"You bastard… you really got lucky!"
"But still, it's thanks to you that we finally took this bitch down."
"Hey, you all right… dead or not?"
As Owl slid the woman into his "pocket" with Nen, the other Shadow Beasts breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Some of them began grumbling at Xiang Nan.
Others were glaring at the badly wounded Rabid Dog.
"Hmph, not dead yet…," Rabid Dog growled, forcing his blood‑soaked body upright, utterly defiant.
Losing a member in the middle of a mission from Ten Don was something the Beasts had never imagined.
Xiang Nan excused himself by claiming the woman struck Rabid Dog and Leech first—catching him off guard and giving him an opening to counter.
Given the Beasts' arrogance and thick skulls, they bought it without question.
Only Owl sensed that Xiang Nan was far from simple.
Owl didn't truly know Xiang Nan's full strength; they had only carried out a few jobs for Ten Don together.
Even so, Owl's experience told him Xiang Nan had been hiding a great deal.
The woman's sudden flare of power—even if Xiang Nan had anticipated it—should at best have forced him to dodge.
Landing a single clean hit that nearly crippled her while looking relaxed? Impossible for an ordinary fighter.
Rumor had it that since Xiang Nan joined the upper ranks, he'd drilled Don Edi's Nen squad into impressive shape—Don Edi, at least, was delighted.
"Leech is dead… looks like it's time to screen some fresh blood again," Bat remarked, gloating over the headless body on the floor.
There was not the slightest hint of grief or regret—utterly cold‑blooded.
Exactly the same attitude they'd shown when Xiang Nan killed Porcupine earlier.
"If you're weak you stay down—serves you right to die here," the handsome Fish said icily.
"That bitch's Nen was freakish. We never expected it to scale that far—otherwise she never would've scored a hit!" another Beast muttered, eyeing Xiang Nan as he strolled over. "Even if you hadn't stepped in, give us a moment to adjust and we'd have chopped her up!"
"Yeah, yeah—my apologies."
Xiang Nan chuckled. "Things got dicey; if I'd hesitated, I might've been the one on the floor."
"Che!"
The Beast wasn't bragging. One‑on‑one, a few of them might lose to the woman, but with numbers and coordination they would have overwhelmed her.
One dead, two badly hurt.
For a lone female player, that was solid damage against the Shadow Beasts—exactly as she had threatened before the fight.
Still, Rabid Dog and the others were hardly normal humans: engineered genes, plus Ten Don resources. As long as they were breathing, they'd heal eventually.
"This woman's been hiding behind the Muka family. I'd say the recent chaos in the Yorbian underworld may well be her doing," Owl said, tearing his gaze from Xiang Nan and addressing the group. "And this isn't the only hotspot. We've got plenty more fires to put out. Take today's loss as a lesson—no more casualties. Something about these incidents smells off."
"There may be more Nen users as 'special' as she is."
Xiang Nan smiled softly. As expected—Owl was the only Beast who actually thought.
"Her Nen is strong, but it must have limits. The fact she dared fight alone instead of fleeing suggests her goal was to cow the Ten Don and force a concession. And she probably can't withdraw on her own—meaning she's got an accomplice inside the compound."
"Bat, Porcupine—go hunt them down. Stay sharp."
Owl issued the order to Bat and Xiang Nan, then repeated it specifically to Bat and Porcupine.
The two named Beasts nodded and left at once.
The Beasts owed much of their fearsome reputation to Owl's leadership; without him, several members would likely already be dead. Xiang Nan, for one, rated Owl's contribution very highly.
…
One hour later
The Muka base lay in ruins.
The head had been flushed out and killed on the spot.
Bat and Xiang Nan also located another player skulking in the dark.
He had planned to extract the woman in an emergency, but she'd suddenly "gone silent" and never responded.
His Nen was "Data Conduction"—in short, he could convert the woman into "data" and beam her to another location.
But it required prep work, and above all the woman's acknowledgement when he triggered it.
Xiang Nan's blow had shattered her consciousness in an instant; Owl's follow‑up was perfectly timed. Their escape plan died right there.
In those two players' minds, if the woman got her Nen fully online, she'd survive long enough—maybe not kill every Beast, but rattle them so thoroughly the Ten Don would take notice. If they lived through that, the Muka family could rise again.
They failed.
From the captive, Xiang Nan pried out the woman's Nen mechanics.
It was fiendishly complex and riddled with constraints.
Every phase—breaking the perimeter, storming the building—was a scripted "stage." The scene had to match the scenario she'd envisioned; only then could she unlock new power for the "boss fight," each boost keyed to external cues.
Her power scaled with the setting and the drama: the tougher the "stage," the stronger she became. Twisted, but terrifyingly effective with proper teammates.
With enough atmosphere and a small army of expendable "mobs," she could wipe not only the Beasts but even the Phantom Troupe.
She was her faction's final "nuclear warhead."
Of course, that demanded insane pre‑battle prep—and today's wildcard was Xiang Nan.
Man proposes, Heaven disposes… plus they simply lack the manpower.
…
With the Muka targets neutralized, Owl led the Shadow Beasts away.
Plenty of work remained: track down the masterminds muddying the underworld—and restore order as fast as possible.