The owner of that aura was clearly no expert.
In Lin Yan's perception, that mass of energy was muddled and chaotic, brimming with panic, like a rabbit lost in the dark that had blundered into a tiger's territory in its frantic flight.
He could even "hear" the man's heavy breathing and the sharp crack of dry branches beneath his feet.
What an unlucky bastard.
Lin Yan sighed inwardly, but this was precisely the variable he had been waiting so long for.
His mind tightened to its absolute limit. Without sparing another glance at the doomed intruder, he focused every ounce of his attention on the man in the center of the clearing.
Hisoka.
He, too, had noticed the little mouse delivering itself to his doorstep.
His languid posture vanished. His whole body became a bow drawn taut, and a gleam of excitement flashed through his dull eyes-the look of a beast spotting prey.
He did not move. He simply stood there quietly, like an elegant, deadly statue, waiting for his prey to walk into the trap.
The unfortunate examinee finally came stumbling and scrambling out of the pitch-black woods.
Thorns had shredded his clothes into strips, and mud covered him. Tears and snot streaked his face, and his eyes were bloodshot. The horrors of the past two days on Zevil Island had clearly driven him to the brink of a breakdown.
As he burst through the bushes and saw the slender figure standing in the moonlit clearing, he froze for a moment. His brain seemed slow to catch up, and wild joy at the sight of another human actually spread across his face.
"A person! Finally, another person! Hey! Help-"
His cry for help cut off abruptly.
He had spotted the conspicuous number badge on Hisoka's chest.
[No. 44]
That ecstatic expression instantly froze on his face, replaced by a despair even deeper than before.
As though he had seen a demon crawl out of hell, he made a strange rattling sound in his throat and turned to flee.
But it was too late.
"Only thinking of running now? Isn't that a little too late? Hmm~"
Hisoka's voice was like a lover murmuring in a dream, soft and sweet, yet it made the scalp prickle, as though an icy venomous snake had slithered up the spine.
He moved.
There was no earth-shaking display of power, no flashy technique.
He merely took one light step forward, and his figure vanished.
A second later, he appeared behind the examinee.
Hidden in the darkness, Lin Yan watched without blinking. His Divine Sense caught every one of Hisoka's movements with perfect clarity.
He saw Hisoka extend his slender fingers, a playing card held between them, and lightly draw it across the examinee's neck as though caressing a lover's cheek.
"Sshk."
An exceedingly faint sound.
The examinee's body stiffened. Momentum sent him pitching forward, but the terror on his face remained forever frozen in that instant.
A thin line of blood slowly appeared across his neck.
Then blood erupted like a high-pressure fountain, blooming into a gruesomely beautiful crimson flower beneath the moonlight.
Hisoka stepped back gracefully, avoiding the spray.
He extended his tongue and licked the drops of blood from his fingertips. His narrow eyes half closed, and a sickly flush of utter satisfaction spread across his face.
"Just small fry, but an occasional taste of that despair isn't bad either~"
He closed his eyes, his body trembling slightly, seemingly immersed in the afterglow of slaughter, savoring the pleasure of that fleeting instant when life slipped away.
Now!
Lin Yan's heart hammered wildly against his chest, roaring like a war drum.
Through his Qi Observation Technique, he saw the violent, viscous aura surrounding Hisoka, so dense it seemed almost tangible, briefly slacken in the instant after the kill-a lapse so short it was almost imperceptible!
Like the instant when the tide reached its peak and inevitably began to ebb.
This was a gap in his mental defenses, a fleeting moment of "post-climax clarity"!
Without the slightest hesitation!
At a thought from Lin Yan, four nearly undetectable strands of true qi simultaneously ignited the gunpowder he had already placed to the east, south, west, and north!
Boom!
It was not a violent explosion, but four muffled bursts of combustion, sounding at precisely the same time from four different directions!
At the roots of a tree to the east, fire flashed, and intense heat instantly vaporized a large amount of moisture into a white mist that distorted vision!
In a crack between rocks to the south, flames whipped clouds of dust into the air, swallowing the cold moonlight in an instant!
On a pile of ore to the west, the burning gunpowder released a blinding glare, bright as day!
In a small puddle to the north, fire reflected off the water, throwing light and shadow into confusion!
Light, shadow, sound, air currents, dust...
In those few tenths of a second, everything combined into a localized sensory storm, engulfing Hisoka as he basked in his "afterglow."
Hisoka's eyes snapped open.
A flicker of surprise crossed his formerly hazy eyes-the surprise of a hunter discovering a trap.
In that instant, his ever-active "En" was forcibly disrupted by the sudden flood of chaotic information from every direction, a jumble of physical disturbances, light, and shadow.
A fatal gap appeared in his perception.
It lasted only an instant, not even 0.1 seconds, but to Lin Yan, that was the boundary between life and death!
"Got you!"
Lin Yan roared. The dantian embryo within him spun furiously, and true qi surged into his arms like a river bursting its banks.
The fishing rod in his hands seemed to come alive as he whipped it forward!
He used no brute force in that swing. Instead, he poured all his true qi, his resolve to risk his life and find survival in the face of death, and the "extraordinary luck" belonging to Gon that he had borrowed from the fishing rod into that seemingly ordinary fishing line!
Hum!
The fishing line traced a path through the air that the naked eye could barely follow.
It made no sound as it cut through the air, for it had already merged with the surrounding currents, as though it had always been part of the wind.
Like a nimble venomous snake, like an invisible blade of sword energy, it traced an impossible arc through the distorted light and billowing dust.
Hisoka reacted with extraordinary speed.
Even with his senses disrupted, his combat instincts prompted him to raise a hand to block.
Yet-
As though it had eyes, the fishing line took a bizarre turn just before he raised his hand, curling around his arm!
A strand of Lin Yan's purest true qi clung to the hook, which flickered with an almost imperceptible cold gleam.
It had only one target.
-The No. 44 badge on Hisoka's chest, the symbol of absolute power and death!
Before you continue