At the gambling table.
The man wearing small sunglasses placed a terrible hand of cards on the table, then made a surrender gesture to the dealer.
He had lost.
And with that, his last remaining chips were gone.
Yet he showed no signs of frustration or regret, in fact, a faint smile lingered at the corners of his lips.
To onlookers, it seemed as though the man in small sunglasses didn't care about the lost chips at all.
But in reality, those chips had been the last of his money.
The dealer, of course, couldn't peer into the depths of the man's wallet and merely offered a professional smile as she swept away his remaining chips.
Seems like Lady Luck took the day off.
The man in small sunglasses rose from his chair, lifting a black hat with a resigned motion before placing it on his head. Then, he strode out of the casino.
Despite losing all his money, his mood remained unshaken.
The only things left to consider were how to solve dinner, and the presence of someone following him.
The man lightly adjusted his hat brim with his Index Finger and leisurely exited the casino.
He walked unhurriedly down the corridor lined with subtly patterned carpets, his polished shoes reflecting a soft glow under the golden wall lamps.
On either side, classical oil paintings exuded a faint, captivating sheen in the warm light.
The man paused, studying the artwork with interest.
After a moment, he withdrew his gaze and continued down the hallway.
When he passed a guest lounge, he stopped again, resting his right hand on the gilded door handle. After a brief hesitation, he pushed it open.
The hinges emitted a faint creak.
The man stepped inside the empty lounge, where only a small nightlight in the corner cast a dim halo, outlining the plush velvet sofa in a hazy silhouette.
The air carried a faint mingling of leather and other scents, while heavy curtains blocked out the night view outside.
The man withdrew his hand, and with another soft sound from the hinges, the door swung shut on its own.
Then, he walked straight toward the curtains.
His footsteps were completely absorbed by the thick carpet, leaving the room so silent that only his breathing could be heard.
Standing before the floor-length drapes, the man slowly turned to face the closed door.
Under his watchful gaze, the door was pushed open again, this time by Chrollo, who had been following him all along.
He stepped inside, allowing the door to close behind him.
The man in small sunglasses studied Chrollo with a faint smile. "Following me all this way, planning to treat me to dinner?"
Faced with the teasing remark, Chrollo's expression remained unchanged. Casually raising his right hand, his dark eyes fixed on the man as he cut straight to the point:
"Does your ability involve a Nen Beast?"
"…!"
The man's smile froze instantly. Behind his lenses, his gaze sharpened into scrutiny.
After a beat of silence, he avoided answering directly and instead countered, "Who are you? What do you want?"
Unfazed by his wariness, Chrollo gathered Nen into his right hand, instantly materializing Skill Hunter. The red-and-black book flipped open on its own, its pages glowing dimly under the muted yellow light.
"No need to answer."
Chrollo's tone was calm.
The man in small sunglasses frowned slightly, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the brim of his hat. His voice remained composed but carried a hint of coldness. "If it's convenient, I'd like a reason."
Chrollo didn't respond. The Skill Hunter in his hand suddenly stopped at a certain page.
As his Nen aura surged, the air instantly filled with a suffocating pressure.
The next moment.
A hazy glow of aura enveloped Chrollo's left hand as a peculiarly shaped bubble gun materialized out of thin air.
The gun shimmered with dreamlike iridescence, its round drum faintly revealing thick, swirling colored liquid inside.
「Fragile Item」
This was one of his collected Conjuration abilities.
When the barrel of the iridescent bubble gun tilted slightly upward, refracted rainbow light cast mottled hues across the lenses of the small sunglasses.
"A bubble gun?"
A flicker of surprise passed through the man's eyes before his body tensed.
As a Nen user, he knew all too well that the most seemingly harmless things were often the most dangerous, especially unknown Conjuration abilities.
"Sigh, I haven't eaten all day. Looks like dinner's off the table now."
Seeing that Chrollo wouldn't provide an answer, the man abandoned his attempt to understand the reason and instead opened all his aura nodes, immediately entering combat readiness.
Chrollo's index finger rested lightly on the trigger of the iridescent bubble gun.
This gun could shoot special Nen-infused bubbles. Upon contact, the bursting bubbles would corrode and dissolve the target's aura.
Thus, this ability could not only break through an enemy's Nen defenses but was also highly effective against Nen Beasts.
Although Chrollo had located this man through the Love Dial 6700 ability, using "mastery of Conjuration Nen Beasts" as the keyword...
He couldn't confirm it further until the man actually used his ability.
After all, tonight's use of Love Dial 6700 was primarily to test the ability's accuracy and practicality.
"Let's just try it out..."
Chrollo murmured to himself before pulling the trigger.
With a rapid clicking sound, the barrel erupted in dazzling iridescence as dozens of crystalline bubbles surged forth like a dream.
These seemingly fragile bubbles shimmered with dangerous Nen radiance, drifting toward the man like startled fireflies.
Behind his lenses, the man's pupils contracted slightly.
"Today just feels particularly unlucky."
He sighed as two streams of refined Nen separated from his shoulders, twisting and condensing midair as if painted by an invisible brush...
Indoor Fish
Two pallid Nen fish materialized out of nowhere.
Their bodies resembled skeletal vertebrae stripped of flesh, writhing eerily through the air.
Their angular fish heads bore pitch-black, bead-like eyes that stared unblinkingly at the approaching iridescent bubbles.
The atmosphere in the lounge grew heavy and oppressive.
Under the dim yellow light, the dreamlike bubbles and the ghastly bone fish faced off across the space.
Watching the skeletal Nen Beasts conjured by the man, Chrollo confirmed the search results of Love Dial 6700. Excellent, this ability... is extremely important.
From the moment he saw the Indoor Fish, Chrollo understood that the "Love Dial 6700" ability would become an irreplaceable cornerstone in his entire Nen system.
Now.
He was going to claim this Nen Beast ability before him.
The instant this thought crossed Chrollo's mind, the two Nen fish conjured by the small sunglasses-wearing man suddenly accelerated.
No longer gliding gracefully, they darted through the multicolored bubbles like swordfish, heading straight for Chrollo.
Seeing this, Chrollo calmly closed his Skill Hunter.
As the book shut, the "fragile item bubble gun" in his left hand immediately dissipated as well.
However, due to the ability's mechanics, the dozens of bubbles he had just fired remained floating in midair.
Chrollo reopened the book, quickly stopping at a specific page.
Then, his left hand was once again enveloped in Nen, instantly forming a horrifying weapon—
A ghastly white folding fan stitched together from human finger bones.
Dried blood still clung between the ribs of the fan, which emitted a grating creak as it unfolded.
Chrollo swung this fingerbone fan, and in the air before him, phantom finger segments appeared one after another, gently tapping the smooth heads of the two Nen fish.
The Nen fish, with their trailing, spine-like bodies, suddenly veered off course, crashing into nearby multicolored bubbles.
Pop, pop.
As the bubbles burst one after another, countless tiny droplets landed on the Nen fish, corroding their bodies like acid at an alarming rate.
In just a second, both Nen fish were completely dissolved into nothingness.
But at that moment, the small sunglasses-wearing man had already circled behind Chrollo, his right hand stiffened and wrapped in Nen, thrusting toward the back of Chrollo's neck.
Chrollo seemed to sense it and lightly flicked his fingerbone fan again.
A ripple of Nen appeared, and a phantom finger segment flashed into existence at the back of his neck, deflecting the man's Palm Blade to the side.
"Hmm?"
The small sunglasses-wearing man felt an immense force transmitted through his palm. His Palm Blade, which should have struck Chrollo's neck, instead passed harmlessly by.
That phantom finger segment appearing out of nowhere...
Such formidable strength.
The man was inwardly shocked, but his assault continued.
With his Palm Blade missing, he redirected his Nen, conjuring an Indoor Fish directly from his outstretched palm, its saw-like mouth snapping toward Chrollo's eyes.
Yet at that very moment, a sharp afterimage sliced through the Indoor Fish's neck even faster.
A soft hiss.
The Indoor Fish shattered and vanished.
That afterimage was none other than Chrollo's bone fan.
Martial arts were also one of Chrollo's strengths.
After using the fan to sever the Indoor Fish, he almost simultaneously closed his book.
As Skill Hunter dissipated, the aura output previously divided between the fan and the book instantly returned to Chrollo's body.
Then, leveraging this peak aura output, he executed a masterful Ryū, channeling his Nen into a devastating elbow strike to the small sunglasses-wearing man's cheek.
Bam!
The powerful impact slammed into the man's face, instantly distorting his features and sending a spray of blood gushing from his nose and mouth. The delicate small sunglasses perched on his face inevitably shattered into pieces.
He was sent sliding backward by Chrollo's elbow strike, barely managing to stay on his feet, though his consciousness was already fading.
"Who... are you...?"
The man with the small sunglasses struggled to lift his head, gazing at Chrollo, who hadn't moved an inch from the beginning.
It was the first time he had seen such a powerful Nen user.
And that book capable of manifesting multiple abilities.
Facing the man's repeated question, Chrollo remained silent as a statue, his dark eyes reflecting an inorganic, icy light.
The way he looked at the man was like a butcher examining meat on a chopping block, cold, devoid of any warmth.
After a long while...
The oppressive atmosphere in the room had dissipated.
Chrollo pulled open the heavy curtains.
"Whoosh..."
A flood of dazzling city lights poured in.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, neon lights flowed through the night, the massive sign of a casino flickering in pink and purple hues not far away, a surreal contrast to the life-and-death struggle that had just taken place in the room.
Chrollo's figure was projected onto the glass, overlapping with the distant lights.
In his right hand, Skill Hunter lay open, its pages frozen on a photograph of the small-sunglasses man.
Click, click-click.
Two pale, skeletal fish circled their new master, their spine-like bodies carving eerie trails through the air.
Chrollo turned his head, his gaze falling on the unrecognizable figure sprawled on the carpet, the small-sunglasses man had now lost all his limbs, resembling a doll roughly disassembled by a child.
Yet, the severed parts of his body showed no blood, nor any trace of muscle or tissue, as if his limbs had been erased by some higher-dimensional force.
This was the ability of Indoor Fish.
The Nen fish, conjured through Nen, could only survive in an enclosed space.
That was why the small-sunglasses man, upon noticing Chrollo's pursuit, had deliberately entered this tightly sealed guest lounge.
Indoor Fish could float and fly freely within the enclosed room. They fed on human flesh, but their victims felt no pain and bled no blood.
As long as the Nen fish remained, even if the man was reduced to nothing but a sliver of his face, he would continue to "live" in a biological sense.
"An interesting ability."
Chrollo's peripheral vision flicked toward the Nen fish winding through the air.
The limbless man stared at Chrollo in terror, as though gazing at a monstrous creature.
Meeting the man's fearful gaze, Chrollo spoke calmly, "I suddenly wonder, what would happen if Indoor Fish devoured your prefrontal cortex...?"
"!!!"
The man's pupils contracted violently.
Time passed once more in the room.
Creak...
The door to the guest lounge suddenly swung open.
Pakunoda and Machi stepped inside one after another.
As the door opened, the two Indoor Fishs let out eerie cries before crumbling into nothingness.
At the same time...
Blood gushed from the stumps of the unconscious man's limbs and his forehead. Before Machi arrived, she had already learned the situation from Chrollo. Without hesitation, she took out her needle and thread and began stitching up the small bespectacled man's wounds.
Meanwhile, Pakunoda stepped over the pools of blood to approach Chrollo.
"Leader, we've already 'set that woman free'," she reported.
"Hmm."
Chrollo gave a slight nod, the flip phone held casually in his hand.
Ring-ring...
The dial tone sounded from the phone.
This time, Chrollo had set the search parameters to: target possesses a Nen ability that can recreate scenes from a corpse's past life.
"The owner of the number you dialed is not currently nearby. Please try again later or change locations before redialing..."
The phone in Chrollo's fingers emitted the cold, automated message.
Would they be able to find the desired ability?
If successful, they could use Feitan's corpse to obtain the information they needed.