Chapter 64: Pull the Trigger!
As it turned out, Su Xiao’s choice was very correct. Although the duration of the Counter Shield was greatly reduced, it caught Tuanzhang and Ilmi completely off guard.
Whoosh~
Several large needles wrapped in Nen energy shot over. Su Xiao swung his blade and sent them flying.
Clang, clang, clang…
Despite their small size, the force behind those needles was no weaker than ordinary sniper rifle bullets.
“What exactly is going on? Just now it was the same gravity, and now you’re stepping on air to hover.”
Ilmi was puzzled. The moment he landed after kicking Su Xiao away earlier, he had sensed that the Counter Shield shared the same gravity as Su Xiao.
Kuroro stretched his back. The sword wound on his back was as gruesome as a monster’s gaping maw.
‘Bandit’s Secret’ appeared in Kuroro’s hand. He ignored the injury on his back. Though he was losing a lot of blood, none of the abilities he had stolen included healing-type ones.
Rustling, pages flipped, finally stopping on one page. That page showed a photo of a Nen user along with their Nen ability information.
The photo was of a young woman, about twenty years old.
Si Lili
Age: 21
Manipulation-type Nen user.
Ability: The Operator’s Expectation (Instant Teleportation)
Original Holder: Not deceased.
…
This was Kuroro’s ability: Bandit’s Secret. It could steal others’ Nen abilities, but not arbitrarily. Four conditions had to be met.
1: Witness the target’s Nen ability with his own eyes.
2: Ask the target questions related to their Nen ability and receive an answer.
3: Have the target place their hand on the handprint on the book’s cover.
4: Conditions 1-3 must all be completed within one hour.
After completing these steps, Kuroro could successfully steal the target’s Nen ability. However, to use these stolen abilities, he had to hold Bandit’s Secret in his hand and flip to the corresponding page.
Kuroro had no intention of stealing Su Xiao’s ability. Stealing others’ Nen abilities might seem powerful, but in reality, it had too many restrictions. Fulfilling the conditions in the heat of battle was nothing short of a fantasy, unless the opponent was very stupid.
With Su Xiao’s personality of acting first and talking never, there was no way Kuroro could steal his ability. Besides, Su Xiao’s ability wasn’t Nen at all—it belonged to a different system. It would be a miracle if he could steal it.
Kuroro held ‘Bandit’s Secret’ in his right hand and a strange dagger coated with deadly poison in his left.
“Kuroro, I’ll suppress him for a moment. I’ll try to restrain him for an instant. Then go all out. Don’t worry about me. It’s fine.”
Ilmi realized that with Kuroro injured, they couldn’t keep dragging things out. Kuroro was his employer. If the employer died, the commission was canceled, and he would have no reason to fight Su Xiao. But Ilmi also wanted to have a good fight with a strong opponent like Su Xiao.
“Mm.”
Kuroro slowly stepped back. Now, with instant teleportation and a poisoned dagger, he could easily find an opportunity for a fatal strike.
Standing in midair, Su Xiao didn’t make the first move. He was waiting for the scattered Counter Shields around him to gather.
Scanning the few Counter Shields distributed around him, Su Xiao was ready to go all out against Kuroro.
As if sensing Su Xiao’s intention, Ilmi charged straight at him.
Facing Ilmi rushing toward him, Su Xiao had no choice but to jump off the Counter Shield. He had managed to wound Kuroro earlier by catching him off guard. Now that both were prepared, even midair multi-jumps were useless.
Without any wasted words, Su Xiao and Ilmi locked in a fierce melee.
Ilmi’s hands were covered in a thick layer of Nen, and he used the Nen ability ‘Ken’ to make his hands harder than metal.
Ilmi thrust a knife-hand strike straight at Su Xiao’s face. Su Xiao tilted his head to dodge, but a bloody gash was left on his cheek.
Just as Ilmi’s knife-hand came in, Su Xiao already slashed upward. If Ilmi continued his attack, he would definitely lose his arm. Only his palms were hard, not his entire arm.
With a tearing sound, the long blade slashed across Ilmi’s palm.
Crimson blood dripped from Ilmi’s fingertips. Faced with the erosion of Cyan Steel Shadow Energy, Ilmi didn’t even flinch.
“Looks like I don’t have to worry about having my hand chopped off.”
Ilmi shook the blood off his hand. Upon closer inspection, the blade had only cut through the skin of his palm.
Most members of the Zoldyck family fought bare-handed. From childhood, their elders would have them deliberately train their hands.
For top-tier assassins, the best weapons weren’t guns or cold weapons, but their hands. Hands were always with them and drew no attention.
After years of training, combined with the effect of the Nen ability ‘Ken,’ Ilmi’s hands were now impossible for Su Xiao to sever.
The sensation of cutting Ilmi’s palm was like slashing a piece of extremely tough rubber.
Realizing that Su Xiao couldn’t cut off his hands, Ilmi’s attacks became bolder, his hands moving so fast they left afterimages.
Su Xiao and Ilmi fought to the death. The street shattered in large chunks from the shockwaves of their battle.
The Counter Shields floating in midair gradually disappeared. One minute was up. Su Xiao couldn’t exactly say he had won the gamble, but he hadn’t lost either, judging by the gruesome wound on Kuroro’s back.
Boom, boom.
Su Xiao and Ilmi were locked in an intense struggle. Blade auras and large needles flew everywhere. In Su Xiao’s assessment, Ilmi was no pushover, but after engaging him, he found Ilmi was even stronger than he had imagined.
Clang!
Su Xiao held Dragon-Slaying Flash horizontally in front of him as Ilmi’s knife-hand struck the blade.
“How much longer?”
Su Xiao muttered, as if speaking to someone.
“Huh?”
Ilmi looked at Su Xiao in confusion, then seemed to realize something. He actually grabbed Dragon-Slaying Flash with both bare hands.
Su Xiao’s first reaction was that this guy didn’t want his hands anymore. Although his hands could withstand Dragon-Slaying Flash’s slashes, grabbing the blade bare-handed was a different matter.
With a tearing sound, Su Xiao yanked Dragon-Slaying Flash with all his strength. The blade cut through the flesh of Ilmi’s palms and began to slice into his bones.
Bang!
A manhole cover flew up beside Su Xiao. Sensing this, his pupils contracted.
Roar.
The low growls of beasts came as several muscular large dogs burst out from the sewer.
The backs of these large dogs’ heads were stuck with several large needles, and their bodies were wrapped in Nen. Needless to say, these were creatures controlled by Ilmi. After all, he was a Manipulation-type Nen user.
Several bloody maws clamped onto Su Xiao’s arm, torso, and calf. With Ilmi still gripping Dragon-Slaying Flash’s blade, Su Xiao was momentarily immobilized.
A figure suddenly appeared behind Su Xiao—Kuroro.
Pfft.
A searing, burning pain shot through him. Kuroro’s strangely shaped dagger stabbed into Su Xiao’s back, right where his heart was. Just before being stabbed, Su Xiao made a slight dodging move, so the wide-bladed dagger failed to pierce his heart.
The three of them formed a straight line. Su Xiao and Ilmi faced each other, with Kuroro behind Su Xiao.
At that moment, Ilmi suddenly noticed a smile spreading across Su Xiao’s face. That smile was unforgettable—no, it sent a chill down his spine.
“Get back!”
Ilmi lost his usual composure and shouted, but it was too late.
“Life and death are up to fate. Pull the trigger!”