Phinks pushed Ryu to its limit. By the time the pen struck his body, a large amount of aura had already gathered at the impact point.
Neon's pen couldn't pierce him at all. Instead, Phinks twisted his body, swung his arm, and threw a punch.
A heavy, powerful fist shot straight toward Neon's face. At the same time, the fishing line from Abaki's rod was clenched in Phinks's hand.
The line was suddenly pulled taut with a sharp twang and snapped outright.
But Phinks knew the attacker had chosen to break the line herself, precisely to avoid being dragged around by his strength.
Judging from that, the attacker wasn't all that strong.
With that conclusion in mind, his thrown punch still hit nothing. At the critical moment, Neon felt a huge suction force coming from the side. Her clothes pulled tight and dragged her out of the path of Phinks's fist.
It was Shizuku.
Under the double attack from Abaki and Neon, Shizuku had finally gotten a chance to catch her breath.
But taking that chance to counterattack wasn't easy. All she could do at the key moment was use the suction from Blinky to help Neon escape Phinks's pursuit.
Immediately afterward, she shut Blinky's suction off.
After all, the only thing she could suck in was Neon's clothes. If she kept Blinky going, Neon might have ended up fighting Phinks naked.
That image was far too much to imagine.
Neon was still shaken, but Phinks wasn't about to give up an opening. He stepped forward, and his other leg immediately followed through, whipping toward Neon.
He wasn't someone who only knew how to use his fists.
Neon crossed her arms, gathering a large amount of aura over them. A sharp pain shot through her arms, and her whole body was sent flying.
But just as Phinks was about to build up a combo and finish Neon off with a charged punch, Shizuku appeared at his side.
Blinky was raised high, then smashed down toward Phinks's head like a hammer.
At the same time, a fishhook appeared on Neon's clothes. The fishing line pulled taut, and Neon's rising body was dragged sideways by a powerful force.
Phinks's punch missed again.
But it was as if he had expected that. As he withdrew his fist, his waist twisted, and his other fist, which had already been drawn back to his waist, immediately shot out.
The entire motion was smooth and flowing, and his fist struck precisely against the toothless side of Blinky's mouth.
But at that exact moment, Shizuku suddenly let go of Blinky with one hand.
Blinky vanished from her grip in an instant.
Phinks's punch swept past Shizuku's face without being blocked, and at the same time, Blinky reappeared in both of Shizuku's hands.
Blinky's mouth suddenly opened wide. As Shizuku thrust it forward, it bit down toward Phinks's arm.
Phinks quickly gathered aura into that arm, but it was already too late.
Blood sprayed as Phinks rapidly pulled back, increasing the distance between himself and Shizuku. He hadn't expected to be caught off guard by her Nen ability like that.
When Neon had been dragged away earlier, Phinks had already figured out that the conjured vacuum in Shizuku's hand had suction as its ability.
So when he attacked Shizuku, he had focused most of his attention on the possibility of that suction suddenly erupting.
What he hadn't expected was for her to pull a trick like canceling her conjured object and instantly recreating it.
Doing so would consume some aura, but compared to the payoff, that cost was obviously insignificant.
Phinks looked at the wound left on his arm, and an idea formed in his mind.
Maybe her plan was to use the vacuum's powerful suction to draw his blood out through the wound.
He had to admit, it was a pretty good method.
The wound was not small. In the final instant, when he had pulled his arm back, Blinky's teeth had caught his flesh and torn it open.
A wound like that wouldn't be easy to stop from bleeding.
Shizuku looked at Phinks as he opened the distance and quietly said to Blinky, "Blinky, suck his blood dry. Not a single drop left."
At Shizuku's command, Blinky's tooth-filled mouth suddenly opened wide. A powerful suction force erupted from it and locked directly onto Phinks. No matter how he retreated, that suction clung to him relentlessly.
Blood was spraying from the wound on his arm. The continuous stream of blood formed a thin red line in the air, flying straight into Blinky's mouth.
Phinks had only one option: raise his hand to press down on the wound, then explode forward at high speed toward Shizuku.
As long as he dealt with Shizuku, Blinky's suction would naturally disappear.
But at that moment, a current of air wrapped around a figure in the sky and came crashing down beside Shizuku. As the surrounding aura dispersed, the newcomer was revealed.
It was Kurapika, who had rushed over after taking care of Bonolenov.
His eyes swept across the field once, and he immediately grasped the situation.
Less than a second after landing, the Chain Jail on his middle finger had already shot out, sweeping toward Phinks.
Phinks, who had been charging forward, was forced to halt and dodge under the chain's attack.
But the fishhook appeared again like a ghost.
This time, it shot toward his mouth.
Everything happened too quickly. Phinks released the hand pressing down on his wound and grabbed the fishing line, using the same trick as before to stop the hook in front of him.
But the moment he let go, blood burst from the wound on his arm again.
If he released the fishhook to press down on the wound, the chain followed him like a shadow.
And that pink-haired girl even dared to approach him with her lousy pen in hand.
Phinks felt a surge of anger.
But his movements were completely restricted by Shizuku, Kurapika, and Abaki.
At that moment, Neon stopped advancing. Instead, she removed the cap from her pen, and her aura coated it. As she moved the pen, a line of cursed verse appeared in the air before her.
"The body hooked beneath the sunlight will gradually wither into an artistic collectible."
"I like this prophecy," Neon said.
She could see curses, but she would never call her fortune-telling a curse. She only called it prophecy.
A corpse drained dry of blood and hooked up like a fish did indeed have collectible value.
Phinks didn't know what those two lines of blood-red text meant, but the instant he saw them, a primal chill rose in his heart.
And right then, the deadly fishhook appeared out of thin air in front of him.
Did she not need to replace the hook?
The line had clearly just snapped while he threw it away. Even the previous follow-up attack had taken a brief interval. Why was there no delay this time?
Was it because her fishing rod wasn't a conjured object?
Yes.
That method of appearing out of nowhere was clearly the effect of someone skilled in Emission.
And Emission and Conjuration were opposite categories. For an Emitter to train Conjuration would be a complete waste of talent.
In other words, he had miscalculated from the very beginning.
Phinks failed to block the hook.
It struck him cleanly across the cheek.
~~~
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