"Military, huh…"
Kai muttered in a murderous tone as he chased down his second target.
He was a bit taken aback by the person's reaction speed. Right after Kai killed the first soldier, he'd marked a second target—but that individual had instantly turned and fled, putting distance between them without any hesitation, showing impressive alertness.
From their coordination and gear, Kai quickly concluded they were soldiers—though they might also be mercenaries. As someone from Meteor City, he was more than familiar with military forces.
In a flash, that second target had already made it to the estate's walls, escaping the thick smoke now starting to spread throughout the courtyard. Still, no matter how fast they ran, they couldn't match Kai.
"Number two…"
Kai surged out of the swirling smoke and lunged at the back of his fleeing enemy, mouth curling in a mocking grin.
His hand was just about to grab the target's shoulder when—
Suddenly, a dazzling burst of white light consumed his field of vision.
A flashbang!
"He's deliberately baiting me!" Kai realized.
Then, from the side came another attacker who had been lying in wait, exploiting Kai's temporary blindness. They thrust a knife straight at his throat. Meanwhile, the person who'd been running—Garo—whirled around with a shotgun and fired round after round at the Nen user.
But, as with the teammate who died earlier, the buckshot—even at such close range—failed to penetrate Kai's body. In that instant, the skin and fat beneath his flesh seemed to inflate again, bursting his already-tattered suit. Only a few scraps of fabric still clung to his physique.
"Hmph."
In mere seconds, Kai seemed to recover from the loss of vision, letting out a cold snort.
Meanwhile, the teammate who was stabbing him tried to sink the blade deeper into Kai's neck, but Kai's flesh in that area had swollen thick, as if with extra layers of fat, trapping half the knife's length. No blood spilled out—it felt all wrong.
"Good tactic—luring me. Your reactions and teamwork aren't bad. But…"
Now that his appearance had changed so drastically, Kai let out a sneering laugh.
"You really think I didn't know someone was hiding, waiting to ambush me?"
From the start, he'd been aware of the enemy's small tricks. He just chose to toy with them.
"A two-for-one deal."
Kai grinned.
"Run!" the comrade gripping the knife shouted to Garo, fully prepared to die. He latched onto Kai in a desperate bear-hug, intending to detonate the bomb strapped to his body.
However, even his suicidal act was too slow in Kai's eyes. A single punch—
Though the bomb did go off, it happened along with the soldier's body getting flung several meters away, exploding midair. The force of the blast knocked Garo flat on the ground.
"Number two."
Kai dodged aside just in time, avoiding the brunt of the explosion. Amid flying chunks of flesh and blood, he casually extended two fingers and strolled toward the fallen Garo.
"So this is a Nen user…"
Even someone as mentally tough as Garo felt his courage wobble. He'd never personally fought a Nen user before—when they captured Kaito in Kotaki City, Garo wasn't involved in the direct battle. None of them, aside from the late Alyosha, had truly experienced what these "beyond-normal" individuals could do.
Now, Garo finally grasped Xiang Nan's warning that, at least for ordinary people, Nen users were monsters.
"Number three…"
Kai loomed over Garo, who had been knocked down by the blast, raising his elbow to finish him off. The soldier had no way to fend it off.
Life or death. But right then, Kai's expression changed. He glanced back toward the manor. Abruptly, he abandoned Garo and sprinted away—someone was approaching the boss.
…
In the mansion's foyer, Xiang Nan—also wearing a face-concealing mask—had calmly gunned down several lieutenants who were hiding. Next, he locked eyes on Donny himself.
Using the heat-sensing feature in his helmet, Xiang Nan could pinpoint live targets. The middle-aged mafia boss tried to resist, but his vision was limited, and he couldn't make any threatening moves. Xiang Nan shot him in the arm and then in the knee.
Treading over shattered glass, Xiang Nan approached the kneeling crime lord. In those few steps, alarm bells flared in Xiang Nan's mind, warning that a deadly threat was closing in.
Steadying himself, Xiang Nan changed course and dove behind cover.
A black blur dashed into the foyer at speeds no normal eye could follow. Kai had arrived—his mission as a bodyguard being to guarantee Donny's safety at all costs. Meteor City had deals with various mafias, so from the perspective of Kai's "Elder," Donny was a reliable client. If Donny died, Kai would face dire punishment he couldn't afford.
"More than one in here…"
Kai swiftly sensed multiple presences in the lobby. That meant, aside from the one who nearly finished Donny off and was now hiding, other "rats" had slipped in. Even knowing these enemies might be poised to ambush him, Kai was utterly contemptuous, fully confident in his Nen. Going all-out against a Nen user of his own level? He'd be game. But a handful of regular humans—he felt no fear.
The problem was, Xiang Nan and company weren't playing fair. As Kai rushed into the room, the moment he crossed a certain threshold—
Beep.
A device he triggered let out a faint tone. The next second, an enormous detonation and burst of flame enveloped him.
A whole row of windows blew out. Cracks raced through the walls. Billowing black smoke flooded the interior.
After a while, Xiang Nan—his face bloodied, mask partly destroyed—struggled up from the floor. He'd been injured, but the plan had worked. Their target had never been the mafia boss; they were there to capture (or kill) the Nen user.
While Garo and the others lured him away, the rest of the squad had swiftly planted sensor-triggered explosives. Xiang Nan had risked his life to serve as bait, assuming Kai wouldn't ignore Donny in mortal peril. He also knew a Nen user would try reading the battle situation, so illusions about his men's movements probably wouldn't fool him. But the bodyguard was so focused on Xiang Nan's group that he might not suspect an "inanimate" trap.
Against a Nen user, their only advantages were numbers, coordination, and a critical "information gap." Namely, the wide array of modern weapons at their disposal, of which Kai seemed unaware. Xiang Nan had braced himself—though the blast wounded him, the payoff was still within expected bounds.
Poor Donny was now a charred husk.
"This blast might just be enough to handle him," Xiang Nan muttered, staring into the roiling smoke with icy eyes. Based on Kaito's level, that bomb should suffice to kill or at least cripple a normal Nen user. But he wasn't 100% certain, because Nen abilities could be highly irregular.
In facing a Nen user, Xiang Nan's "reasonable assumptions" might be undone by the sheer diversity and complexity of Nen…
~~~
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