Dealing with a disaster on this scale wasn't something Hunters could do alone. The number of people gathered would be immeasurable. And after the disaster was suppressed, the island would be searched from corner to corner to determine the cause. The existence of the hidden warehouse would surely be exposed.
Whether to save the island even if he had to abandon his duties as a Warehouse Keeper, or to choose his own life and safety. There was no hesitation in that decision.
This was a special place that had reunited him with the lifelong goal he had nearly given up on ever seeing again. He had a duty to protect this island. It wasn't because of some filthy contract with the mafia. It was his own firm will that had protected this land for over a decade.
Even if it meant being killed by the organization, he decided to prioritize the lives of the birds. Regardless, if this plant continued to grow this large, this place would no longer be just a remote island. It would be exposed to the eyes of many even if he did nothing. He would no longer be able to claim it as his castle and push everyone away.
Once he had decided, he had to leave the island immediately. His cell phone was useless. Far from being unable to communicate, it was constantly spewing out eerie noise, and even the home screen was filled with nonsensical strings of characters. He needed to head directly to the nearest port town by boat.
Arriving at the town, requesting rescue, and then having personnel dispatched would take nearly half a day at the earliest. In that time, there was a high possibility the entire island would be covered in red cacti. Not a moment of delay remained. Wary of the seed bullets, he immediately attempted to withdraw from the area.
However, in that moment, his eyes met hers.
He didn't know how long she had been there. She was standing alone in the snowy field, dozens of meters away.
She was clad in a twisted, distorted, amorphous suit of armor that swayed. A small figure, a shape that could barely be recognized as human.
The red armor with a metallic luster, however, flickered like a flame blown by the wind. Within the crystals that peeled off and gathered, a silver brilliance mingled.
How many times had Mock judged this girl to be 'impossible'? He realized that she was the source of everything. She must have had this plant hidden somewhere from the start. He assumed she was manipulating it and causing it to grow explosively.
Perhaps even for her, this power wasn't something she wanted to use. If she could use it easily, she would have played that hand sooner. It was truly a last resort. He was currently experiencing firsthand exactly how much damage it could cause to the surroundings. Mock and his partner had pushed the girl to the point where she had no choice but to use that trump card.
But if that prediction was correct, there was still a move left to play. If this girl was controlling the plants, then defeating her might stop the growth. It might not stop, but there was a possibility. It was worth a try. Mock aimed his crossbow at the girl.
In that instant, the distance between Mock and the girl shrank to a single meter.
He didn't know what had happened. There was no way he would look away. In fact, he had been concentrating all his senses on capturing the enemy's form. Despite that, he had barely seen a faint movement of a shadow.
The only fact was that he had allowed her to approach. A gust of wind blew through, trailing behind her arrival. There were no footprints on the snow. Had she closed a distance of dozens of meters in a single step, a single motion?
The hand holding the crossbow was shaking. At this distance, he wouldn't miss the arrow. If he fired, it would hit. But the finger he had placed on the trigger wouldn't move. Even though he was gripped by a sensation of being chilled to the core of his organs, he was sweating as if every bit of moisture in his body were being squeezed out.
The girl was just standing there, same as before. They were at a distance where they could touch if they reached out, but she did nothing. He couldn't even feel any hostility.
But Mock was overwhelmed by the amount of aura being emitted from her body and its level of refinement. She didn't seem like someone whose nodes had just opened and whose aura had been nearly depleted. She was a different person.
Mock didn't have particularly high combat capability as a Nen user. But that was because he balanced his Nen training with his research on birds; his aptitude as a Hunter was high enough to be considered top-tier. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been granted the title of Single-Star.
He had experienced many battles with superior enemies. He had often compensated for the difference in strength with wisdom and technique, securing victories. He had aged and his strength had waned, but his techniques were polished. He knew that a simple difference in ability didn't decide victory or defeat. This was especially true for battles between Nen users.
But he couldn't apply that rule of thumb to this girl. The gap was that large. Even when he was nearly assassinated by a killer sent by the mafia, he hadn't been this shaken.
She wasn't using [Ren] yet. Her aura was surrounding her body thinly and incredibly naturally. However, the way that aura was refined was extraordinary. Like a garment woven from a single thread, a meticulously crafted [Ten] enveloped her entire body.
That alone was not a human feat. It was a pinnacle of precision that a master of martial arts might reach after a lifetime of devotion—or perhaps not at all. But that thin cloth of aura didn't stop at one layer; it formed a multi-layered structure as if several layers were folded on top of each other. It almost looked as if [Ten] were overlapping.
He couldn't think of her as human. It was impossible for this to be a human.
She had no hostility. Such a thing wasn't necessary. For example, when a human crushes a bug, is there a need to feel murderous intent? If a bug happens to be in the place where one unconsciously steps.
Even if that bug were to challenge the human to a fight with death-defying resolve, or if it were to surrender and beg for its life, how much meaning would that act have?
"DAMN IT ALL—!!"
Mock's stomach burst. All he knew was that he had been hit by some kind of attack. The crossbow bolt was fired in a random direction. He coughed up boiling blood, soaking his beard.
Before his body could collapse, the bleeding stopped and the wound closed. In place of the organs that had been blown into pieces, the hole was filled with red crystals. The cursed succulents were eroding him.
A spectacular pain assailed him. In his youth, while conducting an ecological survey of birds in the jungle, he had been bitten by a venomous snake. It was the same kind of pain he had felt then. A necrotic toxin that traveled quickly through the blood, destroying cells from within. The damage spread as if countless needles were being carefully planted one by one.
Previously, he had been saved because the administration of serum was in time before he died. But this time, he knew it was futile no matter how he struggled. The level of the poison was different. It was similar to snake venom, yet distinct. It felt as if his entire body, centered on his abdomen, was being put through a blender and turned into mincemeat.
He was certain he would die soon. And yet, that prediction did not come true.
Mock's body was overflowing with an unprecedented level of life force. There shouldn't have been much potential aura left in his body from the previous battles. Despite that, aura was being produced like an inexhaustible spring.
And at the same time, his senses became sharpened and he fell into a state of abnormal excitement. It was a neurological effect similar to the hallucinogenic toxins found in plants and mushrooms. Mania and depression switched at a terrifying speed, wearing his nerves thin.
The physical damage was healed, and aura overflowed without limit. However, the effect of the poison didn't vanish. Regeneration and destruction, mania and depression repeated without end. Suffering that far exceeded human capacity was forcibly poured into him. He wasn't allowed to die, or even to lose consciousness.
The red plants grew using the aura generated from his body as nutrients. Like Pejjo, he was transforming into a cactus monster. He was becoming the environmental destroyer he detested most.
He resisted with all his might. He repeatedly ordered his body, which no longer held a human shape, to stop. But that body was no longer his. The cactus squeezed nutrients from its seedbed, bloomed, and scattered seeds. Every time a single seed was fired, a sense of loss ran through him as if a piece of his soul were being ripped away. And then that soul was replenished, and the exploitation continued boundlessly. Being scraped away, then topped up.
His original body was absorbed into the base of the cactus. He had no way of knowing what was happening outside. Despite that, his ears caught voices. The voices of many coarse men, the deafening sound of trees being felled, the sound of heavy machinery trampling the earth while spewing exhaust, the laughter of filthy poachers who didn't care to understand how precious and beautiful this place was.
It was a scene he had witnessed decades ago. He could only watch the barbarity of the poachers who destroyed the forest from the roots up under the guise of development. Hiding in the shadows of the grass, he had crouched with his knees pulled in, unable to move an inch, watching the forest break.
He was trapped by hallucinations and auditory illusions. However, he no longer had any normal judgment left. He was eroded by the delusions of his unforgettable past, the catalyst that had formed his twisted personality.
Then, a small white lump fell in front of him. He picked it up with a trembling hand. A small, lifeless corpse. The bird he had loved and dedicated his life to.
'It's your fault.'
'You killed it.'
He heard the birds' words. He desperately denied it. He didn't mean for that to happen. He never thought his research would draw the poachers. There was no way such an excuse would be accepted. The voices of the birds were nothing other than the sense of guilt he had created himself.
Though he wailed, tore at himself, and prostrated himself to beg for forgiveness, the birds' condemnation would never end.
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