A splash of blood flew across the corridor. A severed arm whirled through the air and bounced off the wall, leaving a spatter of crimson.
Blinky's rapidly rotating chainsaw teeth were as sharp as advertised. With one roar of the vacuum, it cut clean through the arm of an enemy attacking from the side.
The chainsaw teeth dripped with blood.
Only then did Shizuku come face to face with her attacker.
A woman.
She had long black hair tied tightly behind her head and wore a black suit identical to the other bodyguards. The muscles of her limbs strained against the suit's long sleeves and pants, radiating explosive power.
This was the last of the four Professional Hunter bodyguards that Marko Met had hired long-term.
The female bodyguard's eyes filled with shock. She clearly hadn't expected that the conjured ability in front of her, which seemed capable of only absorbing objects, could be used like this.
And she hadn't expected that the other party was also holding a weapon in her other hand.
Just before Blinky's sharp teeth severed the woman's arm, they'd bitten through something else as well. Something invisible, like the weapon in her other hand that was currently piercing through Shizuku's chest.
Shizuku's chest was impaled.
She glanced down calmly. The opponent's weapon was invisible, which allowed her to clearly see the shape of the wound.
An invisible sword?
"It's In!" Liam, who was fighting in close combat with Pa Wa, took a moment to glance over and shouted. "Shizuku, you're being too careless!"
Shizuku secretly stuck out her tongue and raised her foot, kicking the opponent away while gathering aura in her eyes.
When she pulled back, there was no pain from the sword being withdrawn, only the sudden surge of blood. Shizuku looked closely and saw the female bodyguard tearing off a piece of clothing to tie around her severed arm and stop the bleeding. In her remaining hand, an invisible long sword quickly disintegrated and merged back into her body's aura.
You couldn't disguise real items with In.
In other words, this female bodyguard's Nen ability was to transform her own aura into a weapon?
After transforming aura into a weapon, she used In to hide it, employing surprise attack tactics to succeed in one strike.
As these thoughts flashed through Shizuku's mind, the puncture wound in her chest had already been stopped by the Star Mark. The wound healed and recovered completely. Only a small hole in her clothes proved she'd actually been injured.
The situation on the other side was even worse.
Who knew how long the bodyguard had been observing in secret before deciding to launch a surprise attack. As a result, she'd encountered someone like Shizuku who carried a Star Mark on her body and wasn't afraid of trading injury for injury.
The worst part was Shizuku's attack method. That weird vacuum cleaner could open and close at will, but it was also highly lethal.
It was completely unreasonable. Just swing it in the direction of danger and call it a day.
This was a conjured object. Even if it was broken into pieces during a fight, it wouldn't harm Shizuku herself at all. At most, she'd lose part of her aura.
Aside from the slightly short attack range, this weapon was simply the nemesis of melee assassins. The female bodyguard was dissatisfied, but she had to accept it. The girl with glasses was too strong. She'd actually smashed through her transformed blade with her arm.
She stared at the blood-stained chainsaw vacuum in Shizuku's hand with a pale face, extremely jealous.
"Thousand Weapons Manual." That was her Transmutation ability.
She could turn her aura into any weapon she'd touched before.
Perhaps because of her childhood experience of having to hide a knife and fight others just to get a bite to eat, after her Nen ability developed, the weapons she transformed automatically gained the effect of In.
It suited her perfectly.
In her opinion, only concealed weapons that hadn't been discovered could give her the confidence to protect herself.
And the more weapons she mastered, the more at ease she felt.
Seeing the opponent's aura quickly transform into a "Blinky," Shizuku's expression, which had remained unchanged even after being stabbed, finally shifted, revealing a look of surprise.
The female bodyguard was wielding a "Blinky" copy with one arm, its chainsaw head also rotating rapidly. Seeing that Shizuku was finally moved, she smiled proudly. "I can turn weapons I've encountered into my own. How about that? Surprised?"
Shizuku suddenly realized and said to herself, "I thought it could be transformed into a weapon to hurt you."
"However, Blinky isn't a weapon." Shizuku pushed the vacuum cleaner's switch. "Suck out half of her blood. Half of her blood."
This guy named Pa Wa really had hard fists.
Through his Nen ability, he treated his fists as weapons to enhance and amplify their power. They were essentially iron fists with a +15 Enhancement buff.
Even with Liam's Ko thickness, being hit by such fists still hurt.
Liam wasn't the kind of person who'd show pain on his face, though.
So in Pa Wa's eyes, it was like his full-powered punches failed to injure his opponent at all.
How was this possible?
What was even more outrageous was that the boy's fighting became smoother and smoother. After adapting to the power of his fists, he gradually became able to accurately predict the landing point and actual force of each punch, allocating just enough aura for perfect defense. It was like there was a whack-a-mole inside the "Ko" of the opponent's body, and his fist was forced to accurately hit this emerging mole every time.
Every time he was forced to hit a thick-skinned mole, the opponent would seize the opportunity to give him a solid punch in return.
After several rounds, Pa Wa was beaten until his nose was bruised and his face swollen, but Liam was still in high spirits, seeming to get more energetic the more he was beaten.
What terrifying close-combat ability!
Pa Wa was speechless. It was obvious this young man wasn't even an Enhancer, yet he'd developed such frightening fighting skills. Could he have been a martial artist before becoming a Nen user?
There was no way to find any flaws like this. Even his own Enhancement type couldn't overcome skill with brute strength. Without more than ten years of dedicated practice, there was no way to achieve this level.
But how old was this boy?
Pa Wa took a punch to the face, his flesh twisting and rippling. His whole body was knocked back. Suddenly, with a sharp look in his eyes, he pulled out a short knife from behind his waist.
A cold light flashed like lightning, stabbing toward Liam.
Liam folded his palms in front of him.
With his current aura defense, palms stacked like this should stop even sniper bullets. But this ordinary-looking short knife penetrated the aura on the outer layer of Liam's palms, nearly piercing both hands together.
At that moment, a sound of something cutting through air came from the side.
The roar of a chainsaw gradually faded.
Liam's eyes narrowed. He saw a chainsaw-headed Blinky cloaked in In flying toward him.
Over there, the female bodyguard's severed arm continued to spray blood, being sucked away by Shizuku's real Blinky. The woman's face was already horribly pale.
Fortunately, she'd tied the severed arm to stop the bleeding from the start. Blinky couldn't absorb things in a closed environment unless the closed environment itself was sucked away. And the current closed environment was the female bodyguard's own body. Blinky couldn't suck away living things.
Under the strong suction of Blinky, the blood pressure at the wound on the female bodyguard's severed arm soared. When a trace of blood appeared, it was like a dam breaking. The wound burst open and blood flew out, constantly being sucked away and swallowed by the weird vacuum cleaner.
Knowing defeat was certain, the female bodyguard tried her best to protect the injury from excessive blood loss while simultaneously hurling the chainsaw vacuum she'd transformed toward Liam.
Shizuku was stunned for a moment as the female bodyguard escaped.
Of course, Liam wouldn't be injured by the thrown chainsaw vacuum, especially since this was a knockoff.
"The power's weaker," Liam said, kicking the fake vacuum away. It hit the wall, and even the buzzing, rotating chainsaw head failed to cut any significant marks into the surface. "Her Emission efficiency isn't very good, so the weapon's power is greatly reduced after being thrown. I'm guessing she rarely transforms ranged weapons like guns, right?"
He turned and asked the bodyguard named Pa Wa.
"Why should I tell you?" Pa Wa said thoughtfully with a bruised face. "No wonder she rarely uses guns."
"I can hear you!" Liam was speechless, waving his hands. "Okay, okay, let's stop here. If we keep fighting, someone's going to die. You don't want to die, right?"
He checked Shizuku's injury and found it had healed long ago. Very good.
Pa Wa said with a cold face, "What right do invading thieves have to demand a truce?"
Liam said, "Can someone who's chatting and laughing with your boss be considered a thief?"
Pa Wa was stunned.
Earlier, it was because of the changing situation with "Jack" that Liam had chosen to stop and fight with the bodyguards Pa Wa brought. After all, the peaceful chat was probably going to fall apart soon anyway, so why not get some sparring in?
But he hadn't expected there to be a bodyguard hiding in the dark.
How could a female bodyguard act like an assassin if she wasn't personally protecting her employer?
He couldn't find her earlier, but she'd found Shizuku instead.
Liam looked at the severed arm lying in a pool of blood on the ground.
The pale female bodyguard tied up her severed arm and ran all the way to the boss's room. She burst through the door and froze.
The boss had a solemn look on his face, talking to the stranger who'd arrived first.
Two other hired Professional Hunters, Invers and Ruili, were also present. The latter was glaring at the man with great dissatisfaction.
A little gray bird was flying toward the boss's back with ill intent.
The female bodyguard could tell at a glance that this little gray bird wasn't normal.
The boss didn't keep birds!
Swish. The female bodyguard's aura transformed into a dagger, and she threw it.
Invers and Melody turned their heads at the sound of the door breaking, immediately exclaiming. However, the dagger thrown by the female bodyguard was automatically cloaked with In, and it was thrown so fast and decisively that it was impossible to stop.
It was impossible for Jaku to know how to see through In with Gyo, so he was innocently stabbed mid-air and pinned to the wall.
Small gray feathers fluttered down.
"Jack" was speechless as he watched. Due to the attack on Jaku's body, the parasitic Nen beast "Reflection" began to appear. Eight black arms grabbed the female bodyguard as everyone watched in shock.
The female bodyguard had one arm cut off by Shizuku, and her blood had been sucked by Blinky. Her whole body was covered in blood, so she naturally had no shortage of sustenance.
Reflection rubbed against her casually and picked up blood droplets to swallow.
Reflection disappeared and reappeared behind the female bodyguard like a ghost, attaching to her entire body like black armor.
The bodyguard tried to struggle, but it was useless.
Once the parasitic Nen beast met its triggering conditions, even Netero would have to wait until it was satisfied before taking countermeasures, let alone a Professional Hunter like her.
Reflection wrapped the female bodyguard tightly and scanned her whole body. After sweeping away her largest amount of manifest aura, it quietly disappeared and returned to Jaku's body.
The female bodyguard's flying dagger vanished quickly after leaving her body. Jaku's injuries had healed on their own with the Star Mark's blessing. At this moment, he was chirping angrily, hopping around the female bodyguard but not daring to get too close.
"Jack" rolled his eyes at the bird.
The female bodyguard was exhausted and collapsed to the ground. She'd already lost a lot of blood from being tortured by Shizuku, and now she'd had so much aura drained. She immediately felt dizzy, her vision went black, and she fell softly to the floor.
"So, why were you so impulsive?"
Through the broken doorway, Liam walked in, followed by Shizuku and the suspicious, vigilant bodyguard Pa Wa.
After entering, Liam nodded at "Jack" sitting in the room.
With Melody's "Spring Meadow" forcibly making people feel calm and Buddhist, "Jack" in this room had quickly engaged in a peaceful conversation with the wealthy man Marko Met.
"Jack" had said he was here to ask for the Scarlet Eyes, so please be gentle and elegant so the trip wouldn't be wasted.
The rich man had said no, no, he was using this thing.
That statement made Liam understand the problem. Other scumbags got Scarlet Eyes for collection purposes. How was this rich man "using" them? What use could these eyes possibly have?
It couldn't be as decoration for food and drinks. That would be too perverted.
"Jack" had changed his expression at that moment, summoned Jaku, and planned to give the rich man a little surprise. He'd use the Star Mark to control him first, then he could decide whether things would be round or flat.
But he hadn't expected the female bodyguard to suddenly rush in, ruining the good atmosphere.
"Where did the conversation leave off?" Liam walked over in a swaggering manner, looking very leisurely.
He was asking "Jack."
Obviously, there was no need to let the other people here know that he was "Jack" and "Jack" was himself.
Shizuku gently placed the severed arm she'd picked up on the unconscious female bodyguard. Her expression shifted from active as a mad rabbit to quiet as a virgin, which made Pa Wa, who'd been shouting at her earlier, feel his scalp tingle.
"You are..." The wealthy man Marko Met looked at Liam.
"Oh, I'm the leader," Liam said, kicking "Jack" aside. "What kind of look is that? The boss is here and you don't know to give up your seat, right?"
Kicking yourself was really a novel experience.
Seeing "Jack" kicked away but getting up without a word and standing behind Liam, Marko Met and the others couldn't help but remain silent.
But Melody found it very strange. Why was the rhythm of this man who called himself the boss's heartbeat so similar to "Ross's"?
What was even stranger was that even a subordinate should have reacted when kicked away in public like that. There should be no reaction on the surface, but there should be some fluctuation in the heart. But "Jack's" heartbeat was as calm as water, without any change, as if he'd known from the beginning that his boss would kick him like that.
Had he mastered mind-reading?
Liam glanced at Melody from the corner of his eye. When he saw the thoughtful look in the chubby woman's eyes, he knew she'd probably heard something from the heartbeats of himself and "Jack."
Marko Met sighed. "There's nothing to hide. I sought out Melody this time for the same thing."
"Scarlet Eyes. You think of me as a pervert who likes collecting human organs, right?" He shook his head with a bitter smile. "How could I have the leisure for that? I bought this pair of Scarlet Eyes not to collect for myself, but to give away to someone else. I'm troubled by this!"
As he spoke, Marko Met took out something that looked like an envelope. It turned out to be a wedding invitation.
"I'm not interested in human organs, but this big boss is very interested. I'm just following his preferences, and I have no choice. If I want to get to where I am in Mimbo's business world, it's impossible not to deal with these gangsters. So I really can't hand over these Scarlet Eyes to you right now."
Liam couldn't help but feel speechless as he listened.
Why was it that one after another, when you found a pair of Scarlet Eyes, they led to the next pair, making his friends run around in circles?
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