Chapter 32: The Prisoners of Trick Tower
Lippo watched Mord on the screen, itching to rush over and give him a good beating right then and there.
"Your mission has changed. Just subdue the guy in front of you, and everyone will have 72 years reduced from their sentence."
Lippo's angry voice echoed through the speakers in the room.
Mord glanced up at the scene before him and quickly figured out that he was likely in the most troublesome area of the entire Trick Tower—the Judgment Platform.
"You're all prisoners locked up in this Trick Tower, right?" Mord asked.
None of the four living prisoners paid him any attention. Instead, they all raised their hands toward the surveillance camera in the room.
"Then, Warden, please remove our handcuffs!"
"Understood."
Beep!
A sharp electronic sound rang out.
The specialized handcuffs on the four prisoners' wrists opened simultaneously, falling to the ground with a loud clang.
"Finally... temporarily freed!"
One of the prisoners, tall and burly, was the first to tear off the burlap sack covering his head, revealing his true appearance—a bald man with a face covered in scars and muscles so bulging they seemed about to burst through his clothes.
In short, he exuded an aura of strength from head to toe.
The speaker in the room then chimed in, introducing the bald man.
"Bendot, robber and murderer, sentenced to 199 years. A former soldier, with countless lives on his hands."
"What a disgrace to soldiers. A former soldier turned to robbery and murder," Mord remarked calmly, looking at Bendot.
Bendot noticed the faint disdain in Mord's eyes—no, more accurately, it was pity and contempt.
Fury surged within him, and he roared, "What do you know?"
As he roared, Bendot stomped his foot on the ground and charged fiercely toward Mord.
His speed was astonishing. In an instant, his large frame closed in on Mord, and he reached out with a massive hand to grab Mord by the neck!
A gentle breeze swept past, lifting the strands of hair on Mord's forehead and revealing a pair of pitch-black pupils beneath. Without even blinking, Mord calmly watched the approaching hand.
He raised his right hand and delivered a swift chop directly to the bald man's neck.
Striking later but arriving first.
"Thud!"
A dull thud echoed. The moment Mord struck him, Bendot's originally ruddy complexion turned pale, his eyes rolled back, and he staggered backward a few steps before collapsing with a loud crash.
Silence fell over the room—a deathly stillness!
One prisoner tore off his burlap sack, jogged over, and placed a hand on Bendot's neck. He then shook his head at the other two.
Dead.
A single strike, fatal!
Seeing this, another prisoner couldn't hold back any longer and ripped off his own burlap sack. Only the last prisoner remained leaning against the wall, sitting in the corner, as if everything happening before him had nothing to do with him.
Mord lifted his gaze to observe them.
The one who ran over to check on Bendot's condition was a purple-haired girl, petite and cute in appearance, yet her figure was in no way inferior to those mature, voluptuous women. Even in the loose prisoner uniform, it was clearly noticeable.
The other person had blue skin all over, with nineteen hearts tattooed on his chest, and a head grotesquely distorted like Frankenstein's monster.
Seeing these two, Mord finally confirmed that the five individuals before him were indeed the obstacles on Gon's route in the original story.
So who was the dead one?
Mord instinctively turned to look at the ruins behind him.
Noticing Mord's movement, the voice from the speaker in the room followed up.
"The unlucky guy crushed by the rubble was the serial bomber with a 149-year sentence, Sedokan."
A bomb maniac, good riddance.
Mord turned to face the remaining prisoners and said, "Alright, who's next to meet their end? I'm in a hurry."
"Hahahaha, you've got guts, young man!"
The blue freak suddenly threw his head back and laughed uproariously, pointing down at Mord with a condescending gesture. "Considering you're young and it's not easy to reach this level of strength, I'll spare your life if you leave now."
Boom!
As he spoke, the blue freak Majtani threw a punch at the nearby wall. With a deafening crash, the solid wall was smashed into a large crater.
Majtani coldly stared at Mord, then retracted his fist and turned as if to walk back into the room.
This movement revealed the twelve-legged spider tattoo on his back.
"Hehehe, tremble in fear."
"With my steel-embedded right fist and the Phantom Troupe tattoo on my back, these two trump cards of mine leave no room for failure,"
Majtani thought triumphantly.
But the next second, he felt as if the world had spun upside down, followed by his head crashing against the floor, and then he lost consciousness.
Crimson blood flowed across the floor, reaching the feet of the purple-haired girl. Her bare feet were soon surrounded by the viscous blood.
She stared in terror at Mord in the distance, all her earlier composure gone, her breathing becoming involuntarily rapid.
"Majtani, convicted of fraud, coercion, and other cumulative charges, sentenced to 108 years. Deceased."
The loudspeaker broadcast the blue freak's introduction.
All five people before Mord were serious criminals with sentences exceeding a hundred years. If they didn't seize this chance during the Hunter Exam, they'd likely spend the rest of their lives in this Trap Tower.
"This fraud doesn't seem very skilled," Mord said, looking toward the distant surveillance camera. "A real Phantom Troupe mark would have the member's number engraved in the center of the spider tattoo. It's only thanks to this prison's protection that a fool like him survived this long."
In the monitoring room.
Lippo crunched the potato chips in his hand and said, "Johness!"
At these words, the prisoner sitting in the farthest corner of the room slowly rose to his feet.
Though not as tall as the fraud Majtani, the icy aura emanating from his entire body was clearly on another level.
Mord could sense the killing intent radiating from him.
This was someone who had taken lives with his own hands—and many of them.
"If possible, I wouldn't want to use him either. But this is the Hunter Exam, and especially when dealing with unruly examinees like you, no mercy is needed. If you die here, that's just your fate."
Lippo's voice came through the loudspeaker.
"Johness the Dissector."
"Serial killer, sentenced to 968 years!"
"The most vicious serial killer in Zaban City's history. His victims showed no connection—men, women, young and old—146 lives fell to his brutality."
"It was a sensational case at the time, and all the bodies shared one common trait: every victim was torn apart by his bare hands."
"His defining characteristic is his extraordinary grip strength."
Johness reached up and tore off the burlap sack covering his head, revealing his true face.
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