As Joey's clone was destroyed, the chubby man had already returned to the previous room.
At that same moment, King's Army soldiers began appearing in the corridor as if they'd been lying in wait all along, emerging swiftly from nearby rooms and heading directly toward the one Joey had used.
Clearly, while Joey had been sending someone into the empty room, the soldiers in the alternate dimension had not been idle.
This also confirmed that the "disappeared" room could communicate with the outside.
As the chubby man reached the room, the wind pushing him abruptly vanished, and he rolled nimbly to his feet.
He didn't dare waste time.
The situation had spiraled far beyond anything he'd imagined.
Even his worst-case guess had been more optimistic than this.
Now, his only hope lay with Joey—the one who brought them here. If Joey didn't have a way out, they were all going to die on Tier 1.
Until Joey returned, all he could do was stick to the plan.
He swiftly produced a compass-like device, identical to the one inside the other room. Nen wrapped around it as he set it on the floor, and its aura immediately began to expand.
Without hesitation, he drew a dagger—no idea when it had appeared in his hand—and sliced open his wrist.
Blood splattered onto the device.
As the blood soaked it, a red bubble began to expand, mirroring the size and shape of the one in the other room.
And just then, people started appearing inside the room.
It was sudden. Unreal.
When the red aura bubble grew to match the one from the target room, several figures manifested—
—and in the center stood a man that made the chubby man's vision spin.
It was someone he recognized.
Someone he had seen sixteen days ago.
The sovereign symbol of Kakin's ultimate power—
King Nasubi Hui Guo Rou!
Before he could even react, his gaze landed on a face so hideous it shattered his soul.
It was a woman's face, monstrously large-eyed, grotesque and misshapen.
As his eyes met hers, she tilted her head, her mouth parting slightly to reveal another face embedded inside—
A stitched, fleshy mouth opened within the first, and from it emerged a tentacle-like tongue, which in an instant pierced through the atmosphere shield and stabbed straight into the chubby man's throat.
Too fast—
Even Joey, prepared as he was, couldn't have saved him.
The chubby man stumbled, gasping, clutching uselessly at his neck.
Thud.
His fall was his final act.
In his wide, unfocused eyes, the last thing he saw was a massive, dragon-like aura fading behind Nasubi.
Only after his body collapsed did Nasubi slowly shift his gaze toward the door—
Not at the corpse, but at the room he had just come from.
Because someone had just broken through the King's Army blockade—
And barged inside.
Joey had seen it all coming.
No soldier had cleared away his planted insects, so his intel across the VVIP area remained perfect.
The appearance of soldiers in the nearby rooms wasn't a surprise.
Clearly, they had been observing the area from the other space all along.
But then why hadn't they reacted when he first sent his clone in?
Was it a trap to lure out bigger prey?
Or—
Joey thought of the man who had punched his clone.
The one who threw the top—an item targeting clones.
Did that mean they'd already guessed the intruder wasn't Joey's real body?
But how?
And who made that call?
Even as he processed all this, Joey's En was tracking the room with the chubby man.
When the ability triggered, he instantly sensed several new auras materialize.
In that moment, Joey knew—
The plan had worked.
If the enemy's ability was to create an "inner world,"
Then by targeting the entire space, Joey could rip it open.
If it failed, he'd try something else.
But whether it was the King's Army's reaction, or the sudden success—
It all proved one thing:
Even if his ability didn't succeed, they'd panic before he did.
But it had succeeded. And Joey wasn't wasting the chance.
Confronting Nasubi directly was foolish.
Not when the man possessed both the Princes' Nen beasts and abilities tied to space and time.
No—he had to find the source of all that power.
And destroy it.
That source—
Was the Coffin Zone!
Even if probing the mafia in the lower decks hadn't yielded much,
his actions up here had forced Nasubi to attack him in a way that violated the rules of the succession war.
That meant he was getting close.
Hisoka's intel on the Coffin Zone, the existence of special areas on every tier—
Everything pointed to the Coffin Zone as the core of this whole setup.
Now, with Nasubi personally appearing to protect the place, Joey was sure.
So when the chubby man yanked Nasubi from the inner world to the real room,
Joey made his move.
It was a gamble.
He didn't know what he'd find in the room.
A specialist guarding the Coffin Zone?
Elite soldiers?
Or maybe Nasubi himself, returning instantly?
Didn't matter.
The moment his En detected the Fourth Prince's Nen beast, Joey acted.
He symbolically shielded the chubby man with Weather Report,
then burst through the soldier formation like an arrow loosed from a bow.
He leapt toward the two men who'd killed his clone but hadn't yet recovered.
His moves were clean. Precise. No waste.
Weather Report on his shoulder punched at the man who'd absorbed fire—
while Killer Queen appeared on his right and swung at the shield-user.
Boom!
The fire-absorber was sent flying like he'd been hit by a truck.
Krrk!
Killer Queen's Withering Heart Piercing Chariot smashed the sci-fi energy shield into pieces.
At the same instant, Joey flicked a coin that shattered the last layer of Gyo on the shield-man and punched through his heart.
The impact of the flame-absorber crashing into the wall roared behind him as Joey stepped into the room.
But in that moment, the world twisted—
The room shifted,
and suddenly Joey was standing inside a strange machine.
Through its glass cover, he saw a series of coffins on the floor, surrounded by intricate patterns.
Before he could examine further,
a Nen-formed arrow was already at his chest.
But then—
A spike of ice shot silently from Weather Report's body and intercepted the arrow midair.
A faint grunt echoed from the distance—
But with it came a dagger stabbing toward Joey's lower back!
Someone had snuck past his En!
The dagger struck his hardened aura—
Years of training in Ken slowed it down,
just enough for Weather Report and Killer Queen to react.
Weather Report increased the atmospheric resistance, halting the blade—
Killer Queen swung at the attacker's face.
But the strike missed—
The dagger-wielder had already retreated, smug with confidence after drawing blood.
Yet before the grin could widen,
a hand pierced through his chest from behind.
Another Joey—expressionless—
had appeared behind him and retrieved his arm calmly.
Clink.
At that same moment,
outside the machine's glass shell, something dropped.
Joey turned.
His pupils shrank.
A top.
Spinning ominously, struck by a whip, it had appeared outside.
That sound had come from the whip's impact.
Three people?
Joey's En now engulfed the entire Coffin Zone.
There were only three people inside.
One had just been killed.
One held the whip, striking the tops.
One was firing long-range attacks.
Only three?
Joey frowned.
But didn't hesitate.
Weather Report's storm had already begun.
Dark clouds formed above the coffins.
Rain fell—within seconds, it became a torrential downpour.
Wind ripped away heat—
the rain instantly froze into ice.
Within a few breaths, the dagger-user was frozen solid.
The other two were faring poorly, despite using Nen to block the cold and wet.
The low temperatures would wear them down over time.
Joey stepped out of the tight machine room of glass and equipment.
He didn't rush to kill the two figures—
They didn't look like soldiers.
Instead, he took in the fourteen coffins
and the now-glowing Nen patterns on the floor.
The active patterns corresponded to the Third, Fourth, Eighth, and Thirteenth Princes.
At their center—where Joey now stood—was the room full of machines.
He turned and looked up.
There—mounted on the ceiling—was a strange brown-gray urn.
The core of the Succession War Ritual.
The Chalice of Vows!
That bizarre Conjured artifact, created by some past Kakin king,
the one that gave birth to the Guardian Beasts—
just sitting there, unguarded.
A new volley of Nen arrows shattered his train of thought.
The bowman was still firing relentlessly.
Each shot was blocked easily by Weather Report,
but he kept shooting.
This man reminded Joey of Bokkle.
Though more skilled with Nen and larger in aura,
he'd developed similarly—
an Emitter, firing arrows with various effects.
But without hitting the target, it was all meaningless.
Meanwhile, the whip-user created more tops,
letting them fall to the ground before striking them with his whip.
They spun wildly, hurtling toward Joey.
This ability also felt familiar.
In the Heavens Arena, a 200th-floor "gatekeeper" used spinning tops as weapons.
But that was an Enhancer.
This… wasn't the same.
Joey watched the spinning motion carefully.
Each top seemed to represent a mental state.
Gaze upon one, and the state attached itself to you.
The whip's sound compelled you to look.
A subliminal cue.
Just glancing at one had made Joey's head spin.
Between the two, the top-whipper was clearly stronger.
Judging by their clothing and details, Joey guessed:
The archer was likely Kakin military.
His movements and uniform were textbook.
But the whip-user—
his stuffed pouch bounced oddly with movement, like it held something alive.
A familiar name surfaced in Joey's mind: Mei.
This guy…
He wasn't a soldier.
He was a Weapon—one of the bizarre "living tools" Nasubi had made deals with.
And his "Mei" likely had nothing to do with clones.
(End of Chapter)