Morrow's hunting method involved using Ponzu's bee swarm to construct a wide-area surveillance network.
While monitoring the movements of multiple Chimera Ant squads in real-time, he would flexibly select targets for elimination.
Whenever he detected other Chimera Ant squads intentionally converging, he would decisively decide whether to immediately withdraw or continue with precise eliminations based on the actual situation.
Using this tactic, Morrow could efficiently hunt down Chimera Ant soldier squads.
—--
Meanwhile, Menchi's carefully prepared nutritional dishes provided continuous energy support for the entire team.
Additionally, with direct combat support from Menchi herself, Kalluto, and Ponzu, they could improve cleanup efficiency, allowing the team to secure more time for tactical repositioning.
—--
In contrast, Netero's team employed another nearly zero-risk strategy.
First, Morel would trap Chimera Ant squads with his smoke, then Knov would create passages to Hide and Seek, through which the Chimera Ants would be sent in one by one.
Finally, Netero would eliminate the trapped Chimera Ants inside Hide and Seek.
Although this method was extremely safe with almost zero risk, strictly speaking, its hunting efficiency was far inferior to Morrow's high-mobility tactics that danced on the edge of a blade.
This was the fundamental reason why Morrow managed to reach Level 80 within ten days.
The two teams continued their high-intensity hunting operations this way.
Within just ten days, nearly half of the original 250 squads led by 50 Squadron Leaders from the Chimera Ant Nest had been eliminated.
At this rate, the Chimera Ant Nest's military forces could be completely wiped out in another ten days.
Facing such a severe situation, several Squadron Leaders with command capabilities began frequently reporting the battle situation to the Royal Guards, urgently seeking countermeasures.
However, Royal Guard Neferpitou, like an absentee manager, consistently offered only one response: "Just ensure you deliver the daily food quota; handle everything else yourselves."
The other Royal Guard, Shaiapouf, similarly emphasized that Chimera Ant soldier squads must guarantee sufficient fresh food for the Queen daily.
But compared to Neferpitou's completely hands-off attitude, he did take on the responsibilities of an army commander, providing the soldiers with ways to further strengthen themselves.
That was his Manipulation ability: Spiritual Message.
Shaiapouf could sense aura flow by scattering scales around targets, then analyze their spiritual information from it.
Aura flow could generally express over thirty emotional states, and Shaiapouf could discern targets' thoughts and personalities based on the mixture levels.
Once he understood a target's thoughts and personality, he could use this as basis to help them develop highly compatible Nen abilities.
Simultaneously, he could utilize the scales' hypnotic ability, using methods similar to psychological suggestion to significantly reduce the difficulty of ability development for targets.
However, he didn't insist on developing Nen abilities for every soldier, merely giving them an opportunity to choose.
After the news spread among the soldiers, many Squadron Leaders and Officers couldn't contain their excitement.
During this period, their emotional journeys had been quite turbulent. Initially, they viewed humans as prey to be slaughtered at will, until numerous companions fell victim to human hands one after another, jolting them into realizing their grave mistake.
Later, with Neferpitou's assistance, they mastered Nen, significantly boosting their aura intensity, and believed they had finally gained the means to contend with those human monsters.
However, when the human side crushed over a hundred of their squads with overwhelming force, they were brutally awakened once again.
Simply increasing aura intensity was far from enough!
They urgently needed Nen abilities that could fully unleash the potential of their aura.
But their exposure to Nen had been too brief, not only had they failed to develop mature abilities, they hadn't even mastered the most basic Nen techniques.
It seemed that against those human powerhouses, their only advantage was the aura intensity they had easily gained after their Nen awakening.
In such dire circumstances, the opportunity Shaiapouf offered them was as precious as timely rain.
For a time, some Squadron Leaders and Officers sought Shaiapouf's help.
But there were also Squadron Leaders and Officers who had no need for such assistance.
They were the Chimera Ant soldiers empowered by Morena with the level-up ability.
Killing one human granted 1 level.
Killing one Nen user granted 50 levels.
Reaching level 21 allowed them to easily develop desired abilities.
Reaching level 51 provided a significant boost to their aura intensity.
And killing 51 humans was as simple as eating or drinking to them.
However, the Queen's recent surge in appetite, coupled with frequent ambushes on hunting squads and heavy losses, forced them to hand over more fresh humans.
This inadvertently affected their leveling efficiency.
Otherwise, each of them could easily reach not just level 21, but even level 51.
With such a convenient ability at their disposal, they naturally had no need for Shaiapouf's help.
Moreover, after receiving the level-up ability from Morena, they were bound by a Limitation forbidding them from disclosing information about this ability to unrelated individuals.
Only upon reaching level 100 could this restriction be lifted, granting them the right to "infect" others.
As for Morena, she had no intention of contacting the Royal Guard.
On one hand, it was unnecessary; on the other, she avoided unnecessary exposure to minimize her presence.
Most matters, she delegated to the Officers under her command.
And in ensuring the Chimera Ant Queen had ample food and nutrition, she was even more diligent than the Royal Guard.
Because the sooner the King was born, the sooner she could liberate the ant colony.
That's right.
They had to wait for the Ant King's birth.
This was an unavoidable necessity.
Chimera Ant soldiers who retained their humanity and emotions possessed stronger bodies and greater talent than Peons.
But in terms of will, they still couldn't break free from the colony's instinctual constraints.
So far... Out of over 250 squads of Chimera Ant soldiers, only two had broken free from this biological hierarchy through sheer willpower.
One was Gyro, who had long since left NGL.
The other was her, Morena.
Thus, only when the Ant King was born and left the colony with the Royal Guard would Morena have the chance to liberate the ant colony.
Until then, her task was to remind the "infected" to accumulate strength as discreetly as possible.
—--
Morena's reminder was correct. However, the unpredictability of human nature is also reflected in these Chimera Ants fused with human genes.
Some soldiers simply follow their own desires.
And Nen, this power, can amplify both good and evil, as well as desires.
Driven by their cravings, some soldier ants would naturally take risks to level up faster and gain greater power.
—--
Day 14 of the hunting plan.
"A pretty formidable one has appeared."
In the rocky mountain area, hidden at the entrance of a high cave, Morel's eyebrows suddenly twitched.
Beside him, Knov had just finished a bottle of water, crushing the empty bottle as he asked, "Stronger than the group we just sent to the Chairman?"
"In terms of aura volume alone, considerably stronger."
Morel quickly assessed, his gaze behind the sunglasses fixed on a forest area shrouded in white smoke below, calmly stating, "His support speed is very fast, but he's too reckless. Without a hint of hesitation in his aura, he charged straight into my smoke zone."
"Just one?"
Knov casually tossed the flattened plastic bottle aside.
Morel nodded and asked, "Should we send him to the Chairman?"
"Let's wait a bit longer."
Knov followed Morel's line of sight, looking toward the distant smoke-covered forest area, his tone calm as he said, "Although we're only responsible for transporting prey, the timing must follow the Chairman's instructions."
"Fine by me."
Morel didn't object.
That was how the entire plan was arranged.
All transportation frequency and quantity were to be determined by Chairman Netero's orders.
"Rare to encounter such a strong individual; ultimately a threat. Let's restrict his movements first."
To be safe, Morel decided to trap this outstanding Chimera Ant first.
After all, the final phase of the plan involved the entire Extermination Team launching a full-scale assault on the Chimera Ant Nest.
Before that, they couldn't afford to let any threatening Chimera Ant escape.
Morel stood up from the rocky ground, adjusting his Nen, preparing to gradually shrink the smoke originally used for obscuring vision and transform it into the confining Smoky Jail.
This was a branch ability within his Deep Purple system, called Prison Lock.
"Morel, are you planning to use Prison Lock?"
Knov immediately asked upon seeing this.
Morel gripped his large smoking pipe, replying, "That's right. Although the current smoke covers a wide area, it can only obstruct vision at most, lacking the effect a cage should have."
As he spoke, he raised the pipe's mouthpiece, taking a deep drag, and continued after the smoke filled his lungs, "I'm worried that once this Chimera Ant confirms all his companions have disappeared, he'll immediately retreat from the smoke zone. By then, catching him would be uncertain."
"But if I recall correctly, for your Prison Lock ability to achieve an indestructible effect, besides shrinking the range, you need to be present yourself, right?"
Knov stood up as well, looking at Morel.
Morel nodded.
Knov frowned slightly and asked, "Confident?"
"Ha, you only know after you fight."
Morel didn't give a definitive answer, but the aura flowing around him exuded a steady confidence.
"Winning or losing aside, trapping him should be easy. After all, my Deep Purple is the most adaptable ability."
...
Knov raised his hand to his chin, silently weighing the situation for a moment before ultimately agreeing with Morel's assessment.
To be more precise, it was because he trusted Morel's strength.
Morel walked to the edge of the cliff and exhaled a stream of white smoke, which quickly condensed into a large bird.
But just as he was about to step onto the bird and fly toward the area where the Chimera Ant was located, a sudden change occurred!
The white smoke covering the entire forest was disappearing at an astonishing rate.
No.
It wasn't disappearing, it was being absorbed by some kind of power.
Morel and Knov's eyes simultaneously sharpened, both turning their gaze toward a specific point within the smoke-covered area.
There, a vortex-like gravitational center had formed, violently sucking in all the surrounding white smoke.
Strangely, despite the powerful suction, the surrounding trees remained completely still, and even the leaves drifting down in the wind were unaffected.
This unusual scene immediately made the experienced Morel and Knov realize one fact.
"It's a Nen ability, no wonder he's so confident. And... the 'aura' I mixed into the smoke has been isolated."
A rare look of gravity instantly appeared on Morel's face.
Knov lightly adjusted his glasses and said, "Isolated? So the aura you used to control the smoke hasn't disappeared, you just can't retrieve it?"
"Exactly."
Morel said in a low voice, "Now we absolutely can't let him escape."
This was a specialized ability that countered his own.
In the brief exchange between the two, the white smoke that had originally enveloped the vast forest had been completely absorbed.
At this moment, both Morel and Knov caught sight of the Chimera Ant's true form.
It was a Chimera Ant with a slightly hunched posture but a belly swollen like a balloon, possessing genetic traits of both a toad and a human.
He wore only a pair of grayish-white boxer shorts, with the exposed skin on his chest and abdomen retaining a human-like texture.
But the rest of his body was entirely covered in slippery, bumpy, grayish-brown thick skin.
In some areas, the bumps were particularly dense, reflecting an unsettling oily sheen under the light.
On his face, amidst the widespread bumps, a wide, flat mouth almost spanned the entire width of his face. When closed, the cheek pouches on either side appeared slightly swollen.
Only his eyes, distinctly human with clear whites and pupils, could clearly convey his inner emotions.
Seeing the Chimera Ant's swollen belly, Morel and Knov instantly understood the nature of his ability.
"He's at the Squadron Leader level."
"Yes, stronger than any Squadron Leader we've encountered before."
Morel and Knov exchanged a glance.
Once Chimera Ants master Nen, their starting point far surpasses that of humans due to their innate racial advantages.
Not only that, over time, Chimera Ants can further increase their aura output limit.
Fortunately, their inclination toward training is relatively weak. Over the past half-month, the aura intensity displayed by every Chimera Ant had remained within manageable limits.
But the one before them now was clearly different.
They sensed that this one possessed exceptional talent, capable of achieving noticeable strength improvements within just half a month.
Most importantly, he had developed a relatively mature Nen ability.
At this moment, the Squadron Leader named Kalisu, after using his ability to absorb the white smoke into his belly, quickly spotted Morel and Knov on the rocky cliff edge.
Two of them, but I only need one.
A flicker of urgency flashed in Kalisu's eyes. His current level is Lv.52. As long as he could kill Morel or Knov, he would directly soar to level 100.
By then, the intensity of his aura would receive another significant boost.
"Not a single corpse can be seen nearby, but Ruko's team's signals have indeed vanished. It seems to be an ability that can transfer objects elsewhere."
From Kalisu's position, he could see the pipe in Morel's hand.
Thus, he immediately deduced that the white smoke originated from Morel. The speculated object-transfer ability might then belong to the other human.
Enough hesitation, time to act!
The urgency in Kalisu's eyes instantly solidified into tangible bloodlust as torrential waves of aura erupted from his body.
He abruptly crouched low to the ground, his posture eerily resembling a toad ready to strike.
His grayish-brown legs bent and spread wide, soles firmly planted as his center of gravity sank, his body taut like a fully drawn bow.
The thick, wart-covered grayish-brown skin on his back bulged upward, clearly showing muscles writhing and tightening, visibly accumulating immense elastic potential energy.
In the next instant, Kalisu's legs explosively extended.
Boom!
The ground shattered, sending a wave of sand exploding outward.
Kalisu shot like lightning toward Morel and Knov at the cliff edge of the rocky mountain.
This straightforward offensive move held no intention of probing, nor any concern for the speculated object-transfer ability he had just considered.
Utterly confident!
Morel and Knov almost simultaneously entered combat readiness.
They truly hadn't expected their opponent to dare such an arrogant direct assault.
Likely, he relied solely on his self-perceived superior aura output and assumed Morel had been weakened after his ability succeeded.
But clearly, he lacked genuine reverence for the profundity of Nen.
If you think it takes great effort for me to mobilize smoke on that scale, you severely underestimate me!
Only one-fifth of Morel's aura output had been isolated, and with his vast experience, he quickly devised several countermeasures.
But just as Morel was about to act, a sudden surge of energy moved faster than his own actions.
!!!
In that split second, Morel, Knov, and even Kalisu, fully committed to his attack with no turning back, all sensed the overwhelming pressure crashing toward them like a tsunami.
From their peripheral vision, a fluorescent green Nen bullet, as large as a millstone and carrying astonishing force, shot directly at Kalisu, who was moving at high speed through the air.
Where did this attack come from!?
Kalisu's black-and-white pupils were abruptly flooded with the dangerous fluorescent green. A sense of mortal peril, piercing straight to his soul, instantly enveloped him.
Perhaps driven by the deeply ingrained survival instinct of all living beings, in that critical moment, without even time to think, he violently opened his wide, flat mouth.
Pfft!
A dense white smoke gushed out from his mouth.
It was unmistakably Morel's smoke, which he had inhaled earlier!
Using the sudden backward thrust from the expelled smoke, Kalisu forcibly altered his aerial trajectory, his body plunging sharply downward, narrowly evading the Nen bullet's original path by a hair's breadth.
On the rocky mountain cliff, Morel's gaze followed him closely, frowning as he remarked, "To think he used my smoke to change direction..."
He had assumed the opponent was about to escape unscathed. Yet in the next moment, both he and Knov's pupils contracted sharply.
That fluorescent green Nen bullet, which should have missed, seemed to possess a life of its own. Tracing a bizarre arc mid-air, it precisely locked onto Kalisu's descending trajectory once again.
What!?
Kalisu's vision was once again flooded with that destructive fluorescent green light.
This time, he had no room left to evade.
I can block it... I must be able to block it!
The shadow of death completely enveloped him. In that moment of extreme terror, Morena's past warning flashed through Kalisu's mind.
If only he hadn't been so eager to level up, if only he had been more patient... But it was already too late.
The surging fluorescent green energy completely devoured his body. His consciousness, like a tightly drawn string, snapped with a silent crisp sound, sinking into endless cold and darkness.
Boom!
The fluorescent green Nen bullet pressed his body down like a meteor, crashing into the forest. Accompanied by a deafening roar, the earth seemed to tremble violently.
The rampaging energy did not dissipate immediately. Instead, like an enraged giant serpent, it clung to the ground, tearing and surging forward wildly.
Wherever it passed, soil churned, vegetation shattered, and everything was swept high into the air by the surging shockwave.
A horrifyingly deep trench stretched out, as if a scorching scar had been torn open across the forest floor.
This was the full-power strike condensed by Morrow at Lv.80 with his maximum aura output.
Releasing Deceptive Shooting Star in the form of Ko would expose a significant opening in battle.
However, with the locking ability of Star Mark, Morrow could safely accumulate his full strength without restraint.
This single strike instantly killed Kalisu, who was roughly the same level as Morrow.
The experience feedback finally allowed Morrow to smoothly reach Lv.81.
Finally...
Morrow lowered his head to look at the Tree Rings on the back of his hand, a glint of anticipation in his eyes.
At Lv.21, he had gained an opportunity to create a Nen ability, significantly reducing the difficulty of ability development.
At Lv.51, his aura output scale had received a notable boost.
So, what reward would he receive after reaching Lv.81?
Under his gaze, the character representing his level at the center of the Tree Rings seemed to be triggered, its edges suddenly glowing faintly.
Immediately after, a soft, dandelion-like orb of light emerged from the glow, floating gently before Morrow's eyes.
It's the same as the reward at Lv.21...
It was precisely with this reward that Morrow had successfully developed the Starlight Convergence ability.
And it was from that moment onward that he had truly seized the opportunity to defy fate.
Unexpectedly, the reward at Lv.81 was yet another chance to easily develop an ability.
Without hesitation, Morrow extended his Index Finger and lightly touched the orb of light, absorbing the reward into his consciousness.
With this reward, I might be able to develop an ability within a day that can breach a Royal Guard's Nen defense despite the level difference.
A faint glimmer shone in Morrow's eyes.
When he had developed the Insidious Shooting Star ability, he had already deeply experienced the difficulty of excavating powerful Nen abilities.
Later, it was only through the insights gained from studying Divine Script that he further expanded the potential of Insidious Shooting Star. Now with this reward, there's no longer a need to expend vast amounts of time and energy, nor worry about efforts going unrewarded.
By fully considering the compatibility of Nen types, one can specifically develop a brand new, powerful Nen ability.
This might also be... The crucial step that would propel him straight to Lv.90.
Just as Morrow received his level-up rewards.
—--
At the rocky mountain, Morel and Knov were staring at the deep trench left behind by the Shooting Star explosion below, both wearing astonished expressions.
—--
Outside the Chimera Ant Nest, Neferpitou, who was on guard duty, also clearly witnessed the sudden explosion and intense light in the distance.
Even Shaiapouf and Youpi inside the Chimera Ant Nest, along with the other Chimera Ants, sensed the brief yet powerful aura fluctuation generated by the Shooting Star at that moment.
But among all the Chimera Ants, only Neferpitou reacted as if facing a formidable enemy.