Chapter 154: Blinky, Hook, and Curse!
Phinks pushed his Ryu to the absolute limit. The moment Neon's pen made contact
with his skin, he shifted a massive concentration of aura to the point of
impact.
The pen couldn't pierce his hide. Phinks snarled, twisting his torso to unleash
a devastating counter-hook aimed directly at Neon's face. In his other hand, he
still gripped Abaki's fishing line.
The line suddenly jerked, then went slack with a sharp snap.
Phinks didn't need to look to know what happened. The attacker—Abaki—had chosen
to sever her own line rather than be dragged into his range by the recoil.
Weak, Phinks judged. Their raw power is pathetic.
His punch whistled through the air, but it hit nothing. At the last possible
millisecond, Neon felt a violent suction from her side. The vacuum's pull caught
her clothes, yanking her out of the trajectory of Phinks' fist.
It was Shizuku.
By using Blinky as a "tractor beam," Shizuku had finally found a rhythm to
support her teammates while keeping them out of Phinks' lethal reach.
She clicked the power switch off immediately after Neon cleared the zone. If she
had kept the suction active a second longer, she would have sucked Neon right
out of her outfit.
That would have been... awkward, Neon thought, her heart racing as she
stabilized.
Phinks didn't let up. He stepped forward, his trailing leg whipping around in a
low-arc kick toward Neon's shins.
He wasn't just a brawler; his martial arts were refined over decades of street
warfare.
Neon crossed her arms, focused every drop of Nen into her forearms, and took the
blow. A sharp, white-hot pain flared in her bones as she was launched into the
air.
But as Phinks prepared to follow up with a finishing strike, Shizuku blurred
into his peripheral vision.
She raised Blinky high and brought the heavy base down toward Phinks' skull like
a sledgehammer.
Simultaneously, a new fishing hook appeared on Neon's jacket. The line snapped
taut, and Neon's airborne body was pulled laterally, clear of the "kill zone."
Phinks' punch hit empty air again. He adjusted instantly, twisting his hips
mid-motion to drive a pre-coiled left fist into the side of Blinky's nozzle.
The movement was fluid, a masterclass in CQC. The punch was aimed at the
toothless side of the vacuum's head.
But Shizuku's hand opened. She let go of the vacuum.
Poof.
Blinky vanished the instant her grip loosened.
Phinks' fist passed through the space where the weapon had been, meeting zero
resistance. In that same heartbeat, Blinky rematerialized in Shizuku's hands.
She thrust the machine forward. Blinky's mouth opened wide, its jagged teeth
clamping onto Phinks' forearm with a sickening crunch.
Phinks roared, flaring his aura to force her back. He managed to rip his arm
away, but the damage was done.
He stared at the ragged, bleeding bite marks on his arm, a flicker of genuine
surprise crossing his face. He had underestimated the girl's technical mastery.
The moment Neon was pulled away, Phinks had focused on the vacuum's suction
power. He hadn't expected the "summon-cancel-summon" feint.
It was a taxing maneuver, burning through aura, but the reward was his blood.
She wants to drain me, Phinks realized.
The wound was jagged and deep. Shizuku's "Blinky" teeth were designed to latch
and tear. Stopping the bleeding through conventional means would be difficult
while his blood pressure was spiked from combat.
Shizuku looked at him, her gaze as blank as a doll's. "Blinky," she whispered.
"Drink every last drop of his blood."
The vacuum's motor screamed to life.
A terrifying suction force focused entirely on the open wound on Phinks' arm. No
matter how he twisted or moved, the atmospheric pull was locked onto his injury.
A steady stream of dark, crimson blood erupted from his arm, forming a red
ribbon in the air that was inhaled into Blinky's mouth.
Phinks had one option. He clamped his hand over the wound, trying to manually
stem the flow, and charged Shizuku at full speed.
Kill the user, end the Hatsu.
But the air pressure shifted.
A pillar of air smashed into the ground beside Shizuku as a figure landed from
the sky. As the dust cleared, the newcomer stood tall—it was Kurapika.
He had just finished Bonolenov.
His scarlet eyes swept the battlefield, assessing the situation in a heartbeat.
Before Phinks could take another step, Kurapika's Chain Jail (Middle Finger)
lashed out, a silver blur aiming to coil around the Spider's limbs.
Phinks was forced to halt his charge and dodge.
Just as he stabilized, Abaki's hook appeared again—ghosting through a spatial
ripple right in front of his face.
Everything was happening too fast. Phinks let go of his wound to snatch the
line, using his previous experience to stall the hook.
But the moment he let go, the blood began to spray into the vacuum again.
And as the chains circled him like hungry snakes, the pink-haired
girl—Neon—approached. She wasn't charging anymore; she was holding her
fountain pen, her expression focused and eerie.
Phinks felt a surge of rage, but his movements were being checked by Shizuku,
Kurapika, and the unseen Abaki.
Neon pulled the cap off her pen. Nen flowed into the nib. She waved the pen in
the air, leaving a trail of blood-red text floating in the space between them.
"The body hooked beneath the sun shall wither into a hollow trophy."
"I like this prophecy," Neon murmured. To her, this wasn't a curse—it was a
glimpse into a beautiful future.
A corpse, drained of blood and preserved like a prize-winning fish. It had
exquisite aesthetic potential.
Phinks couldn't read the script, but the sight of those floating red words
triggered a primal sense of dread.
Suddenly, the hook he had been trying to avoid flickered and reappeared,
striking him squarely in the cheek.
How?!
The line had just snapped! Even if she re-cast, there should have been a delay.
Then it hit him.
Abaki wasn't a Conjurer. Her rod and line weren't physical constructs she had to rebuild.
She was an Emitter.
The "hook" was a concentrated mass of aura she could displace through space at will. She wasn't "casting" a line; she was "warping" a strike.
He had spent the entire fight treating her like a mid-range Conjurer. It was a
fatal miscalculation.
The hook dug into his flesh, and Abaki yanked.
Phinks felt his head being pulled back, exposing his throat to the silver chains
and the girl with the pen.
☆☆☆
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