Liam rode the tiger. Led the wolf. Juggled rocks in his lap.
He channeled aura into his fingertips—Ryu, the technique of redistributing Nen to specific body parts. His fingertips became diamond-hard cutting tools. He carved pentagrams into stone surfaces one stroke at a time, methodical as a printer.
Five stones. Five marks. Five potential puppets.
This is either tactical genius or I'm overcomplicating a simple murder.
Overhead: his aerial surveillance network. Five birds operated by Star Marks, circling like reconnaissance drones. They tracked five figures moving through the forest below.
Five poachers. Five birds. Five marked stones.
The universe has a sense of symmetry. Or I'm reading patterns into chaos. Same thing.
One bird's perspective caught something wrong. An eyeball. Floating. Suspended in midair with no body attached.
Oh that's Nen. That's definitely someone's Hatsu.
Liam's human eyes snapped upward. Even with Gyo active, the eyeball was barely visible—small, distant, scanning the sky.
So we've got a competent Nen user in the poacher gang. Fantastic.
This just got interesting.
The birds flew past the eye. Casual. Just a flock of normal avians doing normal bird things.
The eye tracked them. Dismissed them. Returned to scanning.
Gotcha.
Liam reversed one bird mid-flight. Sent it screaming back like a feathered missile. Beak-first into the eyeball.
Pop.
The eye exploded into white mist. Dissipated. Gone.
One kilometer away.
The bald man—Garo—screamed. Clutched his right eye socket.
His four companions jumped. "Brother Garo, what the hell—"
"MY EYE!" Garo gritted teeth. Lowered his hand slowly. His right socket was empty. Black void where an eyeball should be. "Something attacked my Third Eye. A bird. A fucking bird—"
One of them—tall, muscular, carrying a bag that weighed several hundred kilograms like it was nothing—tried to lighten the mood. "Uh, maybe it thought your eye was a bug? Haha, funny story for later—"
Garo's remaining eye fixed on him. Cold. Dead.
The strong man shut up immediately.
Another poacher smoothed things over. "Brother Garo's Third Eye of God is why we're here. Best surveillance in the business. One unlucky bird doesn't change that. We've had a good run. Got the Misery Moon Tiger. Let's cash out and leave before—"
"Everyone SHUT UP."
White energy condensed in Garo's empty socket. Reformed into an eyeball. Nen-construct. Functional replacement.
Garo's new eye rotated. Scanned the forest. "Animals have danger instincts. Normal birds won't attack my eye. They won't even get close without feeling uneasy."
His voice dropped. "This wasn't bad luck. We're being hunted."
The other four didn't hesitate. Rifles up. Daggers out. Combat formation—scattered circle, overlapping fields of fire.
The strong man adjusted the tiger-corpse on his back. Checked his magazine.
Garo loaded his pistol. Click-clack. His Nen-eye glowed faintly. Searching the sky for those five birds.
Whoosh.
Something shot through the air. One poacher screamed. Clutched his face. Blood between fingers.
He raised his submachine gun. Sprayed bullets into the forest on full auto.
RATATATAT—
"CEASE FIRE! You'll bring Blanchett security down on us!"
"I can't see anything! Where are they?!"
The four pulled into back-to-back formation. Nervous. Scanning.
The strong man caught movement in his peripheral vision.
The Misery Moon Tiger. Their captured prey. Charging straight at him.
How did it escape the bag?
He swung his gun toward the tiger—
BANG.
Something hit his trigger hand. His hand exploded. Gun clattered to the ground. He stared at the bloody mess of his palm.
Garo's Nen-eye flashed. He fired. BANG.
Blood sprayed from Lumos's flank. The tiger didn't slow. Slammed into the strong man. Jaws closed on skull. Bone crunched. Half the man's head disappeared into tiger-mouth.
Lumos released. Rolled. Bullets chased him into the forest.
Another poacher looked at his dead companion—brains leaking, body still twitching—and felt something hit his neck.
"AHHHHH!" He clutched his throat. Fired wildly into the air. "WHO'S THERE?! SHOW YOURSELF!"
"It's not just the tiger! There's someone else!"
"DON'T PANIC!" Garo's voice cut through the chaos. "CALM DOWN!"
His Nen-eye tracked movement. There. Small figure. Fast. Darting between trees.
Can't outrun my sight.
Garo closed his normal left eye. Used only the Nen-construct. Tracked the target with surgical precision.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Three shots. Visual tracking. Leading the target.
The third bullet connected. The figure stumbled.
Got you.
Liam's Ken absorbed most of the impact. The bullet still hurt like hell.
His aim is too good. That eye has auto-aim.
Bullshit hacks. This guy's cheating.
Fenrir burst from the undergrowth. Snarling.
The nearest poacher—trained, competent—rolled. Came up firing. Bullets tore through wolf-flesh.
Garo's eye flashed. Energy bullet shot from his pupil. BOOM.
Hit Fenrir's neck. Severed it completely.
The wolf's head tumbled away in a spray of arterial red.
Fuck.
But then—movement. The two poachers Liam had marked earlier turned on their companion. Abandoned their guns. Attacked with fists.
One kicked his teammate's rifle away. The other punched him unconscious.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Garo screamed.
Whoosh.
Pentagram stone. Incoming. Fast.
Garo's eye locked on. He raised his arm. Blocked. The stone shattered harmlessly against his Ken.
Weak. No threat.
The first poacher Liam had hit turned his head. The pentagram stone stuck to his cheek crumbled away. Revealed a rose-gold mark underneath.
Same mark on the other one's neck.
Both smiled at Garo. "Poaching endangered species? That's not very legal, boss. We're having second thoughts. Maybe you should surrender too. Turn yourself in. It's never too late to—"
Garo shot them both. BANG. BANG.
Headshots. Perfect accuracy. They dropped.
They were controlled. Someone's manipulating them.
What kind of ability—
His Nen-eye rotated. Pierced through bone and flesh—his vision penetrated the forest itself—locked onto a small figure in the trees.
There.
Liam charged his spirit-gun. Aimed.
Garo saw it coming. Threw himself sideways. The aura-bullet grazed his thigh. Skin split. Blood flowed.
He fired back mid-dodge.
The bullet screamed toward Liam's forehead. Heat-wave trail. Spinning death.
Liam raised his hand. Palm out. Maximum Ken.
The bullet hit his aura wall. Drilled forward. Twisted. Deformed under pressure—
Stopped.
Liam opened his palm. The mangled bullet rolled in his hand. Hot. Smoking. Left a shallow cut that healed instantly thanks to the Star Mark on his neck.
My defense held. I can tank pistol rounds.
That's insane. I'm actually durable now.
Garo's eye flashed. Another energy bullet.
Liam dodged. Barely. The projectile scraped his Ken. Deflected his movement.
Then: chaos.
Five birds descended like a black cloud. Swarmed Garo's head. Blocked his vision completely.
"GET OFF!" Garo fired wildly. BANGBANGBANG—
Feathers exploded. Birds scattered.
When his vision cleared, Liam stood twenty meters away. Finger aimed. Charging.
"Nine seconds," Liam announced calmly. "Ten seconds..."
Oh shit. Garo poured everything into his right eye. Massive energy concentration. Fist-sized bullet forming—
BOOM.
The eye-bullet launched.
Liam's spirit-gun—ten full seconds of charge—fired simultaneously.
His aura-beam was arm-thick. Radiant. Devastating.
It punched through Garo's attack. Vaporized it. Kept going.
CRASH.
The beam hit Garo center-mass. His clothes disintegrated. Skin charred. Bones cracked.
His Nen-eye dissolved into smoke.
He collapsed. Face-first into dirt.
That fight was exhausting. Every move at maximum output. A few minutes felt like an hour of training.
But I won.
Holy shit, I actually won.
That feels INCREDIBLE.
Lumos emerged from the trees. His bullet wound already healed—Star Mark passive doing work. He surveyed the scene. Five bodies. Two headshot by Garo. One beaten unconscious by the two Liam controlled. One with half a head—Lumos's work, nearly dead. Garo defeated by Liam.
The tiger padded toward the poaching bag. Sniffed his captured kin inside.
Liam walked to Fenrir's severed head.
Used Gyo. Watched with fascination as the Star Mark activated. Life energy mobilized. The head slowly dragged itself toward the neck. Flesh reached. Connected. Knitted.
Healing from decapitation. The Star Mark is INSANE.
"You're amazing! You handled all of them by yourself?"
Liam spun.
A girl emerged from the forest. Young. Short green hair. Hot. Confident stride.