Joey thought through a dozen scenarios in a flash.
While his mind raced, the woman from the Ei-Ei Family had already breached the Fourth Tier for him.
Through his surveillance feed, Joey clearly saw the bee tailing just behind her as she entered Tier 4.
At the same time, her body thinned even further—becoming almost liquid.
It was uncanny.
She slipped through the ceiling crack like a sheet of paper, and once inside, her body inflated like a balloon, reverting to human form.
She scanned the room, confused—not seeing the expected passage.
Her brows knitted, and her eyes snapped to the Prince's bedroom.
But at that moment, the master bedroom door burst open—not revealing a masked intruder, but a barrage of gun barrels.
Royal Army soldiers poured out.
Her expression twisted instantly—but it was too late.
The soldiers didn't speak. They pulled their triggers the moment they saw her.
Gunfire erupted through Tier 4.
But watching from his phone, Joey saw her body compress again, becoming flat and thin as paper.
Even as she fell from the ceiling, she was agile—dodging bullets midair.
Joey's jaw tensed.
He never expected someone to contort their body like Luffy from One Piece—a transformation that defied biology.
Was she a Transmuter?
Maybe closer to an Enhancer.
This kind of deformation without internal rupture would require tremendous reinforcement.
But no normal Nen category could fully explain what she was doing.
Bullets didn't land. Not one.
Joey could tell—she had perfect bullet awareness, and solid combat instincts.
She danced through the gunfire and darted toward the private soldiers' rest area.
Joey knew her thought process.
She probably guessed his allies were hiding there.
It made sense. The Fourth Tier was mostly open space—only the Prince's bedroom and the soldiers' rest zone offered concealed shelter.
She wouldn't assume the rendezvous point was a toilet.
Her deduction was right—but Joey was certain Fugates and Kajo hadn't arrived yet.
Their rendezvous point wasn't the bedroom or rest area.
It was the banquet hall—the same one they'd used to ambush the Fourth Prince last time.
Right now, that hall stood wide open.
Joey's bug had already flown inside.
But scanning the walls, he saw no door, no sign of Fugates' spatial portal.
That confirmed it.
The Royal Army had predicted Joey would escape using space-type Nen—and had deployed an ability that blocked it in Tier 4.
He'd already found the user.
One soldier among them was clearly a Nen user—and wasn't even trying to hide it.
His aura spread like vines, extending across the room, crawling over the walls.
Using In, Joey saw thick aura lines woven across every surface.
That man had locked down most of Tier 4.
Unless Joey eliminated him, Fugates couldn't open a door.
But Joey's En sensed two other Nen users guarding him.
One even had an active En, encasing all three.
A defensive formation.
With En deployed, sneaking a Golden Experience creature carrying First Bomb into range would be impossible.
Joey rolled his left wrist.
For enemies like these—clearly made to be shot—Wither Heart Strike was the best tool.
He halted outside the Fourth Tier.
Killer Queen appeared. The tank dropped to the ground with a wild roar and charged in, flames kindling around it, guided by Weather Report.
Strike's flaw was that it targeted heat indiscriminately.
But Weather Report fixed that.
By igniting air in Joey's En, he could mark targets with flames on demand.
Joey himself remained outside.
If he couldn't deal with them quickly, he'd abandon the Fourth Tier escape plan.
Mirage activated. His figure slowly vanished from the corridor.
Whether he used this route or not, he had to stay hidden for now.
Someone was probing his direction with En, but the range wasn't close enough to lock on.
Inside, gunfire still rang.
Soldiers charged the paper-woman—
—but before they could close in, her arms stretched out like blades, slicing the nearest attackers to pieces.
Under Nen, her warped limbs were like razor whips.
The soldiers didn't flinch, even as they died.
Ten lives gone—still more kept charging.
Then the bedroom opened again.
A man emerged, skin corpse-pale, cloaked in Ren.
Joey recognized him immediately—the user of En.
His pallor wasn't real—just makeup.
As he appeared, the other soldiers halted.
He muttered something under his breath.
The Royal Army troops near him backed away in fear.
He raised a finger toward the corpses.
Threads of aura spiraled from his fingertips and linked to the bodies.
The shredded remains lifted—then launched toward the paper-woman.
An Emitter? No—clearly Manipulator.
Joey observed through the phone.
He guessed there was more to it than just hurling corpses.
He was right.
Before she could react, the corpses exploded—one after another.
Bone shrapnel and gore erupted across her body.
And that was just the beginning.
More than a dozen corpses turned into bombs.
After seven or eight blasts, she finally screamed.
Even she couldn't withstand them all.
Joey's eyes narrowed.
He hadn't expected the Royal Army to use such grotesque powers.
"Soldiers" conjure images of discipline and order.
This guy was worse than mafia.
He'd sent soldiers to die just to prime his ability—maximize his explosions.
It was ruthless.
Still, Joey didn't care about her fate.
She wouldn't die so easily.
Her ability let her evade damage.
And even if she used Ken or Ko, that would block the damage.
This damage was a strategy, not real danger.
Was she luring the manipulator closer for a counterattack?
Or faking death to escape?
Joey thought she had already checked the rest room and confirmed no portal was there.
With the Fourth Tier occupied, and no way to cause chaos, withdrawal was smart.
The corpse-bomber looked strong, but the explosions were mostly non-Nen.
No aura on the remains.
Worse than a grenade.
Useless against a high-level Nen user.
In short—he thought he was cool, but he was trash.
But if the paper-woman wanted to fake her death, Joey would do her a favor and make it real.
She knew too much. She was still a threat.
Joey guided the bee carrying First Bomb closer to her limp, bloody body.
Just as it was about to touch her—
—a dark shadow burst from the gore, tackling her.
It happened too fast.
Even Joey's En didn't pick it up in time.
The shadow not only knocked her over—it also touched the bee.
Instantly, Killer Queen's thumb slammed down.
Annihilation.
The shadow turned to ash before the woman could even scream.
It was instant.
So fast the paper-woman froze, the manipulator stood stunned, and the soldiers didn't even register what had happened.
Joey stared, baffled.
Then he realized.
The figure he'd sensed earlier—the one protecting the trio—
—also vanished as the shadow died.
A body-switch ability.
Exactly what it was, Joey didn't know.
But it was clearly bait—a trick.
Still, that exposed the spatial-blocker.
At the same time, Wither Heart Strike looped into the master bedroom, roaring toward the man spreading aura across the walls.
Joey, having launched the bee, now entered Tier 4 himself.
He watched the tank approach the ability-user—
—but the man didn't move.
Unfazed.
Joey raised an eyebrow.
What the hell was with these Royal Army guys?
First a pretty-boy corpse bomber, then a body-switcher, now a guy who just stood there and waited to die?
Two of them was a quirky duo. Three?
What were they now, the Three Idiots?
None of them equaled a single tactician.
Joey didn't hesitate. Still cloaked in Mirage, he had Killer Queen flick a new coin toward the paper-woman's body—
—then advanced toward the pretty boy.
The tank didn't care about strategy. It plowed straight into the man, flattening his legs, chest, and skull in one clean pass.
At the same time, the coin landed on the paper-woman.
Joey reappeared next to the pretty boy—
—and drove a Nen-enhanced punch into his stunned face.
The punch obliterated his skull.
The long touch from the tank had fulfilled the Heart Strike's condition.
It detonated.
The paper-woman vanished in a flash of dust.
The pretty boy's head exploded from Joey's fist.
And the aura-spreader was vaporized by the tank's blast.
Suddenly, all that remained in Tier 4 were a bunch of confused, powerless Royal Army grunts.
(End of Chapter)