A Mountain Walks the Earth

Once the oppressive presence faded, only dead silence remained on the wasteland.

The First Prince had left with the Gem Meat.

He had gone without hesitation or a backward glance.

The five lay sprawled on the cracked stone, each badly injured. Even shifting an inch was agony.

Gon leaned against a broken rock. Pain stabbed through the fracture in his left arm, but his mind kept circling back to what Kurapika had just said.

The First Prince's ability.

Plunder.

It did not merely steal Nen from the dead.

It harvested the fused energy released when someone parasitized by one of the Five Great Calamities died along with the Parasite.

Those parasitized subordinates on Crocodile Island.

Those bodies Saitama had killed with a single punch.

All of them had been nourishment the First Prince had carefully prepared.

Whenever Gon remembered the calm way the man had said, "Just pawns," a chill ran down his spine.

It was more frightening than any act of brute violence.

Killua sat with his head lowered, silver-white hair hiding his eyes.

He was thinking.

Thinking about the limits of that ability.

If death made the First Prince stronger, then the stronger the person who died and the stronger the Parasite, the more power he gained.

The Five Great Calamities were only the beginning.

If he kept going...

"Stop thinking about it."

Kurapika's voice was weak, but he remained composed.

"There's no use dwelling on it now. We need to recover first."

Leorio leaned nearby, breathing hard, half his body numb.

"How many more tricks... does that guy have?"

No one answered.

Because no one knew.

Genos lay not far away, his Reactor humming in fits and starts. More than sixty percent of his body was damaged, leaving him unable even to produce a complete analysis report.