Ruins.
Smoke and dust billowed.
The choking stench of burning drifted through the air.
Morel charged at the head of the group.
He held his enormous pipe across his chest.
Gon followed right on his heels.
His golden eyes were fixed on the deepest part of the Main Hall.
Neferpitou's scent was there.
Killua kept both hands in his pockets.
His fingernails had already transformed into claws.
Every member of the Extermination Team was prepared to die here.
But when they charged into the center of the throne room-
Everyone stopped dead, as though someone had hit the pause button.
No one spoke.
The sight before them completely shattered everything they believed.
Half the enormous throne had been smashed apart.
Blood covered the cracked marble floor.
The absolute Tyrant who was supposedly going to wipe out all humanity.
Meruem.
He was kneeling in a pool of blood.
Clutched tightly in his arms was a small, frail human girl.
Komugi.
The blind girl whose nose was always running.
A meteor fragment from Dragon Star Cluster had struck her directly in the stomach.
Dark red blood kept pouring out.
It stained her ragged, heavily patched clothes crimson.
The blood formed a small puddle on the floor tiles.
Meruem's movements could not have been gentler.
Both hands carefully supported the girl's broken body.
The monster who could casually smash a Squadron Leader's skull.
Now his eyes held sorrow and panic he could not begin to conceal.
Those were human emotions.
A sharp whistle cut through the air from the hole in the ruined ceiling.
Neferpitou leaped down from above.
The cat girl's leg muscles were taut.
Her red eyes had initially been filled with the urge to kill.
She had come to eliminate the intruders.
But when she saw the scene on the