Prelude to Battle (Bonus Chapter)

PS: First, thanks to reader Not a Homebody for the tip. Here's today's bonus chapter.

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"Jed, let me see how much you've improved over these past decades. Perhaps I was the one who pushed you into the abyss. Perhaps because of me, your Shadow Clan subordinates were persecuted. But today, I'll repay all of it. You may attack me until your Resentment Aura has dispersed." A colossal Senju Clan Guanyin Statue appeared behind Netero. Netero's strongest technique—the 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva.

"You and I are like the two sides of a coin. This is the power of light that stands against your resentment—the 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva!"

Did anyone seriously think that, as Chairman of the Hunter Association, he wouldn't know his subordinates had ordered the extermination of his best friend's clansmen? What a joke. Without Netero's tacit approval, who would have dared to do such a thing? He kept calling Jed his old friend, kept talking about what he owed him, but had he ever truly cared about him? If he had truly cared and felt indebted, would he not have known the Shadow Clan's situation? Would he not have known that the entire Shadow Clan had been hunted down and persecuted, while the tiny number of surviving clansmen were imprisoned across the land? It was probably not that he didn't know. He simply didn't want to know.

What was even more laughable was that Jed had willingly become Netero's shadow when Netero was Chairman of the Hunter Association. He had personally led the Shadow Clan into becoming the Hunter Association's Anbu. As for what truly happened back then, perhaps only when the Dark Notebook was made public would the truth finally come to light. But that truth certainly wasn't bright. It undoubtedly contained the secrets that nations wished to keep buried—their dirty dealings in the dark.

"Cut the crap, Netero. Power has nothing to do with justice! Nothing to do with light or darkness! The victor becomes king and the loser is condemned—since when did you become so laughably obsessed with this so-called light? It seems that over these decades, you've been corrupted by power. You've become more and more slick and calculating! You're actually using the kind of high-sounding bullshit that neither of us ever cared to say before." Jed mocked Netero mercilessly. Yes, he hated Netero. Back then, Netero had betrayed him, his closest friend, for those so-called leaders and those irrelevant people. He had even turned his weapons against him, inviting Maha Zoldyck—whose strength had been no less than theirs at the time—to launch a sneak attack. Under their combined assault, Jed had died with his hatred unfulfilled. And that wasn't all. After his death, they had slaughtered his loyal subordinates. The once enormous and flourishing Shadow Clan now had only a few dozen members left, all of them imprisoned.

This was Jed's resentment. The justice Netero spoke of was nothing but bullshit in Jed's eyes. Their hands were both drenched in blood, so what was there to argue about justice and evil? And when it came to killing, the number of people who had died at Netero's hands, directly or indirectly, was impossible to count. Spouting sanctimonious words like, "This is for your own good," while doing such inhuman things—was that what they called justice? Was that what they called light?

"As long as I kill you, as long as I win, then I will be justice! The victor becomes king!" The eyes of Hyakki Jyuon behind Jed shone brilliantly as beams of purple resentment shot relentlessly toward Netero.

"Today, no matter how much resentment you bear, I will repay it all at once—for you, and for those Shadow Clan members who died full of hatred. Attack me as you please, until the resentment fades." The 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva behind Netero repeatedly used its thousands of enormous palms to block Hyakki Jyuon's attacks.

"Repay it all at once, my ass! Hypocrite! Can you bring those dead people back to life? Can you make the parents of those homeless children return from the dead? Can you restore the family bonds lost by those clansmen who lost their loved ones? No! You can't! You can't do anything! Those homeless children who lost their parents have already grown up! They no longer need parents! Their hearts hold only hatred! They hate you Hunters who took everything from them! The chief culprit behind all of this is you! And your hypocritical, inactive Hunter Association that even forced them into this!" Jed's black eye sockets had turned red as he spoke. The resentment around him deepened once again, and immense power erupted from his body. This time, the power Jed displayed was almost on par with Netero's.

"Today, you die! Hundred Ghosts Curse - Rakshasa!" The double-chinned Japanese-style female ghost finally revealed her true form: a terrifying blue-faced, fang-toothed Evil Spirit. Jed had unleashed all her resentment. It seemed he was preparing to go all out.

"Jed, is this your strongest technique? It truly is an extraordinary move. But you cannot defeat me. What you are doing is wrong. 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva—Ninety-Ninth Hand! Light is justice! Justice shall prevail!" Netero gathered all his Nen, instantly releasing an aura nearly equal to Jed's—or perhaps even slightly stronger. Netero was also preparing to clash head-on with Jed using his ultimate move. The Ninety-Ninth Hand of the 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva was Netero's strongest attack aside from Zero Hand, which cost him his life. It unleashed ninety-nine palms in an instant, with immense destructive power and an enormous range.

"Hahaha, justice shall prevail? Wrong! Only the victor is justice! Die, Netero!"

Although Jed's Hyakki Jyuon was powerful, in terms of the manifested creatures, Rakshasa was indeed inferior to the Senju Clan Guanyin. She was at a complete disadvantage in a fight. The other side had hundreds—thousands—of hands, while Rakshasa only had two. Was she not afraid of getting chopped to pieces? And if Jed knew anything about Eastern culture, he probably would not have manifested Rakshasa in the first place. After all, Rakshasa and Guanyin were worlds apart in status. More importantly, Eastern mythology had a saying: Guanyin subdues Rakshasa.

For the moment, however, Jed and Netero's battle remained deadlocked in midair, with neither able to determine the victor. Heaven's Arena, the towering building that reached into the clouds, trembled continuously under the pressure of their immense aura, as though an earthquake had struck.

"What terrifying power... it's the Chairman's Nen!" Morel and the others, still fighting below, could not help but marvel when they sensed the powerful Nen directly above them.

"You actually dared to lose focus while fighting me. You really are looking down on me." With a wave of his large hand, Aureole tore apart the purple smoke that had trapped him and charged toward Morel. The momentum unleashed by Netero and Jed's battle was indeed powerful, but it could not affect Aureole, who had been battered countless times by the Nen of the Ant King Meruem. Driven by fate, Lion Aureole had once again faced Morel among the Hunters. But this was no longer a one-on-one fight like in the original story—it was one against three.

Besides Morel, there was also that flamboyantly dressed gourmet Hunter and a bounty Hunter. Of the four, Morel was the strongest. Yin Hu might have mocked Morel's insufficient strength in the original story, but in a real fight, Morel was anything but weak. In terms of Nen ability, his power might not have seemed especially formidable, and it required the cumbersome tool of his pipe. But in practical use, it was exceptionally effective. For example, one of Royal Guard Pouf's abilities, Beelzebub, resembled Morel's Purple Smoke Soldiers. Beelzebub allowed Pouf to divide his body into countless tiny versions of himself, which could evade attacks, monitor enemies, and more. However, the main body controlling all the tiny Poufs had to be at least the size of a fly. Furthermore, the combined strength of all the split bodies equaled Pouf's own. It was a highly mobile and flexible ability, but in direct combat, it was pretty useless. Morel's Purple Smoke Soldiers, however, did not reduce his own strength, only his total amount of Nen. He could precisely control fifty of them, and the Purple Smoke Soldiers themselves were not weak. Once someone fought Morel, it would not be a one-on-one battle, but one against fifty.

Moreover, Morel's combat intelligence was incredibly high. Many opponents with strength close to his had ultimately been toyed to death by him. Take Lion Aureole from the original story, for example. His amount of Nen was not much lower than Morel's, and with physical abilities far beyond those of humans, he was no weaker than an armed Morel in raw strength. Yet he had actually lost because of holding his breath. Then there was Leopard Kite. Cheetu completely crushed Morel in speed, but Cheetu suffered an utter defeat in intelligence—no, calling it a crushing defeat would be more accurate. His absurd Nen ability had been thoroughly dismantled by Morel.

So even though Aureole's strength had greatly increased, Morel and the two Star Hunters, who were no weaklings themselves, could still fight him evenly. For the moment, Aureole was even at a slight disadvantage. Morel's mental fortitude was exceptionally strong. When he encountered Pouf, Pitou, and Youpi—three opponents so terrifying that Pouf had scared Knuckle, who possessed equal strength to Morel and was highly skilled at escaping and infiltration, bald—Morel not only didn't flee, but maneuvered around them and even played the fairly intelligent, obsessive butterfly-man Pouf until he was utterly miserable, throwing him into logical confusion. His two disciples were also extremely powerful, managing to keep Youpi, who was countless times stronger than them, occupied for a long time.

Just think about it. Squad Leader Zazan's physical strength was not particularly impressive among the Chimera Ants, right? Yet even with that body, Feitan of the Phantom Troupe was utterly defeated in a direct clash. So how powerful was Youpi, whose body completely outclassed Zazan's? Saying that a glancing blow would injure and a solid hit would kill was no exaggeration.

On the other side, the battle between the Evil Spirit and the muscular criminal Hunter was also fairly intense. The Evil Spirit was neither especially strong nor especially weak. In the original story, he had been defeated by Killua and Gon before they experienced the Chimera Ant arc, and his performance in battle had been rather underwhelming. Yet Killua and Gon at that time had already possessed the strength to defeat the Bomber. And when facing human armies, the Evil Spirit had displayed explosive power similar to Phantom Troupe member Uvogin. Although he was not truly as strong as Uvogin, he was not far behind either. His opponent was also a one-star Hunter. In the following arc of the original story, the Chairman Election arc, Illumi had single-handedly killed a group of Hunters, supposedly including quite a few one-star Hunters. But did that mean one-star Hunters were truly weak? Impossible. It could only mean that a few of the Hunters Illumi killed may have been one-star Hunters in name only, or support-types. Genuine combat-oriented one-star Hunters were not much weaker than official Phantom Troupe members. At the very least, they could completely overwhelm the weaker members of the Troupe, like Shizuku.

As the largest organization in the Hunter World, the Hunter Association had only a few hundred active Hunters. Think of Menchi and Satotz. Those two were genuine one-star Hunters. Even if they were not as strong as Hisoka, they were still close to Gotoh, the Zoldyck Family's butler. Most importantly, judging a Hunter's strength by star rating was the stupidest thing possible. There were far more people in the Hunter World who hid their true strength than anyone imagined.

"Hey, Zazan, stop playing around. Need help? I've already finished on my side. You and Aureole are really taking your time." Meanwhile, two more powerful Nen Users were still fighting in Heaven's Arena. Zazan versus Yin Hu Kanzai.