Lin Yan climbed the slope of discarded steel step by step, metal grinding and creaking beneath his feet.
The air around him was as thick as congealed phlegm, every breath tasting of rust and radioactive dust. An ordinary person would probably feel their lungs burning and their skin beginning to ulcerate after just a few minutes here.
But within three feet of him, he had a world of his own. The invisible, lethal particles were silently annihilated the instant they touched his protective true qi.
At the foot of the mountain, the surviving members of the Heretic Inquisition Squad knelt motionless, staring up as that white-clad figure drew farther and farther away.
Fear still clung to them like a disease in their bones, gripping their hearts without mercy.
That streak of crimson-gold light had destroyed more than their proud puppet army. It had shattered their dignity as Nen users and everything they thought they knew.
"C-Captain..." A young squad member broke the deathly silence, his voice trembling. "Wh-what was that thing?"
The Bird-Mask Man—their captain—remained prostrate on the ground, his body still trembling slightly. He did not answer at once. He merely stared fixedly at that retreating figure, his eyes beneath the mask full of turmoil and bewilderment.
What was it?
He was asking himself the same question.
It definitely did not belong to any of the six categories of Nen Abilities.
There had been no fluctuations of Hatsu, no output of Ren, nor any concentration of Ken. It was like... a rule of a higher order. A rule of "Slash" distilled to absolute purity.
Before that rule, the Manipulation Nen Ability he had painstakingly cultivated for years was nothing more than a sandcastle built by a three-year-old. Against a real tsunami, it could not last even a second.
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