A heavy storm poured down over BW1, the raindrops hitting it like sharp, rapid drumbeats.
Flames danced wildly, licking and wrapping around anything that could burn — corpses or objects — charring them, curling their edges, and melting them down.
Thick smoke billowed, staining the walls black, like a mural covered by dark clouds.
Whoosh—
Two figures were flung out of a warped space, tumbling messily across the ground before finally coming to a stop.
They didn't get up right away. Like cautious rodents, they glanced around their surroundings.
After exchanging a look, they slowly stood up.
One pointed in a certain direction. The other nodded.
Without saying a word, the two began to move.
They quickly made their way through the curtain of rain and ducked under a large, overturned sheet of metal to take shelter.
There was just enough space beneath the metal for them to stand, though the sound of rain pounding on it was annoyingly loud.
One of them was a short, chubby woman with a bowl haircut. Her strange spiral-patterned clothes were completely soaked.
The other was much taller — a man in a suit with glasses, neat and refined in appearance.
"I told you we'd be safe coming back here," the short woman, Tokarine, said confidently, crossing her thick arms. "There's an old saying: the most dangerous place is often the safest."
The man with glasses, Steiner, wiped the moisture — whether rain or sweat — from his face and yanked off his already-loose tie.
He threw it to the ground without hesitation, even though it was his favorite one.
Then he began gasping for air, chest heaving.
The terrifying events of the past few hours had completely stripped away any concern for appearances.
"What time is it?" Tokarine shoved him roughly, clearly not in a comforting mood.
Steiner didn't dare get angry. He didn't even dare glare at her.
Because he knew—if it weren't for that Nen user, he would've already died in some dark corner.
And without her protection from here on, there was no way he'd survive until reinforcements from the Six Continent arrived.
That is… if the Six Continent actually planned on sending reinforcements at all. Even as the Assistant Section Chief of the International Travel Permit Bureau, he was filled with unease.
Tokarine used her Nen to dry her mushroom-shaped hair and soaked clothes, restoring her aura as she waited for Steiner's reply.
Steiner looked like a drowned dog, hair plastered all over his face. His hairstyle was completely ruined.
He tried his best to steady his breathing, straightened up, adjusted his thin-rimmed glasses, then rolled up his left sleeve to reveal an expensive-looking watch.
There were scratches and cracks on it from all the chaos they had been through, but thankfully, the hands were still moving.
"It's just past 1 AM," he said, realizing his voice was hoarse. Nervously, he swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
Tokarine, still worried, grabbed his left wrist, brought her chubby face close, and stared at the watch for a while before finally nodding in confirmation.
Steiner wiped the water dripping down his face and looked around once more.
Especially at the places where the moonlight and firelight couldn't reach. Then, he kept glancing behind him over and over again.
In just a few short hours, the number of terrifying attacks he'd experienced probably surpassed everything he'd faced in his entire life.
He couldn't hold back his confusion and fear anymore, and asked the Hunter Association exploration team member, "How did it come to this? What exactly happened?"
"How should I know?" Tokarine shrugged. "If you top-level folks have no idea what's going on, don't expect someone at my level to know."
Of course, that was a joke. Tokarine actually held a pretty high position in the Hunter Association's exploration team—she was second only to Knov when it came to teleportation-type Nen users. Her importance went without saying.
Still, she wasn't lying when she said she didn't know. Everything had happened way too suddenly.
They had already seen the shores of the Dark Continent.
The journey—two whole months of growing tension and pressure—was finally about to end.
And yet, just one hour before the scheduled landing, chaos erupted at the highest level of the BW1.
And then there was this damn storm — coming in at the perfect time, almost like it was sent just to mess everything up.
The Hunter Association's exploration team quickly noticed that the BW1 had changed course. In response, they came up with three possible plans.
The first was to seize control of the BW1 itself.
The second was to regain control of the four ships that had been brought into BW1's internal dock — though one of them had already sunk halfway there after being attacked by a sea beast.
The third... was to jump straight into the freezing ocean.
The exploration team took swift and decisive action, but in the end, it seemed they had failed the first two plans.
To make things worse, Chairman Netero and several members of the Zodiacs were somehow trapped at the very top level of the BW1.
Then, monsters — ones that Tokarine had never heard of or seen before — began flooding into the ship from who-knows-where. They tore into anyone they saw. Killed anyone they encountered.
Later, she realized those monsters... were probably once the passengers aboard BW1.
In short, absolute chaos had broken out aboard the ship.
This time, no one could get things under control — not even Chairman Netero.
Death was spreading...
Tokarine regrouped with some members of the exploration team, then got separated, then met up again — until finally, she saw it with her own eyes: the BW1 crashed headlong into the coast of the Dark Continent.
Some members of the Hunter Association exploration team appeared and escaped with Tokarine from the wreckage of the burning, exploding BW1.
They ran over jagged rocks, along with terrified and frenzied crowds — like a nest of rats disturbed from hiding — all rushing toward the heart of the Dark Continent.
Tokarine only now realized that Steiner was by her side—she didn't even know when this bespectacled man had appeared next to her.
Maybe he had been there from the beginning, but everything was so chaotic that Tokarine didn't have the time to notice who was standing around her.
The exhausted group had just planned to rest for a moment at the foot of the mountains when the monsters caught up again, giving them no time to breathe.
It quickly became clear—the monsters were targeting the Nen users in the group.
Killing the normal people without Nen seemed more like a casual act or a way to vent.
From the very beginning, the monsters' main targets were always the Nen users. Everyone else was secondary.
Even when they used Zetsu to hide their aura, it only delayed being found. The monsters still managed to track them down and charge at them.
There were just too many Nen users in the group… The monsters could smell the aura on them like sharks sensing blood in water.
They realized this couldn't go on. There was no way they could protect Steiner and fight the monsters at the same time.
And Steiner had a special status and an important role—he couldn't die, and he definitely couldn't be left behind.
His survival—and whether he could return to the Six Continents with information about this place—was the key to the Hunter Association getting more funding and manpower for the expedition.
Once the group understood the monsters were coming specifically for the Nen users, they asked Tokarine to look after Steiner, and to take him away if necessary.
When the next wave of monsters arrived, Tokarine followed their instructions after being told again and again.
She brought Steiner with her, using her Nen ability—Emission Type: Spiral Slide—to slide back through a tunnel that allowed space-jumping, arriving beside the wreckage of BW1.
Before leaving this place, Tokarine had specifically set up an entrance and exit near the wreckage, and now it finally came in handy.
Unfortunately, her Nen ability was nowhere near as convenient as Knov's.
It didn't have the twenty-one spacious rooms like Knov's 4D Apartment, nor did it have doors that allowed easy access for multiple people.
Spiral Slide was a Nen ability specialized for transporting supplies. Tokarine could throw an item into one entrance, and it would fly out from a designated exit.
But if a human entered the entrance, Tokarine had to go in with them, and the tunnel could only fit two people sitting front to back at most.
If not for this restriction and the accompanying vow, Tokarine would've definitely brought along another professional Hunter—it would've made things much safer.
After all, she wasn't a combat-type Nen user.
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