Liam casually tossed the glowing "100" Nen ball toward Bambie.
Bambie didn't even flinch. To her senses, the ball felt weightless, devoid of the jagged edge that usually defined a lethal Nen attack. It landed softly in the dirt a few meters in front of her, dissolving silently into the grass.
She looked back up. The ball had already reappeared in the boy's palm. This time, the spectral number inside had shifted. It read: 200.
It's growing, she noted. But what does that actually mean?
Liam threw it again. This time, Bambie took no chances. She spat a pressurized bubble that collided with the "200" ball in mid-air. The resulting explosion was small, a mere pop that blew the ball off course. It hit the ground and vanished once more.
Suddenly, Bambie's ears twitched. The high-pitched whine of a chainsaw approached from her blind spot. She pivoted away, realizing that Shizuku had used the distraction to snake her conjured blade along the ground, inching it toward her heels.
Idiotic, Bambie thought. She's a Conjurer, not a Transmuter. The further that blade gets from her body, the more its power bleeds away. She isn't built for long-distance games.
Bambie leaped backward, putting distance between herself and Shizuku's reach. In that heartbeat of a transition, she saw the ball return to Liam's hand. The number inside flickered to 400.
Doubling. Every time it returns, it doubles.
Her mind raced, cataloging the mechanics of this strange ability.
If I dodge, it doubles. If I strike it back, it doubles. It's a closed loop.
The "400" ball came screaming at her again.
This time, she didn't waste a bubble. She swiped at it with an open palm, intending to swat it like a fly. But as her hand moved, Shizuku lunged with Blinky, the heavy vacuum swinging in a wide arc while her other hand manipulated the chainsaw.
Bambie slapped the ball away and delivered a punishing kick that sent Shizuku reeling. But before she could regain her stance, a shadow fell over her.
The eight-armed Reflection—the beast that had been nothing more than a hovering specter—suddenly struck with a burst of feral hostility.
Bambie twisted, catching the beast with a backhand that sent it tumbling into the dirt. Why is it so weak? she wondered. When it attacked Omokage, he couldn't even fight back in Uvogin's skin. Why can I repel it so easily?
The answer came to her as she watched the beast scramble back to its feet. It's not trying to kill me. It's trying to touch me. It wants blood. Its true power only triggers once it tastes the enemy. As long as I stay dry, the beast is a non-factor.
The question was: could she stay dry forever?
She looked at Liam. The ball was back. 800.
"Toss and catch..." Bambie muttered, rubbing her knuckles. Her expression was masks of indifference. "I see. This is your trick. A hybrid of Manipulation and Emission. Every round, the debt doubles. I assume that number represents the aura—the raw destructive power of the ball."
Liam didn't confirm or deny. He simply launched the "800" ball at her head.
"And her role..." Bambie shifted her weight, ignoring Shizuku's vacuum swing to focus entirely on the incoming projectile. She reached out and caught the "800" ball with one hand.
"Is to stop me from catching it!"
The moment her fingers closed around the sphere, the number inside surged to 1,600. But this time, it didn't vanish. It stayed in her hand, pulsing with a heavy, unstable energy.
"So, it's my turn to serve?" Bambie smiled. It was a predator's grin. She felt the power humming in her grip.
Liam laughed, though his voice sounded strained. "You really want to send that back? If you do, and I catch it, the next time you have to touch it, it'll be 3,200. Can your body handle that much pressure, sister?"
Bambie didn't answer. She flooded her arm with aura, focused her gaze on the boy's smug face, and hurled the "1,600" Nen bomb with everything she had.
The ball tore through the air like a meteor. And right behind Liam, the eight-armed shadow flared to life, its eyes locked onto the incoming attack.
Earlier, while running from the death energy, Liam had realized something.
This guardian beast—usually a fickle, blood-hungry nuisance—could be paired with the "Buy Now, Pay Later" ability he'd used against Wing.
The Reflection was a game-changer, but it required the enemy to bleed first. Against a top-tier Nen user, breaking their defense to get that blood was nearly impossible.
"Buy Now, Pay Later" solved that. It was a debt system. Each time the ball was passed, the power scaled exponentially. No matter how high an opponent's defense was, eventually, the math would win. 1,600... 3,200... 6,400. Eventually, the wall would break.
But it was a gamble. If Liam lost the "toss and catch" game, he'd be hit with the full weight of his own debt—forced Zetsu and a total collapse of his aura.
However, by using them together, he'd turned his defense into an automated trap. Every time Bambie threw the ball back, it was categorized as an "attack" by the Reflection, triggering the beast to protect its master.
The "Uvogin" was easily twice as strong as Liam. His output was likely around 5,500 aura units, with a total pool near 55,000.
Bambie was slightly lower in raw power, but her bubble-based Emission suggested a massive reserve. Even at a conservative estimate, her Ken—her defensive shroud—was likely 4,400 units strong.
Liam's "Buy Now, Pay Later" ball wouldn't even dent her until it hit 3,200. To truly break her, it needed to reach 6,400.
Liam caught the "1,600" ball head-on.
Boom!
The impact nearly stopped his heart. His palms went numb, and his internal organs felt like they'd been shoved through a centrifuge. He tasted copper.
Behind him, the shadow beast hissed, its hostility toward Bambie reaching a fever pitch.
Bambie watched coldly as the ball in Liam's hand flickered to 3,200. She didn't wait for him to throw. She spat a barrage of bubbles, creating a 360-degree wall of explosives around him.
Liam gritted his teeth, his vision swimming. He wound up and launched the "3,200" ball like a cannonball.
The bubbles converged on him the moment he moved, cutting off every possible escape route. The cannonball cleared the distance in a blur.
Bambie dove to the side, but she was met by the heavy metal back of Shizuku's vacuum. She'd anticipated the move. More bubbles swarmed Shizuku, detonating against the girl's shoulder.
Shizuku's arm was cut, the bone nearly visible in the firelight, but her expression didn't change. She didn't pull back. Instead, she threw herself at Bambie, her aura turning into jagged, tentacle-like chainsaws that lashed around both of them, binding them together in a bloody embrace.
They were tethered. And the "3,200" cannonball was already there.
The impact was a scream of light and blood.
The black shadow beast lunged into the mess of fire and swallowed the spilled blood in a single, voracious gulp.
Behind them, the bubbles finally submerged Liam. A chain reaction of explosions followed, hidden by a rising curtain of smoke and dust.
Bambie's clothes were rags. Her skin was a map of raw, weeping burns from the "3,200" impact. She coughed, spitting a glob of dark blood onto the grass.
Beside her, the girl who had tethered them lay broken. Shizuku's remaining arm was mangled, her body still and bleeding. It didn't look like she could survive.
"You two have the right spirit," Bambie rasped, leaning against a charred tree. "You'd make decent Spiders. If Omokage dies... maybe you could take his place? Think about it."
Suddenly, the eight-armed shadow materialized behind her. It didn't punch. It wrapped around her, its touch cold and intrusive.
Like a parasite, it began to drain her. Bambie felt her strength wither as the beast plundered a full tenth of her remaining aura.
The shadow finished its meal and vanished.
"Did you... honestly think you were the ones who were going to walk away from this?"
Liam's voice drifted out of the settling smoke.
Bambie sneered. "Look at you. You're spent. How much aura can two brats have left? You think you can outlast me?"
Her voice died in her throat.
Liam emerged from the fire. One of his arms was cut, and he was limping on one leg. But in his one good hand, he held a new ball.
The number was 6,400.
He was a wreck, a walking corpse, and yet he was smiling.
It wasn't a desperate smile. It was the smile of someone who had just won. The octopus-like shadow appeared behind him, merging with his body like a suit of living armor. It wasn't just protecting him; it was funneling the stolen aura directly into his veins.
Bambie's eyes went bloodshot. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a mist of blood floating away from her own chest. It was being pulled, as if by a vacuum.
She spun around.
Shizuku was on her feet. With her one good arm, she held Blinky's nozzle, sucking the drizzle of blood from Bambie's wounds into the machine.
"You've already lost, Spider," Liam said. He hopped onto his one good leg, balancing himself. He wound up like a baseball pitcher, his face a mask of bloody determination. "But I like this. Betting everything on one ball... it's more stylish this way!"
The "6,400" missile screamed toward her.
For a split second, the world faded for Bambie. She remembered the day Chrollo Lucilfer had found her in the gutters of Meteor City.
"Your abilities are valuable," he had said. "Join us."
"You stole my ability, you bastard! I almost died a dozen times trying to replace it!"
"Don't be so sensitive. I can give it back now."
I was just a reserve, wasn't I? she thought as the black shadow beast lunged to cover her vision. Just a collection of pages in a book.
The explosion took her then.
The third volume, "The Abyss," was a realm of perpetual twilight.
At the bottom of a jagged canyon, amidst the ruins of a destroyed village, Omokage hung from his chains. He looked at the spiral patterns carved into the scorched wood of the trees and tents. He had seen this place before.
He laughed, a dry, mocking sound. "I know this place. You're one of them, aren't you? A Kurta who slipped through the net. No wonder you look at me with those eyes. Hahaha! This is perfect."
Kurapika, standing with his back to the prisoner, suddenly erupted in white-hot Nen. His form shifted into the flaming Skeleton Knight.
He turned. His face was a mask of ice, but his eyes were burning—the unmistakable, terrifying scarlet of a Kurta in full fury.
"I expected revenge—" Omokage started.
He never finished. A skeletal hand pierced his shoulder, withdrawing a glowing orb of his blood.
The knight let the blood drip onto the pages of the "Judgment" book. The paper turned a deep, permanent red.
"I ask. You answer," Kurapika said, his voice a low, vibrating growl. "If you lie, or if you refuse to speak, your heart stops. Do you want to test my resolve?"
Omokage went silent, watching the boy with a detached curiosity. He was in total Zetsu, chained in a dimension controlled by his enemy. He knew a truth-binding contract when he saw one.
"First question," Kurapika said. "There are thirteen Spiders. You can transform into any of them. Why, in the fight outside, did you only use the giant? If you had cycled through their abilities, you would have had a better chance. Why didn't you?"
Omokage grinned. "Why should I? If I turned into the others, would you little bastards have even known who they were? All it will do just expose their ability to you little bastards"
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