As soon as Xiang Nan took out one of the players, the giant beast that had been attacking Beishi and the others in the distance collapsed with a thunderous crash, as if it had lost its "life," shattering into heaps of stone and wood chips.
The damage Beishi's group had dealt to the beast hadn't mattered, because the person controlling "it" was the player Xiang Nan had located and killed.
"A transmutation array… Fullmetal Alchemist, huh… no wonder it looked familiar."
Elsewhere, Xiang Nan used his Nen ability "Hands of Love" to perform a direct craniotomy on the captured "player," and extracted the "information" he wanted.
The other team that ambushed the trio of two men and one woman came from the world of Parasyte. Xiang Nan didn't know that world. From his previous life's memories, Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the few anime he had actually finished.
Before the two-men-one-woman trio came to ask them for an alliance, the Parasyte players had already teamed up with the Fullmetal Alchemist players. They wanted to "clean up" the battlefield first to reduce competitors. And behind the scenes, they were hardly the only ones with alliance ideas.
So, after seizing the initiative, those two player squads struck first, hoping to launch a surprise attack before other players could link up.
The city wasn't large to begin with, and the earlier fight at the city offices had already flushed many teams into the open. When the trio came looking for Xiang Nan's group, they were marked. Once they exposed themselves, the attack came. The Parasyte players went after the trio; the Fullmetal Alchemist players were assigned to wipe out Xiang Nan's team.
Targeted as the plan was, even with positions exposed, identities and power levels were still unknown. So whether Parasyte or FMA, they were mostly probing: if the enemy turned out to be weak, finish them; if too strong… withdraw at once—and then give them special "attention" in the next phase.
Both the Parasyte and FMA sides had only sent part of their squads, not their full teams, to avoid losing everyone in one go. Launching a preemptive strike always carries risk.
As the craniotomy was wrapping up, Beishi and the other three, including Orban, arrived. Taking in Xiang Nan seated on the ground and the corpse at his feet with its skullcap lifted, Beishi asked first, "How is it?"
"The FMA players… their life force is too weak. Even with a craniotomy, the time window for questioning is short—the body can't hold out—so intel is limited. All I got is that they've already joined with the Parasyte players… We don't know the Parasyte squad's headcount, but the FMA side has eight people, all State Alchemists from Amestris." As Xiang Nan finished, he slowly stood up, now holding an object: a silver pocket watch—the token that certifies a State Alchemist in FMA.
"So six left, huh?" Beishi immediately scanned the area but didn't see any other enemies. Since they'd sent people to ambush, even if not the whole crew, they were surely watching from afar to size up the fight and gather intel.
"Don't bother. I swept the area with En—no one nearby," Xiang Nan said.
"Fullmetal Alchemist… Naruto… Parasyte. None of the worlds dropped in this round are simple," Beishi remarked. As the one in the squad who knew anime best, he had of course heard of all three. At one point FMA was arguably the hottest series around, and Parasyte was also a smash hit that sparked waves of discussion.
Each of these worlds has its own power system and fighting style, and their strengths and weaknesses are obvious. Take FMA's alchemists: they wield intricate, almost arcane transmutation, but their bodies are still squarely in the "ordinary human" category. Popularity is popularity; it doesn't equal power tier.
Just then, a bird flew overhead and didn't leave, circling above them as if watching "them." One fight had just ended, and a second was starting right on its heels—putting the Hunter x Hunter team squarely in the sights of the other players: the FMA and Parasyte squads, and the two-men-one-woman trio still locked in their own battle.
Boom! Xiang Nan's eyes flicked to the bird, and the street of houses where they'd just been erupted. A colossal "lion" burst out of the dust kicked up by the blades of two Parasyte players, roaring into view. It raised a massive, heavy paw and smashed down on the rooftop where one Parasyte player stood; the building shredded like paper under the strike.
Under Xiang Nan's gaze, the Parasyte players began dodging nimbly. The lion's towering bulk made the whole row of buildings look like toys.
Pouncing and biting in a frenzy, it leveled a broad swath of wooden houses to rubble in seconds. The spreading shockwaves forced Xiang Nan's group to pull back to a safe distance.
"What on earth is that?" Queenie asked, unsettled.
In the distance, the rampaging lion was staggeringly huge—even more imposing than the organic transmutation beast the alchemists had sicced on them earlier. It was over thirty meters tall, its mane bristling—terrifying. Its form was bizarre too: not only did it have two heads, there was also a gaping maw in its abdomen. Most importantly, it clearly seemed alive—some kind of summoned creature.
"When I came over just now, one of them was already dead," Beishi said—meaning the two-men-one-woman trio. Ambushed from the shadows, they couldn't mount an immediate defense. Parasyte players attack in forms and angles that break normal patterns, and their parasitized limbs have a degree of "independent thought"—a second brain provided by the parasite, depending on the parasitism method.
And that dense, devastating barrage… Without protective "energy" or a higher-tier power system and solid combat methods, ordinary bodies simply can't react in time. Which also shows from another angle that whatever world that trio came from, they were as physically fragile as the FMA players.
In FMA the power lies in transmutations that obey Equivalent Exchange; in Naruto it's the myriad ninja arts. If you can channel that power into your own body, great; if not, your base stats remain those of a normal human.
"Which only underlines what true strength is in a Multiverse Battlefield," Xiang Nan said. Some worlds excel in one aspect but have glaring weaknesses in others. Early on, you have to leverage your advantages instead of parading your shortcomings. Energy, techniques, physique, fighting style—these all factor in.
Boom! Boom! A few minutes later, the distant fight wound down. Under the lion's ravaging, that whole section of street had been flattened into a wasteland—no buildings left, the ground pitted and torn.
"One got away," Xiang Nan said with a small smile, pulling back his En. Of the two Parasyte players, one escaped; the other was eaten by the lion. That skirmish was a one-for-one trade—each side lost one.
"Let's go… back," Xiang Nan said.
"Back?" Beishi blinked. Their house was gone—what were they going back for?
Everything within several hundred meters had been leveled. Wouldn't it be better to find another spot to rest and wait for the mission drop?
"There's no point hiding anymore. The place is small, and after two back-to-back battles everything that could be exposed is exposed. Compared to turtling, the best approach is offense." Xiang Nan started walking with a faint smile, then looked back at the four of them.
"Given what we know—Naruto, FMA, Parasyte, and that team that can summon terrifying creatures—using the method I taught you, where does our advantage lie?"
"Do we even have to say it? Physique and close-quarters combat," Beishi answered the pop quiz, full of confidence.
"Good." Xiang Nan's gaze swept past them and settled on Queenie. "From the moment you step onto the Multiverse Battlefield, you should be maintaining Ren at all times—no slack. Even if your Nen reserves are low, keep a minimum level of Ren to boost your physical defense. Of the group, you're the only one who didn't." Queenie paled under his look and immediately flared her Nen, keeping up Ren.
"Alchemical tricks or ninjutsu can absolutely kill us—but their fatal weakness is that their bodies are still 'human.' Compared to them, once we apply Nen techniques, our physical stats are overwhelmingly superior." He paused. "That said, don't get cocky. Among alchemists and shinobi alike, given the special nature of 'players,' monsters can appear. Stay sharp."
"Understood!" they answered in unison.
Naruto has the Eight Gates and the Tailed Beasts; FMA has comparable power sources. Nothing is absolute.
"By offense, do you mean we strike too?" Orban asked as they headed toward the ruins.
"What Xiang Nan means is… aggressive defense—meet any challenger head-on," Beishi explained. In other words, unlike the other teams skulking around, the Hunter x Hunter squad would stop hiding. They'd be the first to step up to the table and stand under the spotlight.