Looking at the golden light in the distance of the passageway, the Masked Man stopped.
Despite the considerable distance, he could still feel the life force fluctuations accompanying the golden light.
Not weak… in fact, somewhat strong.
The Masked Man stood watching, contemplating whether to advance or retreat.
In reality, his contemplation was unnecessary, but it was his habit.
The path ahead was the only way back to the surface.
The structure of the underground ruins resembled an ant nest, with countless branch paths connecting numerous 'ant nest' rooms, which were the safe zones.
These branch paths were like roots, extending irregularly into the depths, but they ultimately converged onto relatively fewer main passages.
No matter how many routes led to the surface, they all eventually passed through these main passages.
Ahead of the Masked Man lay one such main passage.
It was purely a passageway, not a room.
However, the area covered by the main passage was no less than that of the ruin rooms.
In fact, the place where Law's group descended from the first underground level to the second was also one of the main passages.
No matter how many teams moved from the depths of the ruins toward the surface, they were likely to converge on these main passages.
Therefore, the Masked Man's act of stopping to think was redundant because he had to pass through this main passage to choose which branch path to take back to the surface afterward.
Of course, it wasn't the only option.
If he didn't want to take this path, he could turn back and take a massive detour to another main passage.
But would the Masked Man choose that?
Obviously not. Even so, he still wanted to think it over carefully before deciding.
He stood there, thinking for a full three minutes before deciding to continue forward.
The life force fluctuations accompanying the golden light indeed felt strong, but not enough to threaten him.
And the golden light was Netero's 100-Type Guanyin.
In terms of shape, the branch paths within the underground ruins were still essentially passageways.
Length, width, and even height all fit the definition of a passageway.
Therefore, the team didn't face excessive pressure during their breakout within the passageways.
However, when they reached the main passage, the suddenly widened space immediately multiplied their pressure.
Originally, they only needed to defend the front and rear. Now, they had to guard the front, rear, left, right, and even the overhead direction.
Consequently, facing the staggering number of copper mechanical lifeforms, their breakout efficiency was naturally affected.
Netero controlled the 100-Type Guanyin, bearing most of the team's pressure, using dazzling palm strikes to shatter the attacking copper mechanical lifeforms one by one.
It was no exaggeration to say that under the Hunter Association's team's breakout, many copper mechanical lifeforms fell every second.
Yet even so, from breaking out of the safe zone to this point, no one in the Hunter Association's team felt the number of copper mechanical lifeforms had decreased at all.
This obvious phenomenon of endless killing not only brought them mental pressure but also dampened their morale.
The demoralization was slight, but like accumulating water, it would build up over time.
This was a hidden danger, like a latent virus waiting for the right moment to erupt.
Fortunately, within the Hunter Association team was a Double-Star Problem Hunter, the Zodiacs' Horse, Saccho.
During the team's continuous forward push, he constantly moved around, using his ability to 'listen to thoughts' and then 'eliminate worries', dispelling the negative emotions caused by the copper mechanical lifeforms for his teammates.
Thus, the Hunter Association team's morale wasn't dampened. On the contrary, they remained optimistic, firmly believing the team could successfully break out to the surface.
As the Hunter Association's team slowly advanced, the sounds of copper mechanical lifeforms being destroyed echoed unceasingly in the main passage.
Although the appearance of the copper mechanical lifeforms didn't match the term 'biological', every time Netero destroyed one, the resulting killing intent would be nurtured, then integrated into his Aura, transforming into sharper attacks.
This nurturing, similar to a martial artist building momentum, was the main reason the Masked Man could sense Netero's Aura from afar.
At this moment, the Association team was breaking out with all their might, completely unaware a baleful star was following behind.
However, although the Association team didn't have a Nen User with a rare ability like Tonpa, they did have someone like Cluck who could simply set up a warning line.
Due to the immense combat pressure during the breakout, which was shared among them, even Morel had to fully control his smoke soldiers to join the fight, leaving no spare energy to construct a warning line.
This task temporarily fell entirely to Cluck.
But compared to Morel's ability to turn smoke into small animals to set warning lines, Cluck's ability to use pigeons to set warning lines paled in this environment.
Mainly because the number of pigeons brought into the underground ruins was limited, so their effectiveness wasn't great.
However, the pigeons placed behind the team did contribute.
A pigeon saw the Masked Man, and the visual feed transferred to Cluck.
Seeing the Masked Man and the strange object he held, Cluck was suddenly startled.
Before she could observe further, the Masked Man suddenly threw something, blasting the pigeon into a mass of minced flesh.
Simultaneously, Cluck's body shuddered.
Most of the pigeon's dying sensations transferred to her, causing her to involuntarily let out a low cry of pain.
Her cry immediately drew her teammates' attention.
"What's wrong?"
Cheadle cautiously asked.
A layer of fine sweat beaded on Cluck's forehead. She looked toward the rear of the team and said with difficulty, "Behind us, there's a person wearing a mask approaching. He looks very troublesome, and he's holding a... strange object."
Cheadle's expression changed slightly. She quickly asked, "Distance?"
"Five hundred meters!"
Cluck replied swiftly.
'So close...!'
Because the distance was too close, Cheadle had no time to think whether the masked person was from Beyond's side or to inquire in detail about the so-called strange object.
She used a bit of Emission-type technique to gather this information and send it to every member's ears.
Within seconds, every member knew an enemy might be approaching from behind.
Netero was responsible for defending against attacks from the front and bore most of the breakout pressure. How could he spare energy to monitor the rear? He could only hope the main combatants responsible for the rear could handle this.
The main combat members responsible for the rear included the Zodiacs' Ox, Mizaistom, the Sheep, Ginta, and two elite Hunters with strong practical combat abilities.
While destroying copper mechanical lifeforms, they also monitored the situation ahead.
A moment later, they finally saw the Masked Man described by Cheadle and the exaggerated object he carried.
Along with it came pressure as tangible as a physical presence!