"This is the captain level among the ants, it looks different."
"Tsk tsk tsk, they look so much like humans, the product of genetic selection."
"Much like the humanoid species in Warcraft."
Lamodo awoke from his daze to hear the voices of several humans discussing nearby. He kept his eyes closed, the scene before he lost consciousness still replaying vividly in his mind. The man had knocked him unconscious with a single blow. He could feel the man's presence nearby.
"Hey, wake up. If you're awake, stop pretending." Suddenly, a foot kicked Lamodo in the chest. Knowing he was exposed, he opened his eyes to see a man with a mocking expression and an exaggerated hairstyle standing over him.
Lamodo's eyes instantly widened and a sinister voice escaped his throat: "I will kill you, you damned human!"
"Oh, you're about to die, but you're still so tough," Anthony raised his eyebrows, seemingly unimpressed by the ant's murderous intent.
Lamodo's heart trembled, his eyes fixed on the humans in front of him. He could feel something flowing over the surface of their bodies, as if some kind of switch had been flipped.
"Can you see it?"
Rita noticed Lamodo's stare and exclaimed, "That's amazing!"
She meant Nen.
"Aaaaaaah!"
Lamodo began to roar and struggle violently. The muscles in his arms swelled as he used every ounce of his strength. Blue veins bulged across his forehead. Despite his efforts, the straw ropes binding him remained unyielding. The seemingly fragile vegetation was somehow incredibly tough, resisting even his brute strength.
"It's useless. Give up fighting. My Nen skill has become stronger under the Captain's training!" Rita said proudly.
"Ahhhhh!!"
Lamodo ignored her words, his eyes bloodshot, his teeth clenched, looking completely unhinged. A few seconds later, with a crackling sound, the rope around his arm suddenly snapped, causing everyone in the room to immediately tense up.
Rita was stunned. Although her manipulation ability was primarily auxiliary in nature, its development allowed her to enhance the vegetation, to improve its "quality" and to control it. She hadn't used Nen much, but breaking free of her restraints wasn't something anyone could do.
The most alarming thing was that this ant was relying solely on physical strength, not Nen.
Bang.
Suddenly, all the straw ropes that bound Lamodo's body snapped. He jumped up and lunged at Anthony.
"You don't seem to understand your current situation."
But just as he stood up, a whisper came from behind him. A figure mysteriously appeared, quickly grabbed his shoulders, and slammed him face-first into the ground.
Lamodo struggled, but he was completely immobilized.
This human's physical strength is superior to mine?!
No, it was the invisible power he couldn't see that caused the trouble.
When Lamodo suddenly attacked, neither Anthony nor Rita panicked. They were just shocked because they knew that with Fant around, a mere Captain-level Chimera Ant couldn't cause any real trouble. Even with his abnormal physical abilities, Fant could still overpower him with Nen.
"Ah!!"
Lamodo tried to struggle, but Fant, who had him pinned, changed tactics. He grabbed the ant's head and pressed his knee against Lamodo's waist. The more Lamodo struggled, the harder Fant, his face expressionless, pushed the ant's head deeper into the ground.
After a while, seeing that Lamodo seemed to have endless energy, Fant's eyes turned cold. Veins appeared on the back of his hand as he increased his strength.
Immediately, Lamodo's head was pressed harder, and the intense pain made him scream.
"Hah," Fant, still with a cigarette in his mouth, exhaled a cloud of white smoke and said coolly, "Be honest, Ant. Our captain has some questions for you."
Footsteps approached from behind.
Oboro and Menchi arrived together from a distance.
"Oh? It's already awake so soon? As expected from an alien species, its vitality is extraordinary," Oboro came closer, looked at the scene before him and smiled.
Lamodo, who had been struggling desperately, suddenly became still.
Calm down.
In front of these strange humans, he might have been confident that he could fight, but in front of this human who could decide over his life and death, he knew that he didn't even have the qualifications to challenge him.
He was alone now, without Korudo.
That meant all the other ants were dead, possibly including Korudo.
"Lift your head."
Oboro crouched and smiled.
At his command, Fant ruthlessly grabbed the ant's long hair, pulled his head up, and forced him to face the captain.
"Lamodo, that's your name, right?"
"!!!"
Lamodo's pupils contracted in shock.
How did this man know his name?
"What is the situation in the ant nest now? How far along is the queen in raising the king? Also, where are your main hunting areas? Different regions should be under different squadron leaders, right? Their respective territories"
Oboro fired several questions in a row.
"You will die, you will all die" Lamodo had a rebellious nature. Born with a more advanced genetic sequence than humans, he had always looked down on weaker creatures.
Even though he knew how terrifying Oboro was, he still maintained his 'superiority complex'.
Not only with humans - even among the hierarchical Chimera Ants, as a captain, he showed no respect for other squadron leaders. No one had ever forced him to bow!
"It seems he won't talk. That's okay."
Oboro nodded.
The smile on his face suddenly disappeared.
"You know that every conscious and mature creature will change, and you will too, it's just that you haven't encountered anything that can make your soul tremble," Oboro said, raising a hand and placing it on Lamodo's head.
Seeing this, Fant let go of the ant and stepped back.
In other words, the ant was now free to attack.
But as Oboro's palm touched Lamodo's forehead, the ant's features suddenly contorted, his face turning ashen as sweat rapidly trickled down his cheeks.
From Lamodo's perspective, everything around him darkened until all he could see was the man crouching before him, staring silently.
Under this pressure, his mind began to hallucinate. The man's body continued to grow until he seemed nearly a hundred meters tall, an insurmountable mountain.
The weight of this presence was so overwhelming that Lamodo could barely breathe.
In particular, the man's hand on his head still radiated warmth, but it conveyed a clear message:
Surrender or die!
This was a will and strength Lamodo had never encountered before, so terrifying that even his soul seemed to tremble.
Is this really a human being?
In those few seconds, the ant that had been so ferocious moments ago seemed to have lost all of its energy and spirit. His expression changed to one of abject defeat, as if he had become a completely different being.
Swallowing hard, the ant nodded enthusiastically. He dared not look directly at Oboro, and his body trembled slightly.
Lamodo tried to speak, to answer Oboro's questions.
But Oboro suddenly patted him gently on the head, as if pleased with his change of attitude, and said:
"I'm no longer interested in listening to you."
After speaking, the palm pressed against Lamodo's head suddenly ignited with ghostly fire and transformed into a soul-like state.
It then plunged directly into the ant's skull.
Menchi and the others watched as the Captain's eyes began to glow, while Lamodo went rigid, his consciousness fading.
"Hiss Captain, are you reading the target's soul memory?" Anthony gasped.
"The Captain's Nen ability is originally soul-related, and the soul is closely connected to a person's mind," Menchi explained, crossing his arms over his chest. He didn't seem surprised at all. "In fact, each type of Nen ability is incredibly diverse, with many functions and effects that can be developed. The problem is that with basic abilities, the difficulty increases exponentially with each additional effect. Nen is too complex to control casually. Most people only continue to study a secondary effect after their primary ability has stabilized."
"The Zodiacs killed by the Captain, his three monkeys, and his weapons are all multi-layered effects of two separate abilities.
The same goes for Chrollo's Nen ability in the Phantom Troupe.
The ultimate intent and basic ability of a thief is to steal other people's abilities and use them for his own benefit.
The second type is Bookmarks.
If Chrollo were still alive, a third type might have developed.
The same goes for Zeno Zoldyck's ability.
The Dragon's Head from the Emission category and the Dragon Lance
"Most people's Nen abilities are relatively simple, and the disadvantages of complexity don't exist for him. There may be people in this world with a better understanding and mastery of Nen, but I've never seen them," Menchi concluded.
After a pause, he looked at Anthony again and added, "Don't even think about it. People are different, let alone you, even I can't reach that level. His path is unique to him, not for others to follow, and we can't imitate it. To put it simply, even if the Captain personally guided you, you could only develop two kinds of Nen abilities at most, which is already the upper limit."
"Ahem, I know, you don't have to be so blunt. I have to save some face too, okay?" Anthony sighed.
"But I hear there's another outlier like the captain in the Association," Fant interjected, stubbing out his cigarette.
"Beyond Netero?"
Menchi raised his eyebrows.
"Huh."
"This guy, like the Captain, is very mysterious to the people in the Association, not many know his true power."
As they talked, Oboro finished his work.
He extracted Lamodo's soul and deactivated his ability.
The ant was reduced to an empty shell, collapsing to the ground with lifeless, open eyes.
"Did you find what you needed?
"Let's go to the next battleground."
Oboro's lips curled into a smile.
Nearby, Gabiwich and Rita hurriedly began to pack their equipment.
Their team now possessed crucial knowledge of the Chimera Ants' territory, and after releasing Korudo, the squadron leaders would likely avoid causing any trouble so that the queen could give birth smoothly. Oboro had no desire to invade the ants' core territory, but the queen needed substantial food to nourish her offspring, which meant that the ants would continue to hunt, perhaps bypassing them.
With Korudo's intelligence, he would surely realize that even if all the squadron leaders gathered together, they might not be able to defeat someone of Oboro's caliber.
Therefore, Oboro needed a comprehensive understanding of the current situation of the Chimera Ants.
His ability to read soul memories only worked when the target was conscious, which explained why he had brought Lamodo back alive.
It was like accessing a computer - you have to turn it on to retrieve information; it won't work if the system is frozen.
With this information, Oboro led Menchi and the others to continue their plan to hunt down the ant colony.
Meanwhile, Korudo quickly returned to the ant nest.
Penguin Peggy, Cheetah Kiddo, Bull-Head Bihong, and other Squadron Leaders had already received the news and gathered there.
Each Squadron Leader displayed different characteristics of their non-human genetic components, a typical result of compound DNA.
Frog, Turtle, Crocodile, Scorpion
"Oh, Korudo looks so miserable!" As soon as Korudo entered the cave, still visibly shaken, Leopard Kiddo, who was leaning against the wall, burst out laughing at his pitiful state.
Korudo looked at him but said nothing.
"Are they all dead?"
Peggy the penguin hurried forward and asked.
Before Korudo's return, he had already sent signals to other ants to relay initial messages.
"Um"
Korudo slumped against the wall, holding on with one hand as if he could finally breathe. He slid limply to the floor.
"It's horrible. He's not like any human we've met before, or rather, he only has the appearance of a human, but he's something else entirely," Korudo murmured, almost delirious.
"Oh?"
A woman with delicate features and long, wavy red hair looked curious. She flicked her long scorpion tail and stopped tending to her beautiful nails. "How can such weak creatures as humans be stronger than us?"
Scorpion Zazan.
"Korudo, you didn't run back just because you were afraid of death, did you?" Hagya the Lion laughed mockingly.
"Enough bickering. Let's hear what he has to say."
The frog-like squadron leader stepped in to mediate.
Peggy surveyed the group and calmly explained, "Korudo has returned to share information about the enemy. This is critical information! Compared to that, dying in battle would be the least productive option. After all, we can't be sure how many exceptional individuals there are among the humans."
After a short rest, Korudo finally composed himself and addressed his companions: "It is difficult to explain the ability of this human to you."
He prefaced with that, and then told his experience in detail.
The key point was his mention of "Nen".
"Nen, what the hell is that?"
Bihong scratched his bull-like head in confusion.
"Some kind of energy?"
Peggy frowned.
Then he hurried to his quarters to look for books.
"What nonsense. You talk so cryptically - are you scared to death?"
A squadron leader sneered, clearly dismissing Korudo's warnings.
With a dismissive remark, he walked away.
"Waste of time, thought it was something serious."
"Let's go."
Several other squadron leaders also expressed their skepticism and left.
This reaction made Korudo's heart sink.
Each squadron leader had his own personality, and not all of them had the maturity of Korudo and Peggy, who knew the value of caution.
Although they were comrades, their cohesion was limited to a few individuals.
Korudo understood that the only way to convince them would be to capture a living "special human" as proof. Mere words would prove useless.
The ants had killed too many humans; their perception was deeply ingrained.
"Heh."
Before leaving, Leopard Kiddo patted Korudo's shoulder and said with a carefree smile, "It's okay. If you really can't handle it, I can help you. With my speed, I could kill him instantly - he wouldn't have a chance to escape."
He flicked his spotted tail confidently.
"Hmm. I'm quite interested in this prey you described. What do you think?"
Korudo stood up, pushed the leopard away and left with a serious expression on his face.
This had happened in his territory.
Though he had managed to escape and return, he had failed to gain the attention of his fellow squadron leaders. Instead, he faced ridicule.
He had to talk to Peggy seriously.
If this human went directly to the ant nest, the consequences would be catastrophic.
As for his other companions, Korudo realized that he couldn't count on them unless the enemy attacked their doorstep.
Time passed steadily.
More than half a month had passed.
Using the memories extracted from Lamodo's soul, Oboro led Menchi and the others to patrol the periphery of the Chimera Ants' territory.
The ants would inevitably appear.
The central areas had been cleared of prey, and after the queen tasted human flesh and enjoyed the delicacy, she focused exclusively on humans, no longer accepting other creatures as food. This ensured that the souls and black mists Oboro could harvest were endless.
By now, he had lost count of how many ants he had killed.
Wave after relentless wave
Host: Oboro Age: 27 Profession: Three-star Ancient Text Hunter Combat Power
Level: Martial Arts Master, World Class Hunter (7th rank)
Comprehensive attribute rating: Third order superhuman
One ability: Rupture of Time and Space, Thresh's Passive, Hell's Curse, Senna's Passive, Absolution Absolution effect: (Attack range +60 meters, Critical strike chance 100%, Life steal 89%) Hell's Curse effect: Armor stacking, spell power increase value +36758
The next day, standing amidst the ant corpses strewn across the ground, Oboro opened his system panel and checked his progress.
The attack range had increased to 60 meters. Life stealing was nearly maxed out.
Before Kite, Killua, Gon, and the others arrived, the extra attributes should complete their transformation as planned.
It should be noted that at first, soul drops were probabilistic - there was no guarantee that a soul would appear after killing a target. However, after integrating the effects of Jed's soul, the characteristics of the curse emerged, allowing souls that normally only caused mental effects to directly damage and absorb a target's soul through the substantial influence of the curse, greatly increasing the rate of soul recovery.
This explained why his armor and magic power had increased so dramatically, increasing dozens of times.
Before, his armor and magic power had only reached a few thousand points.
As for his ranking, he had moved from the 8th to the 7th place, moving up one position.
This only affected his Nen rating, which was probably due to his increased magic power rather than his overall strength.
Another consideration: although the armor and magical power values seemed intimidating, the actual improvement depended on the strength of the deceased's soul. In other words, each soul collected increased magical power and armor, but the actual benefit varied.
"It's related to the comprehensive attributes of physical strength, and I'm still a third-level superhuman. To break through to the fourth level, I need to transcend the life dimension. It's truly challenging."
Oboro closed the tablet and sighed.
"It's almost time to send them a little white mouse."