Deceptive Shooting Star, Starlight Convergence, and even Shooting Star · Essence Siphon.
All these ability details were within the Troupe's grasp.
They originated from Feitan's dying memories under the effects of Nether Mirage, all of Heavens Arena's battle footage of Morrow, and finally, the additional details provided by Illumi.
With this intelligence at hand and their numerical advantage, the Troupe believed they had the upper hand.
That was why they agreed to Illumi's terms.
But this decision...
Led to Pakunoda's death.
Chrollo's rapidly constricting pupils reflected the mangled remains of Pakunoda falling from the sky.
Even as a monster who viewed human lives as worthless, even as someone who saw people as nothing more than walking lumps of flesh to be slaughtered without hesitation...
The brutal death of a comrade before his eyes still sent violent ripples through what remained of Chrollo's humanity.
This was his responsibility.
Morrow straightened up, casually glancing at the Tree Rings level on the back of his hand.
Lv.62 → Lv.63
Pakunoda's experience had leveled him up, bringing him one step closer to Level 70.
After rising to his feet, Morrow looked past the shattered limbs of the corpse replicas destroyed by Shooting Star · Star Rain, his gaze settling on Chrollo, whose face was smeared with blood and gore.
By exploiting the Troupe's knowledge of his abilities, he had effortlessly eliminated the carelessly positioned Pakunoda first.
But Morrow knew the real battle was yet to come.
And as long as Chrollo remained alive, he could use that Emission ability to swap positions and forcibly keep them trapped in the arena.
So the hope of escaping was slim.
Observing the faint instability in Chrollo's aura, Morrow said calmly, "Even if you hadn't dodged, that attack wouldn't have threatened you. Your reaction is what sent her to her death."
"..."
Chrollo withdrew his gaze from Pakunoda.
That single glance had been enough to confirm her death.
Now, hearing Morrow's words, the turmoil in his heart gradually settled.
Yes...
He had realized it, of course.
The Shooting Star that had attacked him from the ground, in terms of power, truly couldn't have dealt him any substantial damage. At most, it would have disrupted his balance and interfered with his efficiency in flipping pages to find his next ability.
Because in that split-second assault, most of its force had been directed at Pakunoda.
Had he and Pakunoda maintained enough distance, perhaps she wouldn't have been affected by his actions and could have dodged the fatal strike.
Chrollo felt deep guilt over this outcome, not because of the point Morrow had emphasized, but because of his own tactical misjudgment and negligence.
He accepted this guilt, and so the bloodlust within him surged even fiercer.
And the fiercer his bloodlust grew, the calmer he became.
Morrow took in Chrollo's reaction, noting how the fluctuations in his aura had stabilized.
No good.
If it had been any other member of the Troupe, this kind of verbal provocation might have had some effect.
But for someone like Chrollo...
Words alone could never shake his resolve.
Perhaps only by taking out a few more Troupe members on the battlefield could Chrollo's mentality be disrupted.
Starlight Convergence is definitely off the table now. I'll have to maintain distance as much as possible, alternating between Deceptive Shooting Star and Insidious Shooting Star to gain an advantage. But Chrollo's ability to forcibly swap positions is a hard counter to Emission types...
Morrow swiftly glanced at the rapidly multiplying corpse replicas, as well as Kortopi and Amanda in the rear.
Using Gallery Fake to mass-produce corpse copies, then employing that woman's ability to decapitate them, fulfilling the conditions for a Manipulation ability.
And judging by Kortopi's unrestrained replication of corpses, that woman's control limit must be extraordinarily high.
That was likely the Vow effect obtained through the Limitation of "having to personally remove the heads."
In other words...
With their numerical advantage, the Troupe only needed to let Kortopi and Amanda continuously produce corpse replicas in the rear to form an overwhelmingly large army.
To ensure this strategy's execution, the Troupe had immediately moved Kortopi and Amanda to the back lines after the battle began.
This arrangement was made precisely because the Troupe already had intel on their abilities.
Otherwise, Insidious Shooting Star earlier wouldn't have targeted Chrollo and Pakunoda, but Kortopi and Amanda instead.
This also revealed Chrollo's caution, or rather...
His ruthless approach of leaving no room for survival once a target was confirmed.
So managing to eliminate Pakunoda in that situation might already count as successfully cracking a hole in the Troupe's encirclement strategy.
But the current predicament remained dire...
The endless Headless Corpse Army specifically countered Starlight Convergence.
Not only could they use numbers to block evasion paths, but there was an even more troublesome reason.
When too many attacking elements flooded into Starlight Convergence's range, it would create an information overload, making it impossible to process the data.
The instantaneous impact might even overwhelm his brain, causing something akin to a system crash.
Starlight Convergence... was being hard-countered by this tactic.
To find even a sliver of hope in this battle, he had to take out Kortopi or Amanda first.
Otherwise, even if he and Kurapika endured the Troupe's onslaught, they'd eventually be worn down, let alone with Illumi as an additional variable.
Morrow rapidly processed all battlefield intel, pinpointing the crux in minimal time.
BOOM!
Just then, an ear-splitting explosion erupted behind him.
"RAAAAAGH!!!"
Uvogin's trademark roar followed.
The Enhancer rose from the ground, his entire body surging with crimson aura output as he shattered the earth underfoot, charging at Morrow.
Clearly, Pakunoda's death had further fueled Uvogin's rage.
And for an Enhancer, fury was the best kind of fuel.
Currently, Morrow and Kurapika were caught in the Troupe's pincer attack from both sides. Behind the two of them stood not only Uvogin, but also Nobunaga and Machi who had fallen from the sky.
Despite this, upon hearing Uvogin's roar, Morrow didn't immediately shift his attention backward. Instead, he chose to trust Kurapika's abilities and swiftly mobilized his aura.
"Shooting Star · Star Rain"
Morrow fired a Star Rain toward the gathering Headless Corpse Army. In an instant, the splitting projectiles rained down like meteors, striking one headless corpse after another.
After reducing their numbers with this assault, Morrow didn't hesitate and charged straight at Chrollo.
This aggressive move, which defied conventional Emission-type tactics, was actually his only option at the moment.
Because he had to break through Chrollo's defenses as quickly as possible to eliminate Kortopi or Amanda in the rear.
However, this decisive battlefield decision also inadvertently signaled his intentions to Chrollo.
So what if you've realized it...
Chrollo's Skill Hunter stopped flipping pages. The next moment, his left hand glowed with a hazy aura as a peculiarly shaped bubble gun materialized out of thin air.
The gun's body shimmered with dreamy iridescent hues, its round drum filled with viscous, colorful liquid.
This was his Conjuration ability often used to restrict enemy movement, Fragile Item.
Rat-tat-tat...
He pulled the trigger, and the barrel erupted with a prismatic glow, spewing forth bubbles coated in shifting rainbow colors.
The appearance of these bubbles forced Morrow to halt his charge.
The most troublesome aspect of Conjuration abilities lay in the bizarre powers imbued within their manifested items.
Without knowing the properties of these bubbles, recklessly advancing would be unwise.
However, as an Emission user, Morrow could bypass the probing phase and directly attack the bubbles.
"Shooting Star"
With a flick of his wrist, Morrow launched a Shooting Star toward the cluster of bubbles.
Whoosh...
The energy-laden projectile split midair, shattering the floating bubbles in its path.
Though Morrow's Emission attack neutralized the bubbles' potential threat, this response was exactly what Chrollo wanted.
Fragile Item's ability could weaken an opponent's Nen defense.
If successful in diminishing Morrow's defenses, the controlled Headless Corpses would have a better chance of pressuring him with minimal aura expenditure.
Even if unsuccessful,
the bubbles' mere presence forced Morrow to stop.
Either outcome served Chrollo's purpose the moment he activated Fragile Item.
Morrow's halted charge bought time for Uvogin and the others to close in.
Uvogin charged forward like a beast, only to be met by Kurapika's vicious chain assault.
The chain, coiled with condensed aura, lashed out like a living creature, carving a sharp arc through the air toward Uvogin's face.
Faced with this sudden strike, Uvogin skidded to a stop and leaped backward.
The chain whizzed past, slamming into the ground with tremendous force.
Boom!
The concrete exploded, sending debris flying as a conspicuous crater formed.
Uvogin narrowed his eyes at the undulating chain in Kurapika's grasp. He had just witnessed Nobunaga's failed attempt to sever the chains with his blade, leading him to assume Kurapika was an Enhancer.
After all, if Nobunaga's sword couldn't cut through those chains, it meant they had been reinforced with Nen to an extraordinary degree.
But now, seeing how the chains could freely extend, retract, and even change in size, he realized they were Conjured.
Such power and durability...
Uvogin's peripheral vision caught sight of the shattered ground where the chains had struck, silently gauging the destructive force behind that attack.
Despite being Conjured, these chains possessed enough strength to withstand Nobunaga's slash while also delivering this level of devastation.
Just what was going on?
This guy's no pushover either.
Even though Kurapika displayed strange Nen System traits, Uvogin's eyes showed not a trace of hesitation.
As long as Kortopi and Amanda's abilities remained linked in this hunt, failure was impossible.
The only thing left to consider was who would land the killing blow.
Every member of the group wanted to personally take down Morrow and Kurapika. Uvogin was no exception.
Then, he'd take Kurapika out first!
Uvogin launched another ferocious charge.
Meanwhile, Nobunaga and Machi, having landed safely, swiftly regrouped.
"Machi, you handle backup for the Boss," Nobunaga said, moving decisively toward Uvogin.
His earlier failure to cut Kurapika's chains had made him cautious, naturally leading him to stay and support Uvogin.
Machi gave Nobunaga a surprised glance.
Before the operation began, she distinctly remembered him swearing with icy bloodlust that he wouldn't forget Morrow's name or face until he killed him.
Yet now, he was willingly giving up the chance to finish Morrow himself...
Machi said nothing, merely nodding at Nobunaga before moving toward Chrollo.
Kurapika, now alone against Uvogin and Nobunaga, had no capacity left to stop Machi.
He remained composed, maintaining the activation of his Scarlet Eyes with a calm mind.
If he could swiftly eliminate these two...
He could turn the tide.
Kurapika's aura output surged even further under the Scarlet Eyes.
Faced with this shift in aura, Uvogin and Nobunaga remained unfazed, their gazes fixed on Kurapika as if he were already dead.
—--
Elsewhere.
Kortopi and Amanda effortlessly continued producing the Headless Corpse Army.
As wave after wave of headless corpses flooded the battlefield, Morrow's advance was completely halted, forcing him to rely on Shooting Star to clear the relentless onslaught.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The split projectiles poured down like a storm, blasting the headless corpses into fragments.
The shattered remains collapsed and dissipated into faint glimmers.
These corpses were controlled by Amanda's ability, but their essence was Nen constructs replicated by Kortopi.
With their powers combined, their strength slightly surpassed that of Amanda's usual controlled corpses.
This is endless...
Morrow's Shooting Star carpet-bombed the advancing corpses.
But as long as no one disrupted Kortopi and Amanda's linked abilities, the Headless Corpse Army would keep pouring in.
For Morrow to threaten either Kortopi or Amanda, he needed to push forward, closing the distance to within Insidious Shooting Star's 100-meter range.
However, hindered by the Headless Corpse Army and Chrollo's interference, Morrow had essentially lost any possibility of advancing forward.
Moreover, each Shooting Star attack against the Headless Corpse Army was depleting his potential aura.
This can't go on any longer... I'll have to take a gamble...
Morrow deeply felt the ruthless efficiency of Chrollo's tactical maneuvers and understood that once Chrollo gained control of the situation, he would simply maintain the status quo.
In other words, the moment Morrow made any unusual move, Chrollo would adapt accordingly.
Yet even so...
If Morrow wanted to break this deadlock, his only option was to take a gamble and risk using "Starlight Convergence" to create an opportunity for Star Mark transfer...