Beyond Netero's team! The true explorers of the Dark Continent!
They had been lying in wait this entire ti, biding their ti for this exact mont—the catastrophic clash of absolute power that would stretch the fabric of space to its absolute limit!
"The crystal is mine!"
Beyond roared with laughter. His massive, dark-red-tattooed hand burst into searing, fiery Nen. Ignoring the shredding energy storm ravaging the arena, he lunged violently toward the floating seven-colored crystal! The ancient tattoos on his skin writhed like living creatures, radiating a primal, barbaric aura, as if a prehistoric leviathan from the Dark Continent had just awakened inside him!
"You court death!"
Zeno snorted angrily. With a re thought, the remaining massive hand of the [100-Type Guanyin] swept out like a collapsing mountain, aiming to swat Beyond and his crew like flies!
But the cursed beam of filthy light fired by the Kakin Shaman had already arrived!
Zeno felt a sudden, bone-chilling cold violently latch onto his soul. The cursed energy acted like a parasitic sludge, causing the flawless, river-like flow of his aura to stagnate for a fraction of a second! The sweep of the Guanyin's massive palm inevitably slowed down!
Simultaneously, Mumyo's practically invisible Nen threads wrapped around the Guanyin's palm like a swarm of leeches. Although the overwhelming power of the golden palm instantly snapped 90% of the threads, the remaining 10% successfully pulled the palm just a few inches off its trajectory!
That tiny delay and microscopic deviation created the perfect, fatal opening for Beyond!
"Old man Zeno, you should worry about yourself!"
Ryker's voice cut through the howling storm, as cold and clear as a frozen spring.
His eyes flashed with a vicious light. At the tip of his left index finger, a point of piercing crimson light suddenly flared!
A translucent, phantom playing card—composed entirely of pure blood and concentrated malice—instantly materialized between his fingers! Etched onto the card was Hisoka's signature clown makeup, twisted into an expression of absolute, euphoric madness and boundless vengeance!
"Blood Soul Card: Hisoka — Target: Chrollo Lucilfer! Go!"
SWISH—!
The Blood Soul Card seemingly ca alive. Ignoring the concepts of physical distance and spatial dinsions, it transford into a shrieking streak of crimson light. It instantly pierced through the chaotic energy storm, diving into the void outside the arena!
Its target: Chrollo Lucilfer, who was currently in the real world, already fighting a desperate, exhausting battle against Hisoka's reanimated corpse!
Ryker had chosen the absolute perfect mont—the second Chrollo was at his most exhausted and vulnerable—to deliver a final "gift" from Hisoka!
"You—!"
Zeno was both furious and shocked. He was already splitting his concentration three ways: maintaining the Guanyin's clash against Ryker's lightning, resisting the gravitational pull of the Dark Continent rift, and defending against the Kakin Shaman's curse and Beyond's ambush.
Ryker launching a completely separate, trans-dinsional attack in the middle of this apocalyptic stalemate forcibly divided Zeno's attention even further! The Guanyin's palm shuddered and slowed again!
Beyond's eyes glead with feral triumph. His burning, tattooed hand t no further resistance. He was less than a ter away from the seven-colored crystal!
"Brother Ryker!"
Gon scread, his eyes practically tearing at the seams. Ignoring the crushing pressure of the storm, he desperately flared his aura, trying to launch himself forward to intercept Beyond. But the gravitational weight of the clashing energies pinned him to the ground!
Killua was still paralyzed, completely locked down by Illumi's bone-chilling, dead-eyed stare!
In that absolute, hair-raising split second!
VMMMM—!
The torn spatial rift suddenly convulsed! Its expansion rate violently accelerated! The viscous, freezing, primordial aura of the Dark Continent flooded out like a bursting dam!
And then... a single foot wearing a scuffed, mud-caked hiking boot casually stepped out of the pitch-black abyss!
Following the boot, a man strolled out of the spatial tear—a tear that represented the absolute terror and uncharted horrors of the Dark Continent—with the casual, relaxed deanor of soone taking a walk in the park!
He wore a faded, dust-covered green hooded jacket. The hood was pulled low, obscuring most of his face, revealing only a stubbled chin curved into a cynical, easygoing smile. In his hand, he casually carried a crude walking stick carved from the massive bone of so unknown beast.
He didn't radiate any overwhelming aura. He didn't emit any bloodlust. He looked like an ordinary traveler who had accidentally wandered onto a battlefield.
However, the very microsecond his boot touched the white tiles of the arena...
Whoosh—
An invisible, indescribable "Domain" silently expanded from his body.
It wasn't a destructive, crushing pressure like Zeno's. It wasn't a violent, annihilating force like Ryker's lightning. And it certainly wasn't the putrid, suffocating horror of the Dark Continent.
It felt like... the very concept of "Rules" had physically manifested.
It felt like a gentle breeze, or the silent falling of spring rain.
Yet, the mont the raging, apocalyptic energy storm touched the edge of this "Domain," it bizarrely, inexplicably... cald down. And dissipated.
The pulverized rocks suspended in the air froze in place. The massive spiderweb cracks spreading across the iridescent do stopped dead.
Even Beyond's fiery hand, re inches from the crystal, and Zeno's sweeping Guanyin palm suddenly slowed to an agonizing crawl, as if they had plunged into an invisible swamp of thick molasses!
The flow of ti and space across the entire arena felt as though soone had slamd the "slow-motion" button!
Everyone froze.
Whether it was the hyper-aggressive Beyond, the furious Zeno, the desperately struggling Ga Masters, or the terrified players... every single person stared in absolute, mind-shattering shock at the man who had just casually strolled out of the Dark Continent!
The man casually tipped his hood back, revealing a pair of eyes that seed to hold the vastness of the cosmos, yet sparkled with lazy amusent. His gaze swept across the frozen arena, finally landing on the floating seven-colored crystal and Ryker.
A relaxed, slightly exasperated voice broke the eerie, absolute silence:
"Hey, hey, hey. Are you guys done yet? All this fighting and killing... you're getting my 'key' dirty."
He pointed casually at the [Ruler's Blessing] crystal. His tone was as light as if he were discussing what to have for lunch. "That thing isn't so cheap video ga trophy, you know. It's the key... to opening the true door to 'That Place'."
Ging Freecss!
Gon's father. One of the primary architects of Greed Island. The legendary Hunter rumored to have ventured into the Dark Continent and returned alive!
And now, he had abruptly and inexplicably stepped out of a dinsional tear directly into the final battlefield!
The word "key" acted like a spark dropped into a powder keg, instantly detonating the last remnants of everyone's sanity!
A key to opening the true door to 'That Place'?! What else was hidden in the deepest depths of the Dark Continent?!
Zeno's colossal Guanyin illusion froze completely in mid-air. The flawless flow of his Nen noticeably stuttered. Deep within the old assassin's eyes, a storm of unprecedented shock raged.
Beyond's burning hand was so close to the crystal he could feel its warmth, yet it was frozen in invisible amber. The feral greed on his face was instantly replaced by absolute disbelief, followed imdiately by the incandescent rage of a predator realizing it had been played by a higher power.
The entire arena was plunged into a bizarre, suffocating silence.
The only thing moving was the freezing, primordial air still silently bleeding from the spatial rift.
Ging Freecss's sudden appearance, and the casual bombshell he had just dropped, completely shattered everyone's plans and understanding of the world.
"G-Ging... Ging Freecss?!"
Razor was the first to break the silence. His voice was hoarse and trembling with absolute disbelief. The [Ga Core] in his hand flashed frantically, almost as if it were happily greeting its creator.
"F-Father...?!"
Gon's eyes were wide as saucers, his jaw slightly slack. His mind went entirely blank.
He had imagined his reunion with his father countless tis in his dreams. But he had never, ever imagined it would happen at the epicenter of an apocalyptic battlefield, with his father stepping out of a dinsional rift! A tidal wave of ecstasy, excitent, grievance, and a strange, inexplicable timidity slamd into his heart, making his body tremble violently.
Killua's shock was no less than Gon's, but it was accompanied by a deep, chilling dread. The mind-numbing terror inflicted by Illumi temporarily receded under the sheer impact of Ging's arrival. But when Ging's eyes—eyes that felt like they could see through the fabric of the universe—casually swept over him, Killua felt as though every single secret he held was laid bare.
The Zoldyck Family's intelligence network only had one four-word evaluation for Ging Freecss: Incomprehensibly profound.
Experiencing his presence firsthand proved the rumors were severely understated.
Biscuit let out a long, heavy exhale, quietly retracting her pink aura. She looked at Ging with incredibly complex emotions. Her razor-sharp instincts as a Stone Hunter told her one absolute truth: This man's arrival ant the situation had completely and entirely escaped everyone's control.
"Key?"
Ryker narrowed his eyes. The wildly dancing lightning around his body slowly cald, and the golden film of his [A.T. Field - Modified] faded away. But his vigilance didn't drop for a microsecond.
He stared at Ging, then glanced at the floating seven-colored crystal. His mind raced at lightspeed.
A rift to the Dark Continent... the true purpose of the crystal... Ging's sudden appearance...
Connecting the dots pointed to a massive, overarching conspiracy that completely transcended the Greed Island ga itself! Ryker's innate, LitRPG-driven instinct to plunder traits flared wildly. For the first ti, he felt an overwhelming, burning curiosity about what lay behind the "door" this key opened.
"Ging Freecss!"
Zeno slowly pulled his hands back. The colossal Guanyin illusion vanished like a popped bubble. His weathered face was grimr than it had ever been. His voice rumbled like distant thunder. "You... returned from there?"
His cloudy eyes were locked onto Ging, but his gaze kept darting nervously to the slowly writhing spatial tear behind the man. The look in the old assassin's eyes was a mix of intense curiosity and... a sliver of profound dread that he refused to acknowledge.
The Dark Continent was an absolute taboo—a forbidden zone that even the Zoldyck Family refused to touch!
"Ah, yeah, you could say that. Got lucky. Didn't die."
Ging casually scratched his ssy, unkempt hair. His tone was so incredibly relaxed he sounded like he had just returned from a weekend hiking trip.
He stepped forward, casually kicking aside a chunk of pulverized rubble, and walked toward the center of the arena. His gaze swept past Zeno and Ryker, finally landing on Beyond, whose face had turned a furious shade of purple.
"Beyond. It's been years, and you still haven't dropped your old man's crazy obsession with 'conquering' the Dark Continent, huh?"
Ging's voice carried a completely undisguised layer of mockery. "It's a sha. You're exactly like your old man. You're both looking in the completely wrong direction. Brute force? Heh. You can't even lift a decent-sized rock over there with brute force."
"Ging!!!"
Beyond squeezed the na through his gritted teeth. His fiery red hair practically ignited, and his eyes burned with the humiliated fury of having his life's ambition casually dismissed.
He forcefully suppressed the suffocating feeling of being pinned down by Ging's invisible "Domain," roaring: "Stop acting like you're so enlightened god! The energy inside that crystal is enough to change the global hierarchy! It belongs to a true powerhouse who can actually utilize its strength! Not..."
His wild, bloodshot eyes darted between Ryker and Ging. "...Not you cowards who only know how to play gas within the rules!"
"Change the global hierarchy?"
Ging sneered, stopping directly beneath the floating crystal. He reached up and gently flicked the iridescent gem with his finger.
Ding!
The crystal emitted a crisp, resonant chi, its seven-colored light rippling softly.
"Its true power is 'Resonance' and 'Guidance'. It's not a damn bomb for you to play with, you idiot."
Ging's gaze suddenly sharpened into the eyes of an apex predator, piercing straight through Beyond. "You and your old man have your heads so far up your own asses with 'plunder' and 'conquest' that you can't even find the front door! Using the key to smash walnuts—that's exactly what people like you do!"
Beyond trembled with pure rage at the rciless scolding. The dark-red tattoos on his skin writhed and flashed, radiating an even more violent, bloodthirsty aura.
Behind him, Mumyo's gray eyes remained emotionless, but the invisible Nen threads around his fingers were pulled taut to the absolute limit. The Kakin Shaman instinctively took a half-step backward, his hands shaking slightly as he clutched the glass vat. The giant eyeball inside the vat stared at Ging, radiating a primal, instinctual fear.
Ging ignored Beyond entirely, turning his gaze toward Ryker. A look of deeply amused curiosity flashed in his eyes. "As for you, kid... you're very interesting."
Ging's eyes felt like X-rays, effortlessly piercing through Ryker's physical shell and staring directly at the countless, brilliant trait-orbs shining within his soul. "Plunder? Evolution? The fundantal nature of your ability... is subtly, yet distinctly, similar to so of the things found in 'That Place'."
Ryker's heart skipped a beat!
Ging's insight was terrifyingly sharp! This was his deepest, absolute secret—and it was the very first ti anyone had directly pointed out its connection to the fundantal laws of the world!
But Ryker didn't show a hint of panic. He simply stared back coldly. "Similar? Maybe. But right now, I'm far more interested in what's behind the door that key opens."
"Hehe. Curiosity is the greatest driving force for exploration. It's also the ultimate catalyst for death," Ging grinned, flashing a row of white teeth. His smile carried the open-mindedness of a man who had seen the edge of the world, mixed with a very subtle, yet unmistakable warning. "But for now..."
Before Ging could finish his sentence, the world violently shifted again!
"GAAAAAAAH—!!!"
A horrific, blood-curdling scream—so agonizing it didn't even sound human—suddenly echoed from the distant void outside the arena! It sounded like the shriek of a dying owl, filled with ultimate pain, absolute despair, and... a spine-chilling, familiar madness!
It was Chrollo's voice!
In the next second, a twisted, phantom silhouette composed entirely of blood and malice was violently yanked out of the void, manifesting directly above the arena!
It was the [Blood Soul Card: Hisoka] phantom that Ryker had launched earlier!
But the Hisoka phantom was in a horrifyingly bizarre state.
His maniacal, clown-painted face was twisted in extre agony, yet he radiated an indescribable sense of being entirely "stuffed," as if he had swallowed sothing far, far beyond his capacity!
The phantom's body violently contorted and bloated. Just beneath the surface of the phantom's bloody flesh, countless faces belonging to Chrollo Lucilfer surfaced! The faces scread, struggled, and tore at the phantom from the inside! It was as if countless fragnts of Chrollo's soul had been forcefully shoved into Hisoka's phantom, and the two entities were cannibalizing each other!
"No! Let out! Hisoka! You maniac! AAAAAAH—!"
Chrollo's distorted, overlapping voice shrieked from deep inside the Hisoka phantom.
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