A Twist of Fate x Moonlit Ambush

"Benjamin's manifested aura was probably around Lv. 40..."

After retreating into the forest, Moro immediately turned around and quickened his pace, heading away from the lake.

The Nen users he had encountered after dying and being reborn, along with the increases in manifested aura brought by each level-up, had given Moro a relatively clear understanding of "levels."

Using his own "manifested aura" as a reference, he roughly placed Benjamin at around level 40.

Experienced Nen masters had their own methods for assessing an enemy's strength.

Some used mission ratings to make an initial judgment of an opponent's level, while others used the most straightforward numbers, or monster ranks from games...

Everyone had their own approach.

But what all those methods had in common was that the person making the assessment possessed extensive experience.

Experience was precisely what Moro lacked most right now. The only reason he could reach an assessment at all was because Growth Rings had turned his manifested aura into data.

With his own level data as a reference, he naturally had a general direction for making evaluations.

Moro's assessment of Benjamin was Lv. 40. He had no idea whether it was accurate, but he could be certain that Benjamin's manifested aura was on an entirely different level from his own.

Although the strength of one's manifested aura could not fully represent a Nen user's actual combat ability...

It was still the most basic information both sides could observe directly before formally engaging.

In Moro's eyes, Benjamin had appeared calm and composed from the moment he showed himself. Yet the aura around him had not relaxed in the slightest; it had remained powerful all along.

For that reason alone, Moro had immediately labeled Benjamin a hypocrite.

Since he had no desire to invite further trouble, there was no way he would linger there.

Still, the knife Benjamin had used to shave the horn had made Moro rather envious.

It was not entirely because of the aura wrapped around the red crystal blade, but also because of the boning knife's sharpness.

Moro was certain that Benjamin had not used Zhou to reinforce the knife when he shaved the horn.

That was enough to prove the boning knife's quality.

Moro figured that, if he got the chance later, he should carry a small knife of similar quality himself.

Creak—

Stepping over damp fallen leaves and branches, Moro moved through the woods, occasionally looking back toward the lake.

Benjamin's sudden appearance had prevented him from carefully choosing a direction earlier. He could only retreat into the forest based on the situation at the time.

Now that he was in the woods, he might as well continue along this route.

After walking briskly for several kilometers, the trees grew denser, and visibility in the forest dropped at a visible rate. It became difficult to see even a sliver of moonlight.

Moro took a flashlight from his backpack and continued onward.

It had to be said that the poachers' appearance had solved his most pressing problem. For the time being, he no longer had to worry about survival supplies and had all kinds of practical tools.

The wilderness in this world was not to be underestimated. Especially in places humanity had yet to fully explore, such as forests, mountain ranges, grasslands, and deserts, danger lurked everywhere.

Never mind the various surreal Magical Beasts and animals. Even an inconspicuous venomous insect could silently take your life.

In an environment like this, professional knowledge was often more important than Nen ability.

Moro had basically no experience with wilderness survival. After transmigrating here, he had spent most of his time running an antique shop.

After dealing with clients who could tell all kinds of lies without batting an eye, he had once believed that these creatures with human faces knew best how to swallow someone whole.

But in this dense forest overflowing with wildness, he really had to worry about whether he might be swallowed whole.

The flashlight pierced the nearby darkness, only to be swallowed by the darkness farther away.

Everything his eyes and ears received was dark, damp, and deathly silent...

It made him uncomfortable.

Moro felt that he needed to leave this forest as soon as possible, and without realizing it, he kept increasing his speed.

As he traveled, he remained vigilant at all times while intermittently releasing En to investigate his surroundings in greater detail.

The radius of his En was only twenty meters.

And En was an extremely exhausting technique, one that could not be maintained at high intensity indefinitely.

By using it intermittently, Moro could keep his stamina and concentration stable.

After an unknown amount of time, moonlight finally began filtering through gaps in the canopy, indicating that the trees were becoming less dense.

Bathed in streaks of silvery light, Moro accelerated again. Soon, through the sparse trees ahead, he saw more light and the faint surface of a lake.

Moro instinctively slowed down and switched off his flashlight.

"Did I go in a circle?"

Seeing another lake, Moro wondered if he had gotten lost, circled through the forest, and returned to the original lake.

To confirm the situation, Moro closed his aura nodes and entered a state of Zetsu. Then, as quietly as possible, he slowly approached the edge of the forest.

In the distance, silvery radiance fell upon the lake. When the night breeze passed over it, faint ripples of light shimmered.

Standing behind a tree, Moro observed the shore. He saw neither Benjamin nor the poachers' corpses, and the surrounding terrain and vegetation were different.

This was another lake.

Moro relaxed slightly, only for his expression to tighten again.

On the lakeshore stood a weeping willow covered in vines, roughly two hundred meters from his position.

Moro stared intently at the tree draped in hanging vines. He could clearly make out seven upright, motionless figures, as well as someone sitting against the trunk.

"That is..."

His pupils contracted slightly as Moro slowly moved along the forest's edge, closing the distance.

As he got closer, he could see the aura around those seven people more clearly.

Very weak aura...

And the seven people looked strange, like lifeless puppets.

That was Moro's first impression.

Just as his gaze lowered, preparing to observe the person before the tree trunk, he suddenly noticed something unusual.

Under the moonlight, the seven motionless people had no shadows.

At the sight, Moro's expression changed. In an instant, he identified the person sitting before the tree.

The shadowless manipulation phenomenon could only belong to the Manipulator who had controlled the passengers aboard the airship.

Moro narrowed his eyes at the aura flowing around the Manipulator like water. Thinking of the man's targeted actions, a flash of Killing Intent rose within him.

He had never expected that the route he had been forced to take in order to get away from Benjamin would lead him to the Manipulator who had also crash-landed in the forest.

What a twist of fate.

Moro resisted the urge to creep closer, since that might expose him.

Although they were currently more than a hundred meters apart, he could make use of the Flying Stars' return mechanism.

Deceptive Flying Stars

After finding the right angle, Moro could no longer suppress his urge to strike. He immediately gathered aura and fired two Flying Stars backward over his shoulder.

A moment later.

The returning Flying Stars passed over Moro just as he dodged aside, cutting through the moonlight toward the figure before the willow.

Before the tree trunk.

Kawahara abruptly opened his eyes and looked toward the incoming Flying Stars. A glint of light reflected in his disturbed gaze.

Almost at the same instant.

The seven puppet humans that had been given protective orders all rushed in front of Kawahara, forming a solid wall in the path of the Flying Stars.

The next moment.

The two massive Flying Stars struck the human wall and exploded.

With a deafening blast, the wall of tightly packed bodies was instantly torn apart in the truest sense of the phrase.

For a moment, severed limbs mixed with copious blood rained onto the grass, and thick gore crushed patches of grass blades.

Kawahara looked at the scattered limbs, his pupils trembling.

The puppet humans he had worked so hard to preserve had been shattered so easily.

As his emotions surged, Kawahara rose and drew his sword. Just as his gaze turned toward the woods, he swiftly calmed himself down.

As he reined in his emotions, the aura pouring from his body gradually ceased being chaotic and loose.

"Hmm?"

Then Kawahara saw Moro stepping out of the forest. He was briefly startled, before his face turned cold. "I hadn't even gone looking for you, and you delivered yourself right to me..."

"A Ninja?"

Moro walked beneath the moonlight. Once he saw Kawahara's attire clearly, he was surprised.

A black hood and mask, along with a black fitted outfit cinched at the waist...

It was clothing with a distinct Ninja style.

Yet this Nen user, who seemed to have come from a Ninja background, held a katana in his hand.

Facing Moro's assessing gaze, Kawahara had no intention of speaking further. He held his blade horizontally before him and assumed an offensive stance.

The activation prerequisite for Shadow's End was that ordinary people had to be nearby as material for the ability.

There naturally would not be any ordinary people in a place like this, which meant Kawahara could not use Shadow's End.

Many times, the restrictions inherent to a Nen ability would bring trouble to its user.

They could continuously avoid them deliberately, or even turn the restrictions to their own advantage...

But there would always be times when luck ran out, or when an enemy who knew the details set a trap specifically for them.

Unable to use his ability, Kawahara could only return to the most primitive method of combat.

Yet a question flashed through his mind. Why had the other man's aura suddenly become so much stronger?

The moment the question arose, he suppressed it and focused all his attention on the mission assigned by the leader.

The next second.

Kawahara pushed off the ground and charged forward, his body like a sharp blade aimed at Moro before the forest.

The fate of the puppet wall had given him a basic understanding of the destructive power of Moro's Nen Bullets and allowed him to directly determine Moro's Nen type.

In this situation, closing the distance and engaging in close combat was Kawahara's only choice.

Just as Kawahara had cut the distance by more than half, he suddenly noticed a basketball-sized fluorescent green Nen Bullet flying out from the forest behind Moro.

"How can this be...?"

Kawahara was slightly startled as he watched the Nen Bullet cross past Moro's body and fly straight toward him.

In that split second, Kawahara swung his blade at the Nen Bullet.

The dense aura wrapped around the blade actually cleaved the Nen Bullet cleanly in two.

Boom! Boom!

The divided Nen Bullet fell onto the lake's surface, sending up two towering sprays of water.

While Kawahara slashed at the Flying Star, Moro stopped in place and held both hands level. Without caring about the aura expenditure, he fired one Flying Star after another in rapid succession.

Now that he had reached level 18, his Nen Bullet firing speed had visibly improved. As long as he controlled the size of the Flying Stars, he could reliably fire them continuously.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...!

In less than a second, more than ten Flying Stars shot toward Kawahara, who was dozens of meters away.

"Their power and size have both decreased!"

Seeing over a dozen egg-sized Flying Stars coming at him in succession, Kawahara's gaze sharpened. Instead of retreating, he advanced, charging directly into the barrage.

Slash—

Kawahara cut apart the first two Flying Stars, then shifted his position during his sprint and avoided the rest.

Yet while he charged, Moro did not stop releasing his ability. Flying Stars continued to shoot from the palms of his outstretched hands.

However, the density and power of these Flying Stars were not enough to pin Kawahara in place. They could only slow his advance.

Thirty meters, twenty meters...

The distance between them steadily shrank.

But as an Emitter, Moro did not care at all about Kawahara's approach.

By conventional thinking, Emitters seemed to need to prevent enemies from getting close.

In truth, that was not absolute.

Take Franklin of the Phantom Troupe, for example. He was a user capable of bringing both Emission and Enhancement to one hundred percent of their power.

Therefore, even if he lost the advantage granted by distance, he could still trade blows with Nobunaga, who was also an Enhancer, in close combat.

Moro was different from Franklin. His Nen type leaned more toward a balance between Emission and Manipulation.

But when it came to being forced into close combat...

Moro could not fight like Franklin with a one-hundred-percent Enhancement offense-and-defense conversion rate, but he still had a way to deal with it. That was...

The return of the Flying Stars.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty...

Among the many Flying Stars, some were cut apart by Kawahara, but more were dodged.

And the Flying Stars Kawahara dodged hung in midair behind him like stars.

Moro could freely adjust the Flying Stars' return time between one and five seconds.

That meant that as long as he set the return times of all the Flying Stars in descending intervals, he could make them all return simultaneously after five seconds.

An excessive number of Flying Stars caused their power to disperse...

But this unavoidable mechanism within the Nen ability system could be compensated for through a Vow and Restriction.

Under the restriction of Self-harm, the Flying Stars could double in power when returning, which to some extent crushed the drawback of dispersed power.

That was the unique strength of the Flying Stars.

It was also the tangible change Moro could feel in battle after reaching level 18.

When the set moment arrived, Kawahara finally entered within ten meters.

And at that instant, the numerous Flying Stars suspended behind Kawahara all returned at even greater speed, shooting toward Kawahara, who stood in the same line as Moro.

In an instant, it was like a meteor shower!

By the time Kawahara sensed something was wrong, it was already too late.

After all, Kawahara did not know the ability mechanic that "returning Flying Stars could injure Moro," and Moro had never stopped firing Flying Stars.

It was a pincer attack from both sides!

More importantly, a Manipulator unable to use his Nen ability was no different from a beast that had lost its claws and fangs.

Kawahara abruptly stopped. When he turned around, a starry sky was reflected in his pupils.

Pfft pfft pfft pfft...

Meteor-like Nen Bullets bombarded Kawahara one after another.

The unrelenting impacts made Kawahara's body shudder back and forth. In less than a breath, his entire body was already covered in wounds.

"I actually... failed..."

After the meteor shower passed, Kawahara collapsed to the ground, his face full of unwillingness.

Moro looked at Kawahara lying on the ground and instinctively wanted to fire a few more Flying Stars, but when he saw the change in the tattoo level on the back of his hand, he stopped himself from delivering the finishing blow.

Lv.18→Lv.22

He had risen four levels in one go...