[Notice: Monster Encyclopedia… entry added…]
The colossal tail swept down, churning the clouds, even blotting out the sun.
Roy leaned back, forcing himself to see it—really see it. With the help of En, he finally captured the sandworm's full form and had it logged into the Monster Encyclopedia.
The familiar chime sounded in his head.
[Sandworm Lord: A-class Monster]
(Rating scale based on Chimera Ants:
D = Elite Squad Leader, C = Squadron Leader, B = Royal Guard, B+ = King)
Manifest Nen: 3,741,254 / 10,000,000
Potential Nen: 7,412,812 / 10,000,000
Known Racial Abilities:
1. Earth Dive – treats bedrock like open air and can freely swim underground without resistance.
2. Lend – can lend its own innate abilities or Nen techniques to the lice living on its body.
Unknown abilities: ???
Believers (Followers): Estimated between 100,000–500,000
Faith Power: 1,784 points
Evaluation: It is the ruler of this forest. The beasts of the region rely on it as their lord. The forest spirits acknowledge it as a guardian and it protects the land from plague and "calamity bearers."
Note: Humans intruded on its territory without presenting any "proof," thus incurring its wrath.
…
"You broke the rules," Roy thought, staring up at the enormous tail dropping toward them. Just looking with the naked eye, he couldn't even judge its full size. In that instant, he felt as though he could hear this being—far beyond Meruem—roaring in fury.
"The world of humans belongs to humans. The world of magical beasts belongs to magical beasts."
The line Zigg had penned in West Continent Chronicles flashed through Roy's mind. His vision went black, and consciousness was ripped away.
In that blur, he seemed to see Netero manifest 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva in full; Linne swell to giant size with a single breath; Zigg fling a card and conjure a twin-headed ogre roaring as it swung a spiked club at the sandworm's tail.
And he—
He couldn't do anything.
Even with Zigg deliberately keeping him behind, sheltered, Roy's own body and soul simply could not withstand the sandworm lord's whip-crack of rage, backed by its coiled Faith Power.
There was a dull thud—and he was forcibly ejected from the Dark Continent, hurled back into the Hunter world.
[Warning: re: Death Game save point updated…]
The pressure door of the vault slammed open. The Magic Eye gave Roy one gentle, almost fond look, then a tentacle wrapped him up and gently deposited him back outside.
Because creating God-Spear by fusing Swamp Space, sword, and Ken had just about emptied his Nen reserves, Roy didn't even have the strength to step back through the "Dark Continent Gate" in his cognition world. He was booted straight back to reality.
"Huuh…"
Physical exhaustion and mental drain crashed over him like a wave. Roy leaned on his short blade against the door frame and rested there for a few seconds, head full of questions, before he finally pushed himself upright and shuffled down the corridor, slow and unsteady.
When he emerged from the passage, Scarface and One-Eye were waiting.
"Twenty minutes and thirty-seven seconds," One-Eye said, snapping his pocket watch shut. "Congratulations, young master, you've broken your own record."
He bowed deeply. The respect in his tone wasn't fake—he was genuinely stunned that in just a month, the boy had gone from lasting barely over three minutes in re: Death Game to nearly twenty-one.
Scarface pulled the vault door open with one hand and pressed his other fist to his chest. "The master will be pleased when he hears, young master."
They said that in two months' time, the madam would give birth again. If the child was silver-haired, then with both a capable eldest son and a true-born heir, the Zoldyck family's future would be far more secure than three generations of single–child lines.
As house retainers of the Zoldycks, both men felt a vicarious sense of pride.
But Roy barely heard them.
His thoughts were stuck on two new lines on the Sandworm entry—Believers and Faith Power—and the note about "proof." He walked slowly between the two butlers without responding, moving as if he were in a fog.
The two men exchanged a baffled look over his head, watching him go.
Some people would be delighted with their own progress. Others—having stood, even briefly, at a higher vantage point—found it hard to be satisfied at all.
"Twenty minutes and thirty-seven" sounded impressive on paper. But after seeing, however briefly, Netero, Linne, and Zigg trade blows with the sandworm lord, Roy understood all too well:
He was still an awfully long way from the top.
Tap… tap… tap…
By now the sun was leaning west, slanting through the tall windows of Kukuru Mountain's ancient stone halls. Light rimmed Roy's silhouette in a faint halo as he walked toward the main doors.
He passed the familiar dim little room and stopped.
Through the window, he could see the same scrawny old man in the same faded armchair, listening to the same cartoons, rocking gently with his eyes closed.
Roy opened his mouth, wanting to say something. In the end, he bowed toward the window instead and turned to leave.
"Speak if you've got something to say," came the dry, raspy voice behind him. "While this old head still isn't completely mush, I can still help you brats a little."
Roy froze, drew a breath, and said, "It's about faith."
"Great-grandfather… I just realized that faith can also be turned into power—taken and used."
The sandworm's last tail strike, wrapped in Faith Power, had smashed his entire understanding of Nen.
He used to think Nen was basically "my thinking made real"—open the aura nodes, bring your hands together, and turn your imagination into combat techniques. That was Nen's essence, or so he believed.
But when the Monster Encyclopedia entry for the sandworm suddenly grew two new fields—Believers and Faith Power—
Roy realized Nen was not as simple as he thought.
It wasn't just my intent made manifest.
It could also be everyone else's intent—the faith of many—coalesced and wielded by one being.
If you were someone others believed in—someone they worshiped as higher than themselves—you could harvest their collective "thinking" and burn it as fuel. You could weaponize faith.
"You're only just figuring that out?"
Mahā snorted, sounding far calmer than Roy expected. He tapped the armrest with two fingers and said, "You know why your grandpa kills people every day?"
The old man cut him a sidelong look, eyes glinting.
"Isn't it obvious? To collect faith and spread the Zoldyck name."
~~~
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