The violent impact left the car's front end severely dented, nearly fused with the roadside tree trunk.
Thick white smoke billowed from the crumpled hood, faint tongues of flame licking through the wreckage.
Twelve hundred meters away, on the slope beside the road, a man in camouflage lay prone behind the incline, a sniper rifle propped before him.
"Continue."
A cold voice crackled through the sniper's earpiece.
Upon hearing the order, the sniper aimed at the mangled car half-obscured by smoke, instinctively locking onto the approximate position of the driver's seat before pulling the trigger.
A sharp crack.
A slender, pointed bullet shot from the suppressor, trailing a fleeting streak of fire as it tore through the night, striking the smoke-shrouded vehicle with precision.
Then came another shot. Two. Three...
The sniper worked the bolt, firing until the magazine was empty.
With the smoke obscuring his view, each shot was guided by experience alone.
But as long as the target remained trapped in the driver's seat, he was confident in his accuracy.
Once the bullets were spent, the sniper reloaded immediately.
Yet he didn't fire again, instead observing the now-flaming wreck through his scope while awaiting further orders, scanning for any movement in the surroundings.
BOOM!
Suddenly, the car exploded in a fiery blast.
Flames surged skyward, thrusting plumes of thick smoke higher into the air.
The scorching shockwave flattened the surrounding grass in an instant.
—--
A few meters away, behind a thick tree trunk, Morrow leaned against the bark, his expression icy.
His clothes were smeared with dirt and grime.
Fortunately, the defensive effects of his Nen power had protected him when he'd forced open the passenger door through sheer strength amid the billowing smoke, preventing cuts from sharp debris or shattered glass.
Under cover of darkness, he had dashed into the roadside woods, using one of the trees as a shield while waiting for the sniper's next move.
The sniper's relentless barrage at the car confirmed that his current cover was, for now, safe.
Still, he didn't dare move recklessly, lest the sniper immediately pinpoint his location.
Morrow steadied his racing heart.
What just happened?
Recalling the life-or-death moment, a flicker of doubt crossed his eyes.
When the bullet had sliced through the night, he had sensed death itself, an almost instinctive alarm flashing through his mind like a spark before the windshield shattered.
In that split second, he had tilted his head on pure reflex, narrowly evading what should have been a fatal shot.
The truth was, at his current aura level, even if he had used Gyo in time to reinforce his defenses, it wouldn't have been enough to withstand a sniper round.
And in the chaos of the ambush, activating Gyo fast enough to block the bullet would have been impossible.
In that scenario, dodging was the only way to survive.
But the root of the problem lay in his limitations.
His current aura output ceiling and the strength of his Ren simply weren't enough to face a weapon as devastating as a sniper rifle.
If his fundamentals were stronger, he wouldn't even need Gyo; his raw defenses could have withstood the shot.
So for Morrow right now, he'd rather face a Nen user in close combat than deal with a sniper's long-range threat.
In a way, a sniper was more dangerous than a Nen user like Zarzan.
It was frustrating, but reality. Morrow reached up to touch his earlobe; it was bleeding.
If not for that split-second sense of danger...
He exhaled deeply, suppressing the shock in his heart as a grave expression gradually surfaced in his eyes.
If I don't deal with that sniper...
The constant threat of being locked onto would severely limit his mobility.
In this situation, if there were other enemies, he'd be in even greater danger.
The silver lining was that there seemed to be only one sniper.
If there had been another, he'd have lost more than just a layer of skin by now.
At least a thousand meters away...
The sniper's earlier rapid-fire shots seemed utterly unconcerned about revealing their position, but it also gave Morrow an opportunity.
Yet, even with the location confirmed, closing the distance remained a daunting challenge.
The longer the distance, the greater the risks embedded within it.
If he chose to retreat and avoid the sniper's direction, without knowing their maximum range, he'd effectively be exposing his back.
And if there were multiple assailants, either choice could worsen his predicament.
That was the crux of the problem.
Rather than rushing to eliminate the sniper, the more pressing matter was confirming the number of attackers.
Ideally, pinpointing their positions would be even better.
That way, advancing or retreating would become far more manageable.
Under normal circumstances, that would be the logical approach...
But Morrow had another option.
Confirming the number of assailants and their locations...
All of that required time.
And in his current predicament, every passing second increased the unknown risks.
The worst-case scenario would be the sniper relocating, pressuring him from the shadows.
So instead of gathering intel while locked in a stalemate, Morrow preferred to attempt a swift kill.
And this decision couldn't afford even a moment's hesitation.
He had to exploit the sniper's overconfidence, the very arrogance that led them to fire repeatedly despite revealing their position, and strike with overwhelming force before they reconsidered.
Only one chance.
Morrow closed his eyes, constructing linear diagrams in his mind.
The distribution of surrounding trees, the blazing car, the slightly undulating road, and the distant hillside ahead...
Every obstacle along the direct trajectory was systematically eliminated as he mapped out an alternative path.
A few seconds later.
He opened his eyes, a sheen of aura flickering in his gaze.
Deceptive Shooting Star.
He raised his hand, adjusting the angle.
Bright aura gathered in his palm, condensing into a fist-sized Shooting Star.
Whoosh!
The Shooting Star shot forth, weaving through the branches before halting mid-air a hundred meters away.
Simultaneously.
Morrow burst from behind the tree, taking up his pre-planned position, then watched as the Shooting Star expanded and hurtled back toward him.
As it neared his face, he sidestepped at the last possible moment.
The light radiating from the Shooting Star flashed past his eyes before streaking like a meteor through the gaps in the nearby trees, racing toward the distant sniper.
The second stage of Deceptive Shooting Star: Treachery.
While it granted the Vow's effect of doubled speed and power, it also carried the Limitation of dealing equal damage to Morrow himself. With this premise in mind, when Morrow seized the moment to dodge the Shooting Star rebounding from Treachery...
The Deceptive Shooting Star, under the effect of its Limitation, would break free from the constraint of "flight distance" and its power would not diminish with distance until it struck an obstacle.
Morrow exploited the mechanics of Limitation to extend the Shooting Star's range beyond its original hundred-meter limit.
In an instant.
Like a meteor streaking across the sky, it shot straight toward a target a thousand meters away.
—--
At the same time.
On a distant hillside, a sniper noticed Morrow suddenly exposing himself.
Swiftly locking on, controlling his breath, he pressed the trigger.
"Huh?!"
Just as the sniper was about to fire, his scope was abruptly flooded with blinding light.
"What the...?!"
The sniper jerked his head up.
In the next moment, the hillside before him exploded violently.
The fierce impact, carrying sand and debris, swallowed him whole.
In the blink of an eye, the sniper was sent flying, his body riddled with holes like a torn sack, dead beyond any doubt.
From another direction.
A gloomy youth stared fixedly at the explosion site, his face filled with disbelief.
He had witnessed the Nen bullet that had traversed a thousand meters like a shooting star.
"At such a distance... and still packing that much power?"
Removing his earpiece filled with static, the gloomy youth, still shocked, turned his gaze toward Morrow's position.
Emitter-type Nen users excel at projecting aura outward, yet even so, maintaining both power and stability in a Nen bullet over long distances is no easy feat.
For a moment, he hesitated whether to continue closing in.