Yorknew Auction House. Main Hall.
"What?!"
"Protect the Boss!!"
The elites of the underworld froze in horror. Dalzollene's face twisted into a mask of despair. Before his brain could even process the threat, the roar of gunfire shattered the air.
Double Machine Gun.
Franklin stood on the stage, his ten fingers transformed into gatling barrels.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
A storm of Nen bullets shredded the crowd.
"Defend!"
"Shields up!"
Bodyguards rushed forward, deploying their Ren. Some conjured alloy shields, confident in their defense. But the moment the bullets hit, their confidence evaporated along with their bodies.
Rip. Tear. Splatter.
The shields were paper. The bodies were mist. The front line was reduced to a fine red spray in seconds.
Dalzollene's pupils dilated. He tried to scramble back, but the wall of lead was already upon him. It was a deluge of death, and he was drowning.
It's over.
His mind went blank.
Clang-clang-clang!
Suddenly, a shadow loomed over him.
Ryker stood there, one hand raised casually against the bullet storm. An invisible field of force stopped the rounds dead in mid-air, inches from his palm.
Around them, the massacre continued. Mafiosos screamed silently as they were turned into swiss cheese. The hall became a slaughterhouse, the air thick with the copper tang of blood.
But in the eye of the storm, Dalzollene was untouched.
Ryker didn't care about the others. Let the black market scum die; it was a form of karmic cleaning. He just needed one witness. And he needed the cameras to see the truth: The Phantom Troupe did this.
"Captain!!" Dalzollene cried, tears streaming down his face.
Before he could say more, Ryker grabbed him by the collar.
Zap.
They vanished.
The Aftermath.
The gunfire stopped. Smoke drifted from Franklin's fingertips.
The hall was silent. No one moved. No one breathed. The walls looked like honeycomb, riddled with thousands of holes. Every guest, every guard, every waiter was dead.
"Hmph. Small fry," Franklin grunted, looking disappointed. "Over too soon. I barely warmed up."
"Is it my turn to clean?"
A girl with glasses and a vacuum cleaner walked in, stepping over the corpses. Shizuku.
"Blinky," she called out.
A grotesque, toothed vacuum materialized.
"Clean up everything. Even the blood."
Slurp.
Blinky opened its maw and began to inhale. Bodies, blood, chairs, clothes—everything was sucked into the void. Within minutes, the hall was pristine.
"Strange," Feitan muttered, leaning against a pillar.
"What?" Franklin asked.
"There was a guard. A tall one. He was right in your line of fire. But I don't see his body."
Feitan's eyes narrowed. His memory was photographic. He remembered Dalzollene standing there. But now? Nothing.
"Probably turned to mist," Franklin shrugged. "My bullets don't leave much behind."
"Maybe," Feitan said, unconvinced. "But be careful. Something feels off about this job."
"You worry too much. We're the Spiders," Franklin laughed.
Rooftop Observation Deck.
Dalzollene collapsed onto the concrete, gasping for air. His shirt was soaked in cold sweat.
"I... I'm alive?"
He looked up at Ryker with worship in his eyes. If Ryker hadn't teleported him, he would be paste on the ballroom floor.
"Captain... thank you... thank you!"
"I told you I'd keep you safe," Ryker said calmly, peeling an orange. "Consider it a perk of the job."
He had saved Dalzollene for a reason. A living witness was better than a dead hero.
"Stay here. Eat an orange. I need to go get something," Ryker said.
"Huh?" Dalzollene blinked. "Get what?"
"A snack," Ryker lied.
He vanished.
Underground Vault.
"Hahahaha! The idiots upstairs are making so much noise!"
Uvogin laughed as the group approached the vault. "I bet they don't even know we're robbing them blind!"
"Careful, Uvo," Pakunoda warned, scanning the corridor. "This is too easy."
"Easy?" Nobunaga smirked. "Look at these guards."
He pointed to the trembling security team guarding the vault door.
"Get lost!" Uvogin roared.
Splat.
One punch turned a guard into red mist. Nobunaga drew his katana.
Flash.
The remaining guards fell into pieces.
"Pathetic," Uvogin spat. He turned to the massive alloy vault door. "Now this... this looks fun."
He wound up his fist. His aura flared red, condensing into a point of catastrophic impact.
Big Bang Impact!
BOOM!
The vault door groaned. Metal screamed as a fist-shaped crater dented the alloy. The entire corridor shook.
But the door held.
"One more!" Uvogin growled, embarrassed.
"Move aside, you brute," Nobunaga sighed. He sheathed his sword, then drew it in a blur.
Schwing.
The lock mechanism was sliced cleanly in half. The heavy door swung open.
"Heh. Whatever," Uvogin grumbled. "Let's get the loot."
The group—Uvogin, Nobunaga, Pakunoda, and Kortopi—marched into the vault.
They stopped.
It was empty.
Not just empty. Clean.
"What the hell?" Uvogin shouted.
"Where is the treasure?" Kortopi asked, looking around.
Then, they saw it.
In the center of the room lay a headless corpse. And next to it, a playing card.
The Joker.
"Hisoka?" Pakunoda's eyes narrowed. "Why is he here? Did he beat us to it?"
"That traitor!" Uvogin punched the wall. "He took everything and didn't tell us? Is he trying to hoard the credit?"
"Wait," Nobunaga frowned. "If Hisoka was already here... why were the guards outside still alive?"
The realization hit them like a bucket of ice water.
"It's a trap!" Pakunoda screamed. "Get out!"
They turned to run.
Clang.
The heavy vault door slammed shut.
Outside, the pile of dismembered guard corpses—the ones Nobunaga had just sliced up—began to glow.
Blue lightning crackled from the dead flesh.
Ryker sat on a nearby rooftop, sipping milk tea, watching the monitor.
"Physics Lesson #1," Ryker murmured. "Explosions in a confined space are amplified exponentially."
He snapped his fingers.
"Art is an Explosion."
BOOM!
The corpse-bombs inside the vault detonated.
The blast wave had nowhere to go but inward, reflecting off the indestructible alloy walls, compounding the pressure, turning the vault into a pressure cooker of death.
[DING! You have killed Pakunoda.]
[DING! Plundering Traits...]
[DING! Acquired: {Specialist Talent} (Purple), {Memory Bomb} (Gold).]
Ryker smiled.
"One down."
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