Chapter Summaries

Joey and the others fought through the lake’s swarms of crimson thread-snake monsters while preparing an escape and trying to conceal their ship. As they neared the opposite shore, the Black Dragon appeared, and Joey, Ging, and Piyon used God Script to hide the group as it approached.

• Cluck trapped many crimson thread-snake monsters with underwater plants while Gel poisoned the lake, and the mercenaries and Hunters joined the fight.
• Joey and Cheadle’s vehicle-making trio prepared an airship as the mercenaries’ robot blasted a path through the lake and Ginta steadied the ship after an explosion beneath it.
• Many-tongued monsters descended from the sky, Beyond knocked them away, and damage to the ship’s hull began exposing the group’s presence.
• Botobai warned that the Black Dragon was coming, and Ging assigned Joey, Piyon, and himself to carve God Script around the ship to conceal it.
• Joey carved the stern while Piyon marked the bow and Ging inscribed the hull, as the Black Dragon appeared behind them and roared.

Joey’s team crossed the lake, evaded the Black Dragon, and landed safely before pushing through a dangerous rocky region. As Joey and Ging experimented with God Script to strengthen their scouting creations, Botobai tracked the Black Dragon, and the team discovered that Kakin’s people were traveling unharmed among the Brion humanoids approaching them.

• Ging concealed the ship with God Script, allowing the Black Dragon to pass overhead without finding the team.
• Joey captured crimson Line Snake monsters and concluded that Kakin had used the creatures that absorbed life energy.
• The team landed, rejected Beyond’s old route, and advanced through rocky terrain where monsters destroyed many of their scouts and Joey’s creations.
• Joey, Ging, and Piyon began creating God Script-enhanced living scouts, helping the team explore faster and withstand danger.
• Botobai devoted himself to tracking the Black Dragon while cameras revealed gold- and silver-headed Brion approaching by three routes.
• Joey’s team saw Kakin’s people pass among the Brion unharmed, suggesting that the creatures were Kakin’s trump card.

Joey and the others encountered Brion, whose silver frost and golden life force turned living targets into trees that produced more Brion. As the group searched for a way through, Joey used a God Script Boar to test Ging’s theory about how Brion’s power worked.

• Brion’s attacks froze the group’s Nen Beasts and hummingbirds, then made them sprout into strange trees bearing Brion-like fruit.
• Joey explained that Brion’s power could reach targets in the air only within a limited distance, and the group abandoned Pariston’s suggestion to fly over it.
• Cluck, Gel, Joey, and Ging conjectured that silver planted seeds while gold accelerated their growth, with Ging proposing that the seeds parasitized targets from the outside.
• Ging wrote a skin-enhancement God Script, and Joey used Gold Experience to create a God Script Boar for testing.
• Piyon followed the boar with a drone as it entered Brion’s domain; frost formed on its hide, then cracks spread and branches emerged, showing that its reinforced skin could not stop Brion.

Joey and the others studied Brion’s frost and seeds, then fought the advancing Brion with Nen Beasts and weapons as they sought a way through. When Cheadle and Pariston chose to detour toward Labyrinth City, Joey and Ging instead formed a new team to investigate Brion, and Hisoka and three Zoldycks joined them.

• Joey, Ging, and the others reviewed footage and confirmed that Silver Brion’s frost carried seeds that entered living bodies, while Gold Brion’s Nen activated them from about thirty meters away.
• The Hunter Association and Mercenaries sent Nen Beasts to probe Brion, learning that even small Brion fought fiercely, regenerated rapidly, and fired explosive energy bullets.
• The Mercenaries used fire to slow Brion, but Silver Brion expanded the frost and Gold Brion repelled attacks with golden light as the calamities advanced.
• Piyon told Joey that Cheadle and Pariston planned to fly around Brion, while Ging revealed that the Black Dragon was nearing Labyrinth City and that the city held secrets about controlling Brion.
• Joey chose to stay and study Brion, and Ging invited him to form a separate team after a disagreement with Beyond’s Team.
• Hisoka joined Joey and Ging, accompanied by Zigg, Illumi, and Kalluto.

Joey tested Heartbreaker Attack's chariots against Brion and found they could erase them while using little Nen. With help from the others, the team guided the chariots with heat and resumed its steady advance toward the forest beyond the Rocky Region.

• Joey proposed using a power that could erase Brion, then sent Heartbreaker Attack chariots toward the group.
• A chariot erased a gold Brion, and another erased a silver one before Brion counterattacked with frost and golden energy that knocked the chariots away.
• Joey confirmed that the chariots remained unharmed and explained that they chased heat, while Dwun, Razor, Kalluto, and Zigg offered ways to guide their attacks.
• Killer Queen released the remaining Badges, and the team used chariots, Nen Bullets, and flame-marked paper airplanes to erase Brion and continue advancing toward the forest.

Joey and the others encountered ancient statues in the forest and discovered that they devoured creatures touching them while unobserved. Their tests ended with a statue absorbing Joey's God Script Boar and standing up.

• Ging, List, and Razor captured a Fierce Beast for research after finding creatures bearing God Script markings that resisted Brion's aura.
• Ida spotted ancient statues depicting clothed humans, Fierce Beasts, and insects, and Dwun warned that unusually few Brion appeared nearby.
• Joey tested the statues with coin-created animals, and he and Ging deduced that the statues attacked creatures touching them while no one watched.
• Razor shattered a distant statue with a Nen Bullet without provoking any apparent response.
• Ging calmed Joey and arranged for everyone to look away while Joey's God Script Boar charged another statue.
• Joey and Ging saw the statue fusing with the boar before it absorbed the creature completely and stood up.

Joey, Ging, and the others fought through a territory of strange statues and investigated a dead Gold Brion before stopping to rest as night fell. At camp, Joey learned that List had brought special Greed Island items with him.

• Joey used hummingbird bombs while Ging and Razor attacked from a distance, destroying the statues as they charged, though the statues began reassembling afterward.
• Joey used En on a statue and briefly perceived drifting green aura strands that chilled him on contact before the hummingbird bomb shattered the statue.
• The group hurried through the statues’ territory, where Joey and Ging found a dead Gold Brion and dissected its hollow body, discovering only cotton-like material inside.
• After the Brion disappeared, Ging halted the group for the night, and the twins and Illumi took guard duty.
• Joey entered List’s tent and learned that its furnishings were a Greed Island reward and that List could bring only a limited number of game items out.

The Hunter Association and Beyond’s team faced a Nen-using monster during a rainstorm, while Kakin’s group reached ruins near the Labyrinth City after losing its mysterious weapons. The groups continued toward the city, wary of the dangers and their competing plans.

• Joey and Ging discussed Brion’s disappearance, the hidden clawed creatures, and the statues’ connection to God Script.
• Beyond’s airship crashed after dark clouds, lightning, and torrential rain forced it down in the forest.
• Beyond’s group traveled through the rain and encountered a monster that turned its victims into cotton fluff; Beyond killed it, and Mikhail killed the fatally wounded mercenary.
• More monsters appeared in the trees after Beyond’s attack, then concealed their auras and vanished.
• Kakin’s group reached ruins outside the Labyrinth City with about twenty people remaining and discovered that the weapons accompanying them had disappeared.
• Benjamin viewed the Second Prince and the Phantom Troupe as pawns and looked forward to reaching the Labyrinth City.

Joey and Ging’s team traveled through a torrential, possibly dangerous rain and discovered that monsters were attacking them at exact five-minute intervals, appearing out of thin air in increasing numbers. They continued through the forest while Joey suspected the rain might be causing the attacks.

• Joey examined the monster Illumi had killed and learned from Illumi’s notes that it was fast, regenerative, and capable of using Nen.
• The team found a metal message from Piyon, then continued through worsening rain that obscured the forest and disabled their Compass.
• Joey detected faint monster auras and noticed that attacks came every five minutes, with more monsters joining each successive wave.
• Ging’s team cut down nearby trees to test the pattern, but five monsters appeared out of thin air at the next five-minute mark and were swept away in the floodwater.
• Ging concluded that they should keep moving while searching for the source, and Joey wondered whether the torrential rain was driving the attacks.

Joey and the others tested how the forest monsters chose their targets, but Zigg disappeared after the group split up. Joey continued alone and found the storm had given way to an unnervingly peaceful forest, where poplar fluff and bark-like insects suggested a connection to the Brion corpses.

• Illumi, Zigg, and Kalluto left to hunt monsters while Dwun distributed thermal goggles and List handed out radios.
• The group split into pairs and found that monsters still appeared at timed intervals, while Zigg alone was not attacked and then stopped responding.
• Ging and Razor tested splitting up, and Hisoka left Joey to travel alone as the others agreed to meet at the forest's edge.
• Joey continued alone as the monsters vanished, the rain eased, and his radio crackled and exploded despite being switched off.
• Joey noticed poplar fluff resembling the Brion corpses' fibrous tissue, then found god-script-like markings and bark-colored insects on a poplar that sprang toward him.

Joey explored a poplar grove on the Dark Continent, deciphered the trees’ divine patterns, and uncovered how they restrained targets and produced explosive creatures. He realized God Script could grant people abilities but was dangerous, leaving him to consider its risks and how far V5 had studied it.

• Joey observed insects and butterflies emerging from poplars, deciphered divine patterns linked to restraint, roots, supply, and teleportation, and found that the creatures lacked signs of life.
• Joey approached a poplar bearing goat-headed humanoids, escaped their explosive attack, and destroyed a tree after its roots tried to bind him.
• Joey inferred that poplar roots restrained targets and drew them into trees, while beasts with suppression patterns hunted the explosive creatures; he created a cat to study those patterns.
• Joey connected divine patterns to sequences from novels and considered experimenting on Gold Experience creations rather than inscribing patterns on himself.
• Joey noticed the God Script on his chest was also a divine pattern and wondered how much V5 knew about using it, concluding that its dangers might explain why it remained obscure.

Joey struggled to cross the Poplar Tree Grove and uncovered signs that the cavern, its barriers, and mechanical dragons had been deliberately created, while Kakin’s team and the Hunter Association’s United Team advanced through the Forest amid recurring attacks and disappearances. As Ging hesitated to set the poplar fluff alight, he spotted a great fire burning to the northeast, showing that someone else had acted first.

• Joey found that the Poplar Tree Grove’s cavernous underground world and mechanical flying dragons bore traces of human intervention, and reasoned that Labyrinth City might lie below.
• Benjamin’s Kakin team followed Balsamilco’s map toward the Ancient City, rotating defenders to handle monsters that appeared every five minutes.
• Piyon’s United Team followed Kakin’s trail, but members kept disappearing, and the Hunter Association and mercenaries grew wary of one another.
• Ging considered burning the flammable poplar fluff but hesitated over the danger to his companions.
• Ging saw a large fire blazing to the northeast and realized someone had set the poplar fluff alight before him.

Joey burned away the Poplar Fluff, then destroyed the Poplar Trees spawning monsters and rescued List. They traveled toward other detected life signs while discussing the Mechanical Dragons and how to use their parts.

• Joey used fire and wind to hold back the monsters, then destroyed the nearby Poplar Trees with Killer Queen’s First Bomb, causing the monsters to turn on one another.
• Joey heard fighting nearby and flew toward it, destroying the activated Poplar Trees until List escaped in a large robot.
• List explained that he had created the robot with King of Models and that it could detect Life Energy.
• Joey climbed onto the robot and used First Bomb to clear their path as List piloted them toward other life signs.
• Joey told List that the Mechanical Dragons were machines and gave him Spherical Orbs taken from one, and List agreed to examine them after they rescued the others.

Joey, List, Dwun, and Ging explored a forest of poplars whose monsters and burning fluff followed a repeating cycle, then discovered that the forest lay atop an enormous tree root above an ancient city. By the second morning they had found nearly all their companions, but they planned to keep searching before venturing toward the ruins.

• Joey and List found Dwun badly burned while he fought monsters with a giant beast created by his Monster Creation ability, and they helped clear the area.
• Joey and List realized the forest cycled between drifting poplar fluff, flames, rain brought by flying dragons, and a brief outbreak of monsters; smoke then formed small animals that ran through the forest and were absorbed by the trees.
• Joey treated Dwun, and the group found Ging, who joined them in digging down to an energy barrier and seeing Kakin's team among the ruins of an ancient city.
• Ging identified the forest's location as a specially developed root, possibly belonging to a stunted World Tree, and the four searched the forest for their missing companions.
• Joey and Ging decided to delay entering the ruins while they continued searching, wary of Brion and the flying dragons guarding the root's boundary.
• By sunrise on the second day, Joey, List, Dwun, and Ging had found almost everyone, and Joey healed their injuries.

Joey’s group regrouped above the roots and considered how to reach the Ancient City, while the Kakin party struggled through repeated monster attacks below. Benjamin used a fiery red sphere to blast a path through the forest, and Piyon monitored the explosion as Cheadle chose to let Kakin continue scouting ahead.

• Razor told Joey and Ging that Nen-wielding monsters had attacked him, and Joey restored his missing arm and leg.
• Ging proposed taming a flying dragon to reach the area below, but List said he first needed to study the part that prevented him from copying one.
• Joey watched the Ancient City while the Zoldyck family observed nearby and the Greed Island members examined the roots.
• The Second Prince repeatedly died to activate The Cat Who Lived a Million Times and became increasingly hysterical as her exhausted guards fought the monsters.
• Balsamilco advised Benjamin to burn through the forest, and Benjamin threw a Nen-charged red sphere that exploded and cleared a path.
• Piyon monitored the Kakin group’s attack, while Cheadle rejected Beyond’s suggestion to attack them and decided to let them scout ahead.

Joey and Ging watched Kakin’s party grow unnaturally as it advanced through the Ancient City, while the Hunter Association and Beyond’s airship was attacked by wyverns. The chapter left Joey watching Kakin’s enlarged party fight the Brion as explosions filled the sky above Beyond’s group.

• Joey saw Kakin’s party emerge from beneath the roots after a blast, then watched its numbers mysteriously rise as it moved through the city.
• Ging explained that Kakin was avoiding Brion and argued that its conflict with the Brion could help them learn about the Ancient City.
• Wyverns attacked the Hunter Association and Beyond’s airship as soon as it appeared, forcing Cheadle and the others to abandon ship.
• Beyond struck a wyvern, triggering an explosion, while the flock’s god script charged them with electricity and lightning struck the attackers.
• Joey saw Brion surround Kakin’s party, which had grown to nearly a hundred people; its cold-faced members attacked the Gold Brion as explosions sounded overhead.

Joey and the others tested a Flying Dragon and sent Nen Beasts and a God Script bird into the moonlit Ancient City to explore it. Their scouts encountered attacking tabby cats and hidden Brion, both of which avoided the moonlight, leaving the group to suspect the shadows held the city’s active dangers.

• Beyond fought off the Flying Dragons as Joey watched the battle below and recorded signs that the Ancient City might be a laboratory.
• Ging and List used their deciphering of the God Script to control a Flying Dragon without provoking the others, and Joey sent animals down to test the route.
• Joey and Razor sent a God Script bird, hummingbirds, and Razor’s Nen Beasts into the city, where they found human remains, old weapons, and animal tracks.
• The scouts encountered tabby cats that attacked from the shadows, moved with startling speed, and killed many hummingbirds without harming the Nen Beasts.
• Joey and the others saw Brion hiding beyond the moonlight and realized that both Brion and the cats stayed within the shadows.

Joey's group discovered that moonlight came from a mysterious system above the clouds, where a Steel Continent and its Flying Dragons guarded the sky. Meanwhile, Beyond revealed to Cheadle that he never intended to return to Lake Mobius and planned to explore the Dark Continent until he died.

• Joey and Razor lost contact with their creations after moonlight turned the birds and Nen Beasts silver and rigid, while Flying Dragons attacked attempts to fly higher into the sky.
• Joey's group sent a camera-bearing Flying Dragon into the clouds and discovered a Steel Continent crowded with Flying Dragons, but a gigantic metallic mouth swallowed their scout before it could approach.
• Ging suspected that pillars of light on the Steel Continent caused the moonlight's effects, while Joey warned that the structure and its power might not be brought back to Lake Mobius.
• Joey's group halted nighttime exploration and waited for dawn, while Cheadle and Beyond's team hid from the moonlight and had silver markings removed by Exorcism Masters.
• Beyond told Cheadle that he had never intended to return to Lake Mobius and would explore the Dark Continent even if he died there, reminding Cheadle of Isaac Netero.

Benjamin cornered and killed the Second Prince, but her Nen beast, The Cat Who Lived a Million Times, went out of control and slaughtered several guards as Benjamin's group fled. Meanwhile, Joey's party explored the Ancient City, finding signs of a vast Underground World and encountering Piyon's Mark again.

• Beyond's team and the Hunter Association parted at dawn, and the Association continued its exploration after receiving Beyond's intelligence.
• Benjamin prepared to execute the Second Prince, and his guard's Nen beast shot her in the head.
• The guard controlling the Nen beast was killed, causing the big cat to go berserk; it grew stronger as people died and attacked Benjamin's guards while Benjamin ordered a retreat.
• Joey's group rode List's flying dragons down from the tree roots and advanced into the Ancient City, where they found claw marks, strange creatures, and deep openings beneath the trees.
• The group discovered clean streets marked with God Script and underground entrances that Brion avoided, prompting Ging to note the contradiction in Brion's behavior.
• As Joey's party set out again after regrouping, Joey discovered Piyon's Mark once more.

Joey and Ging debated whether to let Beyond join their exploration team, then agreed to welcome him. While surveying the Ancient City, they witnessed mechanical monsters emerge from underground at night to rebuild a street before cats attacked them, revealing that the city was still operating automatically.

• Ging told Joey that Beyond could join them after his recruits returned, and Joey agreed after hearing Beyond would serve as a fighter rather than challenge the team's leadership.
• Joey and Ging mapped the Ancient City and planned to search its underground areas for the missing Ming, weapons, and spores.
• Humanoid mechanical monsters emerged from an underground entrance and extended a street using God Script stones, mortar, and streetlights.
• Stray cats and other creatures attacked the monsters, destroying the lampposts before the monsters retreated underground.
• A second group of monsters cleaned the street and returned it to its previous condition, convincing Joey and Ging that the Ancient City was automatically rebuilding itself.
• Joey fitted a camera onto one of Razor's Nen Beasts to monitor the underground entrance.