The wind over the wilderness stopped.
The air warped violently in the heat.
The white smoke at the very bottom of the crater slowly dispersed.
Chairman Netero's body fell from midair and slammed into the ground.
He was a horrifying sight.
His right leg had been severed at the hip.
His left arm was gone, too.
Every muscle in his body had shriveled completely.
He looked like a mummy dried out in the desert for a thousand years.
Zero Hand had drained the last of his aura.
And opposite Netero...
Meruem stood perfectly straight.
The Ant King was covered in wounds.
Deep and shallow, they were everywhere.
Dark green blood dripped down his broken carapace.
It landed on the searing lava.
And hissed as it sizzled.
He panted heavily.
But his back remained ramrod straight.
There wasn't a trace of fear of death in his dark green eyes.
At the bottom of the crater, Meruem took a step forward.
He looked at Netero, who lay dying on the ground.
"You deserve praise."
The Ant King's voice wasn't loud.
But it carried clearly across the entire wilderness.
"As an individual human..."
"You have already surpassed your own limits."
"I have won this battle."
He looked down on the shriveled old man from above.
"As long as you tell me..."
"What my name truly is..."
"I can spare your life."
Up on the hill, Luo Ye rolled his eyes at what he heard.
He tossed the binoculars to Killua beside him.
"That big green bug's getting full of himself."
"What's there to brag about beating an old man on his last sliver of health?"
Netero lay on the ground.
He struggled to lift his head.
There was no humiliation on that shriveled face.
Instead, his lips spread into an utterly eerie grin.