A clashing symphony of heat and cold jolted Liam's senses. He felt himself drifting upward, surfacing from a dream that had felt more like a lingering haunting than sleep.
He was in a misty, ethereal space. Gray currents of energy swirled around him like frayed bandages—extending, intertwining, dissolving, and being reborn in a constant cycle across his skin.
Liam frowned and sat up. The familiar, oppressive black fog was still there, but his companions were gone. No Shizuku, no Kurapika, no Ging, and no Kite.
Nearby, the borrowed guardian spirit beast—the octopus-shaped Reflection—hovered in the mist. For some reason, it kept a wide berth, watching him with a wariness it hadn't shown before. Liam ignored it and looked down at himself.
His rapid growth had decimated his wardrobe. His clothes hung in pathetic strips of fabric. His shoes had been forced open by the expansion of his feet, leaving his toes exposed to the air. He ripped the remnants of his footwear off and stood up.
Judging by the scale of his tattered sleeves, he was now somewhere between 1.8 and 1.9 meters tall.
The gray aura continued to leak from his pores. It reminded him of the lush weeds that had sprouted when he first transmigrated—an uncontrollable overflow of vitality. He noticed that as the energy touched his skin, it felt like a potent supplement, yet he couldn't grasp it. He tried to use Ten to lock it in, and even activated Shepherd's Song, but the gray mist slipped through his fingers like water.
However, the aura wasn't just vanishing into the void. It traveled in a wide arc before converging into a light gray stream that surged deep into the heart of the black fog.
Liam immediately braced himself with Ken, his eyes narrowing. He noticed Reflection had positioned itself exactly on the opposite side of the gray stream, hiding as far away from the fog's interior as possible.
Some guardian you are, Liam thought bitterly. Hiding while I'm being drained.
He realized with a jolt of frustration that despite his physical maturation—now looking to be in his early twenties—his total aura capacity hadn't budged. He had traded years of his youth for a larger frame, but his "battery" remained the size of a teenager's. It was a massive waste of potential.
The black mist parted. At the end of the gray stream stood a throne constructed entirely from densely packed divine script.
Sitting upon it was a dark, obsidian figure.
As the gray overflow from Liam's body reached the figure, it pooled into the entity's chest, forming a gray, five-pointed star. The figure, which had initially looked like a sketch of a skeleton, began to fill out, becoming plump and three-dimensional.
Are you kidding me? Liam thought. He's literally stealing my life force to materialize.
The man on the throne opened his eyes.
The moment he did, the octopus Nen beast behind Liam let out a piercing, high-pitched scream. It was the first time the remnant of the "Sky Master" had ever made a sound. It began to thrash, slamming into the black mist as if trying to break through an iron wall.
The black figure raised a hand. Aura flowed from his palm, condensing into divine characters that snapped together to form a slender, handleless blade.
The octopus's screams reached a fever pitch. It was terrified.
Liam covered his ears, retreating to the side. So it does have self-awareness. It knows it's about to get skewered.
The figure launched the blade like a bolt of black lightning. In a flash, the octopus was nailed to the wall of mist. Divine runes flowed from the blade, wandering over the beast's body. Its screams dwindled into a low whimper until its struggle ceased entirely.
Liam looked from the crucified beast to the man on the throne.
"True Martial King?" he asked.
Silence.
"Wangu Hui Guo Rou?"
The figure sighed, looking at Liam with eyes that seemed to span centuries. "You are not of the Hui Guo Rou bloodline." He glanced at the octopus. "And that is not a guardian spirit beast."
"I knew it!" Liam punched the air. He didn't care about his biological lineage, but knowing he wasn't tied to the Kakin royals meant he wasn't a pawn in their succession games.
Liam seized the moment. "King, are you dead? I found Longevity Rice from the Dark Continent in your statue. Someone with that kind of power and resources shouldn't be this easy to kill."
The figure seemed drained after throwing the sword. He slumped back into his throne of script and began to mutter, as if in a trance. "If not for myself, heaven and earth will destroy me. I am human. If not for myself, heaven and earth will punish me."
"Can you speak plainly?" Liam asked.
The King looked at Liam. "If your Nen oath was 'If not for myself, heaven and earth will destroy me,' and your wife's life was in danger, what would you do?"
"I'd save her. Without a second thought," Liam said.
"But your ability can only be used for yourself," the King emphasized. "That is the oath you made. To use it on another is a breach."
"Is this wife my true love?" Liam asked.
"Of course."
"Then why are you hesitating?" Liam shouted. "If she dies, a part of me dies. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Saving her is saving myself. It fits the oath perfectly!"
The True Martial King stared at Liam for a long time. Finally, a heavy sigh escaped him. "My child... you are wiser than I was."
An oath is a reflection of the subconscious. Even with Liam's logic, the King couldn't change his past. To him, "self" was a literal, physical boundary. To Liam, "self" included the people he loved.
"So what happened?" Liam asked. "What did you choose?"
"I was punished by heaven and earth," the King said simply.
Liam was speechless. The man had allowed the universe to break him rather than risk a logical fallacy in his own heart.
"I don't have much time. It is time for you to go," the King said. "The power you brought allowed me this moment of clarity. I will settle my last regret. In return..." He gestured toward the octopus. "I will repair the parasite that was destined to devour its host."
Liam turned. The divine blade pinning the octopus had melted, refining the creature's essence. It disintegrated into flecks of white light that drifted into Liam's chest.
As the energy integrated, Liam felt a new instinct flare to life. He reached out his hand, and his Ken extended naturally, sharpening into the shape of a blade.
"If you find you do not like it," the King said tiredly, "you can remove it yourself later. There is no need for an Exorcist. Experience it for yourself."
The space began to groan. Black mist surged forward like a tidal wave, swallowing everything. Liam tried to ask for instructions on the sword, but the world vanished into darkness.
The blade of aura struck Ging's arm with a dull thud. He blocked it with his bare skin.
Ging looked at the edge of Liam's sword with genuine surprise. He could see his own Ken being drawn toward the blade in tiny, translucent strands.
Liam, now back in the physical world, felt the difference immediately. As the sword touched Ging, a trickle of filtered aura flowed back into him. It didn't increase his maximum capacity, but it acted as a constant, active "recharge." It was a vampiric blade—the more he fought, the more his stamina was replenished.
The True Martial King had used divine script to turn a parasitic curse into a functional weapon.
Liam lunged at Ging again, testing the limits. Ging, ever the researcher, didn't fight back at first. He dodged, touched the blade on purpose, and tried to deconstruct the Nen logic behind it. But the divine script was a layer of encryption even he couldn't crack on the fly.
"Enough, I'm done!" Ging shouted, jumping back.
"You don't get to quit yet!" Liam laughed, charging forward.
"I said, I'm done." Ging's eyes flattened. A terrifying explosion of aura erupted from him, a physical storm that sent Liam, Shizuku, Kurapika, and Kite staggering back.
Liam landed lightly, retracting the blade. "Alright, alright. We'll stop."
Ging exhaled, his momentum vanishing. "A powerful ability."
"Coming from you, I'll take that as a win," Liam said. He was still reeling from the encounter with the King. If a mere shadow of the man could do this, the living King must have been a monster.
Ging pulled a card from his pocket. Liam recognized it—a Greed Island spell card.
"Why do you think that arrow was shot toward the Dark Continent?" Liam asked.
Ging looked up at the empty sky. "Because Wangu Hui Guo Rou lived in the same era as a certain man. If I were him, I'd want to take a shot at Don Freecss, too."
He turned the card over. "Kite, one last test."
Kite blinked. "Master?"
"Find me, and you're a real Hunter," Ging said with a smirk. "Use Accompany."
"Wait!" Kite reached out, but the card was already active.
A pillar of white light enveloped Ging. He shot into the atmosphere like a rocket, disappearing into the clouds with a faint ding.
Kite stared at the empty space where his master had been. "He actually just... left."
Kurapika sighed, looking at the now-clear archipelago. The fog was gone. The divine arrays were dead. The mystery of the island had been spent in that one massive launch.
Shizuku walked up to Liam, having to crane her neck slightly to see his face. She didn't care about Ging or the arrow. She looked at Liam's new, older face with a deep, quiet worry. "Next time... you don't know how much you'll grow. You can't control it."
Liam saw the fear in her eyes. He reached out, touching her ear gently, and led her toward the shore.
As the waves lapped at their feet, Liam spoke, his voice firm and resonant.
"I want to completely control the death energy absorbed by my heart. As the price, I vow never to kill a person for the sake of plundering their energy. If I violate this oath, let me lose my Nen forever."
A gray whirlpool formed in his chest, sealing the contract.
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