The moment On entered his body, Xiang Nan was flooded with a tangle of emotions—rage, blood-lust—followed by a rampant growth of dark impulses in the depths of his mind.
At first those feelings were utterly uncontrollable.
On seemed to know the most vulnerable corner of a person's heart.
Images flashed through Xiang Nan's head: scenes of his former life as a mercenary, then of his time in this world, killing one On user after another, dissecting players' skulls and tasting the thrill of learning—that sweet rush of battle, the excitement of cracking each hidden rule in the system's game.
Thoughts twisted together and quickly warped, plunging his soul into alluring hallucinations from which he could not pull free.
Outwardly his body trembled; drool trickled from the corner of his mouth.
His Nen flared out of control—yet the aura pouring from him was no ordinary Nen, but the same dark, baleful energy as On itself.
Seeing this, the old man gave a wicked grin.
Clearly this fellow knew far too little about On. Once a target was assimilated he would become a puppet, a corpse driven by negative emotion.
Then, as an On user, the elder could bend Xiang Nan to his will—make him attack the girl and so escape this predicament.
But in the next instant the elder's eyes widened.
For although Xiang Nan's face contorted, a faint struggle, a flicker of resistance, appeared.
"Hmm?"
The old man held his breath and poured out still more On.
Yet the sinister pressure around Xiang Nan was already receding; the oppressive aura ebbed.
Snap.
Half a minute later a powerful hand clamped around the elder's wrist, prying it from Xiang Nan's throat.
The man's eyes, once solid black, cleared—black pupils, white sclera—his reason restored.
"…"
The elder's own eyes bulged in disbelief.
"You…"
Words failed him.
"How interesting," Xiang Nan said, his grip iron-strong as he lowered the elder's arm. "It's just as I thought: this power feeds on a person's spirit, warps the mind into a vessel for negative emotion. Nen, being a union of body and spirit, naturally shifts its 'attribute' once the spirit is altered."
He mused, gaze deep.
"A Nen user can't change his Hatsu type at will—an Enhancer may borrow traits from Emission or Transmutation if he's close on the Hexagram, but the core stays Enhancement. Even a fifty-fifty hybrid can't switch tracks after his ability is set. On, however, can alter the spirit—perhaps even the soul—and so force Nen itself to mutate."
"Is a Nen type nothing but a shackle forged by the soul?" he murmured.
Then he looked straight at the old man. "Your On must rely on some single negative obsession to keep you conscious, yes? Otherwise that torrent of malice would leave you mindless."
"…Yes," the elder answered, scalp tingling. He had met geniuses and monsters among players, but never felt such a visceral sense of abnormality.
"On plants itself differently in every host—anger for some, regret for others, brutality for yet others—shaped by one's life and background. The visions I saw were all slaughter and curiosity, none of the mundane grudges—social rank, poverty, romance. On locked precisely onto my own dark cravings and amplified them until my mind slipped." Xiang Nan shook his head at the elder. "But Jed's revival is recent, so you've had little time to master this power. That's why I dared let you try."
He went on. "With a strong enough will you feel the hallucination, yes, but soon realize it's nothing but a monotonous poison—flat, repetitive, less vivid than a dream, just shards of emotion."
The old man licked his dry lips. Does this lunatic even know what he's saying?
"Still, I did gain something. First, wrestling with On is excellent training for mental strength. Second, Nen's rigid typing seems tied to the soul itself—but you can't wield Nen and On together; it's one or the other."
"At the moment, On does counter Nen to a degree, but the system is too narrow, its ceiling low. It depends solely on magnifying the user's darkness—no fine structure, no room to build. The more malice you add, the more it harms you. Lose the obsession that keeps you lucid and you hit a dead end."
The elder stared, stunned; even he had never analyzed the art with such depth.
"Yes," Xiang Nan said softly. "For temporary gain you chose a path that almost certainly ends in death."
Their eyes met. "What is your obsession? Hating every player… becoming the only one to clear all ten Extinction rounds?"
The old man's face turned ashen; his eyes were empty.
~~~
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