The Aurora Abyss's Ruler Emerges

Silence.

Deathly silence.

Even the sound of the Underground River vanished.

The five of them held their fighting stances, hardly daring to breathe.

The flowing aurora drew closer, its colors shifting slowly from icy blue to pale violet, silver-white, then soft cyan. It was as if someone had crushed the entire Milky Way and scattered it through the dark river.

It was beautiful enough to leave them spellbound.

Then the gravity surged.

It was nothing like the weight that had gradually built up before.

A mountain of pressure slammed down on them all at once.

"Ugh—"

Gon grunted as a piercing pain shot through his forearm.

It wasn't a fresh injury. The hairline fractures that the medicine had suppressed flared up all at once, hurting so badly he could barely clench his fist.

Killua's leg buckled. A familiar numbness spread through his knee—the nerve damage left by prolonged high-speed movement. Under the strain of the gravity, his entire right leg lost feeling.

Kurapika's wrist shook uncontrollably. His chain clattered to the ground, and pain seized the tendons in his forearm. He couldn't even lift it.

Leorio clutched his chest and gave two muffled coughs. Blood churned in his chest as the hidden injury from taking the dragon's tail head-on flared up too.

Alarms blared throughout Genos's systems. Red warnings flashed across his vision, his mechanical joints creaked faintly, and the metal-fatigued sections began to heat up.

A hundredfold gravity.

No, at least a hundred and fifty times.

This creature hadn't even shown itself, yet it could control gravity on its own.

The surface of the Underground River slowly parted.

It emerged.

No hideous head. No sharp horns. No stench of blood.

A huge, translucent, icy-blue worm slowly rose from the water. Glowing fluid flowed through its body like an aurora.