"How is this possible? They were caught at the absolute epicenter of the blast... how can they be completely unhard?!" Chrollo's puppet face twisted into an expression of profound shock.
Beside him, Hisoka's puppet looked equally appalled.
Before launching this operation, they had extensively tested the explosive yield and blast radius of the Bombers' [Countdown] ability. Their conclusion was absolute: anyone caught within a 500-ter radius of that clustered detonation would suffer catastrophic injuries, even if they managed to deploy maximum Ken for defense. If they were lucky, they might survive. But erging without a single scratch? Impossible.
Yet, there they stood.
Ryker and his entire squad were completely devoid of injuries. Their clothes weren't even singed. It was as if they had simply faded into existence from thin air after the blast had completely settled.
In reality, that was exactly what had happened.
The mont Ryker had arrived, his LitRPG System had alerted him to the [Ti Bomb] traits attached to every hostage. He knew Chrollo was planning a mass detonation.
Thanks to his newly acquired [Lightning Nen] trait (plundered from Killua) and his mastery over his Lightning Cores, Ryker had seamlessly teleported his entire squad into his [Nen Ga]pocket dinsion the microsecond the bombs exploded. He left behind a single, microscopic Lightning Core as a spatial anchor.
Once the explosive shockwave and heat dissipated, Ryker simply teleported everyone back to the anchor point. To Chrollo and Hisoka, it looked like they had simply tanked a nuclear explosion with zero damage.
"Attack!" Chrollo barked, snapping out of his daze.
He and Hisoka instantly split up, flanking Ryker's group from the left and right.
As Chrollo dashed forward, dozens of incredibly thin, practically invisible Nen threads trailed from his fingers. Unlike Machi's threads, which were primarily used for binding and puppeteering, Chrollo had stolen a Hatsu that turned his aura into hyper-tensioned razor wires. They whipped through the air, capable of slicing through solid steel with ease.
On the right flank, the Hisoka-puppet flourished its hands, conjuring a massive barrage of glowing, blood-red playing cards.
With a flick of his wrists, Hisoka sent the razor-sharp cards screaming toward a single target.
Hisoka didn't care about Ryker. He didn't care about the other Espada. His sole focus, his singular, burning obsession... was the man who had humiliated him.
Ulquiorra Cifer.
"Heh."
Ulquiorra's pale, emotionless face didn't change in the slightest.
He vanished.
Using Sonído, Ulquiorra reappeared ten ters away in a blur of hyper-speed. He calmly drew his katana from his hip.
SWISH!
Ulquiorra delivered a casual, horizontal slash at the empty air.
Dozens of dense, crescent-shaped shockwaves of spiritual pressure erupted from the blade. The shockwaves collided head-on with Hisoka's blood-red cards.
The cards didn't even stand a chance. They were instantly pulverized into crimson dust. The shockwaves didn't slow down; they tore through the canyon, effortlessly slicing massive boulders and giant trees into ribbons.
Hisoka's eyes narrowed, his expression turning ugly.
He had spent months refining his aura to create those enhanced, lethal cards, yet Ulquiorra had shattered them with a casual flick of his sword. This ans... during our fight at Heavens Arena, he wasn't even using a fraction of his true strength! Hisoka realized, a sickening feeling twisting in his stomach.
Ryker watched the exchange with mild interest. Above Hisoka's head, the System displayed a flickering trait: [Blood Cards] (Gold).
anwhile, Chrollo was engaging the other powerhouse: Sosuke Aizen.
As the razor-sharp, invisible threads scread toward Aizen's neck, the bespectacled man simply raised a single finger.
"Danku (Splitting Void)."
VMMMM!
A massive, transparent wall of hardened spiritual energy instantly materialized in the air.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Chrollo's razor threads slamd into the invisible barrier and bounced off harmlessly. The sudden, violent recoil from hitting the unbreakable wall caused the tensioned threads to snap backward, slicing deep into Chrollo's own puppet flesh.
"Incredible! Every single one of them is vastly superior to the mbers of the Phantom Troupe!" Chrollo gasped, jumping back to assess his bleeding wounds. "If this group operates as a single faction... they might be the single strongest military force on the planet!"
Whether it was Aizen or Ulquiorra, their combat output was completely incomprehensible. Chrollo knew with absolute certainty that outside of himself, not a single Spider could survive a one-on-one encounter with these monsters.
And Hisoka's situation was about to get infinitely worse.
Ulquiorra calmly raised his katana, pointing the blade downward.
"Resurrección: Segunda Etapa."
BOOOOOOM!
A terrifying, suffocating pillar of black and green spiritual energy erupted into the sky. The sheer density of the aura was so heavy it felt like the gravity in the canyon had suddenly multiplied by a hundred.
The transformation was absolute nightmare fuel.
Ulquiorra erged from the energy pillar. His white clothes were gone, replaced by dense black fur covering his lower body and arms. Two massive, demonic horns swept back from his head, and a pair of colossal bat-like wings sprouted from his back. His eyes had turned entirely green, and a long, whip-like tail lashed behind him.
Chrollo's breath hitched. What kind of Nen is that?!
In his Segunda Etapa form, Ulquiorra's speed transcended human understanding.
Before the Hisoka-puppet could even blink, a massive explosion rocked the earth directly behind him.
Ulquiorra had already thrown a Lanza del Relámpago (Lance of Lightning)—and purposefully missed.
The resulting explosion dwarfed the Bombers' mass detonation from earlier. A towering pillar of green fire shot into the stratosphere, leaving another massive, glassed crater in the badlands. The concussive wind pressure alone nearly blew the Hisoka-puppet off its feet.
By the ti Hisoka realized what had happened, Ulquiorra was already standing directly in front of him.
SQUELCH.
A blade of crackling green spiritual energy cleanly severed the Hisoka-puppet's left arm at the shoulder.
The severed limb hit the dirt, the stump instantly cauterized by the sheer heat of the energy.
Even though it was just a puppet, Hisoka had poured a massive amount of his consciousness and aura into the vessel to maximize its combat strength. Because of this, the sensory feedback was practically 100%.
The agonizing, excruciatingly familiar pain of losing an arm washed over Hisoka's true consciousness.
"It seems that no matter how much ti passes, you remain as pitifully weak as ever," Ulquiorra said, looking down at Hisoka with cold, hollow green eyes. "A piece of trash like you... could train for a hundred years and still be nothing but dust beneath my feet."
Every word pierced Hisoka's fragile ego like a poisoned dagger.
Throughout his entire life, Hisoka had been the predator. He had mocked, tortured, and killed countless opponents. He had never been utterly humiliated. And he had certainly never been humiliated twice by the exact sa person.
The phantom pain of the severed arm. The overwhelming disparity in strength. The cold, indifferent gaze of his enemy.
It was too much.
"I don't believe it! I refuse to believe it!"
Hisoka roared, his puppet's face contorting into a mask of pure, demonic rage. Blood vessels bulged against the puppet's skin, and the eyes turned entirely bloodshot. Blood began to drip profusely from the puppet's nose.
"Hisoka! Stop!" Chrollo shouted from across the battlefield, abandoning his fight with Aizen. "If you push your consciousness any further into the puppet, your mind will beco permanently tethered to it! If the puppet dies, your real body will die of shock!"
Chrollo's [Absolute Marionette] ability required the user to inject their consciousness into the puppet to control it. The deeper the connection, the stronger the puppet beca. However, there was a fatal flaw.
If the user poured 100% of their consciousness into the puppet, their brain would begin to perceive the puppet as their true body. It was a psychological phenonon similar to a brutal torture thod: if a prisoner in a dark room is told their wrists are slit, and they hear water dripping, their brain will convince them they are bleeding to death, eventually causing their heart to stop from the placebo effect alone.
If the Hisoka-puppet was killed now, the real Hisoka, hiding miles away, would drop dead from psychosomatic shock.
"Hehehe... Chrollo! It's a sha I never got to use this on you... because I originally designed this technique for our deathmatch!" Hisoka cackled wildly, completely ignoring the warning.
He was going all in. He didn't care if he died. He didn't care about his real body. He just wanted to kill the monster in front of him.
The facial structure of the puppet began to warp and shift, morphing into an exact replica of the real Hisoka's face. The synchronization was complete.
"RRAAAAAAAAGH!"
Hisoka let out a guttural, terrifying roar. Every single pore on the puppet's body burst open simultaneously.
SQUELCH!
A massive fountain of blood erupted from the puppet's body. But the blood didn't fall to the ground. Guided by Hisoka's desperate, suicidal aura, the blood coalesced in the air, instantly solidifying into a single, massive, hyper-dense playing card.
The Joker.
Having expelled almost all of its blood, the puppet rapidly shriveled, looking as though it had aged fifty years in a single second. It was essentially a living mummy.
But Hisoka's eyes burned with the manic, fanatical joy of a martyr.
This was his ultimate masterpiece. An attack fueled by pure, unadulterated hatred and the complete sacrifice of his own life force.
[Blood Joker Card] (Gold)!
Even Chrollo, watching from afar, was horrified by the sheer malice radiating from the floating card. It felt as though Hisoka had literally woven his soul into the blood. Once fired, the card would relentlessly track the target until one of them was dead.
Ryker raised an eyebrow. A Gold trait spawned purely from spite. Impressive.
"Go..." Hisoka whispered, his dry, cracked lips curling into a triumphant smile.
VMMM!
The Blood Joker vanished.
It didn't fly; it practically teleported through the air, instantly appearing directly in front of Ulquiorra.
BOOOOOOM!
The impact was cataclysmic. Ulquiorra, despite being in his Segunda Etapa form, was sent rocketing backward. His feet dug into the earth, carving a massive, hundred-ter trench through the bedrock before he finally skidded to a halt.
But the Blood Joker didn't stop. It instantly teleported again, appearing directly behind Ulquiorra's neck, aiming to decapitate him.
BZZZT!
Ulquiorra reacted instantly, firing a massive, point-blank Cero Oscuras (Black Hollow Flash).
The terrifying beam of pitch-black spiritual energy engulfed the card, tearing a massive, cylindrical void through the canyon.
"Hehe... it's over," Hisoka croaked, coughing up a mouthful of black blood.
Using his Bungee Gum properties infused into the card, Hisoka commanded the blood.
The Blood Joker absorbed Hisoka's freshly spat blood, glowing with an even more intense, blinding crimson light. Like a hot knife through butter, the card violently pushed through the Cero Oscuras, defying all logic.
SQUELCH.
The card slamd directly into Ulquiorra's chest, slicing diagonally downward from his right shoulder to his left hip.
Chrollo watched in absolute awe as Ulquiorra's demonic form was cleanly bisected.
The top half of Ulquiorra's body slowly slid off his torso, his green eyes wide with an expression of mild surprise.
"It worked! Hisoka, you did it! That was the most incredible attack I've ever seen!" Chrollo cheered, his usual composure entirely forgotten.
The withered, mummified Hisoka-puppet collapsed to its knees, a look of profound, euphoric satisfaction on its face.
I won. I finally killed him. Even if I die here... it was worth it. Hisoka smiled, ready to accept his death.
But then... Hisoka's smile froze.
Chrollo's cheering died in his throat.
Both n stared at the bisected corpse of Ulquiorra, their eyes bulging with absolute, mind-shattering horror.
As the two halves of Ulquiorra lay on the ground, there was no blood. There were no organs. There were no bones.
Inside the severed torso, all they saw was crackling, highly condensed green lightning.
Ulquiorra wasn't a human. He wasn't a biological creature.
He was a Lightning Nen Beast.
In that horrifying instant, Chrollo and Hisoka finally realized the true nature of their opponent.
But it was already too late.
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