Roy became a sword of light and shadow, driving viciously toward Silva's chest!
At its core, it was nothing more than the most ordinary forward thrust from a bow stance—but after fusing together Sun Breathing, Water Breathing, Wind Breathing, Flame Breathing, and the rest of the breathing styles, the strike let out a razor cry at extreme speed!
For an instant, it seemed to carry countless different images within it—
a blazing sun, crashing waves, raging wind, searing flames...
All of them converged into a single point of light and stabbed straight toward the six elements that made up the human body—
earth, fire, water, wind, void, and consciousness.
It was a thrust meant to sever the suffering of the six paths and choke off the life of the six organs. In that instant, Netero's old eyes flashed as he caught a strangely familiar feeling from it...
"A grateful sword..."
Both fist and sword walked the path of form and intent.
At the beginning, one trained only the outer shape. Once refined to perfection, that shape became intent.
Netero raised a brow. With a seasoned burst of Gyo, he watched Roy thrust forward with his blade, body flashing through space, faintly wrapped in a kind of Buddhist meaning, carrying all those layered images with him. It was just like the year when Netero himself had stood half-naked atop a snow mountain, praying and punching day after day for two straight years, until he finally comprehended the Gratitude Punch and, through his gratitude toward martial arts itself, reached the peak of Enhancement...
A sharp light burst from Netero's eyes.
From Roy's wild, unrestrained sword, he sensed a similar state.
The difference was that Netero's had been pure gratitude.
Roy's, besides gratitude, seemed to hold something else too—something Netero couldn't quite name.
For a moment, even he couldn't read it.
Screee—
Space compressed to the extreme.
In the blink of an eye...
Roy's thrust arrived!
A flash passed through Silva's eyes, his pupils filled with nothing but sword-light. He remembered the boy's old thrust from last year—back when Roy had fought with a blade too. It had been nothing like this, nowhere near this fast or this fierce!
The corner of Silva's mouth tilted upward.
Floating above the water, he thrust out a palm and slammed it down hard toward Roy's incoming form!
A vast surge of aura roared out. Midair, it stretched, reshaped, and instantly transformed into a giant aura axe wrapped in Ken. The moment Roy got close, Silva brought it chopping down!
Clang!
A shrill clash of steel was followed by a ring-shaped sonic boom exploding outward...
By the pool, Zeno's white hair whipped in the wind as he flicked aside a shockwave sweeping toward him. At the center where the axe-light and sword-light met, violent aura gnawed and struggled against itself, locked in dead-even collision...
The former head of the Zoldyck family, and a top-tier Transmuter himself, casually glanced at Netero and said, "No need to make such a fuss."
"Just because you can do something doesn't mean no one else can."
A grateful sword?
His grandson Roy could do it.
His son Silva could too.
Even he himself—after immersing himself in the path of transformation for so many years—had no shallow attainments when it came to form and intent.
"Ho ho ho... no, it's different."
"It's different..." Netero's sleeves fluttered as he kept his eyes locked on Roy.
"There's more than gratitude in it..."
Then, right in the middle of the deadlock, Roy's empty left hand tightened around Snow Walker and slashed sideways toward Silva's waist!
A point of cold light appeared first.
Then the sword shot out like a dragon.
Snow Walker had been silent for too long. It had stored up too much锋芒, waiting all this time for the day Roy would finally draw it again. Its cry cut through the air as it gathered—
Sun Breathing, Eighth Form: Solar Halo Dragon Head Dance,
Water Breathing, Ninth Form: Splashing Water Flow,
Wind Breathing, Fifth Form: Cold Mountain Wind,
Flame Breathing... Mist Breathing... and the horizontal slashes of the other breathing styles—
all into a single multicolored line that split the air and cut in tight against Silva's body!
En spread.
The world began to drain of color into lines.
Silva's right hand held Eclipse at bay from afar, but his eyes cut downward through his En. He caught that Roy had angled this slash perfectly through his blind spot. Instantly, Silva thrust out his left palm, moving after Roy but arriving first, and clenched it into a fist.
Aura reinforced his knuckles and in an instant wrapped them in Ten. To the naked eye, that Ten was so dense and refined it extended nearly three inches beyond his skin, smashing straight into Snow Walker!
Clang!
Another violent blast rang out!
The air exploded, aura and shockwaves flying wildly outward. Trees all around them trembled under the impact like they'd been caught in a typhoon, shuddering so hard it seemed they might snap at any moment!
Whoooosh... crash...
The wind screamed, and Roy's vision narrowed. Even with the telescope protecting his eyes, Kurapika—watching from a tree a thousand meters away—still felt dizzy, as if the gale alone was enough to force his eyes shut!
Too fast.
And too bright.
I can barely even keep my eyes open!
Can this really be the kind of power a human being can display?!
The traditional Kurta outfit on the boy's body snapped wildly in the wind.
The force of it nearly blew him off the branch. He had to grab Tsubone's hand just to stay from being swept away.
Even then, he raised the telescope again with difficulty and looked toward the battlefield. By the pool stood the old man he had seen at the airport, and beside him another equally elderly man, both standing with their hands behind their backs, completely motionless.
It was hard to imagine just how powerful they must be themselves!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Fist against sword. One strike blocked, then another, so then a third, a fourth, ten, a hundred!
The two figures skimmed along the surface of the lake like twin comets dragging long tails of aura-flame behind them. In less than a single breath, they had already exchanged over a hundred blows!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The once-calm pool was blasted apart by aura, torn open by sword energy, churned up by fist intent, sending columns of water skyward!
Roy fought with both blades in hand, at times displaying the blazing ferocity of the sun, at times the utmost softness of water, at times the razor edge of wind... like a dancer of the sword performing amid exploding aura all around him.
And caught in Netero's eyes, the difference between the boy now and the boy he had first met during the Hunter Exam was like night and day.
"Zeno, congratulations."
Netero's voice drifted through the scattered aura, straight to Zeno.
"Your family's about to gain a true sword master."
A master.
What counted as a master?
Only someone who had reached the summit of a path—someone who had spent years digging deep into one road, learning, imitating, surpassing, and finally creating something uniquely their own—deserved that title.
And to receive that kind of praise from the man acknowledged as humanity's strongest—
Even Zeno, who prided himself on the assassin's ability to keep his face under control, couldn't quite suppress the faint curve tugging at his lips. He gave a proud snort and said, "Master? Roy probably wouldn't care about that. But 'teacher'... that part's real."
Some people loved teaching in the waking world. Some loved teaching in dreams.
Who said reality had to be true and dreams false?
True and false—just like manifestation and anti-manifestation—for a Conjurer, both mattered...
and neither mattered.
Zeno thought of his father, Zigg. Netero thought of his friend, Zigg.
Zigg had said he was dead—but the version of him in the Demonic Eye obviously hadn't been "him" in the usual sense. It was only one piece of his game. Or rather... a game item.
Netero narrowed his eyes in agreement and watched Roy move with the blade. Roy's feet skimmed over the lake as he suddenly drove forward with a vicious thrust, using Light Release and Divine Spear to warp the distance itself, extending the blade in an instant straight toward Silva's face!
With quiet approval, Netero murmured, "Then his teacher must be an extraordinary swordsman."
"If I ever get the chance to meet him, I'm sure it'd be very interesting."
A flicker of battle intent burst from Netero and then faded again. Zeno glanced at him and understood the feeling. After hearing a few things vaguely from Grandfather Maha, Zeno too had not been without the thought of entering those dreams himself just once—
just to see what Roy's teachers really looked like.
Unfortunately, what kind of grandfather forced something like that onto his own grandson?
He wasn't Silva.
Zeno narrowed his eyes and focused on Silva again.
Eclipse and Snow Walker had extended abruptly, their edge bursting out of space itself through Light Release. The sword wind brushed Silva's face and blew his silver hair backward into the air!
His pupils contracted.
He crossed both fists before him as aura surged outward and rapidly coated his forearms, then spread over both fists, forming an X-shaped Hard!
Then came another sharp clang!
Roy's blades struck as if they had hit a slab of diamond. Even though their tips pierced Silva's aura guard, his terrifying Hard had locked them firmly in place!
"Lady Tsubone," Kuraging asked from the tree a thousand meters away, still watching through the telescope with Gyo, "is that thin silver layer on the master's fists what you called Ken?"
Beside her, Kurapika frowned and glanced over too, telescope still in hand. Strangely, he couldn't see any "silver layer" at all.
That was the difference between those who had Nen and those who didn't.
Tsubone looked deeply toward Roy, now caught in Silva's grip, and said gently to the two siblings, "Just call me Tsubone."
With her pink twin-tails hanging behind her, the old butler pushed up her glasses and said gravely under their curious stares:
"That isn't Ken."
"That's Hard."
"It's an advanced application formed by combining the Four Major Principles—Ten, Zetsu, Ren, and Hatsu—together with Gyo's dynamic focus."
"It isn't something an ordinary person can master..."
Standing at Tsubone's left, Kurapika quietly glanced at Kuraging, who had fallen into thought. He mentally marked down Four Major Principles, Gyo, Ken, and Hard before raising the telescope again toward the lake.
Of course it's not for ordinary people...
Not the two locked in combat out there.
Not the three standing nearby watching like none of this meant anything.
Looking at the whole Zoldyck household—
I'm probably the only ordinary person here.
Kurapika remembered the mountain of muscle Uncle Zebro had shown off when they first arrived at the Zoldyck estate. He had the distinct feeling that if he hadn't been recognized back then, he'd either have been flattened into meat paste with one punch—
or swallowed whole like a snack by that giant dog at the foot of the mountain.
Hummm...
The blades trembled.
Crack...
Silva's Hard held Eclipse and Snow Walker like iron pincers.
On the lake, father and son stopped dodging and simply began contesting raw strength!
Water roared.
The lake surface sank beneath them, then burst outward in waves. In the blink of an eye, half the surrounding shoreline was already submerged.
Silva stared at Roy at point-blank range, feeling the immense force flowing from Eclipse and Snow Walker through his Hard, into his knuckles, up his forearms and upper arms. Suppressing the excitement in his voice, he said with wild satisfaction:
"Roy, you've earned the right to be proud. In my life, there are only three and a half people I've ever truly respected for sheer strength!"
Roy raised a brow, feeling the mountain-like force pressing back from Silva.
"I count as half. Who are the others?"
"One is in Kakin."
"One is in Bander City."
"One is standing right over there."
Netero threw back his head and laughed, hands on hips.
"Zeno, hear that? Your son's complimenting me!"
Zeno: "..."
With a cold smile, he spat out a single name:
"Beyond."
Netero instantly went silent, as if someone had grabbed him by the throat.
"Heh heh heh..."
A mocking laugh drifted unrestrained through the depths of Kukuroo Mountain.
Back in the Zoldyck family castle, in that dim little room on the first floor, some dried-up old man rolled over on his rocking chair and smacked Betty Zoldyck on her round backside, baring his teeth in a grin... only to get slapped back into line by her at once.
"Watching a fight and your hands still can't behave!"
If she were still fully alive, she didn't dare imagine how much longer Maha would keep shamelessly tormenting her.
Enhancers were overdeveloped in four limbs—naturally the fifth wasn't any weaker.
Borrowing Maha's aura, Betty sat across his thighs and looked up at the big television screen in front of them, which had switched over to the battlefield. There was a trace of familiar aura running through it—
Kikyo's.
In the second-floor bedroom, Kikyo held Killua in her arms, using her aura to control the cameras hidden all over Kukuroo Mountain and watch the battle from a god's-eye view. Naturally, she hadn't forgotten the family ancestors—Maha included.
Static crackled as the cameras hidden across the forest shifted angles and tracked the state of the battle.
After hearing Silva's words, Roy stared back at him at point-blank range, his tight training clothes stretched taut over the muscles beneath. Without much surprise, he said, "The one in Bander City is Benjamin Frederick."
That was the former captain of the security corps—
now the Thunder Archbishop.
"So you've already met him," Silva said. From Roy's aura, he could faintly read a trace of emotion.
And that emotion...
didn't seem especially pleasant.
Roy smiled.
Of course it wasn't. Benjamin's spear through his body was the kind of thing he'd never dare forget. But still...
"Father, aren't you forgetting someone?"
"Who?"
"Your great-grandfather. My great-grandfather too. Maha Zoldyck."
"No. I'm not."
Silva's gaze turned distant. He looked toward the dim room in the Zoldyck castle and said,
"In my mind..."
"your great-grandfather doesn't belong on that list."
"He isn't human."
"He's a god."
~~~
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