The lights coiled like a dragon along the winding mountain path, illuminating the entire trail as bright as day.
The bustling crowd surged upward along the river of light, steadily making their way toward the mountaintop.
Chrollo stood still, tilting his head to gaze at the summit illuminated by the lights.
When his flip phone indicated that the target was still some distance away, he was almost certain the target was at the peak.
As long as he could find it… then all the effort he had poured into this would be worth it.
Amid the flowing crowd on the mountain path, Chrollo slowly raised his hand and made a discreet gesture.
As he lowered it, several figures emerged silently from the shadows, converging toward him without a sound.
These figures were none other than Pakunoda, Kortopi, and Machi.
After a glance at his companions, Chrollo followed the crowd toward the mountaintop.
—--
Meanwhile, behind the shrine at the summit, a quaint wooden structure stood quietly.
The courtyard was lush with greenery, where bamboo tubes clinked softly amid the flowing water and artificial rock formations.
A winding cobblestone path led forward, ending at a paper door bathed in candlelight.
The flickering flames cast two indistinct silhouettes onto the plain white paper, fading in and out with the swaying light.
Inside the room, on the pale yellow tatami mats, the Onmyoji Soya sat facing the Deerveil-ryu ninja.
Between them lay a broken katana.
A third of its blade was missing, yet the remaining steel emitted waves of aura, coiling like mist. Faint wisps of smoke-like energy could be seen swirling along the blade's patterns.
"Kano Hira, is this the sword called 'Myriad Forms'?"
Soya lowered his gaze to the broken blade on the tatami, his voice as calm as a deep pool.
The flickering candlelight cast uneven shadows across his sharply defined profile.
The Deerveil-ryu ninja named Kano Hira gave a slight nod, his tone heavy. "The Senro, which had been lost overseas, was recovered by our clan. But its Nen intent had already been erased. Now, after much difficulty, we've found Myriad Forms. Though it's broken, its core Nen intent remains…"
At this point, Kano Hira suddenly looked up, his gaze sharp as a blade. "Can you do it?"
Soya didn't answer immediately. Instead, he picked up Myriad Forms.
His slender fingers traced the break in the blade; its surface was smooth as a mirror.
"It's still intact. That's enough."
"Good."
The tension in Kano Hira's lips eased slightly.
For this moment, the entire Deerveil-ryu had poured in too much effort.
Now, with the goal just one step away, an indescribable excitement surged within him.
Soya paid no mind to Kano Hira's reaction and simply asked, "Shall we begin now?"
"Yes."
Kano Hira suppressed the emotions stirring in his chest.
Soya nodded, then slowly closed his eyes. His aura nodes abruptly opened, and a torrent of aura gushed forth from his body like a fountain.
Above his shoulders, the aura transformed into two cascading waterfalls, surging upward before dissipating into the air.
Nether Mirage.
This was Soya's Specialization ability.
Its effect was to extract memory fragments associated with death. If the medium used for the ability was a corpse, it could extract the critical memory fragments leading to death.
At the same time, it could also manifest a mirage with independent thinking abilities based on extracted memory fragments, though this mirage would not carry the consciousness of the deceased themselves.
This mirage possessed the most basic capacity for communication and interaction.
Apart from being usable on corpses, Nether Mirage could also be applied to objects imbued with residual aura.
Its effect was to directly sever the connection between the object and the lingering Nen, then extract the associated memory fragments and transplant them into another person.
However, this ability came with certain limitations and risks.
Whether it was a corpse or an object carrying residual Nen intent, the general form had to remain intact to meet the activation conditions of Nether Mirage.
Additionally, from the moment Soya developed Nether Mirage, it could only be used nine times in total.
Once those uses were exhausted, the ability would revert to an ordinary Exorcism method.
Moreover, whenever Soya used this ability, he risked memory deterioration.
The instant he activated the ability, Nen surged like a tide around Soya's body. His right hand gripped the broken Myriad Forms blade, while his left hand was enveloped in a glowing mass of Nen.
As his aura dispersed, a spectral figure clad in white robes and wearing an oni mask materialized out of thin air.
Within the hollow eyes of the mask, an eerie blue flame flickered to life.
Then, Soya lightly pressed his left hand against the blade, and the phantom behind him mirrored the motion, a skeletal hand with sharp, withered nails extended toward the broken Myriad Forms blade.
The next moment, the spectral hand gradually solidified, its ashen-gray nails scraping across the blade's edge.
There was no sound, but the aura coiled around the blade was peeled away like strands of silk, twisting into a glowing thread between the skeletal fingers.
The Myriad Forms blade dimmed, stripped of the Nen that had clung to it for who knew how many years.
After severing the lingering Nen, Soya gently set down the Myriad Forms blade and turned to Kano Hira, speaking calmly: "Enter Zetsu."
"..."
Kano Hira hesitated for a brief moment but ultimately closed all his aura nodes, entering a state of Zetsu.
Soya stood and approached Kano Hira, placing a hand atop his head.
The skeletal hand extended from the phantom did the same, pressing the mass of Nen extracted from the Myriad Forms blade into Kano Hira's skull.
Suddenly, Kano Hira's body shuddered. His sealed aura nodes involuntarily reopened.
In an instant, torrents of aura erupted from all over his body.
Yet, though Kano Hira's eyes were wide open, his consciousness was flooded with memories surging like a spring.
The source of these memories was none other than the wielder of the Myriad Forms blade.
Practicing swordsmanship in a snowy night, a bloodstained dojo, a fleeting slash. Fragmented memories flickered across Kano Hira's retinas like a revolving lantern, finally freezing on a scene of clashing blades.
Thanks to Soya's Nether Mirage ability, Kano Hira had finally obtained the power embedded within the Nen intent.
With the support of these memory fragments, he could absorb and master the sword techniques and insights of the Myriad Forms blade's former wielder.
Afterward, he could pass these insights on to others in the Deerveil-ryu.
Good. Very good.
The clash of blades vanished from Kano Hira's eyes, and a faint smirk curled at the corner of his mouth, marred by vicious burn scars.
Seeing this, Soya immediately deactivated his ability.
The phantom shadow behind him suddenly shattered, dissolving into countless fragments of Nen that dissipated into the air.
"You may leave."
Soya remained kneeling in place, his expression cold and detached.
He had fulfilled his promise and would no longer have any dealings with the Deerveil-ryu.
Upon hearing this, Kano Hira picked up the broken Myriad Forms blade from the tatami and silently rose to his feet, heading toward the door.
Clack.
He slid open the paper door, his back turned to Soya.
"Thanks."
Though it had been a transaction, he still offered his gratitude to Soya.
Soya gave no response.
Kano Hira stepped out of the room and onto the corridor.
Instead of taking the main entrance, he walked into the courtyard, intending to vault over the wall and leave directly.
Hmm?
Suddenly, Kano Hira's pupils contracted sharply as he swiftly raised the broken Myriad Forms blade vertically in front of his face.
Clang!
A blinding burst of sparks erupted from the raised broken blade without warning, the metallic tremor lingering in the night air.
A thread?
Kano Hira narrowed his eyes at the source of the sparks, faintly discerning a slender yet rigid thread.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
At that moment, gunshots rang out nearby.
In an instant, a razor-sharp Nen intent flashed in Kano Hira's eyes, like the gleam of a blade, as wisps of white breath escaped from the corners of his mouth.
The broken Myriad Forms blade in his hand suddenly flared with bright aura.
Shu.
Drawing upon the sword intent he had just absorbed from the wielder of the Myriad Forms blade, Kano Hira swiftly slashed downward, severing the Nen Thread. His gaze sharp as a blade, he shifted into a firm stance and swung the broken blade forward, unleashing a blade arc.
In that split second, all six bullets fired at him were cleanly sliced in half by the arc.
Clatter, clatter...
The severed bullets scattered onto the cobblestones below, producing sharp sounds.
But amidst these sounds, there was a faint, almost imperceptible noise of flesh being sliced.
Kano Hira's face stiffened slightly as an inexplicable thin line of blood appeared on his neck.
Behind him, Chrollo materialized out of thin air, a dagger in his left hand and an open black-and-red book in his right.
The next instant, blood gushed from Kano Hira's neck, his eyes still holding a trace of shock before his body collapsed limply to the ground.
Chrollo closed Skill Hunter and walked along the path toward the house ahead.
Meanwhile, Pakunoda, Machi, and Kortopi emerged, stepping over Kano Hira's corpse as they followed behind Chrollo.
The Nen Thread and gunfire moments earlier had been the work of Machi and Pakunoda.
Using their respective abilities, they had ambushed Kano Hira, forcing him to react to their attacks and inevitably expose an opening.
At that moment, Chrollo had simply employed the Emission-type Teleportation ability stored within Skill Hunter, effortlessly slitting Kano Hira's throat with a dagger.
This was the most ruthless aspect of coordinated combat.
In Nen battles, when a Nen user concentrates most of their aura output in one area, the defensive strength of other parts of their body inevitably weakens.
Even using a technique like Gyo on the eyes would significantly impact overall defensive capabilities.
Thus, in coordinated combat, numerical superiority could easily be leveraged to disperse the target's aura output. Once the weakest point was precisely targeted, the battle could end in an instant.
With his teammates' support, Chrollo's Emission-type Teleportation ability made killing effortless.
After Kano Hira's death, Chrollo stepped onto the wooden corridor and slid open the paper door.
Inside the room, Soya was already on high alert, his body enveloped in surging aura like an invisible flame burning around him.
His gaze swept over Chrollo and his group outside the door, his expression turning grave.
He didn't recognize these people, but just from the aura they exuded, he could feel a palpable sense of oppression.
It was the kind of presence only those who had truly waded through mountains of corpses could possess.
Every step they took was steeped in blood.
The path they walked was undoubtedly paved with countless bodies.
These people… were extremely dangerous!
Soya's fingers tensed slightly, alarms blaring in his mind.
Chrollo observed Soya, who was clearly treating them as a dire threat inside the room.
Before making a move against Kano Hira, he had already used the close-range mechanism of Love Dial 6700 to gather partial information on this "target."
And once the target was confirmed, the next step… was to fulfill the conditions for activating Skill Hunter and seize the desired ability.
With a thought, Chrollo's aura surged, and Skill Hunter materialized once again in his hand.
—--
The Obon Festival in Jappon lasted a full three days.
On the final day of the festivities, several figures boarded a ship docked at the harbor, slowly drifting away with the undulating waves.
These figures were none other than Chrollo and his group, who had successfully stolen Soya's ability.
"Still no response from Franklin and Bonolenov?"
At the bow of the ship, Chrollo held Skill Hunter in his hand, its open pages displaying a photo of Soya.
Pakunoda stood behind him, her brow furrowed, her voice heavy with concern. "Yes, it's been two days. Could they… have run into trouble?"
"…"
Chrollo remained silent, shadows flickering in his lowered eyes.
Two days without a word; this fact alone was like a blunt knife, slowly and surely cutting away at a certain possibility.
Franklin and Bonolenov had likely met the same fate as Feitan and Shalnark.
But he didn't address the worry Pakunoda had voiced. Until the entire group was assembled and confirmed, any speculation was just that, speculation.
Snap.
With a soft sound, Chrollo closed Skill Hunter.
His gaze drifted toward the distant horizon, but his thoughts ran deeper than the waves.
If Franklin and Bonolenov had truly met with misfortune, then the enemy lurking in the shadows likely possessed a tracking or locating Nen ability. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to find Franklin and the others so precisely.
The reasoning was simple. The team had invested considerable funds into intelligence channels. If the enemy had used such channels to track their movements, traces would inevitably have been left behind.
After all, intelligence was always a double-edged sword.
Yet, no such traces had been detected during this time.
Moreover, team members operating in groups didn't report their movements to one another.
Skill Hunter dissolved into aura in Chrollo's hand.
The ability known as Nether Mirage was now in his possession. All he needed to do was use it on Feitan's corpse to immediately uncover the identity of the killer, and possibly even their ability…
So dwelling on these thoughts now held little practical meaning.
—--
Meanwhile, the Phantom Troupe members who had received the assembly order two days prior were all making their way to the rendezvous point.
Hisoka, naturally, had also received the assembly order.
But he didn't relay this information to Morrow immediately; instead, he deliberately delayed for two days.
—--
Somewhere on the Yorbian continent, Morrow suddenly received intel from Hisoka.
Another gathering... I need to hurry.
After glancing at the message displayed on his phone screen, Morrow turned his gaze toward Kalluto in the passenger seat.
"How much farther?"
"Very close."
Kalluto looked down at the trembling living paper doll.
The silhouette of this cut-out paper figure faintly bore some resemblance to Phinks.