Twisted strands of Post-Mortem Nen coiled around one another as they emerged from the blood-spurting neck of Nobunaga's headless corpse, reaching toward his severed head on the ground, its eyes still open in death.
Post-Mortem Nen was entirely negative energy.
It was also the energy Qiao Lun knew best, and the very power most thoroughly countered by Round Deer, whom Qiao Lun had summoned after Max Elephant disappeared!
So Qiao Lun did not need to give any instructions at all. Round Deer emerged from the shadows and unleashed Reverse Cursed Technique. With two negatives making a positive, Cursed Energy transformed into the purest positive energy and surged toward Nobunaga's headless corpse.
Qiao Lun, meanwhile, touched Round Deer's body.
The positive energy of Reverse Cursed Technique flowed into Qiao Lun through their point of contact. The wound Nobunaga had inflicted rapidly healed and recovered under that positive energy. In just a few breaths, the bone-deep wound on Qiao Lun's arm had vanished.
The positive energy Round Deer unleashed also struck the twisted Post-Mortem Nen on Nobunaga's corpse.
At that moment, the Post-Mortem Nen was neutralized by the impact of the positive energy, scattering and disappearing!
It looked as though Qiao Lun had made Round Deer lay Nobunaga's soul to rest!
That was the scene Franklin, Shizuku, and Shalnark saw after tearing apart all the rabbits from Rabbit Escape and entering the battlefield outside the abandoned building.
Without any hesitation, Franklin raised both hands high. His machine guns, which had only just fallen silent, opened fire again, countless Nen bullets ripping through the air straight toward Qiao Lun.
Shizuku and Shalnark followed close behind the Nen bullets, rushing toward Qiao Lun along either side.
But Round Deer moved, taking a step forward to block Qiao Lun. Qiao Lun also dismissed the hidden core rabbit of Rabbit Escape and formed the hand sign to summon Nue in front of him.
As the shadow fell, Nue appeared behind Qiao Lun, spread its wings, and seized him in its talons, carrying him into the air.
The stream of Nen bullets angled upward, but Round Deer, whose flesh had been torn open and blood sent spraying by the first volley, suddenly leaped high into the air and blocked every bullet.
Of the two charging in below, Shizuku swung her vacuum cleaner at Round Deer, while Shalnark could only stop and watch Qiao Lun being carried into the sky by Nue, his eyes nearly splitting with fury.
"Hahahaha..." Qiao Lun's laughter rang out from above.
Round Deer's body, rapidly restored by Reverse Cursed Technique, sank into the shadows on the ground and disappeared the instant it landed.
"Where's his head? Where's his head?!" Shalnark's voice rose from below, bewildered and furious.
This usually supremely calm man had lost his temper for once today. Having failed to stop Qiao Lun from leaving, he was the first to discover that Nobunaga's head, which their enemy had cut off, had vanished!
The head was, of course, in Qiao Lun's shadow space.
He had come for the bounty on Nobunaga in the first place. If he killed the man but ended up without proof, wouldn't he have come for nothing?
So while Round Deer stood in front of him blocking the Nen bullets, he had controlled his shadow to collect Nobunaga's head, which lay nearby.
Now Nue was already airborne. Without aerial combat or flight abilities, they could forget about intercepting him.
When Rabbit Escape disappeared, Bonolenov stopped unwinding the bandages around his body.
After Nue took flight, Hisoka also looked up at the enormous flying creature.
With such mobility, combat power, and troublesome tricks, no wonder Qiao Lun had dared to act ahead of time.
Killing Nobunaga within three minutes-that kind of strength was delicious. Unfortunately, his opponent was not the type to fight alone.
Instead, he was an Emission- or Manipulation-type Nen user, with most of his combat power concentrated in his Nen beasts, which made him less appetizing.
"What a shame," Hisoka sighed sincerely.
"How did he find us?" Shalnark looked at the wreckage strewn across the ground and Nobunaga's remaining headless corpse, his fists clenching despite himself.
Hiding in an abandoned building was hardly a brilliant move, but with the buildings Kortopi had copied providing cover, pinpointing Nobunaga among so many buildings should not have been easy.
What was more, the attack on Nobunaga had come right after most of them had left the abandoned building, making it even more suspicious.
"You suspect a traitor?" Franklin put Shalnark's thoughts into words.
The first time they had harbored suspicions was during the auction robbery. Could their opponent finding them now also have been thanks to fortune-telling?
"Who?" Shizuku's expression barely changed, as though Nobunaga's death could not affect her. "The three of us should all be clear!"
"Then the problem lies with one of the other two teams." A smiling face he found somewhat irritating involuntarily surfaced in Franklin's mind. "Hisoka?"
"I don't know. Let's wait for now." Shalnark rubbed his temples.
He hoped he was overthinking things!
Soon, all nine of them had gathered there. Shizuku's and Franklin's gazes involuntarily fixed on Hisoka.
Hisoka keenly noticed something was amiss. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly; he already knew what had happened. "Are you suspecting me?"
As he spoke, Hisoka's Nen automatically flared into a combat-ready state, and murderous intent erupted from him.
From his stance, he looked ready to kill anyone who suspected him.
"It's hard to be sure yet. Besides, the two people Nobunaga was watching have disappeared too." Shalnark remained the most perceptive among them.
"When members disagree, settle it with a coin toss," Shizuku said without emotion. Her meaning was that even if someone suspected him, he could not fight them; they had to toss a coin instead.
But Shizuku's words earned only an eye roll from Hisoka.
"Let's suspend our activities for now. He's probably more troublesome than we previously judged, especially his ability." Shalnark rubbed his brow with one hand while using the other to send Chrollo a text message about the situation here.
Nobunaga had been a veteran of the Phantom Troupe too. His dying here like this left those who had been with the Phantom Troupe since its founding mourning one of their own.
Hisoka narrowed his eyes. Chrollo was not here, so he had never truly intended to start trouble.
It had all been for show. As for their suspicions, he did not care at all.
Even if they got hold of his phone, they could forget about finding any suspicious messages on it.
Inside the abandoned building, Shalnark began analyzing Qiao Lun's ability based on the information they had.
A giant wolf, Nue, and Round Deer-three astonishing Nen beasts, especially the last one, Round Deer. Franklin's Nen bullets had clearly torn through its defenses, yet its wounds had healed rapidly before their eyes. That speed of healing was simply inconceivable.
"There's only one possibility. He's a Specialization-type
"Nen user who created Nen beasts with special abilities through some unknown means." That was Shalnark's analysis.
"Maybe he obtains the corpse after killing a target, then takes the corpse's ability," Feitan offered another reasonable guess. "If that theory holds, we can roughly work out why he's hunting us down. We might be the best materials in his eyes!"
"Using Nen beasts to devour other people's corpses, then inherit their Nen Abilities? That certainly does sound like an approach a Specialization-type Nen user would take." Shalnark nodded in agreement, because the best example of a similar ability was right there among them: their leader, Chrollo.
The difference was that one required Nen beasts to devour corpses to inherit abilities.
The other stole Nen Abilities from the living by fulfilling certain conditions.