One minute.
That was all Conrad had bought with Adarte's chaos and Anisa's gamble.
Rain hammered against broken windows as Conrad moved along the fifth-floor corridor.
Bodies lay where he had passed, armed men neutralized.
He hadn't lingered.
Lingering was how you died when Nen entered the equation.
"I could go a lot faster."
Conrad admitted silently as he paused near a stairwell, listening.
The hallway was narrow.
"And I hate tight spaces."
"Especially when Nen is involved."
He knew this too well.
Nen traps didn't need to be elaborate.
They didn't need to be obvious.
A delayed trigger, a conditional activation, or a spatial distortion tied to entry any of those could end a fight before it began.
Or worse, not end it at all.
"Life Chain might save me from dying."
"But that doesn't mean I can't be sealed, restrained,"
"Teleportation abilities were especially dangerous in buildings like this."
One step through the wrong threshold and you could be sent kilometers away.
Underground.
Into a pocket space.
Into another person's prepared battlefield.
And time
Time was the one thing they didn't have much of.
Anisa was fighting a Nen user who was clearly experienced, possibly lethal.
Even if her plan was working, she was bleeding.
Conrad could feel it in his gut, the tension that came from knowing someone was buying time with their body.
He exhaled slowly and moved again.
He reached the middle of the fifth floor and stopped.
Conrad closed his eyes halfway and expanded his awareness.
En.
An aura unfurled from him like a silent tide, washing through walls, doors, and ceilings.
Then he released the Pulse Orb.
The orb detached and detonated its sensing wave.
A ripple of Nen spread outward.
And the answer came instantly.
Conrad's eyes snapped open.
"There you are."
Straight ahead.
Behind the doors.
Maxwell Herivo.
The aura signature matched what he had memorized: weak life force.
Clearly not a Nen user, just an ordinary man.
A man who knew about Nen but didn't truly wield it.
But there was another presence.
"And a middle-aged woman, that is a Nen user..." Conrad muttered.
That
That was unexpected.
He focused again, refining the image in his mind.
The woman stood calmly near Maxwell, posture relaxed, aura drawn inward like a coiled wire.
She was waiting.
Conrad felt a chill run through him.
"She's not reacting to my En," he realized.
"Which means either she's very good… or she wants me to know she's here."
Both were bad options.
He leaned against the wall and slowed his breathing.
Maxwell made sense.
He would surround himself with armed men and maybe hire one Nen user like Cailo for direct combat.
But this woman
"She feels different," Conrad thought. "Not a frontline fighter. Not like Cailo."
Her aura was dense but compact.
"More likely, a thinker-type Nen user," he concluded.
Conrad had some classifications of non-user within his mind.
There are Enhancer Nen users that preferred to take on opponents directly, such as Nobunaga, Uvogin, and Adarte, and thinkers, like Chrollo and Morel.
Conrad imagined the possibilities in rapid succession.
A curse that activated upon entering the room.
A seal that locked the target in place until certain conditions were met.
A contract-bound ability tied to Maxwell's life kills him, and he suffers the consequence.
Or
"A spatial displacement ability," Conrad thought grimly. "One step forward and I'm gone."
He glanced at the clock on his phone.
Just over a minute had passed since Anisa engaged Cailo seriously.
"She bought me time," Conrad thought.
He clenched his jaw.
Option one: Go in alone.
He was confident in his combat ability.
Life Chain gave him insurance against sudden death.
His control was solid. His instincts were sharp.
But insurance didn't mean immunity.
"I am really shocked," Conrad said to himself.
When he watched the series and read the manga, he saw that many nen users who are accustomed to fighting take a more easy approach to these things.
Especially Phantom Troupe members.
Conrad understood that whatever his nen abilities and other types of characteristics were, he was still a modern-world "Earth Human," which meant that he still valued his life a lot and preferred long thought processes and caution.
"Maybe this is because I did not risk my life or did not have real-life Nen battle experience."
"I will grow with the time and more experience," he concluded and went back to the problem in front of himself.
"If the woman's ability didn't aim to kill me outright, if she aimed to remove me from the battlefield, Life Chain wouldn't activate."
"He could win the fight and still lose the war."
Option two: Fall back.
Help Anisa finish Cailo. Regroup with Adarte. Return as three.
The success rate would skyrocket.
But
Time.
If he left now, Maxwell might escape.
"He's not the type to sit still once his guard is engaged."
Conrad thought.
"If he has an escape plan, he's already halfway through it."
"She's here waiting for me."
Which meant
"They expected a third Nen user to slip past the chaos."
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"So they're not stupid," he admitted.
But it also meant the clock was tighter than he'd hoped.
Conrad closed his eyes and pictured the battlefield.
Conrad exhaled slowly.
"If I go back now," he thought, "Anisa survives for sure. We win eventually."
"But if I go forward…"
He opened his eyes.
"This ends tonight."
Conrad straightened.
He reached into his coat and adjusted the silver chain, feeling the weight of his conditions, his choices, and the lives he had tied to his future.
"I didn't come this far to hesitate," he said quietly.
"I need more courage if I want to keep on going and increase my power and capability as a Nen user and fighter."
Then, after a brief pause, he added:
"But I won't rush like a fool either."
He pulled back from the door and shifted position, aura tightening, mind racing.
"I'll test her," Conrad decided.
"If she reacts," he thought, "I retreat immediately."
If she didn't
A thin smile formed.
"Then I kill Maxwell before the two minutes are over."
The rain continued to fall.