[Catfish Ends and Begins Again] × Hot Pot

In 1907, Qi Peixin Nar was born on a night of raging wind and torrential rain.

A child of the Kakin Empire's slums, Qi Peixin grew up among filthy crowds.

Gangs, beggars, violence, and corpses made up his childhood.

When Qi Peixin was five, his father startled a noble's pigeon while hauling cargo at the docks. The kindhearted noble did not take his life.

Instead, he had his mother arrested for "disrespect" and cut off her hands and feet.

There were no doctors in the slums, only a witch. Qi Peixin's father hoped the witch could save his one and only wife.

Then the witch bled her for an entire night, and Qi Peixin watched his mother gradually become a cold corpse.

The dim candlelight of that night still tormented Qi Peixin, now in his seventies, like a nightmare-a tough leather whip soaked in salt water, lashing his face again and again.

There was no hell in the slums. Living there was hell.

The poor, their skin baked black by the sun, desperately ate the garbage the nobles left behind, desperately bred, and desperately shat.

Like catfish in the sludge, they ate whatever they could find, mated once they were full, then fouled the entire mud pit until there was nowhere left to step.

But there was no other way, because outside the mud pit lay the territory of "humans"...

When Qi Peixin was in his thirties-or perhaps his forties; he could no longer remember.

It was a bone-chilling winter. Seven of his thirteen uncles froze to death, and his father, too, shivered his way out of hell.

His hands and feet went numb in the freezing rain. In his daze, he saw a neatly dressed child chase a ball up to his tent...

A noble's scalding blood really was a little warmer than a pauper's. That hard-won warmth and food carried him through the harshest winter.

It also destroyed any chance of him continuing to eke out a living in hell.

What had he done afterward?

Qi Peixin's memory was getting worse and worse. He could not remember what happened afterward at all. All he knew was that his left eye was completely gone, and the sight in his right was almost lost.

After waking up, he discovered that he had gained some miraculous power.

Relying on that power, he wandered from place to place, killed many people, and gained some followers. Later, he reached the Yorbian Continent and put down roots again.

But he could never forget the Kakin nobles back in his homeland, looking down on the masses from on high-especially the royal family!

"Hm? What happened to me?"

Inside the monstrous fish, Qi Peixin snapped out of his daze. He seemed to have slipped into his memories again.

As people grew old, they liked to reminisce endlessly about the past, just as an old dog that could no longer move kept licking its broken leg.

Several days earlier, his old friend had told him that the Kakin royal family's Twelfth Prince had secretly arrived in Yorknew City, where he lived.

He had been ecstatic.

In the twilight of his life, he finally had a chance to fulfill his old dream: killing one of those monsters that drank the people's blood.

He had made every preparation for it, even asking a true friend of many years to kill the prince.

But his plan had failed. Everything had happened without so much as a ripple. Carl had been killed, and everything he had built had been overturned by an unknown force in just a few days.

At the end of his life, Qi Peixin, who had been born with nothing, once again had nothing.

But he refused to die like this, so he brought his last followers to Nampis for one final gamble!

After infiltrating the building, Qi Peixin had his last old friend, Kantigara, activate his ability and seal off the entire building.

Kantigara told him that the targets were a group of one man and two women, though he did not know how many were Nen users.

But it did not matter...

"Now that my [Catfish Ends and Begins Again] has activated, the nourishment from these people should produce around twenty-one to thirty [Grotesque Fish]..."

His ability could conjure [Grotesque Fish] that reproduced by eating people. Each fish had the power to tear through a Nen user's [Ten].

He hid inside one of the fish and continued searching for living people who were alone.

"Were those four just now all security guards here? Whatever. They'll all become nourishment for the [Grotesque Fish] anyway. Nen users provide more nutrients..."

Qi Peixin did not know what the story was with those people, nor did he care.

All he had to do now was wait for his chance, then kill that Kakin prince...

Meanwhile, on the first floor.

In a rage, Lakshya smashed a monstrous fish charging at him. While he had been bandaging Marol, the fish had ambushed and killed another male member of the team!

The mercenary band that had come to hunt down Dio had now lost two members, and its deputy leader had been maimed.

The eerie white mist not only blocked his vision, but also helped the monstrous fish conceal themselves!

Should I use [En]... No, it consumes too much. Counting that guy who called himself Qi Peixin, I'll have to fight at least two more enemies...

Lakshya walked up the stairs toward the second floor, with Marol behind him, analyzing the situation.

Although he was furious, he had not lost his head. The more critical the situation, the more he needed to remain calm.

"Lak... Maybe we shouldn't have taken this job... Coming here to kill that guy named Dio..."

"I took the job last time, too... And got everyone killed... All we got in the end was a lousy stone..."

Following behind Lakshya, Marol suddenly began speaking slowly.

"Stop talking nonsense. We haven't lost yet."

Lakshya did not even turn his head. He knew Marol was falling back into his old habit.

The moment he was in trouble, he regretted accepting the job in the first place, without even considering the possibility of winning.

There was never any guarantee that a mercenary would complete a job. If he was afraid of everything, he might as well go home and open a restaurant.

Marol opened his mouth, but ultimately fell silent.

Is this mist part of Qi Peixin's ability too... No, they're too different.

Could it be the ability of whoever sealed off this building? Possibly, but I can't be sure, let alone find the user...

The more Lakshya analyzed the situation, the trickier it seemed. Their target had not even appeared yet, and enemies with unknown motives had already hit them with a string of attacks.

But that was fine. As long as he could find the enemy Nen users themselves, he was confident he would not lose in a head-on fight!

Once this thick mist was cleared, Qi Peixin's ability would be nothing more than a pack of particularly disgusting-looking magical beasts...

"Marol!"

"Yes, Captain!"

"Once we've killed everyone here and collected our pay, let's go have hot pot."

"...Yeah! We'll eat Mark's and Ellie's shares too. All of it!"

Resolve returned to Marol's eyes. Watching Lakshya's steady figure from behind, he swore to complete the mission and avenge those two rookies!

But deep in the thick mist, where they could not see, lay an unremarkable corner.

A golden phantom slowly faded, revealing Dio, his gaze unfathomable and his face dark...

"Hot pot, huh... Then I'll use your heads to make it..."