"Ah—Ging, you son of a bitch!"
Milluki's curse rang out as they fell from the sky.
Three figures crashed onto the rocky shore. Ging landed with both feet in the shallows, Gela Jiang braced himself with his hands on his knees, and Milluki rolled seven or eight meters with his backpack clutched to his chest before his back struck the base of a buoy.
A shrill alarm sounded at once.
A dozen or so Hunters on the shore turned together. The nearest bounty hunter raised an arm, a Nen Bullet already forming before his palm.
"Don't move!"
"Identify yourselves!"
"Touch that backpack again and we'll shoot!"
Milluki lay on the ground, still pinning the burned-out terminal beneath his chest.
"Are you blind? If I had the strength to make a move, I'd kill these two bastards beside me first!"
Ging looked over the camp.
Rows of observation platforms had been erected along the coast. More than ten small survey boats sat beside the rocks, buoys trailing behind them. Several marine Hunters stood before a current chart, recording the tides, while ruins Hunters carried freshly recovered stone tablets to a washing tank. Dozens of water tanks lined the shore. In the distance, the air seemed faintly distorted. Someone had apparently used an ability to hide the island from view; anyone passing at a distance would never see it.
Fish circled close to the walls of the tanks, and black spots had appeared on some of their gills. A biological Hunter crouched nearby, logging when each had been exposed to the abnormal Nen pressure.
An Association airship hovered above the valley, its lower hatch sealed.
"Ging?"
Netero's voice came from above.
He stood on an observation platform, a cup of tea still in his hand.
The bounty hunters blocking off the rocky