Closely watching the thick, ink-black swirl of death nen, Linck recalled what he knew about it.
Death nen—simply put, it's nen after death.
It usually forms when someone dies with a will so intense—say, the burning desire for revenge, or a refusal to die, that their will lingers.
Ordinary nen transforms—almost like a "darkened" version of itself—becoming aggressive and invasive.
The concept was a bit like the zombie trope in horror films.
If a person dies with lingering resentment that hasn't been released, their corpse may transform into a zombie after death.
But death nen's uses far surpass anything as simple as turning into a zombie.
The most memorable depiction of death nen in the original story was the duel between Hisoka and Chrollo in the Heaven's Arena.
The anime hadn't reached that point yet—it only appeared in the manga.
During the match, Chrollo turned the surrounding spectators into human bombs. Hisoka wasn't completely blown apart, but the continuous explosions left him without enough oxygen.
In the end, Hisoka died from asphyxiation.
Just when Chrollo thought Hisoka was dead, and the staff had even carried away the body—something incredible happened.
A surge of death nen performed CPR on Hisoka's heart, and unbelievably, brought him back to life.
It turned out that before dying, Hisoka had deliberately left a portion of his nen around his heart, and at the brink of death, his willpower drove the death nen to perform resuscitation.
This was apparently an experiment Hisoka had tried—he wasn't even certain it would work.
When I first saw this scene, I couldn't help but marvel at how boundless Togashi's imagination was. Even that could be used to forcefully bring someone back.
Put another way, death nen could be considered a kind of negative power, the opposite of ordinary nen.
Thinking of this, inspiration struck Linck. He immediately had his Gardevoir stand beside him and use a skill against the death nen ahead.
In the games, this particular skill could only be learned through a Technical Machine.
But here, Pokémon born from nen had all learnable moves automatically available in their skill panel.
In other words, if that Pokémon could learn a move in the games, it could use it here.
Mystical Veil!
A semi-transparent sphere enveloped Gardevoir completely, like she'd been placed inside a massive soap bubble.
At the same time, the death nen in front of her reacted like it had met a natural enemy—it began rapidly churning backward, eager to flee as far from Gardevoir as possible.
The death nen farther away, however, wasn't much affected.
Watching the retreating death nen scatter like a routed army, Linck understood at once.
In the Pokémon world, Mystical Veil prevents the user from being affected by abnormal status conditions.
That meant death nen could, in a sense, be classified as one of those conditions.
Which meant… did that make him a part-time Exorcist?
No—more like half an Exorcist.
An Exorcist removes nen after it's already afflicted someone. Mystical Veil, on the other hand, prevents death nen from affecting the person in the first place.
One cures, the other prevents.
Nen removed by an Exorcist disappears completely; Mystical Veil merely drives it away. This was clear from the fact that the death nen didn't vanish earlier—it just retreated.
Realizing the importance of Mystical Veil, Linck wondered: if death nen counted as an abnormal status, what about nen abilities that inflicted other kinds of abnormal effects?
Would Mystical Veil work against those too?
He hadn't tested it yet, but his gut told him—it probably would.
Wait a second…
If Mystical Veil could prevent death nen, then…
Would Heal Bell be able to remove death nen?!
Gardevoir could learn Heal Bell too. Linck quickly opened the skill panel to check.
Heal Bell: Removes abnormal status conditions (as determined by the user) from the entire party, including but not limited to death nen, curses, and other negative effects.
This sealed it—he really could call himself an Exorcist now!
Mystical Veil for prevention, Heal Bell for removal—double the insurance!
No one could argue he wasn't a real Exorcist anymore…
In the world of Hunter x Hunter, nen users were already rare compared to ordinary people.
But true Exorcists? They were practically an endangered species.
Across both anime and manga, only three had ever been mentioned:
One, the Black man on Greed Island who removed Chrollo's nen.
Two, the rabbit-type Chimera Ant named Hina.
And the last, an elderly woman working for the Hunter Association, who never appeared on-screen.
Exorcists like that could make a living anywhere!
To test the theory, Linck had Gardevoir cast Heal Bell on the death nen ahead.
Beautiful singing took form through nen, manifesting as musical notes that floated forward in a graceful up-and-down rhythm.
When the death nen met the notes, it was like snow under warm spring sunlight—melting away step by step until it vanished completely.
The cleared space looked as though death nen had never existed there, leaving a gaping hole in the gloom.
A moment later, the death nen farther back "realized" what had happened and surged forward to fill the gap.
"Garde…" Gardevoir's gentle voice reached Linck, a hint of fatigue in her tone from the nen consumption.
"So Heal Bell drains more nen than Mystical Veil… makes sense."
Satisfied that both moves worked, Linck had Gardevoir cast Mystical Veil on him as well. Ignoring the "Danger Ahead" sign nearby, the two stepped forward together.
As expected, each time Linck advanced a step, the death nen retreated a step.
It felt like he was Tang Sanzang in Journey to the West, standing safely inside a magic circle—only this one moved with him.
Step by step, Linck and Gardevoir made their way deeper into Harimu.
Wherever they passed, the death nen scattered!