The heads of the Ten Dons belonged to Ilo.
As the highest rulers of the underworld, the people with the greatest power, their fame and status alone were enough to provide Ilo with a huge amount of success points.
And there should also be a fairly strong guard force around the Ten Dons.
The Shadow Beasts were not weak, but if the Ten Dons had really sent all of them out so carelessly, weren't they afraid that if the Shadow Beasts were wiped out, they themselves would be left as bare commanders with no troops?
Just as had been said before, the people still standing now were the ones who feared death the most.
Anyone who had climbed to the position of the Ten Dons, commanding vast resources and power, would absolutely place their own safety above everything else.
The higher one climbed, the more one knew. The Ten Dons most likely understood just how powerful Nen users were, and how bizarre and unpredictable Nen abilities could be. They definitely had a whole series of defensive measures in place.
That meant the Shadow Beasts who had been sent out were absolutely just the weakest group placed out in the open among the real Shadow Beast force.
Besides, in Shadow Beasts, the key word was "shadow," not "beasts."
For people like Rabid Dog and the others to stride openly onto the stage and brazenly display their abilities completely went against the very principle of "shadow."
The more one gained, the more one feared losing it. Roy was certain that the Ten Dons' Shadow Beast force was definitely not limited to only those ten.
The real Shadow Beasts were absolutely not weak. Otherwise, Illumi would never have brought Kalluto and Mahā with him.
But no matter how strong the Shadow Beasts were, they still would not be Roy and Ilo's opponents.
The meaning of their existence was simply to serve as nourishment for Ilo's Nen ability, becoming one vivid success point after another.
Android 18 took the newly collected 16 billion Jenny and went out shopping with Shizuku, accompanied by several masked companions, including Machi and Pakunoda.
Roy looked at Ilo in front of him, then at the remaining figures dressed in their All Villains outfits, and a cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
"Move out!"
…
Close to evening, two people walked out of Yorknew City's airport.
Both had dazzling silver hair, and with their clothes and appearance, they looked like a somewhat comical father-and-son pair.
It was Zeno and Silva.
The moment the two of them got off the airship, Zeno's phone rang.
After reading the message, Zeno, who had just stepped out of the airport, immediately turned around and headed back. Silva followed behind him, looking at his back.
"Come on, Silva. Our job's been canceled. Earlier I got word that Illumi's job had been canceled too. I didn't expect that we'd be a step too late as well. In the Zoldyck family's history of taking jobs, this is the first time two jobs have been canceled back-to-back in a single day."
"Yes. But didn't you say, Father, that you hadn't gone traveling in a long time?"
"Mm. But we're assassins. Do assassins need travel? Come on, Silva. Two jobs canceled in one day. Even if the deposit wasn't small, for assassins like us, it's still a loss."
"Mm."
As they turned to leave, both Silva and Zeno glanced toward a certain corner of the airport, but quickly withdrew their gaze.
And after he turned around, if Silva could have seen Zeno's expression at that moment, he would have discovered that although Zeno kept saying they had taken a loss, there was actually a smile on his face.
What had just arrived on his phone was not only the text saying the job had been canceled, but also three transfer notifications.
A full 1 billion Jenny had been transferred.
Looks like Roy-kun made quite a lot from this deal. Heh heh heh...
…
A room in an extremely well-hidden high-rise building.
Even though the place where they held their gatherings was very secretive, they would still definitely choose somewhere that highlighted their power and bearing.
So, aside from the most luxurious place in Yorknew City, the only other choice was the highest place.
As long as one used aura to sense whether either of those two places had ten presences gathered together, and whether there was strong aura nearby acting as guards around those ten, it would be very easy to determine the location of the Ten Dons.
Thus, inside the hidden room at the top of Yorknew City's tallest building, Roy and his group found the Ten Dons with ease.
…
The afternoon of August 31 was the perfect time for afternoon tea, and also the perfect time for slaughter.
At this moment, inside the Ten Dons' secret meeting room, ten grim-faced old men sat around a large round table, like some kind of round-table conference.
Among the ten, some had huge scars on their faces, some leaned on canes, and some had three or four cigars clenched between their teeth.
But they all had one thing in common: every one of them wore a costly, immaculate black suit, and in the darkness behind each chair stood a single person.
If a Nen user were to use Gyo on them, they would discover that these people were all giving off remarkably abundant aura.
And every one of them carried a heavy scent of blood. One look was enough to tell that they had walked out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and had definitely killed many people.
Every one of them was skilled in Nen. There were exactly ten of them, and their strength truly was not weak, a step above Rabid Dog and the others.
Even in one-on-one combat, if they ran into the Phantom Troupe, they would probably be capable of putting up a serious fight. They would not be wiped out without the slightest ability to resist the way Rabid Dog's group had been when they intercepted Feitan.
These were the real Shadow Beasts.
Ten of them, each standing behind one of the Ten Dons.
They were the power the Ten Dons were most proud of.
These true Shadow Beasts had been painstakingly selected by the Ten Dons from among mafia groups all over the world. The foremost requirement in their selection was loyalty to the mafia and loyalty to the Ten Dons.
If they discovered promising seedlings, they would even brainwash and raise them from childhood, making absolutely sure they became the sharpest weapons under the Ten Dons' command.
Once a sufficient number of reserve candidates for the Shadow Beasts had been chosen, they would begin a military-camp-style training process and decide which of them were the strongest.
Then, through one mission after another, they would continue screening them until the final ten remained.
The enormous effort and resources invested into this were impossible to calculate.
What the Shadow Beasts served was the collective body known as the Ten Dons, not merely any one individual among them.
Therefore, although several of the Ten Dons had been replaced over the decades for various reasons while the authentic Shadow Beast force was being cultivated, once the true Shadow Beasts had been fully trained and entered active service, they maintained absolute loyalty toward every current member of the Ten Dons.
(End of Chapter)
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