Some people, once they start talking, can't stop.
The skeleton was clearly one of those types.
The jinx he suddenly mentioned immediately caught everyone's attention.
"What is it?" someone asked.
The skeleton thought for a moment and said, "It should be a door panel."
"Should be?"
"At the time, I was far away and felt that thing was dangerous. Why would I actively get close? From a distance, it looked like a door panel, but also a bit like a stone slab."
"Be more specific."
"Isn't that asking the impossible?" The skeleton muttered softly, then seriously recalled what he had seen. After pausing for about ten seconds, he said, "That door panel was black, about as thick as a finger, its width roughly equal to my height, and its length about three times my height."
Upon hearing this, everyone instinctively visualized the appearance of the jinx as described by the skeleton.
Assuming this jinx was a stone slab, its actual size wasn't that large, which was why the skeleton initially described it as a door panel, quite fitting.
"Just a stone slab, how is it a jinx?" Buhara asked, puzzled.
The red lights in the skeleton's eyes flickered between bright and dim. He said in a grave tone, "I saw it absorb all the life it encountered along the way, including Bone Clan's creatures. It didn't leave even a single scrap behind. Wouldn't you call that a jinx?"
Hearing this, Buhara's expression turned grave, and he quite agreed with the skeleton's statement.
As for the others, they also showed varying degrees of wariness.
Ging suppressed his doubts and asked instead, "How long have you been here?"
"Nearly three years."
"Is that so? Then you should know that besides the numerous Bone Clan and some dangerous creatures in the underground world, there are other humans who have built settlements here."
"You mean humans?" The skeleton's tone held slight surprise.
"What? You haven't seen them?" Ging looked puzzled.
The skeleton thought for a moment, then said, "I have, but strictly speaking, they can't be considered human anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you know what mixed bloodlines are?" the skeleton asked in return.
"You mean hybrid?"
"Huh, that works too." The skeleton nodded, then extended a finger bone through a gap in the Nen net, pointing upward. "Now, only a small group of humans struggle to survive on the surface. As for other humans who have undergone assimilation, strictly speaking, they can't be considered human anymore."
"Including several tribal lands in the underground world, I usually call them humanoids. Take me, for example. Even though I can't coexist with the Bone Clan here, in my current state, I can't be called human anymore. I'm more appropriately called a Bone Clan's member."
"Humanoids..." Ging stroked his chin, thought for a moment, then raised his most pressing question: "Did the jinx you mentioned attack the humanoid settlements?"
"I don't know." The skeleton said gravely, "I'm not even sure where it came from. When I first saw it, I thought it might be the Demon King, so I followed it from afar for a while. Later, feeling it was too dangerous, I gave up tracking and hid to avoid trouble."
"If it hadn't left the underground world, I wouldn't be wandering around at all, let alone..."
At this point, the skeleton abruptly stopped talking.
His next sentence was: ...let alone have the misfortune of running into you guys.
"That jinx resembles the Demon King?"
"It's not exactly resemblance, mainly because they're both square-shaped."
"I see. So, how does the jinx absorb the Bone Clan?"
"If I didn't have night vision, I really couldn't answer that question." A hint of pride tinged the skeleton's tone.
Turned into a skeleton by the Demon King's melody, he lost some things but gained others, like a body hard as steel, night vision...
"Less nonsense. Answer what we ask," Tonpa appropriately gave the skeleton a warning, which resulted in the skeleton's glare.
"Speak quickly," Ging urged.
The skeleton mentally spat at Tonpa, then said, "That black door panel can float and fly. Its movement trajectory is strange, and its speed isn't slow either. Bone Clan with higher intelligence could sense the door panel's danger, so they all kept their distance."
"But the Bone Clan with lower intelligence had it rough. It was as if they couldn't see the black door panel. Even when it got very close, they showed no reaction."
"The door panel just lightly touched them, and then they fell as if into an abyss. Without any struggle, they were sucked into the ripples on the door panel's surface. No matter how big they were, none escaped."
After hearing the skeleton's account, everyone, including Ging, couldn't hide their grave expressions.
The most terrifying entities on the Dark Continent were things like the all-devouring black shadow Law's group had encountered before, and now the Demon King's melody and the black slab mentioned by the skeleton.
"Did any highly intelligent Bone Clan get absorbed by the slab?"
"Yes."
"And they didn't resist either?"
"No, they resisted, but it was useless. Any attack that landed on the slab didn't even cause damage, not a single sound."
"..."
The skeleton sighed, "That's why I said you're lucky. If you'd come two months earlier, given the slab's speed, you'd have run into it eventually. And knowing nothing about it, you'd definitely have suffered."
No one refuted the skeleton's statement, and they had already linked the perpetrator who destroyed the Slu Tribe's settlement with the black slab the skeleton described.
Seeing the humans before him fall silent, the skeleton thought he had said so much already, and maybe it was time to let him go.
Thinking this, he tentatively asked, "So, questions asked, answers given... can I..."
"No, no, I still have many questions," Ging smiled.
"You... aren't playing word games, are you?" the skeleton asked warily.
"Oh? You even know that term?" Ging was quite surprised.
"What if I do? Is it strange?"
The skeleton had, after all, lived a long time. What he had seen, encountered, and heard, even if this group of humans combined their experiences, couldn't compare to his.
"Not strange at all. In any case, rest assured, we won't do anything to you." Ging smiled, then looked at the scene reflected on the rock wall by the fox Nen beast and said, "Let's wait for our captain to return, then have a good talk together."
"Huh?"
Only then did the skeleton have the chance to notice the scene on the rock wall. Upon seeing what Law was holding in his hand, the red lights in his eye sockets rippled in shock. "How do you have that thing?"
Ging looked at the object, thought for a moment, and smiled, "A bunch of guys sent it over."