065 (Vol 4) HxH: Tombbound Power

After hearing each other's voices, the two beasts turned to look—eyes gleaming with menace.

Baring their teeth and snarling, they looked like they were about to tear into each other.

Just before the chicken and the dog could come to blows, their master furrowed his brow, a black vein twitching on his forehead. Without hesitation, he kicked both of them straight into the red earth ahead.

"Looks like there's really nothing major. We were just overthinking it."

He watched the two nen beasts—each radiating life energy—stand up immediately, full of vigor. Their condition seemed perfectly normal. Their master gave a satisfied nod and glanced over at Beyond.

"Better safe than sorry," Beyond replied, his sharp eyes softening slightly.

...

Standing behind Beyond—whom Ging had once speculated might surpass even Pariston in raw power—Marione the puppet hesitated for once, a rare uncertainty flickering in her usually cold eyes.

"Woof!"

"Cackle!"

The chicken and the dog immediately resumed squabbling, but their master simply shifted his legs, unimpressed.

"Settle down and behave..."

Right then, something in the puppet's expression shifted. Something unexpected was happening.

Before he could even finish the word, the man at the front suddenly lost all strength. The world spun. His vision blurred.

"Danger."

A cold, mechanical voice rang out.

The man had no time to process it. Instinct kicked in—he tried to retreat.

But the power in his body was draining rapidly. His limbs turned cold, heavy. His mind throbbed with emptiness, and his breathing turned erratic.

"Damn it… I was so careful… and still fell for it!"

That was his final thought before everything went dark.

"Danger."

"Not good!"

"Karre?!"

His teammates' faces changed in an instant. They shouted his name and rushed to help.

Beyond, the closest to Karre, reacted instantly. The moment Karre's aura wavered, he reached out, snatched Karre from the brink, and pulled him back just before his body could hit the ground.

From the moment Karre blacked out to the moment Beyond retrieved him, less than a second had passed.

Only after Beyond rescued him did the others finally rush over, voices rising in concern.

The first to sense the danger had been the puppet—Marione.

"Woof!"

"Cackle!"

The chicken and the dog stopped fighting at once. Seeing their master collapse, they rushed to his side—but a group of people quickly blocked them from entering the red-soiled zone.

"Stay back. That land is dangerous. Who knows what you might carry with you if you come back from there—it could make things worse for us and your master!"

The leader's tone was heavy. His gaze held both fear and vigilance as he stared at the beasts.

They had all seen it clearly—Karre had barely stepped into the red zone before collapsing. Yet those nen beasts and the three purple smoke mobile soldiers were still standing there, full of life and energy.

That contrast sent a shiver down their spines and raised their suspicion of the red earth to the highest level.

"Woof..."

"Cackle..."

As artificially created nen beasts, the chicken and the dog didn't respond well to others' commands. But when their master was involved, they froze on the spot and let out heartbroken cries, collapsing to the ground in defeat.

...

Meanwhile, Karre had been laid down and was being examined by a few veteran team members with medical experience.

The puppet girl stared down at Karre, then looked at the chicken and the dog. A thought stirred in her mind—one that wouldn't go away.

Though her body had been transformed into a puppet, giving her extraordinary logic and analytical capacity, her heart still retained faint traces of what she once was.

Things like... intuition. A sixth sense.

And in this world, intuition often proves deadly accurate. It wasn't just Machi who had that gift—others did too, albeit rarely.

Marione was one of them.

The first time she laid eyes on that red land, she'd felt a vague sense of unease.

At first, she brushed it off as standard anxiety over the Dark Continent. But as the purple smoke soldiers, then the chicken and the dog stepped onto the land unharmed, her sense of danger began to intensify.

Then Karre took a step forward—and that vague threat exploded into a siren in her chest. She barely had time to call out.

Too late.

Her instincts just weren't quite as sharp as Machi's...

...

"Severe blood loss!"

One glance at Karre's pale face told even the untrained eye what was wrong.

Everyone here was an experienced adventurer—risking their lives on the edge of the unknown. They recognized these symptoms immediately.

Pale limbs. Cold sweat. Shallow, rapid breathing. A faint, fast pulse. All classic signs of critical blood loss.

Naturally, the team had come prepared.

In a place like the Dark Continent, facing unknown beasts and injuries at every turn, supplies for treating blood loss were essential.

One of the medical experts quickly fished a few dark-red dates from his pouch and pushed them into Karre's mouth.

These were a rare delicacy across the Six Continents—and a coveted item among gourmet hunters. In mere moments, they could restore blood volume and pull someone back from the brink.

Normally, they were reserved for top-tier hospitals. Only used when someone with a rare blood type faced fatal bleeding, or when there wasn't time to match a donor.

They came from a strange jujube tree, brought back by one of the rare survivors...