On the afternoon of September 5, after an airship landed in Fengxian City, the Nostrade Family's party boarded the luxury cars already waiting outside the airship terminal.
As the luxury cars drove along, a large wrapping cloth drifted down from high above and enveloped the car carrying Light Nostrade and Neon.
By the time the large cloth reached the ground, it had twisted and shrunk to the size of a piece of candy. Wearing a black coat and holding Skill Hunter, Chrollo appeared calmly beside it, bent down, and picked it up.
Just then, Dalzollene got out of one of the cars behind them, a longsword in hand and an extremely ugly expression on his face.
But before he could say anything, Franklin's towering figure had already appeared behind Chrollo.
He raised his hands, and his fingers popped open at the first joint, pointing ten pitch-black gun barrels at everyone from the Nostrade Family.
Dalzollene was not afraid to die.
But he knew even better that if he charged now, his death would be utterly meaningless.
So, under the threat of Franklin's gun barrels, he chose to back down, however unwilling he was.
Feitan had given him a clear understanding of the power of Franklin's Double Machine Gun. It was powerful enough to tear all of them to shreds.
A trace of disdain appeared at the corner of Franklin's mouth, but he did not attack. Instead, he turned and left with Chrollo.
Dalzollene made a call. At this point, the only thing he could think of was to tell Qiao Lun what had happened here.
He was the only person Dalzollene knew who could stand up to the Phantom Troupe.
But the reply he received was simple: "Understood." And that was that.
Chrollo had not given up on Neon. Especially after Qiao Lun and Hisoka had teamed up to ambush him, he had become even more determined to obtain her ability.
In his judgment, without Neon's fortune-telling ability, Qiao Lun and Hisoka could never have successfully ambushed him at the Semetary Building.
Nor would Shalnark and Pakunoda have been lost in Yorknew City.
So he had been secretly investigating the Nostrade Family's movements while keeping an even closer eye on Qiao Lun's actions.
After paying a high price on the professional Hunters' website to learn that Qiao Lun had appeared in Nanpis on the 4th, that the Nostrade Family had booked airship tickets to leave on the 5th, and that someone had photographed Qiao Lun at the hotel, he had brought his people to Fengxian City ahead of them.
Shizuku and Kortopi, who had been watching the airship terminal, had seen neither Qiao Lun nor any sign of Nue in the sky.
So Chrollo had chosen to act.
Everything went smoothly, but that only deepened Chrollo's suspicions.
When Light Nostrade and Neon were released from the darkness, they were already inside an abandoned factory.
"Hello, Miss Neon. We meet again. It seems you forgot to tell your fortune on the way home." Chrollo wore a well-fitted black suit. His face held little expression, yet the two people dragged out of the car could not stop trembling.
Chrollo was still clutching several sheets of paper, all fortune poems he had obtained from the mafia.
They were also the reason he had not let Franklin slaughter the bodyguards. Death would be indicated very clearly in the fortune poems.
After his failure on the 3rd, he had begun secretly investigating the fortune poems and the Nostrade Family.
With money, none of these things were difficult to investigate, and Chrollo was now both very willing to spend money and very wealthy.
When he obtained the fortune poems, he formed a further hypothesis about Neon's ability, but that hypothesis also made him question Qiao Lun's actions.
He was not questioning whether Qiao Lun would appear at the Semetary Building, but why Qiao Lun had been able to bring Hisoka to precisely that restaurant on the eighteenth floor ahead of time.
"Or did you already tell your fortune, but fail to decipher the danger in the poem?" Chrollo shifted his gaze to Light Nostrade. "Could you tell me, Mr. Nostrade?"
Chrollo wanted to test how precise the fortune poems were.
Only then could he be more certain of his theory. Perhaps Qiao Lun had brought Hisoka to wait for him in the restaurant not through fortune-telling, but through some other means!
Only after confirming this could he make a better judgment.
Know yourself and your enemy, and you would never be defeated in a hundred battles. That was also the approach Chrollo had always believed in.
Light Nostrade opened his mouth, but no words came out, because he regretted it now. He should not have gambled. He should have sent Neon to Qiao Lun. That should at least have kept his daughter safe!
But he could not give up his rising status, and there had been no words in the fortune poem hinting at death, so he had chosen to take a gamble.
Yet the outcome now was far from ideal!
He had been wrong!
When Qiao Lun received the call, he was carefully sensing his own Nen.
Landing three Black Flashes had given his cursed energy another slight boost, but that was not the point. The point was that he could sense his aura reserves had also increased with the consecutive Black Flashes.
That meant the idea he had come up with while fighting Uvogin was viable.
Moreover, this increase in aura was not insignificant. Overall, it amounted to about a tenth of his own total potential aura.
But this had only been a streak of three. If he could land more, the increase should grow too!
It was just that landing a longer streak of Black Flashes was no easy task.
Before Yuji Itadori appeared in the manga, Kento Nanami had held the Black Flash record with four consecutive hits.
One reason Kento Nanami could land consecutive Black Flashes was that his Ratio Technique already specialized in calculation and precision. Another was that his steady, calm, and reserved personality made it easier for him to land Black Flashes.
There was also another very important point: Kento Nanami was not strong enough.
If Kento Nanami had been as strong as Satoru Gojo, landing consecutive Black Flashes would have been difficult, because his opponents would normally have died from the first one!
Only Sukuna could withstand Satoru Gojo's consecutive attacks.
Qiao Lun could speak from experience on that point too.
Shalnark in Autopilot Mode had simply not lasted long enough for him to land a fourth Black Flash. Switching targets on the fly also made it difficult to maintain that extreme concentration, leaving his fourth Black Flash dead before it could be born.
Had Shalnark been a little stronger at the time, he might really have had a chance to land a fourth Black Flash while in the zone.
Then both the Reverse Cursed Technique circuit inside his body and his own understanding of cursed energy would have improved.
"I still need to find stronger opponents." Qiao Lun's
mind flashed with Chairman Netero's aged face.
But he immediately shook his head, casting that thought aside.
The 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva was not something he could challenge now. If he really had to fight Netero to the death, he probably had only one option: imitate Okkotsu Yuka and use Furube Yurayura right in his face, then hide directly in the shadows after Mahoraga appeared.
Then either Netero would deal with Mahoraga, or Mahoraga would deal with Netero and then him.
Thinking of Mahoraga brought Qiao Lun back to a question that had been troubling him all along.
No.
It was a question that troubled the Zenin Clan: how to tame Mahoraga.
Taming Mahoraga first required powerful damage output. If the damage was not enough to kill him instantly, once the fight devolved into barely scratching him, all one could do was watch in despair as Mahoraga grew stronger with every turn of his wheel.
Second, it required a suitable domain, using Domain Expansion to suppress Mahoraga or kill him instantly.
Megumi Fushiguro's unfinished Chimera Shadow Garden clearly would not do.
For Qiao Lun, mastering the first nine shikigami and fusing them was also an extremely important method.
Assistance from powerful shikigami could also buy him enough time to seek an opportunity to kill Mahoraga instantly.
Back in the Jujutsu world, Qiao Lun had developed some ideas by controlling the fusion of the Black and White Divine Dogs, but carrying them out had been difficult. Now that he was in the Hunter world, combining them with Nen abilities had given him some sense of how to turn those ideas into reality.
If he could really do it, perhaps he could become the true strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer in history without waiting for Yuji Itadori to go into hiding!
The true strongest, surpassing Satoru Gojo, Sukuna, and even Heavenly Emperor Tiger sixty-eight years later!
And the key to all of this lay in a single word, which was also the core ability of the Ten Shadows Technique: fusion!