outward in every direction from the point of collision between speed and power.
Phinks was sent flying backward. His body flickered into a brief Phase Movement state, confirming he had taken a clean hit.
Feitan was also sent flying backward. But his body had already started to fade and dissolve. No gold coins. HP bar wiped clean.
"Fei... go well."
Phinks let himself hit the ground, not bothering to break the fall. He was working very hard at keeping a certain kind of liquid from leaving his eyes.
"Hmph. Idiot."
Whether it was a final jab at Phinks for not knowing how Castlevania's rules actually worked, nobody could say for certain. That was all Feitan left behind before his body dissolved completely.
Where his body had been, a single loot drop remained: the remains of his umbrella-sword skeleton, the one that had been burned beyond use by his own Rising Sun and never recovered by Machi or the others.
"All right. Time to go."
Franklin wrapped one of his oversized hands around Phinks, who was still sprawled flat on the ground, and hauled him upright in a single motion.
Nobunaga picked up the umbrella-sword remnants.
"Wait, that's it!?"
Uvogin watched the group shift into a clear we're-done-here posture and stared blankly for a moment before the dissatisfaction hit him hard.
Not even remotely satisfying.
"The leader's compromise was letting us see Feitan off. Not permission to explore deeper into Castlevania."
Machi spoke from the side, her expression unchanged.
"Uvogin. Don't go."
Nobunaga turned to Uvogin with unusual gravity, the umbrella-sword remnants in hand.
"At least not until the leader has used someone else's lives to map out every rule this place has. I don't want to turn around one day and have to deal with your Post-Mortem Nen Beast."
Something almost imperceptibly close to a plea flickered through Nobunaga's eyes.
Uvogin wore every emotion on his face and usually acted on impulse without a second thought. In the past, a line like this from Nobunaga would have gotten a dismissive snort and a charge straight forward. But Feitan's death was right there in front of him, undeniable, and Phinks was still in that particular state. Even someone as straightforward as Uvogin swallowed what he had been about to say.
"Tch. What a letdown..."
He kicked the stone slab he had been sitting on to pieces, then fell in with the group. The unrestrained side of him, choosing to hold back for the sake of his companions. Again.
As it happened, Ross was equally dissatisfied.
He had thought the combat types were coming in hot with serious intent. Turned out they were just here for a funeral.
Well. Next time they actually came to assault the castle, he would save the revived Feitan for a later area and give them a surprise.
Ross tossed the controller aside and stretched a long, thorough stretch. Three days cooped up in a room had his body feeling stiff.
The funeral had been a minor side event. It hadn't changed the overall outcome: temporary full withdrawal. But that didn't mean they were done.
At minimum, Castlevania hadn't shown the kind of overwhelming foundational depth that a place like the Zoldyck estate had. That sort of strength, the kind that made even the Troupe's best lifetime effort fall short, was the only thing that would make them genuinely walk away. Castlevania hadn't reached that bar. Which meant they would switch approaches.
Ross's best guess: they would start hiring others to do the exploring, or spread targeted information to draw in ability users who were already interested in Castlevania and let them serve as the advance scouts.
And he shouldn't forget: Trevor C. Belmont had arrived in this world alongside Old Drac. The moment Trevor caught wind of any rumor about Castlevania, he would almost certainly show up immediately.
So where exactly had Old Drac wandered off to and what was he doing?
Offloading all the pressure onto his sub-landlord while using him as a decoy wasn't exactly gracious behavior.
Just then, the phone in Ross's room rang. Kastro's voice came through on the other end.
"The fighters and the arena are ready. When do you need them?"
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