The female teammate lowered her head, stole a quick glance at the stern-faced Marol, and stuck out her tongue.
But when she turned, she met the speechless gaze of the other rookie, a man who looked at her as though she were an idiot.
Her face instantly flushed. She hurriedly babbled, waving both hands through the air like an octopus:
"Ah, ah, I-I get it! I'll go scout ahead!"
Then she fled toward the stairs leading to the second floor, while everyone behind her watched in speechless disbelief.
"That reckless idiot..." ×3
Marol wanted to tell her to be careful, but just as he opened his mouth, he saw a hideous giant fish burst out from the turn in the staircase ahead of her!
Before anyone could react, the giant fish opened its maw, revealing densely packed sharp teeth stretching deep into its mouth, and bit the woman's head clean off!
Her fragile [Ten] tore like paper beneath its teeth!
"What!?"
Marol's pupils contracted, and the quiet [Ten] around his body instantly turned into powerful [Ren].
He was just about to move when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw their captain, Lakshya, launch himself forward like a cannonball, radiating savage force!
Lakshya slammed into the fish with his fist and his entire body. The monster smashed into the wall, bounced back onto the floor, flopped twice, and went still.
Before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, something else happened!
Several equally large black fish revealed their scarlet eyes at the second-floor stairwell, accompanied by something utterly inexplicable-
A vast, dense bank of billowing white fog!
The fog surged into the first floor like a tidal wave pouring backward. In an instant, everyone found themselves enveloped in thick fog, unable even to see teammates standing right beside them!
In the blink of an eye, the mercenary squad had lost a member, been surrounded by monsters, and lost all visibility!
As the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, Marol decisively activated his ability:
"[Accompany Me]!"
"Wait, Marol! Don't!"
Lakshya's roar suddenly rang out through the fog. He seemed to have discovered something and wanted to stop Marol from activating his ability.
But it was too late.
Three dark shapes flew through the fog!
Marol's ability allowed him to freely draw anyone he genuinely considered a teammate to his side.
Now that he had activated it, all his scattered teammates flew toward him.
The first person Marol saw was their captain, Lakshya, who looked anxious, as though he wanted to say something.
Next came the rookie on Marol's right. He seemed completely overwhelmed by panic, barely capable of any effective response.
And last was... Marol instinctively looked up toward the final shadow. It should have been the woman's corpse, but what he saw was a monstrous fish-
A monstrous fish whose hideous head protruded from the woman's belly, its terrifying maw gaping as it lunged toward his head.
Marol's breath caught. He reflexively raised his arms in front of him and activated [Gyo], concentrating his aura in both arms.
That instinct saved his life.
Just as the monstrous fish closed in, aura erupted around its body, then gathered entirely around its teeth!
"[Gyo]? No, [Shu]?"
The sudden change caught Marol completely off guard.
The fish's already sharp teeth became blades capable of slicing through iron, cutting into his arms without resistance as its jaws closed toward his head!
At that critical instant.
Still flying through the air, Lakshya hurled an aura projectile without hesitation. It burst like a bubble right beside Marol's body!
A modest shock wave knocked Marol sideways, allowing him to evade the fish's bite by a hairbreadth.
Slash!
Blood sprayed, and a right arm flew with it-Marol's right arm.
Everything happened within a few dizzying seconds, too fast for anyone to react.
Having lost an arm in their very first exchange, Marol endured the agonizing pain, grabbed the male rookie by the back of the neck with his left hand, and retreated sharply.
Before Lakshya even landed, he activated [Ken] and fixed a wary gaze on the monstrous fish.
Then something unexpected happened again. After charging a short distance, the fish did not attack again. Instead, it opened its maw toward them.
An aged, scrawny figure actually crawled out of that maw. With his eyes closed, he turned his head, twitched his nose, and sniffed toward the mercenaries, muttering to himself:
"Three men. Not right..."
Then he simply started crawling back into the monstrous fish.
At last, Lakshya could no longer contain his fury and bellowed:
"Who the fuck are you!?"
Unexpectedly, the old man paused, actually turned toward Lakshya, and answered earnestly:
"My name is Qi Peixin. It is the last name you will hear before you die."
Then, without paying any attention to the mercenaries' reactions, he slipped back inside the monstrous fish. With a flick of its tail, the fish carried him away, vanishing into the dense fog at astonishing speed...
Leaving only the silent mercenaries behind...
9:31 p.m. Only eleven minutes had passed since the mercenary squad's intrusion.
"Aaaaargh-!!"
Lakshya's frenzied roar shook the entire building, thunderous enough to pierce the heavens.
Meanwhile, between the first and second floors.
"Mist~ Mist~"
Dio, who had been repeatedly squeezing [Mist] to make it hurry up and spit out more white fog, looked up in confusion. What was happening on the first floor?
Mumuzawa and Bokushin stood nearby, curiously watching the soft, white Mist.
A few minutes earlier, Dio had seen four people slaughter a security squad through his Ripple Radar.
Realizing the intruders could not possibly be friendly, he had decisively activated [Atmosphere Creator], hoping to skirt around that dangerous group under cover of the thick fog.
The [Thick Fog] would obscure his vision just as much as theirs, true, but his Ripple Radar could see everything perfectly clearly.
Later, he could even add [Restriction and Covenant] to make the fog suppress Nen users' En as well!
Combined with [Time Stop]'s ability to settle a fight in a single decisive move, that would make him the most terrifying killer in any crowd, whether fighting one-on-one or against a group.
After releasing the fog, Dio made a bizarre discovery: that four-person squad had suffered devastating casualties within seconds.
Judging by the outline on his radar, the first person to die had apparently been a woman.
The crucial detail was that, at the instant she died, his ripples had unmistakably traveled into an object that should not have been there.
That object had bitten down on the woman's head. Judging by its outline, it seemed to be-a giant fish?
Next, he sensed an unidentified living creature crawl into the woman's body within an extremely short span of time and begin ravenously devouring her internal organs.
Then he discovered that, of the four people who had been standing on the ground, only one suddenly remained.
Had they activated some ability that made people fly, briefly lifting them off the ground?
On his radar, the remaining person was soon attacked by a monstrous fish as well, losing his left arm. Then the people who had vanished reappeared within his radar's range.
A few seconds later, the enormous roar that puzzled Dio echoed throughout the building.
Before you continue