En

Ghost Island, North Coast. On the railings of that long-wrecked small cruise ship, two birds with faintly green feathers were perched here and there.

The instant Jing Yang's consciousness took over the minds of the two birds,

he felt as though some invisible, intangible "foreign substance" had settled on him, like an inescapable spiderweb or a cold breeze brushing against his face...

Could this be En?

Using the birds' eyes, he silently observed the ship's interior through the night. Beams of light occasionally swept through the cabin, while noisy footsteps carried up through the deck. Clearly, someone was searching the cabins.

And among those people... was a Nen User.

Moreover, they were a skilled Nen User who had mastered an En with a considerable range.

En was a derivative application based on the Four Great Principles of Nen—Ten, Zetsu, Ren, and Hatsu. Put simply, it was a technique that spread one's Aura outward to envelop the surrounding environment for sensing and reconnaissance.

Everyone's En was different. Some only cared about the space immediately around their bodies, while others could spread their En over three hundred meters and take in everything within an entire building...

The shape of En could vary as well; it was not necessarily "round." For instance, Nefipito, one of the Chimera Ant Royal Guards, had an En shaped like tentacles whose outline constantly shifted. The most outrageous En ever shown in the manga undoubtedly belonged to the Ant King Meruem. He transformed his Aura into endless photons and sprayed them in all directions. Being touched by even a single photon was equivalent to being completely exposed before him, and those photons would remain on the target, guiding Meruem...

The person maintaining En inside the ship seemed to have already covered the entire cruise ship with it.

The manga had never truly mentioned how En was trained. Since Jing Yang could scout through animals' eyes, he had yet to put exploring and practicing En on his agenda. Thus, he could not properly judge the specifics of this En, how effective its reconnaissance was, or accurately assess the strength of someone capable of releasing En on this scale...

This was certainly because Jing Yang was merely inhabiting a bird's body rather than being there in person, but it also undoubtedly revealed the limits of his own knowledge and experience.

I still need to keep training!

Thinking this, Jing Yang continued controlling the two birds as they watched in secret. He wanted to make them fly into the cabin and listen to what the search party was saying, but the birds' raised claws stopped.

He had a major disadvantage.

He was not a bird.

A bird's movements, posture, reactions in a natural state... Jing Yang could not imitate them perfectly.

While inside this En, any behavior too different from that of an ordinary bird might very well be noticed by its owner.

Jing Yang thought of something else.

For convenience, he had placed the Star Mark on the beaks of all five birds.

Two similar birds, with similar Rose Gold Five-Pointed Star marks on their beaks... If the other party was observant enough to notice that, and possessed the common sense of a Manipulator, they might guess that these two birds were actually being controlled by another Nen User hiding somewhere...

Jing Yang controlled the two green birds as they stood on the ship's railing, staring wide-eyed at each other and chirping, seemingly trying to use bird language to issue control commands...

Tap, tap, tap... Approaching footsteps came from within the cabin. At the same time, the En that had been everywhere just moments ago rapidly vanished.

The two green birds turned their heads together. A tall young man with steady, measured steps and a cauliflower-like hairstyle emerged from the cabin with several subordinates carrying flashlights.

...What was this, a premium Miyagi Ryota?

Jing Yang glanced at the young man with the cauliflower hair. Judging from the way the En had disappeared just now, he was the one who had released it.

This "Miyagi Ryota" did not look at the two idle birds in the night. Instead, with his hands behind his back, he looked toward the shore and said evenly, "Mr. Slooe, didn't we agree that you would not interfere with our investigation on this island? In return, we have also tacitly allowed Ochima to investigate this island."

Flap, flap. The two green birds spread their wings and fled.

They fled, but not completely. Jing Yang controlled the birds to land on a reef near the shore. From there, they had the perfect angle to observe both the group led by "Miyagi Ryota" on the deck and the group brought by this so-called Mr. Slooe on shore.

Slooe was a young man with a slightly receding hairline. He seemed somewhat angered by "Miyagi Ryota's" dismissal. "I received a report from local fishermen that there is a suspicious vessel here, possibly the scene of a murder. What, as an official representative of Ochima, am I not qualified to investigate here instead?"

Babimayna stood at the bow like a spear planted into the deck. His tone grew slightly heavier as he said, "Mr. Slooe, please mind your wording. Strictly speaking, this is the territory of our Kakin Kingdom."

Huh? What did that mean?

Using the green birds' eyes, Jing Yang had been examining a short figure behind Slooe who looked somewhat familiar. Unfortunately, it was too dark to see clearly.

Hearing Miyagi... Babimayna's words from the ship, he could not help feeling puzzled. Wasn't Ghost Island the island at the upper left corner of Ochima's map? It was separated from Kakin on the Aizen Continent by a vast stretch of sea. How had it become Kakin's territory?

I've surfed the internet already, okay? Don't try to fool me!

Slooe merely smiled, though even in the darkness it looked utterly insincere. "You see, that is precisely where our differences lie. I thought this opportunity would allow those differences to become history."

"I will repeat the agreement reached by both parties once more," Babimayna said. "Both sides will set aside their disputes. We may each investigate whatever we wish on this island for twenty days, without interfering with one another."

Slooe said unhappily, "Most of this island is operated and managed by Blanche Company."

"Negotiating with them is your business," Babimayna replied. "Goodbye."

With that, he turned and entered the cabin, leaving behind two armed subordinates to watch the group on shore.

"..." Slooe rubbed the top of his thinning head. "Let's go."

"Why are we leaving already? What's going on?" The short man behind him looked disappointed and complained, "I was thinking of chatting with the people over there too!"

The people Slooe had brought all wore identical black suits. One of them, hearing the short man's words, could not help asking curiously, "What did you want to talk about?"

The short man found the question strange. "I'm a bodyguard, so of course I wanted to ask whether they need to hire me."

The others nearly fainted at that. Was this kid really a Professional Hunter? Was there something wrong with his brain? He wanted to work both sides?

The short man said angrily, "Stop looking down on me! I'm really good. Fire all of you, and I alone can be the bodyguard for both sides!"

Turning away, Slooe sighed as he walked. "Mr. Kang Jae, although we are not enemies with the people of Kakin this time, we are not allies either."

Kang Jae gave an "oh" and said regretfully, "Sigh, if that's the case, then there's nothing to be done!"

The woman in the black suit who had asked earlier summed it up. "So he's just stupid, not greedy."

You were way too blunt about that, weren't you?! The others could not help glancing at her.

"Who are you calling stupid?!" Kang Jae flew into a rage and glared at the woman. "...Glasses girl, what was your name again?"

"My name is Shizuku," the woman said. "The pay for this job was very high, so I came to give it a try."

You didn't need to say that last part... The others sighed.

"Enough, get in the cars," Slooe said, feeling as though he would lose more hair tonight. "We'll return to West Town first. We've traveled all day—airship, train, and ship. Everyone's tired, right? Tomorrow, we still have to negotiate with those vampires from Blanche Company... Sigh, Mr. Kang Jae, the only person you need to protect closely is me. Everyone else can be regarded as an enemy or a potential enemy. Do you understand what I mean?"

Kang Jae said, "You should've just said that from the start. Talking to idiots like you is exhausting!"

The group drew a deep breath, swallowed all the words in their stomachs, and got into the two SUVs parked one in front of the other in frustration. They sped away through the night, kicking up dust.

And amid that swirling dust, a green bird followed close behind. It flashed through the glow of the taillights and landed atop the rear vehicle.