The feared scenario had occurred.
And it was a blatant attack, utterly indifferent to the passengers' reactions or survival.
When the surge of aura erupted, Morrow's first instinct was to check the airship's cockpit.
As he approached the area, he heard the deafening noise that echoed throughout the entire vessel.
Morrow had no intention of investigating the source of the commotion, nor did he want to be dragged into it.
His only concern was whether the airship could land safely.
But after probing with En, he realized that the airship's captain and crew were likely already under control.
This was probably the worst-case scenario.
"Sir, please return to your cabin immediately and await further instructions..."
Suddenly, an urgent female voice called out from the other end of the corridor.
Morrow turned toward the sound.
A young woman in a flight attendant uniform was hurrying toward him, her face etched with anxiety.
Morrow's gaze swept over her; nothing seemed amiss at first glance, but...
In an instant, he raised his hand, extending his Index Finger, and condensed a marble-sized Nen sphere at its tip.
Without waiting for the attendant's reaction, he flicked his finger abruptly, sending the white Nen sphere hurtling toward her.
The moment the sphere left his fingertip, the flight attendant's movements froze. Her head tilted slightly, her eyes rolling back violently.
Morrow narrowed his eyes.
A split second later,
The Nen sphere whizzed past the attendant's ear and struck the wall at the end of the corridor with a soft thud.
This was nothing more than an utterly ordinary Nen sphere, used purely for testing.
While it could harm an ordinary person, it couldn't breach even basic aura defense.
And from the start, Morrow had never intended for it to hit.
Yet the attendant's reaction surprised him.
Thud!
Still rolling her eyes, the attendant collapsed limply to the ground.
Morrow, who had been observing closely, noticed something peculiar: before she fell, the shadow cast by the overhead lights had vanished into thin air.
And with the disappearance of that shadow, the attendant's life force extinguished, leaving behind a corpse.
"Manipulation-type," Morrow confirmed his earlier suspicion in an instant.
His peripheral vision flicked toward the cockpit door nearby before returning to the body on the floor.
The ability controlling the flight attendant seemed linked to shadows.
Moreover, the controlled individual's speech, movements, and even the natural dissipation of their aura were indistinguishable from a normal person.
Had it not been for the attendant's extreme reaction, uncovering the truth would've required a ruthless mindset: better to kill by mistake than to spare a threat.
But it was precisely this reaction that unsettled Morrow.
A Manipulator's advantage usually lay in exploiting their puppets to act on their behalf.
In other words, they had no reason to care about the puppet's survival.
Because aside from suggestion-based or contract-based Manipulation abilities, most compulsion-type abilities effectively stripped the target of their life upon control.
Which was why the earlier sequence felt so jarring.
It was almost as if...
They were wary or afraid of something happening.
For instance... would damage inflicted on the puppet reflect back onto the ability user themselves?
So it's a Manipulation-type ability similar to Soul Invasion...
This type of ability can directly take over a target's body, achieving perfect disguise while fulfilling real-time requirements for sensory feedback and language functions.
Correspondingly, in terms of Limitation, it may carry the risk of "direct damage transfer."
If this possibility holds true, it could somewhat explain what just happened.
To further confirm this speculation...
Morrow suddenly condensed another Nen sphere at his fingertip and flicked it.
Whoosh...
The small Nen sphere struck the corpse's head with a dull thud.
Moments later.
Blood seeped from beneath the corpse's head.
The ability has indeed been revoked.
Morrow then turned his gaze back to the cockpit door, thinking to himself: The attacker is targeting Kanzai's side, yet they controlled the flight attendant to stop me... Are they trying to seize an opportunity to attack me, or simply prevent me from entering the cockpit?
As he pondered, Morrow released his En and approached the cockpit door.
Fortunately, being an Emitter type made it easier for him to master application techniques like En, which now played a crucial role.
The reason he tested the flight attendant earlier was due to the commotion caused by the attacker, combined with having already used En to probe the cockpit's interior...
"Two people, still no response."
Morrow broke the cockpit door's lock and pushed it open.
At a glance, he saw two figures in captain's uniforms standing before the airship's control panel, likely the captain and first officer of this vessel.
Morrow silently observed them, noting the faint aura lingering around their bodies.
Then his gaze lowered to their backs.
Under the cockpit lights, their shadows were conspicuously absent.
Tap, tap...
Morrow stepped sideways to one side of the cockpit.
The clearly manipulated captain and first officer showed no reaction to his presence, moving mechanically like programmed puppets.
Pausing, Morrow saw from his new angle that the two were operating the airship's controls autonomously, their eyes completely white...
This was unmistakably the effect of an ability that drove its victims through commands.
Two manipulation modes?
Morrow studied the puppets at the control panel.
One method involved taking control of a victim's body via Soul Invasion, achieving perfect disguise but apparently carrying significant risks.
The other turned people into command-following puppets, though their white eyes and shadowless forms blatantly revealed their condition.
If they don't show themselves, finding them won't be easy.
Morrow frowned.
En was an excellent enemy detection technique, but it consumed considerable mental and physical energy.
With combat already underway near Kanzai, gradually scanning the entire airship with En to locate the hidden Manipulator seemed impractical.
Really, if he knew how to land the airship, things wouldn't be so complicated...
—--
In a cabin below decks.
A bound figure sat unconscious in a chair.
Light from above cast a long human shadow across the floor.
Suddenly.
A figure emerged from the inky shadow: Luyuan.
I've been discovered...
Luyuan's expression darkened. If there hadn't been any unexpected incidents, with his ability, he could have gradually taken control of all the ordinary people on the airship, turning the entire vessel into his domain of Nowhere to Return From Shadows.
Then, at the opportune moment, he would have activated the control switches one by one, capturing Morrow in a single move.
Who would have thought that two other groups on the airship would start fighting?
This unforeseen event completely disrupted his plan, and moreover...
The target was sharp; he might have even sensed the effects of Nowhere to Return From Shadows' ability.
The difficulty of capturing the target alive had undoubtedly increased.