What a massive circular sun!
What a brilliant, radiant sun!
What a scorching crimson sun!
The sun, carrying all of Roy's imagination, manifested in layers: the photosphere, the chromosphere, and the corona.
At the outermost edge, the corona surged with a vast amount of sunspots and solar flares. It was not aesthetically perfect, but it was terrifying enough. The moment it shot a beam of sunlight onto Ginta...
Ginta, transformed into a goat-horned demon through his "Devil's Whisper," let out a shrill scream. That outstretched demonic hand had not yet touched the sun before the calm youth standing quietly beneath it... the crimson in his eyes slowly faded. Following that...
The horns disappeared, then the disheveled hair, then the scales covering his entire body... until the black mist vanished completely, and a look of pure, simple-mindedness returned to his eyes.
Ginta, with his afro hair restored and back to his original naive appearance, slumped to the ground. Only then did he realize what had just happened!
"Are you an Exorcist?"
"Did I lose my mind again?"
Two hideous wounds ran across the palms of his hands. Due to the extreme heat, the wounds had been forcibly cauterized to stop the bleeding, which simultaneously brought Ginta's thoughts back to reality.
Outside, Ginta—who had suddenly lost his sanity due to pain, allowed the goat-horned demon to invade his consciousness, and had been wantonly spreading black mist to erode everyone—had completely gone berserk!
He was a future Poacher Hunter. He joined the Hunter Exam and became a Hunter only to hunt "poachers," but Ginta himself likely never imagined that one day he would be the one hunted by a demon!
And this... "is the severe consequence of a Nen user being unable to freely control their own Nen ability."
Ging reminded everyone to steady their minds and not give the black mist a chance to invade. He lightly stroked the Feichuo's Parrot on his shoulder to calm it. He intended to save the man himself... Razor, whose tall body was planted in the ground like a spear, lowered his arms. Nen was faintly flowing at his fingertips; he seemed to plan to move even before Ging: "So, is the person in control of the Nen, or is the Nen in control of the person?"
The Nen ball condensed at his fingertips, growing larger and larger. Razor squinted at Ginta, who was still in his goat-horned demon form: "If you fight dragons for too long, you will become a dragon yourself; if you gaze into the abyss for too long, the abyss will gaze back into you...
This guy's Nen ability is too dangerous. He couldn't harness it; he will collapse sooner or later."
"It's a backlash," Ging said with a sharp gaze. "The backlash brought about by nature is eroding him."
Razor frowned and turned his head.
Ging pressed down his hat brim and said gloomily, "I smell a familiar scent on him. He must be someone who has been entrusted with a great deal of hope by people or something else."
A person cannot imagine something beyond their own cognition. Where did he come into contact with a 'demon,' and how would he even encounter one... If he hadn't, he definitely wouldn't have actively constructed the image of a goat-horned demon through 'cognition' during the process of practicing Ren, let alone excessively using a demon's power.
'He killed many poachers. Those animals all like Ginta. None of them want Ginta to leave; they hope he can stay in the forest forever to protect them.'
Zale, hidden within the Black Screen, heard Ging and Razor's conversation through the screen's sound collection and suddenly realized... So, the naive Ginta was being forcibly bound by the animals and magical beasts he had saved and protected. They were the primary cause of Ginta's madness!
'Ginta looks stupid, and in reality... he really is stupid. He never discovered he was being used by those magical beasts!'
'They forcibly bound their own selfish desires to Ginta, and poor Ginta never noticed until he went out of control!'
'Sure enough, whether it's humans or animals, they shouldn't be fed too well, dressed too warmly, or live too comfortably. Overprotecting them will not only harm them but will also bring trouble upon oneself...'
As the only person present who knew Ginta's past, Zale was also one of Ginta's few close friends. The man remembered asking Ginta if he wanted to take a job to earn some extra cash before they left... the two were immediately surrounded by a group of animals and magical beasts.
There were rabbits biting Ginta's hem, monkeys pulling Ginta's hair, and a leopard baring its teeth angrily at him as if blaming him for taking Ginta away from the forest. There was even a wild bull lowering its head to gore Ginta, which Ginta mistook for playing. Zale suddenly understood...
He couldn't help but feel sorrow for him!
"Please... I beg you..."
"Please save him... He is a very good person, very kind... really..."
"It's because he's too kind that he gets bullied by those beasts!"
The Black Screen trembled. Following the fluctuations in Zale's emotions, there were faint signs of it collapsing.
Behind him, Nen bullets in the form of Nen threads followed him, chasing a disheveled Zale... nearly five minutes had passed, and Zale's Nen was being consumed at a frantic rate. He couldn't hold out much longer, let alone after being hit by the successive waves of Ren from Ging, Razor, Roy, and Ginta, which left him on the verge of collapse...
Swish... swish... swish... Pulling the trigger, firing... holding the Infinite God-Gun, Gotoh strictly followed Roy's orders, chasing Zale relentlessly. That serious posture caught Razor's attention.
"You're not saving your master?"
Clearly, Roy was the one being targeted by the black mist, yet the butler didn't care at all, keeping his eyes fixed on Zale. Anyone with eyes could see which was more important; don't lose your head!
"The Young Master is fine; he doesn't need me," Gotoh said indifferently. Since some unknown time—perhaps since the day the Young Master bestowed "Water Breathing" upon him—the young butler could faintly sense Roy's current state. He didn't know what it was, but it was like an intuition that bound him deeper to the Young Master, making his perception sharper. At the very least, it was definitely not something that kid Kastro could compare to!
"Heh heh heh... it seems Emitters are all like this..." A low laugh came...
Ging looked at Razor teasingly and said, "Careless and rough. In that regard, he's quite like you."
Razor glanced over coldly: "Don't act like you're close to me."
The man's fingertips flickered with "Nen light." Aiming at the rampaging goat-horned demon, he completely ignored Zale's plea for help and fired a Nen bullet straight at Ginta...
Amidst a whistling sound...
Ging pulled back his smile and permitted Razor's action.
In the eyes of this Double-Star Ruins Hunter and future member of the world's top five Nen users, the only way to deal with a natural backlash, besides death, was perhaps Exorcism!
Unfortunately, he was not an Exorcist, and there were no Exorcists present. Even if Ging had no intention of killing the opponent, looking at the current situation, there was no other way but to kill the goat-horned demon...
"Ginta!"
A roar of despair... caused the Black Screen to shake violently...
Zale was exhausted from running. Even if he wanted to reach out and help his friend, he couldn't do it. Moreover, he had experienced the strangeness of that black mist years ago; he had lost consciousness and lay in the hospital for ten days. That was proof enough!
Swish! The Nen bullet tore through the air, even more powerful than a standard cannonball!
It quickly approached Ginta. Halfway there, unexpectedly, a "fat chicken" that had struggled to stand up opened its mouth and spat out a line of fire, hitting it head-on and detonating it prematurely!
Everyone was stunned!
"Ga-oh~" The Golden Crow spat fire... and squawked dissatisfiedly toward Razor and Ging.
Ging and Razor looked at each other. The former stroked the Feichuo's Parrot, and with a thought, he connected to the Mental Gallery.
He asked: "What does he mean?"
The illusory parrot let out a few chirps: "He says don't touch that demon; they are doing just fine."
The parrot extended a wing and pointed at Razor... Razor's mouth twitched as his narrow eyes squinted, his gaze shifting back and forth between the motionless Roy and Ginta, who was still emitting black mist...
He suddenly discovered a slight abnormality.
He said, "The mist is getting thinner."
Ging's brow twitched. He coated his palm with Ken, caught a wisp of black mist, and toyed with it in his hand. Elena simultaneously reported the situation to him via a Nen message.
"Not just thinner, but much thinner."
"Global Control" could monitor everything within the Black Screen through a "God's perspective." If the Black Screen weren't blocking the view, Elena's monitoring range could be even wider.
In the original story, she alone monitored the entire Greed Island. Naturally, there was the help of Divine Script for reinforcement, but one still couldn't deny that the woman's cultivation of the single application technique Gyo had reached a terrifying level!
It's important to note that not all Nen users are combatants. For instance, Pakunoda and Kortopi from the Spiders, or Cheadle and Pyon from the Zodiacs... they are all specialists in a certain field. Their combat abilities are much lower compared to Razor, Ging, and Roy... some haven't even fully mastered high-level application techniques beyond the Four Major Principles.
Sensing Ginta's abnormality, the goat-horned demon—standing nearly ten meters tall on the outside—slowly began to close its mouth full of sharp teeth. Without further supply, the black mist thinned out even faster...
Razor even saw Ginta's body size shrinking, and the crimson color filled with madness and the desire to destroy everything was gradually fading from his eyes. He turned his head and looked at Ging indifferently: "It seems I was overthinking. You are extremely hypocritical."
"I treat you as a teammate, but you hide things from me... why..."
Razor pointed at Roy and squinted as he looked down at Ging: "You didn't mention he's an Exorcist?"
Ging: "..."
"..."
Watching Ginta shed his demonic form and gradually regain clarity... for a moment, he was speechless...
The only ones who could deal with Malicious Nen, besides the Nen users themselves, were... Exorcists.
If Ging could see it, how could Razor not see it... such a massive demon was clearly gone!
It's all Roy Zoldyck's fault!
"This is only my second time meeting him," Ging finally confessed truthfully after a long pause.
He explained everything: how he contacted Gotoh through the Hunter website, invited Roy to hunt the Elephant Baku together, and so on...
Razor listened blankly. After a while, he looked intently at the youth emerging from the black mist. He gave Ging a cold look and said, "I'll say it again: don't forget whose sake I'm on this team for."
A genuine Exorcist—looking at the whole world, there weren't more than five of them!
Razor's aura pores flared slightly as he could hardly suppress his fluctuating emotions. He left Ging aside—ignoring the man's bitter smile—and fixed his gaze on Roy along with Razor, adding a hint of blame and wonder...
"He's shrinking, returning to his original form... Ging, I suspect... that guy Roy Zoldyck is an Exorcist!"
Elena's trembling voice echoed...
Ging said, "I know."
He looked at the boy again...
Dizzy... hazy... it was a vast, empty place where one couldn't distinguish space or time.
Roy stood with his hands behind his back in his subconscious domain. Above his head was the great sun. Using the sun's property of "dispelling darkness," he burned away the filthy, mad, and twisted negative emotions hidden deep in Ginta's heart. Two suns ignited in Roy's pupils, and he immediately used the Eye of Delusion Breaking combined with En to capture Ginta's inner voice, "seeing" his past... and finding the source of those "negative emotions"...
It turned out to be the animals and magical beasts Ginta had protected and saved. Roy understood in an instant why Ginta had the scent of faith on him. It was because he had protected too many animals and magical beasts; he was relied upon by them and even revered as a "God." While they provided him with Nen, they also passed their own inner darkness onto him.
It was hard to say if the man before him was kind-hearted or just stupid... Roy could only sigh.
He retracted the Eye of Delusion Breaking and allowed Ginta to return to normal.
After sensing everything, Ginta scrambled up from the ground and stumbled to Roy. He bowed deeply.
He shouted, "Thank you for saving me!"
Immediately, the panel prompt informed Roy: [Potential believer discovered]
[Potential believer Ginta thanks you for your life-saving grace and now regards you as a close friend]
[Note: Ginta: Loyalty (Absolute loyalty, can be trusted with your back)]
[To be developed...]
Roy's gaze shifted as he looked at the burly man bowing, who was still half a head taller than him even while bent. That naive face also proved... he possessed a heart as pure as gold.
Easily polluted, and easily... moved.
"Just don't blame me for the jailbreak," Roy said, reaching out to help Ginta up. The giant scratched his head and said directly, "Right, why are you breaking out of prison and being a bad guy?"
"Zale said those who break out of prison are bad guys. You're not a bad guy, so why be one?"
Roy: "..."
"..."
Zale must be that Manipulator...
Roy didn't explain much to Ginta about "good" or "bad"; he probably couldn't explain it clearly anyway. He simply waved his hand to disperse the mist, leading Ginta out of the subconscious domain and back to reality...
The two opened their eyes at the same time. Following the solemn bow he gave Roy in the dream, the nearly two-meter-tall Ginta took a deep breath and bowed solemnly to Roy again in reality...
Ging and Razor, who were watching this, as well as Zale, who was running for his life to avoid Nen bullets, Gotoh, who was chasing Zale relentlessly, and Elena and the others monitoring the battlefield—all of them turned their gazes toward them.