The spiders of the Troupe staged a feast of slaughter in hell.
Meanwhile, Kisho was alone, his figure concealed on the right side of the room, behind a row of massive glass tanks.
His expression was numb, his gaze hollow, simply repeating the motion of thrusting the triangular spike into the glass, granting "release" to the "collections" inside, then prying the spike back out.
These "humans" placed inside the tanks as "collections."
Although he did not know by what means Jobhan kept them alive, their barely perceptible aura made Kisho understand that they had little hope of ever opening their eyes again.
The sound of glass shattering...
The sound of spikes piercing skin, slicing through flesh...
Interwove into a requiem sending off the dead.
Blood splattered across his face, reflecting against his silver-blue pupils, cold yet blazing.
Until he reached the vicinity of the last glass tank.
Jobhan appeared there without warning, looking at Kisho with icy eyes.
Kisho halted, holding the cold-glinting weapon horizontally before himself.
Violent nen erupted from his body and surged toward Jobhan, just like him at this moment—furious and mad.
The colliding nen pressure swept to both sides; the glass tanks could not withstand it and shattered completely, fragments thudding as they embedded themselves into the walls.
Jobhan stared at Kisho, his face twisted, eyes splitting wide:
"...You dare destroy my collections! You—deserve to die!"
"Scum."
Kisho spat, his silver-blue pupils refracting an extremely sharp killing intent even in the pitch darkness:
"The one who should die is you."
"Zzzrrt—"
An ear-piercing grinding sound burst from the weapons in their hands. In a flash of lightning, the two figures touched and separated.
The dagger in Jobhan's hand fell to the ground.
A look of hesitation appeared on his face; only several seconds later did he react, raising a hand to clutch his shoulder.
Blood slowly seeped out between his fingers, dyeing an entire section of his clothes red.
He stared at Kisho, disbelief showing in his eyes.
—This tender-faced little brat before him… had actually managed to injure him.
And that momentary hesitation was enough for the other bloodthirsty spiders to follow the scent of blood and arrive.
The first to reach them was Feitan.
The rapier that still shone in the darkness, dotted with starlike glints, pierced straight through Jobhan's body—
Blood slid down along Feitan's rapier, dripping onto the ground drop by drop.
Only after that did Jobhan's afterimage slowly fade away.
Feitan flicked his rapier, narrowed his eyes, his gaze extremely irritated and cold:
"Instant teleportation again."
The massive glass tanks that had blocked the view were all shattered. Kisho tightened his grip on the rapier, expanded his "En" to the maximum, and looked toward the center of the underground level.
He was waiting—waiting for the instant Jobhan appeared after finishing his transfer.
However, when Jobhan's figure staggered into view at one corner before the hall, not only Kisho, but everyone in the Troupe lost the calm ease they had before.
"Haha, hahahaha..."
Jobhan's once snow-white suit was completely soaked in blood. He collapsed to the ground, letting out an unpleasant laugh, his gaze sweeping over the scattered spiders.
He ground his teeth as he spoke, hatred almost solidifying:
"You think... this is enough to kill me...?"
Kisho abruptly sensed that his "En" was being forcibly pressed back into his body by an enormous pressure; even "Ten" was hard to maintain.
His expression instantly turned grave—
His body felt as heavy as if a whole mountain were strapped to his back. Forget chasing after that scum to finish him off; he could not even take a single step.
Jobhan's cold laughter came intermittently. Blood flowed from his body into the floor, then was eerily swallowed by it.
The once spotless floor, just like before, flashed with a dazzling white light—
"Stay here, all of you, and become my new collections!"
The white light dissipated.
The museum's underground level returned to calm once more.
Only the blood covering the ground and corpses, shattered glass scattered everywhere, and the blood staining the floor silently told of everything that had just occurred.
"Ding."
A badge fell from midair onto the ground, emitting a crisp clinking sound, shining brilliantly in the darkness.
....
Kisho felt himself falling at high speed.
A tremendous pressure accompanied the sensation of weightlessness, like a thousand-ton weight suddenly crushing down on him.
The nen he had released outward was continuously crushed—crushed—until it completely withdrew back into his body.
A faint breeze brushed across his cheek.
His silver-blue pupils tightened slightly. Kisho used all his strength, pouring all the remaining nen he could still mobilize into the triangular spike in his hand, then snapped his wrist and hurled it in the direction of the wind—
"Ding."
The triangular spike struck something, producing a crisp sound.
Kisho barely adjusted his posture and landed on the ground. The thing beneath his feet did not feel like solid earth.
This space was filled with darkness shrouded in despair.
The "despair" came from the faint, rising and falling breaths around him, and from the low sobbing that was almost inaudible.
An unknown, untraceable space made Kisho's expression sharp and tense.
—He was being forcibly maintained in a state of "Zetsu." Forget "En"; he could not even maintain basic "Ten."
Kisho silently clenched his fist.
With nen abilities and vision stripped away, and his body still bearing the pressure of a nen array, choosing to fight the enemy under such conditions was no different from seeking death.
But… should he use that trump card…
As he hesitated, the lights on the ceiling all switched on at once. The blazing, blinding light completely illuminated the room that had been pitch-black.
Caught off guard, Kisho felt as if his eyes had been scorched by the sun.
Before him remained only a field of white light; he could no longer see anything.
"Kisho."
Chrollo's voice suddenly sounded behind him.
Within Kisho's vision shrouded by white mist, a black shadow streaked past at incredible speed.
He felt as if he were lifted up; a few seconds later, he was set back down on the ground.
The instant his feet touched the floor, he caught a faint scent of blood—
Only then did he belatedly realize that his left shoulder felt as though a piece of flesh had been gouged away. His movements were slightly sluggish, yet unexpectedly there was not the slightest pain.
Before he could investigate the source of the blood smell, a piercing scream rang out from somewhere:
"...Aaaah, aaaah!!"
The excessively shrill scream sent a chill down Kisho's spine. He suppressed the discomfort and forced his eyes open.
In his field of vision was a massive room decorated like the seafloor; even the walls were dyed a dark blue.
The ground was covered with a layer of fine, soft sand and colorful round stones.
Many enormous shells and corals were randomly placed in various corners of the "seafloor."
Some boys and girls not much older than Kisho were hiding behind these corals and shells, their faces filled with terror.
Their youthful faces were full of fear; their gazes closely followed the thing moving through the sky.
It was a dragonfish, two meters long, entirely composed of snow-white armored bones, segment by segment.
The silver-white bone fish, like a spirit of the sea, swam leisurely through this space, utterly silent.
Elegant, ethereal, eerie.