Ryker's silhouette slowly sharpened through the settling dust.
He was still standing, though the ground beneath him had long since been reduced to fine powder, leaving him practically suspended over the molten crater.
He was panting slightly. Fine beads of sweat dotted his temples. The dancing arcs of lightning around his body had dimmed somewhat, and the pale-gold film of his [A.T. Field - Modified]was now covered in a dense network of spiderweb cracks, flickering unsteadily. It was obvious that the apocalyptic collision had subjected him to an unimaginable degree of pressure.
However, his spine remained as perfectly straight as a spear piercing the heavens! The deep, abyssal calm in his eyes hadn't shown a single trace of defeat or exhaustion. Instead, they burned with a wilder, hotter, and infinitely more aggressive battle lust!
It was as if that star-shattering collision hadn't drained him at all, but rather finally ignited a furnace that had been lying dormant inside his chest!
"Heh..."
Ryker casually raised his hand, wiping a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. The motion was careless, dripping with pure, unadulterated arrogance.
His eagle-like gaze pierced through the thinning smoke, locking firmly onto Zeno on the opposite side of the crater. His lips split into an icy, wildly aggressive sneer.
"Old man. That 'Merciful Crossing' of yours... did it manage to save yourself?"
His voice wasn't loud, but it hit the hearts of every survivor like an invisible sledgehammer!
Pfft!
A severely injured player, hearing words that practically amounted to mocking a living god, suffered a violent shock to his system, spat out a mouthful of blood, and passed out on the spot.
The muscles on Zeno's ancient, stoic face twitched almost imperceptibly.
The lingering shock in the old assassin's cloudy eyes was instantly incinerated by the roaring, untempered fury of an apex predator!
How many years had it been? Since he retired and passed the title of Patriarch to Silva, how many years had it been since anyone dared to meet his 100-Type Guanyin in a direct clash of pure power... let alone arrogantly taunt him immediately afterward?!
"Good! Good! GOOD!"
Zeno spat the word three times. Each syllable was louder than the last, and each carried a killing intent that grew exponentially colder and more piercing!
His hunched posture slowly straightened. An aura—vaster, more tyrannical, and infinitely more destructive than anything he had shown before—erupted from his body! It felt as though an apocalyptic beast that had slumbered for ten thousand years had finally been fully awakened! The sheer pressure threatened to drag the entire arena, and perhaps all of Greed Island, down into the abyss!
BOOOOM!
A physical pillar of dark-red aura blasted into the sky, frantically condensing and compressing behind him! The air screamed under the pressure!
This time, the Nen didn't take the form of a merciful Guanyin. It took the shape of a ferocious, roaring dragon—its scales and claws completely unfurled, forged from hellfire and the absolute will of destruction!
[Dragon Head: Dragon Dive]!
The giant dragon phantom roared silently toward the heavens, its eyes burning with a furious fire capable of incinerating the world!
"You ignorant, arrogant whelp! Today, I will teach you the meaning of true... 'Rules'!"
Zeno's voice was like the freezing wind of the underworld, carrying a killing intent that froze the soul.
He formed his hand into a knife edge and prepared to mercilessly hack down in Ryker's direction! The Nen dragon lowered its massive head in unison, a terrifying, annihilating dragon breath frantically charging in its jaws!
Just as the world-ending strike was about to launch—just as everyone, including the Game Masters, closed their eyes in absolute despair, waiting for the final judgment...
"Mr. Zeno! Please stop! IMMEDIATELY!!"
A sharp, panicked, yet unquestionably authoritative female voice tore through the apocalyptic gloom like a ray of dawn! The shout came from the jagged tear in the rainbow barrier at the edge of the arena!
The moment the voice rang out, a figure shot into the arena as fast as lightning!
Her target wasn't Zeno. It wasn't Ryker.
It was the [Ruler's Blessing] crystal! The seven-colored gem suspended above the crater was currently flashing violently, teetering on the verge of complete structural collapse due to the shockwaves of the ultimate clash.
It was Elena, the female Game Master usually stationed beside Razor!
She was ghastly pale, and blood dripped from her lips—a clear sign of severe internal injuries sustained while maintaining the barrier. Yet her eyes were filled with absolute resolution. In her hand, she tightly gripped a smaller, white crystal identical in origin to Razor's Game Core. Without a moment of hesitation, she thrust it toward the violently oscillating [Ruler's Blessing]!
"Using Game Master Override! Initiating Emergency Protocol 'Lullaby'! Force-stabilizing the Core Reward!"
Elena's voice carried a piercing, resonant power.
VMMMM—!
A gentle, yet incredibly resilient pillar of milky-white light shot from the crystal in her hand, perfectly enveloping the [Ruler's Blessing].
The violent oscillation of the seven-colored crystal calmed at a speed visible to the naked eye. The chaotic energy turbulence it was bleeding into the air was rapidly smoothed over and re-contained.
This sudden variable acted like a pause button on reality itself.
Zeno's descending hand-blade froze dead in mid-air. The roaring Nen dragon behind him let out a frustrated, unwilling hiss as its energy flow was abruptly halted, its form flickering and turning slightly translucent.
Zeno's dragon-like eyes, burning with fury, snapped toward Elena. The sheer terror of his killing intent made Elena feel as though she had been plunged into an icy abyss. Her body trembled uncontrollably, but she gritted her teeth and stubbornly maintained the pillar of white light.
"Hmm?"
Ryker raised an eyebrow. The violent Lightning Nen swirling in his palm remained primed, but he held his fire.
His eyes were drawn to the crystal enveloped in white light. His hyper-tuned senses picked up on something bizarre—it felt as though something deep inside the crystal had been prematurely "activated" by the massive energy shockwave.
The brief, absolute silence was suddenly broken.
Cough, cough...
From the smoke lingering near the edge of the crater, a suppressed, agonizing series of coughs rang out.
Illumi's figure staggered to his feet, swaying heavily.
He was in an incredibly pathetic state. His highly durable black combat uniform had been reduced to charred, ragged strips. His pale, exposed skin was a crisscrossing mess of severe electrical burns, the flesh split and smoking.
Most shockingly, his left arm hung at a grotesque, unnatural angle. It was completely shattered.
His beautiful, eerily perfect face was caked in dust and blood. A steady stream of crimson dripped from his mouth, staining his chin.
But the most terrifying thing about him was his eyes.
The dead, hollow abyss that normally characterized his gaze was completely shattered. Boiling within those massive black pupils was a toxic, viscous cocktail of unprecedented resentment, absolute humiliation, and a maddened, psychopathic desire to destroy!
He locked his gaze directly on Ryker in the center of the crater. The look in his eyes promised that he would carve Ryker's shadow into his very marrow and torture him ten thousand times over in the most gruesome ways imaginable!
The absolute apathy, the total sense of control he always possessed—it had all been violently, effortlessly crushed by Ryker's casual, yet overwhelmingly superior strike!
All that remained was a hatred that seeped into his bones, and the explosive fury of a high-and-mighty god who had just been maimed by an ant!
"Ryker..."
Illumi's voice was hoarse, grinding like coarse sandpaper. Every syllable dripped with freezing venom. "You... must die."
His unbroken right hand snapped upward.
This time, it wasn't just three needles. Dozens of terrifying, hair-thin Nen needles—gleaming with a sickly, ghostly blue light—hovered in the air in front of him like a swarm of deadly hornets!
The aura coating these needles was chilling to the bone. They carried a dense stench of extreme psychological corruption and physical disintegration. It was clear this was his absolute, bottom-of-the-box killing technique!
Simultaneously, a bizarre, invisible Nen thread—dripping with the intent of forced manipulation—shot across the chaotic battlefield like a ghostly tentacle. It whipped toward Killua, who was currently entirely focused on the standoff between Ryker and Zeno!
"Master Killua. It is time to go home."
A freezing voice whispered directly into Killua's ear, carrying an unquestionable, absolute command!
It was Gotoh, the Zoldyck Family's head butler!
He had been lurking in the shadows at the edge of the battlefield this entire time. Seizing the absolute perfect moment when everyone's attention was diverted, he launched a ruthless ambush!
A massive hand, coated in metallic, Enhancer-infused Nen, pierced through the smoke, accompanied by a vicious gust of wind, grabbing violently for the back of Killua's neck!
A synchronized, double-layered assassination!
Illumi's venomous needles aimed directly at Ryker, while Gotoh's flawless ambush aimed to secure Killua! The coordination was absolute, ruthless, and completely merciless!
"Killua!"
Gon screamed, his eyes practically tearing at the seams, but he was entirely too far away to intervene.
"Hmph."
A cold light exploded in Ryker's eyes.
Faced with a swarm of ghostly needles capable of instantly poisoning an entire army, Ryker didn't even shift his footing!
With a mere thought, the heavily cracked, pale-gold [A.T. Field - Modified] instantly flared with blinding brilliance! Millions of microscopic lightning snakes frantically surged across the surface of the forcefield!
Tzz! Tzz! Tzz!
The dozens of ghostly blue needles, packed with terrifyingly cold Nen, slammed into the pale-gold forcefield like moths flying into an open flame!
But the expected sound of penetration never came.
The surface of the forcefield rippled violently. The needles hit what was effectively an invisible Wall of Sighs, their speed dropping to absolute zero!
The freezing Nen on the tips of the needles clashed violently against the raging Lightning Nen of the forcefield, rapidly annihilating each other in a series of ear-piercing screeches and microscopic explosions! Ghostly blue light and golden lightning flashed violently against each other.
The stalemate lasted for less than half a second—
Sssssssss!
Pungent black smoke erupted!
The incredibly durable needles, infused with Illumi's most toxic, malicious Nen, were subjected to the continuous, searing heat of the lightning and the absolute rejection of the A.T. Field.
Like icicles tossed into a blast furnace, they rapidly contorted, softened, and finally melted completely! They turned into droplets of scalding, smoking, ghostly blue liquid iron, falling harmlessly onto the molten rock below with a soft sizzle!
"Impossible!"
For the very first time in his life, the emotion known as absolute "shock" clearly and unmistakably appeared in Illumi's hollow eyes. He let out an involuntary, disbelieving hiss.
His strongest, most absolute killing technique... couldn't even break the man's passive defense?!
Almost at the exact same microsecond, Ryker's left hand shot out like lightning.
He didn't reach toward Gotoh's descending hand. Instead, he aimed his spread fingers directly at Illumi across the crater and violently clenched his fist!
"[Blood Soul Card] — Hisoka, don't just stand there."
VMMMM!
A card dripping with thick, viscous blood materialized out of thin air directly beside Illumi! Etched onto the surface was the phantom image of Hisoka's manic, wicked smile!
The second the card appeared, an aura of icy, venomous malice and an extreme, psychotic thirst for slaughter violently erupted!
The Hisoka phantom on the card seemed to literally come alive. Its long, crimson tongue dragged slowly across its lips. The hollow eye sockets locked onto Illumi, who was mere inches away!
"Hehehe... Illumi... I've found... the sweetest fruit of all..."
A twisted, malicious thought, dripping with psychotic euphoria, pierced directly into Illumi's brain!
"What the hell is that?!"
Every single hair on Illumi's body stood on end. A screaming, primal instinct of absolute, fatal danger ordered his body to retreat instantly!
But... it was too late!
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