Two effective strikes brought Botobai to the ground, rendering him unable to fight.
But he hadn't lost consciousness.
On one hand, it was due to his exceptionally tenacious willpower, and on the other hand, it was because Moses had deliberately held back.
Though the scene had looked like a bloodbath, the actual damage from those slashes was far less severe than the punch Moses had landed on Botobai earlier.
The reason Moses had slashed Botobai so many times at the end of the fight was merely to implant the black tendrils into him, and to use the multiple wounds to accelerate its growth.
Moses turned to look at Botobai, who was lying face-down on the ground. At that exact moment, a sharp sound of something cutting through the air broke through the darkness.
The sound was high-pitched, like a willow branch whipping through the air.
Because the noise was so piercing, Moses naturally noticed it immediately.
Just as he turned toward the source of the sound, the Black Sword in his hand had already swung downward, slashing through the air with a razor-sharp gleam.
A feather came from the darkness and collided with the path of the descending sword.
Ding!
Though it looked soft and light, the feather turned out to be as hard as steel the moment it met the blade, producing a burst of sparks on contact.
Still, the feather couldn't compare to the black blade in terms of durability. In the blink of an eye, it shattered into fragments, vanishing along with the sparks.
This feather, with a pale blue tip, had been hurled by Cluck.
Cluck's usual attire, aside from being revealing and sexy, had two notably eye-catching features.
One was the pair of white wing-like decorations on her back, and the other was a ring of feathers with pale blue tips wrapped around her elbows.
The feather she had just thrown at Moses had come from her elbow.
The reason these feathers had pale blue tips wasn't purely to match her similarly colored hair, but because she has made changes to the feathers to suit her own abilities.
The pale blue tips were actually a neural toxin extracted from plants.
Taking advantage of the moment Moses dropped his guard after defeating Botobai, Cluck's intention in throwing the poisoned feather was obvious.
However-
The sharp whistling sound the feather made as it flew through the night wasn't accidental, and Cluck had done it on purpose.
Her goal was to make Moses swing his sword again, and in that exact moment...
Cluck's real follow-up attack emerged from the depths of the night.
Three more poisoned feathers flew silently toward Moses's back in a triangle formation. Compared to the first feather, these three were almost entirely silent.
At this point, even if Moses realized the attack at the last second, he wouldn't have time to retract his blade for defense. His only option would be to sidestep and evade the trajectory of the feathers.
However, when Moses sensed the three feathers, he did not dodge, nor did he attempt to pull back his sword. He simply stood where he was.
With his current level of Manifested Aura, he had more than enough to allocate between offense and defense.
So there was no need to dodge.
Just before the poisoned feathers reached him, the Aura around Moses's back abruptly thickened.
In the next moment-
The three poisoned feathers struck the gathered Aura on Moses's back, and as if hitting a solid wall, they instantly bounced off, shooting off into the ground and the sky.
Cluck's well-timed assault had been effortlessly neutralized.
But the coordinated offensive against Moses didn't end there.
Though smaller than Botobai, the also burly and muscular Ginta suddenly flashed into position at Moses's left side.
Meanwhile, Saccho, who was tall and slender and clad in a long purple robe, also flashed into the striking range, but he appeared on Moses's right side.
The two of them surrounded Moses from both sides.
Even so, the offensive launched by members of Zodiacs continues.
Not far away, Mizaistom appeared. At this time, he's holding a yellow card in his right hand.
[Cross Game]
This is his Nen Ability. By presenting three colored cards to his opponent, he could impose restrictive effects on them.
The blue card summoned the target to court, the yellow card restrained them, and the red card forced them to leave the court.
Right now, Mizaistom was holding up the yellow card, and at the same time, he deliberately released an overwhelmingly intense Aura.
This was because, to activate his ability, he had to fulfill the condition of 'presenting the card to the target'.
Thus, he needed Moses to notice his presence and see the yellow card in his hand.
For this reason, before revealing himself and unleashing his powerful Aura, he deliberately positioned himself directly in front of Moses.
This meticulous and thorough preparation naturally drew some of Moses's attention.
'This is a Nen Battle. One misstep could lead to an abyss, so any Nen User in the midst of combat would be hyper-aware of even the slightest disturbance.'
As expected, the yellow card Mizaistom held out inevitably entered Moses's line of sight.
'This inevitable phenomenon of battle directly offsets the restriction of my ability… having to present the card to the target.'
The situation unfolded exactly as Mizaistom had planned. After meeting the conditions for activating his Nen Ability, he activated the yellow card's ability at the fastest possible speed.
"Restraint."
In an instant, an invisible, cube-shaped transparent space enveloped Moses' body.
With the ability's activation, Moses found himself completely immobilized.
This was the combined assault launched by Cluck, Ginta, Saccho, and Mizaistom.
However, before the attack, they did not communicate with each other, so naturally, there was no attack plan discussed in advance.
They simply relied on their rich experience, seized the moment when Botobai fell, and as if by tacit understanding, wove an inescapable net of attacks.
Ginta's method of attack was his fists, which was condensed with Aura as he aimed at Moses's left shoulder.
Saccho's weapon was the pair of long swords sheathed at his waist, though he only drew one, gripping it in his right hand before slashing at Moses's head.
Unable to move due to the yellow card's imprisonment, Moses could only watch as Ginta and Saccho's attacks closed in on him.
There were no surprises-
Ginta and Saccho's attacks landed on Moses in succession.
However-
While Moses's body could not move, he could still manipulate his Manifested Aura.
At the critical moment, he mobilized enough Aura in advance and concentrated it on his left shoulder and head.
Bang!
Clang!
Against the dense Aura, both Ginta's fist and Saccho's sword were repelled and did not cause any substantial damage to Moses.
Once again, this scene shows the advantage in Manifested Aura.