Cheadle was panting hard, looking a mess.
She kept a nervous eye on the white-skinned cursed spirit across from her—Hanami.
It didn't seem to be paying her much attention, fixated instead on the massive, black cocoon of a Domain that had bloomed overhead.
When that Domain shattered, the cursed spirit called Jogo plummeted from the sky.
But Pariston… was gone.
Cheadle's heart lurched. She knew—Pariston had been killed.
These two strongest Cursed Spirits clearly didn't see the rest of the Hunters as worth their notice. Jogo and Hanami poured all their attacks into Pariston, to the point of practically ignoring everyone else.
Their offensive had a purpose.
They started by smothering the Hunters with terrifying output of cursed energy, but the Hunters quickly picked up on a weakness: the curses' hand-to-hand skills and combat instincts were poor, and they were wide open to Nen.
The moment he realized that, Pariston showed the brilliance of a top Hunter—going from being pressed down to ripping off one of Jogo's arms in a flash.
Cheadle thought they'd turned the tide… only for the enemy to unleash something even harder to grasp:
that special Domain space.
When it was over, Pariston had been erased.
"Damn it…" Behind her lenses, Cheadle's eyes welled. She couldn't stand Pariston either, but they were all Hunter Association members, all Zodiacs, teammates fighting side by side. Dying to the enemy like this was still hard to accept—and more than that, the Yorknew mission had been entrusted to her by the Chairman to handle end-to-end.
In Cheadle's view, Pariston's death was also on her.
And yet she could never get through to help him.
Never mind Jogo's colossal cursed energy blasting indiscriminately: even Hanami, who wasn't really focused on her, kept throwing up obstacles that were hard to break quickly. Dense, lush growth kept erupting across the field; thick boughs cracked down like iron lashes; whole seas of petals drifted on the wind, hiding killing intent, carving the battlefield into compartments expressly to keep the other Hunters from interfering with Jogo's fight against Pariston.
Among the Zodiacs, Cheadle's combat strength sat in the lower tier. She'd never been a frontline fighter—more of a strategist and administrator. Trading blows like this just wasn't her lane.
She should have been in the rear, directing.
…
"Is it done?"
Elsewhere, Hanami looked at the landing Jogo and asked.
"Yeah." Jogo looked exhausted too and nodded.
"Good…"
Hanami exhaled, then shifted tone. "But… Xiang Nan ran."
It pointed toward an open patch beyond the field. Not just Xiang Nan—one of their cursed-spirit comrades was dead too, the one who was also a player envoy…
Confirmed dead, since they'd dropped from the squad channel.
"Xiang Nan used intel to win our trust, then sold out his teammate to make himself an opening…" Hanami guessed.
They'd let their guard down a little because everything Xiang Nan had provided was real and actually useful to them…
"The biggest problem piece is already handled… He can't have gotten far in this short a time. Let's finish these last two… then grab him!" Jogo narrowed his eyes, recalling what Pariston had said right before dying.
Xiang Nan had pronounced "judgment" on the curses.
Jogo didn't care. As far as he was concerned, Xiang Nan had just used the moment while they were dealing with the other Hunters to run—plain cowardice.
Even so, after crossing fists with Pariston, Jogo no longer dared to take these Hunters lightly.
He had felt pressure—and lethal danger—from Pariston.
He probed the auras across the field. On the curse side, besides him and Hanami… the yellow-skinned curse was still alive—their captain. On the Hunters' side, only two remained: the bespectacled woman and the guy in the cow-print outfit.
The cow-print guy was up against the yellow-skinned curse and a partner, and even in this brief span he'd already put one of them down.
The rest of the Hunters had all been taken care of by Hanami.
Of course, Hanami had only split off a slice of attention to handle those Hunters; it hadn't gone all out. Its real focus was giving Jogo the space and time to finish his target.
Now that the strongest Hunter was dead… the two of them should be able to wrap this up fast.
Kill these two, then find the fleeing Xiang Nan and cut him down as well… Most of the mission objectives would be cleared. After that, they'd just have to take out that so-called Hunter Chairman and the job was done. Sure, two curses on their side had died, but to Jogo and Hanami those losses barely mattered.
As long as their captain, the yellow-skinned curse, was fine—and the two of them were still here—the squad was still "intact."
If anything… their fighting power hadn't dropped.
"One each," Jogo said,
signaling that he and Hanami should split up and eliminate the last two Hunters—the remaining Zodiacs.
"Okay." Hanami nodded.
"Hm?"
But just as they were about to move, several unfamiliar auras drew near—and one figure made both Jogo and Hanami's expressions change.
It was Xiang Nan, the one who should have fled.
He'd actually come back… with several more Nen users in tow.
"He went to bring reinforcements?" Hanami's voice tightened.
"Hmph… trash is trash. Numbers don't matter," Jogo sneered.
By now he was certain of one thing: whether it was him or Hanami, as long as they unfolded their Domains, these Hunters were nothing to fear.
They'd all die.
Their win rate was one hundred percent.
"Strange…" Hanami murmured, puzzled.
To it, Xiang Nan's behavior didn't add up.
If, back in Yorknew City, Xiang Nan had surrendered out of fear of being killed—selling out his friends to buy their trust and a chance to escape—that made sense. But turning around and coming back now? What was that supposed to mean?
If he'd intended to oppose them from the start, if his stance were that firm, he wouldn't have needed to do any of that… Either way he'd die.
Unless… the reinforcements he brought were truly formidable—
enough to give him a real shot?
"Be careful," Hanami couldn't help warning.
"Ging—"
Whoosh, whoosh.
On the field, seeing allies appear, Cheadle immediately fell back.
On the other side, Mizaistom broke off after a brief clash with the yellow-skinned curse and moved up to Xiang Nan's group.
Mizaistom fixed Xiang Nan with a cold stare.
He'd already realized Xiang Nan's "betrayal."