Joey moved quickly—there was no reason to waste time here.
As soon as everything was ready, he nodded at Kurapika.
Kurapika, dragging two unconscious guards from Room 3107, nodded back—he was ready too.
Behind Joey, Killer Queen appeared.
It pressed its hand to the wall, then retracted and pressed its thumb—
BOOM.
A one-meter-wide hole burst open through the wall.
Kurapika jumped through first with the two captives, followed by Joey.
It led to another room.
The Black Whale was enormous, and Room 3107 wasn't near the ship's edge.
To reach the perimeter, they'd need to blast through more than one wall.
These walls weren't laced with Nen—so the only ones alarmed would be those in the adjacent rooms.
But Joey had already knocked them all unconscious through the wall using Weather Report.
So even bursting in didn't stir anyone.
However, the room exited into a corridor.
And all corridors near Room 3101 were on high alert.
Which is where Weather Report's refracted light came into play—masking their movements.
Once they escaped 3101's vicinity, Joey relaxed—
the real threat wasn't guards using En, because most couldn't.
By now, Joey had figured out the Nen user hierarchy aboard the Black Whale.
Lowest tier: average Nen users among the Kakin Mafia.
Plenty in number, but mediocre control.
Even using En was rare.
Most of them belonged to the Ayii Family—thanks to Morena's ability,
which let her followers gain Nen through massacres.
As long as they weren't lazy, they'd awaken.
Other families—Xi-Yu and Cha-R—had Nen users too, but only a handful.
Mid-level thugs. Maybe a dozen each.
Then there were the non-human species—Joey had heard rumors that the Kakin Mafia worked with some of them.
Supposedly, many among them had Nen.
Yet Joey hadn't encountered a single one.
Ironically, he had seen them before—among the King's army on the lower tiers.
But their status seemed abysmal—looked down on, perhaps expendable.
Maybe that's why they weren't granted passage to the Dark Continent.
Though Joey doubted that.
More likely, the Mafia was keeping them in reserve—a hidden trump card.
Above the Mafia were the Nen users under Kakin's royal princes and the Royal Army.
Only the First and Second Princes had their own handpicked Nen users—
elite bodyguards who had trained in Nen long before the voyage began.
From the ones Joey had encountered, they weren't top-tier strong—
but they used En, possessed unique abilities, and knew their craft.
And then, at the top, were the special entities hiding aboard the ship:
The King.
The Phantom Troupe.
The Zoldyck family.
And Beyond Netero's hidden followers.
All of them were serious threats—even Joey wouldn't approach lightly.
The most dangerous near Room 3101, of course, were the Phantom Troupe members.
By skirting that direction, Joey wasn't worried about the Royal Army or Mafia patrols—
he was worried about Hisoka.
Hisoka's goal was clear:
he wanted to engineer one-on-one duels with Troupe members.
Joey had a hunch—maybe Hisoka had interacted with the First Prince while in the VVIP area.
Even if not face-to-face, some deal might have been struck.
Otherwise, it was too convenient that Kurapika's phone was broken, and he just happened to be here.
Joey didn't believe in coincidences.
Knowing Hisoka's foresight, he'd surely calculated that if Kurapika went dark,
Joey would come to 3101's vicinity to investigate or rescue him.
And Hisoka knew both Joey and Kurapika's strength.
So he likely anticipated they'd take out the First Prince's guards—
and might also predict their escape plan.
Which meant the moment they moved, Hisoka might trigger something to expose them.
Joey placed his hand on the next wall.
This one had a faint Nen aura.
If he used Killer Queen now, they'd instantly be exposed.
Yet Joey smiled.
He didn't know how Hisoka was tracking them—
but he wasn't moving without a backup plan.
While Joey touched one wall, a clone of him in Room 3125 was doing the same.
There too, the wall had Nen.
But this clone didn't use Killer Queen—he smashed the wall with brute force.
At that very moment, back in the hallway near Room 3101—chaos erupted.
Soldiers and Mafia members were pushing toward the Room 3109 battlefield.
With Nen users joining the fray, they'd found a way to handle the doll soldiers:
Break their guns, trap them in Nen-conjured nets, and drag them away.
Killing them wasn't viable—so the focus was on containment.
These weren't just ropes—normal nets wouldn't hold dolls that grew stronger with every activation.
But special Nen-constructed ones could.
Once restrained, troops tackled them, hauling them off.
One man used a camera—he'd photograph each captured doll.
Moments after the photo was taken, the doll would go limp.
On the developed photo, each doll was still struggling wildly.
The man grumbled as he filed each picture into a photo album—
clearly annoyed at the lack of variety.
But he kept working.
Afterward, soldiers would dispose of the now-inert dolls.
Despite this strategy, the dolls' numbers weren't dwindling.
It almost seemed like the more soldiers died, the more dolls appeared—
as if killing was part of their evolution.
Still, with more Nen users on the field, things were finally turning around.
Victory was within reach—
—until chaos struck.
One soldier, passing Room 3105, felt a sharp sting in his leg.
He looked down—a green snake had latched onto him, sinking fangs through his pants.
Without hesitation, he drew his knife and severed it.
But the snake's body hit the floor and turned into… a shoelace?
Before he could react, gunfire erupted beside him.
Another soldier had been tackled by a leopard out of nowhere.
He opened fire at point blank—
but the beast bit deep into his face, tearing into it.
The leopard collapsed, morphing into a rifle on the floor.
The soldier flailed, screaming—
his face had been gouged open, leaking blood and white matter.
He screamed for only a few seconds.
Then silence.
A palm-sized scorpion crawled from his body.
The first soldier—bitten by the snake—sat down against the wall, panting.
His eyes rolled back.
Foam bubbled from his lips.
His body trembled.
And they weren't the only ones.
All along the corridor, soldiers were being attacked by beasts—
wolves, tigers, panthers, eagles, serpents, scorpions.
Carnage erupted.
The beasts had no fear.
They charged and killed, even under gunfire.
And when they died—they reverted to coins, buttons, shoelaces, bullets—
random debris that had been lying around.
Joey realized—everything in the hall was a potential death trap.
Panic spread.
And in that panic, the battle near Room 3109 faltered.
Seeing their opening, enemies inside unleashed a flood of snakes.
Walls, ceilings, floors—snakes crawled from everywhere.
Bullets mowed them down, but they just kept coming.
Screams echoed.
Soldiers were dragged down, bitten, wrapped, devoured.
Then—
woosh, woosh, woosh—a strange sound approached.
Someone walked forward.
Face grim.
Arms whipping through the air—the source of the sound.
Two more followed.
One tall.
One petite.
But wherever they walked, even the fiercest beasts were torn apart instantly.
"It's the Phantom Troupe!"
A Mafia grunt, saved from a tiger's jaws, gasped—his horror turning to joy.
And when the first man unleashed a punch—
his awe turned to worship.
The entire hallway, including Room 3109's front, turned into a cone of destruction.
Snakes.
Dolls.
Walls.
Floor.
Ceiling—all vanished.
Behind the puncher—Phinks—stood Machi, watching him.
She hesitated to speak.
Franklin did instead.
"You spun too much. There goes our plan to leave a survivor."
He said it because Room 3109 was now fully visible—
and inside, only a severed arm remained.
Whoever had been inside had been obliterated—walls and floor gone.
"Only the snake user was there," Phinks muttered, relaxing his brow.
"The doll user wasn't."
Machi turned her gaze toward Room 3107.
Her En had spread far as she walked, and among the nearby rooms,
only Room 3107 gave her feedback she cared about.
It wasn't just a hunch—her Nen threads picked up lingering aura behind the walls.
Not from conjured creatures—real people.
"Room 3125 and the storage wing too," Phinks added, waving his phone.
(End of Chapter)