BOOM!
The water surrounding the hotel building erupted in a massive roar as a pillar of water surged toward the sky.
Beneath the surface, the water temperature spiked rapidly!
However, this intense heat did not last long, nor did it boil a wide area of water before subsiding.
This was all caused by the bombs dropped from the toy airplanes!
There were no flames—only an instantaneous shockwave and a burst of radiant, extreme heat.
On the 18th floor, Chrollo sensed trouble the moment the deluge began.
But it was already too late to command the Super Fortress to stop dropping bombs. In that critical moment, he grabbed Kortopi near the window, shouted for Pakunoda, and retreated rapidly toward the back of the room.
Water crashed through the shattered windows instantly, but that wasn't the most dangerous part.
Chrollo knew exactly what would happen when those bombs exploded.
Even closing [BANDIT'S SECRET] now would be too late to stop the detonation.
The bombs from the Super Fortress would explode the second they were hit by the rush of water!
Thus, he only had one command for Kortopi: "Cover us!"
Simultaneously, the pages of his book flipped to a new entry.
Kortopi's left hand touched the wall while his right hand completed the duplication. Wall after wall appeared behind the three as they retreated, serving as a continuous barrier against the intruding flood.
In the process, even more walls appeared like building blocks, fully encasing the three of them.
However, this makeshift protection built in haste had many gaps, through which the water began to pour inward.
Chrollo finally let go of Kortopi, and his Nen instantly shot toward the cracks in the walls.
After leaving his body, the Nen underwent a rapid transmutation, becoming a sticky, spider-silk substance!
This was the Nen ability he had previously stolen from the Shadow Beast member known as Spider.
The silk sealed the gaps, preventing the water from flooding the room. Meanwhile, Pakunoda, who hadn't had much of a role yet, crouched down to touch the residual water on the floor.
"It's warm!" Her expression shifted slightly as she realized exactly what Chrollo's actions were meant to guard against.
Outside the hotel, the towering pillar of water began to fall back, but the water below the explosion had lost its restraint and started to ripple outward rapidly.
Like a popped water balloon, the released water swept away everything it had previously contained, surging toward the surrounding area.
Luo Ning's body was encased in a layer of shark-shaped water, allowing him to traverse the currents at high speed.
[WATER RELEASE: WATER SHARK BULLET TECHNIQUE]
This was a Ninjutsu frequently used by Kisame Hoshigaki. It formed chakra into a shark-shaped bullet of water that could envelop the user, allowing for rapid movement through water and even short-distance gliding through the air.
Amaterasu and Susanoo were both massive chakra consumers. More importantly, using these two abilities also drained Luo Ning's ocular power.
At this moment, his eyes still held the form of the Mangekyō.
Ocular power would recover slowly, but Luo Ning would not continue using the Amaterasu of his right eye; instead, he would use his left eye's ability.
Otherwise, consecutive use of the right eye's power might cause permanent damage.
If overused, it could even lead to blindness!
Everything corresponded to the Mangekyō from the Naruto manga, but he wasn't sure if fusing more Scarlet Eyes could fix any damage that occurred.
If it could, then once he accumulated enough Scarlet Eyes, he might truly be able to awaken the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
However, if fusing more Scarlet Eyes didn't heal the damage, then awakening the Eternal eyes would be a different problem entirely.
Regardless, according to the manga, the Eternal Mangekyō was awakened by fusing the eyes of a compatible clansman, with a brother's eyes being the most compatible.
In the manga, if the process failed once, there seemed to be no second chance.
But Luo Ning was different.
He could keep fusing them. Among the remaining twenty or so pairs of Scarlet Eyes, Luo Ning felt he would eventually find a compatible set.
He even had a thought: if there truly wasn't a compatible set, he would just create one!
Inside the Water Shark Bullet, it wasn't just Luo Ning—he was also carrying Kurapika's corpse.
But there was something wrong with the weight of the body!
As this thought crossed his mind, Luo Ning noticed the corpse in his arms was beginning to change as he surged out of the water.
A layer of Nen surfaced on the body, and the corpse began to shrink rapidly.
Luo Ning's heart jumped, and he immediately manifested [KEN] around his body!
Had someone tampered with Kurapika's corpse?
Just as the thought appeared, Luo Ning found his hands empty, though something new had appeared within the shroud of the Water Shark Bullet.
It was an exquisite little action figure that looked exactly like the dead Kurapika who had been lying on the ground in front of the hotel!
In that instant, Luo Ning was stunned, but joy and dissatisfaction surged within him simultaneously.
This "Death of Kurapika" might have been a complete performance.
A performance staged specifically for him!
Luo Ning remembered telling Kurapika that his eyes had reached a bottleneck. He had said that simply fusing the eyes of his clansmen might not be enough to break through, and that he needed an intense emotional upheaval.
When he had given that explanation, he was also trying to explain why his eyes changed from Scarlet Eyes to the Sharingan.
Emotions.
Intense emotional fluctuation was the key to the eyes' transformation.
This information wasn't exactly a secret he couldn't tell Kurapika. In fact, he had thought that telling Kurapika might lead to the other boy helping him come up with a plan.
He just hadn't expected Kurapika to be so proactive.
Recalling Kurapika's question from the previous night—"If I made you remember that day, would it help you break through?"—it turned out Kurapika had been planning this ever since he got the news!
Luo Ning hadn't known the answer back then, but he knew it now.
The key wasn't remembering the day of the massacre; it was the thought of Kurapika's death. That was something he could not accept.
And that was exactly the trigger that had caused his eyes to evolve from the three-tomoe Sharingan to the Mangekyō Sharingan.
In their three months together, he had truly come to view Kurapika as his family in this world.
'That guy.'
Whoosh!
Luo Ning's figure leapt out of the water, landing on a nearby street that hadn't been hit by the flood yet.
The Water Shark Bullet shattered. He gripped the small action figure tightly and glanced back toward the hotel. Luo Ning performed the [SHADOW CLONE JUTSU], sending a clone racing toward Neon's location.
At the same time, he turned his gaze toward a Troupe member nearby who was being swept toward him by the water!
It was Isley!
But before Luo Ning could strike, someone leapt down from the roof of a nearby building.
It was Silva!
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