As the battle dragged on, Yuu found it increasingly difficult to fight Hisoka.
One reason, naturally, was that maintaining "Ren" for a long time rapidly depleted his mental and physical strength, causing his speed and power to slowly decline.
A sense of inadequacy surged in his heart.
However, the most critical reason was...
"The gap in combat experience is too wide."
Bisky saw the key reason why Yuu was gradually falling into a predicament and thought to herself.
"Especially in close combat, that boy has absolutely no technique to speak of. He relies entirely on the strength and speed amplified by 'Ren' to attack instinctively."
"Moreover, his attack methods are too monotonous. His attack rhythm and patterns have clearly been gradually grasped by his opponent. Almost every attack is accurately predicted, and he has completely fallen into a passive situation..."
"If this continues, it's definitely a losing battle."
Thinking of this, Bisky wished she could go on the field herself and teach the boy hand-in-hand how to punch, how to exert force, how to analyze the opponent's defensive weaknesses...
Bisky finally realized that even if this white-haired boy did have an unknown master behind him...
It must be a mediocre teacher.
If such a rare "gemstone" failed to shine because he didn't meet a good teacher, it would be too regrettable.
So, Bisky made up her mind... No matter which side passed this assessment, she would forcefully take this boy as her disciple.
...
"You're out of aura~"
Hisoka put one hand on his hip and kindly reminded Yuu, who was panting in front of him.
"Not yet."
Yuu said, consuming the last few remaining 'Nen pills'. His aura volume recovered to about half in an instant, maintaining the crumbling 'Ren'.
However, although the 'Nen pills' restored Yuu's 'aura', what he lacked more now was stamina.
His lungs burned, his limbs were numb, his head was dizzy... and severe pain came from several places on his body where he had been hit by Hisoka's heavy punches during the attack just now.
Although Hisoka wasn't much better off.
Although his right arm could use [Texture Surprise] to cover the injury, the bleeding couldn't be hidden. Blood dripped onto the ground from time to time, and there was a kick mark left by Yuu on his face not long ago.
However, upon careful observation... Yuu found that Hisoka's stamina was incredibly abundant, showing no signs of fatigue at all.
This forced Yuu to lament that the characters in the Hunter world had better endurance than the last... As someone who had just transmigrated not long ago, he was naturally at a disadvantage in this regard.
Yuu withdrew the Nen beast into his body, and the black cat turned into 'Nen' to refill his aura again.
"'Nen pills' are used up. Since I broke his Nen ability once, Hisoka has mainly relied on physical attacks, so Kuro's function can't be fully utilized..."
In Yuu's view, his 'Nen ability' was still more inclined towards support. Plus, it hadn't been fully developed yet, and his own strength needed to be improved... It would take a longer time of accumulation and honing to see the future potential of this ability.
"Really... can't hold on anymore."
Yuu actively deactivated the state of 'Ren', and even 'Ten' was no longer maintained... instead, he activated the "Limitless Technique" for defense.
"Giving up already?"
Hisoka narrowed his eyes at Yuu and said coldly: "I haven't played enough yet~"
Saying this, he rushed towards Yuu and punched the boy's abdomen fiercely, sending Yuu flying.
In this instant, Bisky, who had already regarded Yuu as a disciple, felt incomparable pain in her heart, lamenting how the boy could be so stupid as to not even maintain the state of 'Ten'.
Without 'Ten' as defense, even a top Enhancer would easily get injured.
"With that hit just now, given the little guy's physical fitness... the winner is probably decided," Bisky thought.
However, unexpectedly...
Although Hisoka's fist seemed to hit Yuu's body, it didn't produce any movement...
Instead, while Hisoka was stunned, Yuu backhanded him in the chest.
Briefly knocking him back.
Something's wrong...
Hisoka silently savored the feeling of the punch just now. For a moment, his fist slowed down abruptly.
Although he physically felt forward movement, there was no feeling of 'impact' at that moment.
Instead, it was more like... sinking his hand into a mass of glue... an indescribable strange feeling.
In the next few rounds of attacks, Hisoka also launched fierce attacks continuously to verify his conjecture.
But every time, when the fist reached a certain distance... he would suddenly experience that strange feeling.
"New ability...?"
Hisoka muttered to himself, his eyes suspicious.
This kind of move made him, with his rich experience, completely unable to judge what type of 'Nen ability' it was.
Moreover, the stronger the 'Nen ability', the more obvious its 'Restriction'.
In Hisoka's view, one of the 'Restrictions' of the move the boy just used for protection was that it couldn't be activated simultaneously with 'Ten'.
Hisoka used his Nen ability after a long time—
[Bungee Gum]
A pink aura shot straight towards Yuu.
Since Hisoka was accustomed to using 'In' to cover his 'Nen ability', even Yuu didn't notice this stream of aura in his vision.
However, although 'Bungee Gum' was invisible, the disturbance of the surrounding aura was particularly obvious... Yuu subconsciously used "Blue" for short-distance displacement, dodging the attack sideways.
Then he stepped towards Hisoka.
Although Yuu's current stamina and explosive power were not as good as before, by using the short-distance displacement of "Blue," his attacks became harder to predict than before.
A straight punch successfully hit Hisoka's cheek.
Immense force and pain struck together!
Hisoka praised in his heart. While taking the punch, he also raised his hand to attack Yuu's abdomen fiercely again.
The familiar 'strange feeling' struck again.
"Great... simply great."
Although Yuu's speed wasn't as fast as before, in Hisoka's eyes, the difficulty level had risen by more than one notch.
The two constantly exchanged fists and feet.
Because Yuu's speed had dropped too much, he changed his strategy, relying on the Infinity to stagnate the opponent's attack for a moment, and then launch a counterattack.
Under Hisoka's continuous attacks, he was annoyed by that inexplicable 'strange feeling'.
Huge killing intent concentrated in the surrounding 'Nen' and spread towards the surroundings.
"This guy... seems to be getting impatient with me."
Yuu felt Hisoka's malicious 'Nen' approaching him, but his heart was calm.
Now, although he didn't have the protection of 'Ten', after testing just now, he found that at least for substantive Nen abilities like 'Bungee Gum'...
The "Limitless Technique" could also block them.
So the 'Nen' emitted by Hisoka naturally couldn't invade his 'Infinity' either.
However, Yuu was fearless.
But that huge killing intent made the examiners on the side feel palpitating.
"I really can't help but kill you~"
Hisoka walked up to Yuu, raised his hand and hovered his palm over the boy's forehead, threatening coldly.
Hearing this, Yuu was fearless, secretly mobilizing the Cursed Energy in his body, silently driving "Blue" in his mind, and slowly condensing a blue-black gravity sphere not far behind Hisoka.
The dust in the venue began to flow with the rotation of "Blue," ready to launch a surprise attack on Hisoka's back at any time according to Yuu's mind.
Seeing that there were only a few minutes left before the end of the exam.
The atmosphere between the two candidates in the venue dropped to freezing point.
Just as everyone thought the two sides would launch fierce attacks again in the next moment, Hisoka withdrew the overflowing killing intent.
Instead, he turned sideways and left towards the exit of the venue.
"Hey, candidate Number 44, the exam time is not over yet. Leaving now will be directly judged as failure..."
A referee tried to stop Hisoka, but when he looked up and saw the cold look in his eyes, his words were washed away by fear.
Until Hisoka left the venue with a cold aura.
Beans reacted and announced loudly:
"The winner of this round is candidate Number 672!"
Hearing this, Yuu's tense emotions were not relieved at all, but he continued to maintain the "Limitless Technique."
...