The night was pitch black. Deep in the mountains, the forest grew thick, choking the narrow, dim paths with shadow.
Suddenly, several coins sliced through the air toward Liam. They hummed with a high-pitched screech, like sniper rounds piercing the wind. Sharp as scalpels, they were angled perfectly to cut off every possible route of escape.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The "bullets" slammed into Liam, the force of the impact flipping him sideways.
"The power of Nen separated from the body is this strong? It feels like Emission, but there has to be some Enhancement in there to toughen the metal."
Liam hit the ground, his thoughts racing. Is he a hybrid user? Somewhere between Enhancer and Emitter?
"That actually stung a little, four-eyes," Liam muttered as he stabilized.
The shroud of aura protecting his body acted like a solid stone wall, yet those coins—powerful enough to punch through steel plating—had still managed to sink a few millimeters into the muscles of his arms, elbows, abdomen, and thighs. They remained firmly embedded in his flesh.
Liam flexed, using his muscle control to eject the coins with a wet thwip. He caught them mid-air, paused for a fraction of a second to gather his strength, and snapped his fingers. The coins whistled back into the dark like a spray of lethal rain. Without looking back to see if they hit, he kept running.
From the depths of the forest, a series of muffled pops echoed.
The shallow punctures on Liam's skin closed and knitted together instantly. Reaching into his pocket, he crushed a wind talisman and let it burn. The aura surrounding him shifted violently, transforming into sharp bursts of airflow. He seemed to dissolve into the night wind, his speed surging silently until he was little more than a ghost in the trees.
Emerging from the darkness, Tsubone couldn't hide her flicker of surprise.
Though her face was a map of deep wrinkles, she stood tall and moved with the lethal grace of a master assassin. She was lightning-fast and silent as a shadow. As the head butler who served Zeno and the chief instructor for the next generation of Zoldyck staff, her strength was beyond question.
Over the decades, she had seen countless intruders try to breach the Zoldyck estate. Ninety percent of them ended up as dog food for the gatekeepers. The remaining ten percent usually failed to even pass the test of a trainee butler. To use Nen to bypass the butler quarters, sneak to the foot of Kukuroo Mountain, and trigger the "Dragon Head" defense at the Testing Gate... Tsubone searched her memory and truly couldn't recall anyone quite this foolish.
Today, this young man was the first. His agility was far beyond what she had anticipated.
Still, he wouldn't get away.
Tsubone signaled into the darkness, but there was no response from her partner. Brows furrowed, she blurred across the terrain. A few kilometers away, she found her fellow butler standing stiffly, looking confused. He spun around, eyes vigilant, but relaxed when he saw her.
"Tsubone? I'm sorry," he said with a heavy sigh of relief. "That kid was too fast. I lost track of him."
"It doesn't matter. He is fast," Tsubone replied with a soft, thin smile. As she spoke, she made a specific hand gesture.
Her companion glanced at the hand signal but offered no reaction.
Tsubone's smile didn't falter. She stepped in close, her hand snapping out like a whip to grab his face. With a sickening tear, she ripped away half of the young man's features. It was a bloody, mangled mess.
The "fake" grabbed Tsubone's wrist, looking at her with a pained expression. "Tsubone... did I do something wrong?"
"The butlers do not call me by name while we are on duty," Tsubone said coldly.
Suddenly, her expression shifted to one of pure dread. An omen of disaster flared in her chest. Without a second thought, she stiffened her other hand into a blade and hacked downward, severing the very wrist the "companion" was holding.
Blood sprayed into the dirt as she threw herself backward.
"This intruder... his aura is incredibly dense."
Deep in the woods, Gotoh—the first to intercept Liam—was privately stunned. He was currently prying coins out of his own body, one by one, as if digging out lead slugs. His face remained a mask of professional calm, even as blood coated his fingers and dripped onto the dry leaves.
"I hope Tsubone and the others have this under control. If this reaches the Master or the Young Master, the punishment will be severe."
Gotoh adjusted his glasses and felt for another coin. Out of the shadows, a young girl with an afro and a black suit stepped forward.
"Canary? Why are you here?"
"The target doubled back this way," Canary said, her voice urgent. She moved toward him, reaching out to check his wounds. "Gotoh, are you all right?"
"It's just a scratch. No need—"
Gotoh started to push her away, but the sound of heavy footsteps interrupted him.
"He ran over there!" a voice cried out.
Several butlers appeared, stumbling through the brush and leaning on each other for support. They shouted to Gotoh, "The intruder is heading for the living quarters! He's trying to blend in and pose as one of us! Gotoh, Canary, we have to stop him!"
Gotoh looked at the frantic men, then at the unconscious colleague they were carrying. He turned back to the group, his voice flat. "I don't follow. Every butler here knows every other butler's face. He wears the same uniform, but so what? How could he possibly pose as one of us? Why would you even think that?"
"Because..." the leader of the group started, his voice trailing off.
Liam's figure suddenly appeared, standing calmly behind Canary and Gotoh. He was wearing a small, playful smirk. "Because you are me. You're all me."
Gotoh tried to lunged, but his wrist was caught in a grip of iron. He stared at Canary, his eyes bloodshot with rage, only to see a sly, mocking grin spread across her face.
"Could it be... when did you... damn it!"
Liam kept his hands in his pockets. "Take it off."
"Canary" moved instantly.
"Damn it! Why are you people still chasing me? I didn't even do anything!"
"It's a misunderstanding! Total misunderstanding!"
"I just took a wrong turn! This is ridiculous!"
"You have nowhere left to run!"
The forest at the base of the mountain was a chaos of shouting. Liam sprinted through the trees, yelling back at the mob of butlers pursuing him. Gotoh, Tsubone, and a dozen others were closing in, leaping through the canopy to block his flanks.
He was being herded like a panicked animal. Suddenly, the forest thinned out, and the massive perimeter wall of the Zoldyck estate loomed in the distance. Kukuroo Mountain sat behind it, still miles away.
In the middle of the road ahead, a tall, beautiful figure with long, needle-straight hair stood waiting. It was the eldest Zoldyck son, Illumi.
"He certainly has stamina," Illumi noted tonelessly.
As Liam charged toward him with a desperate expression, Illumi stepped forward. His body seemed to fracture into a hundred afterimages, a literal wall of clones surrounding Liam in an instant.
Every time Liam tried to break the circle, he was struck. Every blow was laced with cold, murderous intent, aimed squarely at his throat. Within seconds, Liam was a bloody mess, his clothes tattered. Yet, under the watchful eyes of the assassins, his wounds closed as quickly as they were made.
"An Enhancer? No... that's not quite right."
The afterimages collapsed back into a single circle. Illumi's voice drifted from every direction at once. He held up his hands, looking at the blood on his claw-like fingertips. "I had needles hidden in my grip. I stabbed you multiple times, but the Nen didn't take. You must be a Manipulator. Is your 'condition' a forced self-healing?"
To Illumi, using Manipulation just to mimic Enhancement's healing was a pathetic waste of potential.
Hearing Illumi's diagnosis, Gotoh and the other butlers took a wary step back.
Illumi's dead eyes scanned the surrounding butlers. Suddenly, he whipped ten needles toward his own men.
"Hehehe..."
The "Liam" in the center of the circle sat down on the dirt. "Wow. You're pretty sharp, aren't you?"
The figure's face and body rippled like water. In a flash, it shifted back into Canary.
Canary's natural aura was thin. Maintaining the Seventy-Two Transformations every second was exhausting, and the Star Mark's constant healing of the damage Illumi had dealt had drained the tank. She was completely spent.
Illumi ignored the girl. He looked up at his butlers—Tsubone, Gotoh, and the rest—who had all caught his needles with ease and were now closing in on him.
Near the high wall of the estate, a black shadow was moving at a blurring speed, almost skimming the surface of the ground.
"The last wind talisman," the real Liam whispered.
He timed it perfectly, releasing the Star Marks from Tsubone and the others. Riding the gale, he reached the base of the massive wall in a heartbeat. His momentum didn't slow; he hit the stone at a ninety-degree angle and began running straight up the vertical surface.
The air currents acted like a localized lift, pushing him higher and higher. He was inches from the top, seconds away from clearing the wall and disappearing into the night.
Then, a burly figure with a mane of hair like a lion appeared at the crest of the wall, silhouetted against the dim moon.
Silva Zoldyck didn't say a word. He condensed two terrifying orbs of purple energy, each over a meter wide, and hurled them straight at Liam's head.
Liam kicked off the stone, twisting mid-air as the wind caught him. He narrowly avoided the blast, the heat of the aura searing past his skin. These weren't just "bullets"—they were cannons.
The dodge killed his upward momentum. Liam began to fall.
He hit the ground hard, but the wind beneath his feet cushioned the impact. He landed in a crouch, perfectly composed.
"Dragon Head!"
A raspy, laughing voice echoed in his ears. Liam didn't look; he just threw himself into a sprint.
But the dragon-shaped aura didn't dissipate after the initial strike. It banked mid-air, its glowing eyes locking onto Liam. It unhinged an enormous jaw and lunged again.
Liam glanced up. Above him stood Silva, the silent and majestic patriarch. Behind the chasing dragon stood a white-haired old man, his hands dancing to control the beast. Zeno Zoldyck.
Boom! The dragon's head smashed into the earth, leaving a massive crater.
Liam scrambled away, watching as the aura-construct crawled back out of the pit, seemingly undamaged. An aura dragon? Are you kidding me? It hits the ground that hard and keeps its shape?
He looked at Zeno, the old man with "One Kill a Day" embroidered on his clothes. What kind of monster do you have to be to maintain Emission at that level?
Liam gave a helpless, tired smile.
"Two heavyweights just to catch one guy? I'm honored, really."
"Make that three," a woman's voice called from the side, Kikyo Zoldyck
And lastly a young boy with long black hair and a red-and-purple kimono stepped into Liam's path. He tilted his head, looking up with wide, innocent eyes.
"Liam," Kalluto said softly, holding out his hands. "Give me your kidney."
Liam chuckled. "Just the one? Or do you want both?"