Focus the Healer First

The man in the clown mask raised a finger.

"Take one step forward, and she'll Return to the Nest first."

The little girl was being held beneath the lights by the bird-beaked masked man. The Black Gold ring around her wrist flashed.

She did not cry. She only curled into herself, her toes scraping two shallow marks across the floor.

Bai Zhu stopped.

Milluki's voice immediately dropped over the comms.

"Don't move. Something's wrong with that ring. It has an explosive mechanism inside, linked to a heartbeat trigger."

Shalnark's side connected to the feed as well.

"It's not an ordinary bomb ring. It looks like a Nen Ability. Once it explodes, her body will be reclaimed by Mother."

Bai Zhu looked at the nine people ahead.

"Genthru?"

The clown-masked leader wore a half-black, half-white formal suit, standing with the refinement of someone attending a banquet.

To his left, a tall, thin man carried an iron box containing a pendulum, its faint swinging audible within.

Beside him was a woman covered in stitched red threads. Their loose ends hung from her wrists and neck, as though she could dismantle and sew herself back together at any moment.

Two modified bodies resembling children held hands, their feet standing atop faint sound-wave patterns.

The bird-beaked masked man wore a cloak of raven feathers and carried a medical case.

The last giant was wrapped from head to toe in scripture chains. Standing beyond the lights, his shoulders nearly reached the dome.

Of the remaining two, one clung to the wall, while the other never showed his face, leaving only a long shadow behind the lights.

A row of glass observation windows lined both sides of the passage.

This place looked less like a corridor and more like a display case for rotten things.

Bai