The team finally found water.
"This is impossible," Menchi whispered, her voice hoarse with thirst. "This is the resource that sustains their lives."
Now that they had ventured into the Dark Continent, such trivial concerns seemed almost laughable compared to the dangers that surrounded them.
The six hunters quickly gathered what they needed and disappeared into the barren landscape.
Time passed with agonizing slowness. Team Oboro walked and stopped, maintaining a brisk pace whenever there was no immediate danger. Though all but Oboro lacked his raw strength, they were all Nen users with considerable physical abilities. At full capacity, they could cover at least 100 kilometers a day.
Despite their speed, the desert seemed endless.
According to the system's illustration, this desert shouldn't be vast. The map showed forest and river terrain not far ahead, but reality told a different story. What looked close on the map turned out to be an enormously deceptive distance.
By midday, the desert heat was at its merciless peak. The six hunters huddled in the shade of massive boulders, their clothes drenched with sweat despite the shelter.
Venturing out of the shade meant risking their skin and flesh being scorched by the sun. They had also encountered various creatures with bizarre anatomies wandering the wastes.
"According to my estimation," Oboro explained, scanning the horizon with narrowed eyes, "this area represents the outermost edge of the Dark Continent. The creatures here are relatively simple, basically giant monsters with specific talents. There are no extraordinary elements, no oddities, no complex rules. The deeper we go, the greater the likelihood of encountering more complex life forms."
He paused, letting the implication sink in. "From the perspective of the Dark Continent's ecological chain, these monsters have been driven to the fringes, which means that they themselves are at the bottom of the hierarchy."
"The weakest?" After hearing Oboro's explanation, Menchi and the others exchanged incredulous glances.
In their eyes, any one of these monsters, if placed in the human world, would be unstoppable by conventional hunters. Normal Nen abilities would be a joke in the face of their overwhelming physical strength.
"Be prepared," Oboro warned, his voice grim. "We may have to stay in this desert for a long time."
They fell into a rhythm of traveling by day and resting by night. As their journey lengthened, monster sightings increased.
Without exception, these threats died at Oboro's hands.
The desert offered no hiding places and no safe shelter. At night, the monsters became more active, making it dangerous for the team to travel. During the day, the searing heat forced many of the creatures into hiding, making it relatively safe to travel, though the temperature remained nearly unbearable.
Half a month later, the team's appearance had changed drastically. Dressed in ragged clothes, their hair unkempt, their faces covered in dirt and grime, they resembled a group of desperate vagabonds.
Dusk was falling over the desert. A strange sound came from above, drawing their attention to the sky.
A mass of black mist lingered in the air before returning to a single human form. Oboro's body slowly descended from the void, his soul-like state fading as he solidified.
On the scorching sand below, a giant spiked spider lay with its legs curled inward, utterly lifeless.
The surrounding sand was completely corroded by milky-white poison, and pungent green smoke rose from the affected area. Oboro held his breath and concentrated, contracting every pore on his body with Ten.
Even after the poison evaporated, a burning sensation remained in the air. Fortunately, his body's defense was considerable.
If Menchi or the others had been exposed, they would not have been able to prevent the poison from entering their bodies.
After waiting for the venom to fully dissipate, several of the teammates approached with their packs.
Menchi grabbed her knife with both hands and immediately began examining the spider's body to determine which parts could be salvaged for food. Anthony and Fant remained vigilant, scanning their surroundings with alert eyes.
Gabwich pulled out his journal and began documenting their latest encounter. Throughout their journey, he had meticulously recorded details of every monster they encountered, analyzing the information nightly to better prepare for future threats.
Rita assisted Menchi with the dissection.
Each had different responsibilities, but they worked together with practiced efficiency.
The initial fear and anxiety that had plagued them was long gone, replaced by something far worse. Oboro looked at his five companions and stifled a sigh.
Their mental state had deteriorated dramatically since they first set foot on the Dark Continent.
Fatigue, constant tension, and frequent terror had tested and weakened her resolve. Even in this border region, monsters appeared with frightening frequency.
The power gap between these creatures and themselves filled Menchi and the others with growing despair.
Without Oboro, they would have died long ago.
Even at night, even with Oboro standing guard, they couldn't sleep soundly, jerking awake at the slightest sound. Their surroundings were nothing short of torture. All five had bloodshot eyes as they forced themselves to keep moving.
Worst of all was the unspoken fear: what if one day Oboro left the team or couldn't protect them in time?
Though no one spoke these concerns aloud, Oboro sensed their anxiety.
In truth, he found their endurance remarkable. As humans and Nen users, they had already shown extraordinary resilience to survive this long.
"Captain, you can drink."
Menchi approached, holding up a makeshift pouch of animal skin. It contained pale green spider blood with a pungent, fishy smell.
Nearby, Rita used her hatsu to make the blood-soaked plants retreat.
The team now survived on raw meat and blood. When they were hungry, they ate monster flesh, sometimes cooked, sometimes raw. Everyone had grown accustomed to this grim diet.
The resources of the desert were very limited. Without the creatures Oboro hunted, they could not have traveled nearly as far.
Menchi cut off only enough meat for one meal, preserving the rest for future provisions before moving on.
As night fell, they built a simple stone fortress and huddled inside.
Oboro opened his system panel and checked their progress.
In the past two weeks, he had killed dozens of monsters, but neither his position in the food chain nor his ecological value had increased.
This indicated that advancement in the new power system would be extremely difficult, much more so than in the human world.
"That potion, is it gone?" Oboro asked, turning to Fant.
"Not anymore," Fant confirmed with a heavy nod.
The "potion" he was referring to was "lizard urine", not just water, but a powerful healing agent. Rita had been injured by an octopus during their sea crossing, but after drinking the liquid, she'd recovered with remarkable speed.
The liquid had obvious healing properties, but in their haste to flee the previous battlefield, they'd only taken a small amount.
In subsequent encounters, they still suffered injuries despite keeping their distance. The potion had helped them recover and maintain their condition.
However, not every creature's bodily fluids had such beneficial effects. The lizard was an exception.
After a while, Menchi passed out processed white meat, piece by piece.
The group took their portions and ate directly, tearing at the flesh with their teeth. The meat was as tough as weathered leather, but they ate it without complaint.
"Captain," Anthony asked, "how long before we get out of here?"
The ship's engineer had once meticulously maintained his crew cut. Now his disheveled hair hung long around his dust-covered face.
They had gotten used to the monsters and the harsh conditions. Now they just wanted to escape.
"Hard to say," Oboro replied quietly. "Maybe months. Maybe years."
Silence fell over the group. The atmosphere was heavy with despair.
"Huh?"
A faint light suddenly appeared above them, clearly visible against the night sky.
"Fireflies?" Gabwich muttered, squinting upward.
Bean-sized lights flickered in the air, gradually coalescing into a swarm that emitted a pale yellow glow.
No wonder Gabwich seemed momentarily enchanted. Since entering the Dark Continent, this was their first encounter with such tiny creatures that resembled the insects of the human world.
They seemed harmless. Beautiful, even.
The swarm of insects seemed extraordinarily sensitive to sound. At Gabwich's whisper, they suddenly transformed into a yellow swirl, circling downward toward the stone shelter.
"Disperse!" Oboro's pupils constricted as he shouted the command.
Fant grabbed the stunned Gabwich and ran. Within seconds, Oboro was standing alone among the rocks.
The swarm abruptly split into several groups, each pursuing a team member with terrifying speed, forming ribbons of undulating light in the air.
Without hesitation, Oboro struck into the air, hitting the nearest insects.
When the first bug shattered under his Nen-enhanced fist, it didn't just break apart, it exploded. Though tiny, each insect exploded with the force of a compressed missile, unleashing devastating power.
Even more horrifying, the death of a single insect set off a chain reaction that caused the entire swarm to explode.
Under the cover of night, points of fluorescent light flickered across the dark landscape. With deafening explosions, they transformed into a boundless sea of light that engulfed everything.
Oboro barely had time to release his Nen into its specialized form and transform into his soul state. The next second, he was submerged in the blinding ocean of light.
The flames melted everything it touched.
The hazy, ghostly aura instantly swept outward, the rolling black tide attempting to contain the spreading flames.
But the black barrier formed by Oboro's Nen, normally so effective, was mere cloth before this inferno. It quickly burned through and melted away.
These flames burned so hot that even Oboro's powerful Nen couldn't withstand them.
The ghostly aura of his Nen manifestation evaporated within seconds.
After five agonizing minutes, the sea of light finally subsided.
The desert had been transformed into flowing lava and rising black smoke, a volcanic hellscape.
The air was boiling, impossible to breathe.
In the air, the concentrated aura formed a huge black cocoon around Oboro's mental state.
When the protective shroud lifted, the damage became visible. Half of his face and body were horribly burned.
The pain was excruciating.
But Oboro's focus was elsewhere. He shot out of the scorched earth like an arrow.
Moments later, as he descended from the sky, he froze in horror.
On the ground below stood two charred figures, two bodies burned beyond recognition.
Though Oboro had acted quickly, causing the swarm to focus its explosion around him, it had all happened too quickly.
Even far from the core of the explosion, the heat generated was enough to destroy normal life forms.
It was impossible for Nen to withstand such a force.
Had it not been for his ghostly aura, which briefly suppressed the spread of the explosion and bought his teammates precious seconds, Menchi and the others might have been completely vaporized instead of reaching this distance before succumbing to the heat.
The figure standing in front of them was Fant.
From his posture, it appeared that he had died trying to shield his teammates. As an Enhancement-type Nen user, he had the physical resilience and Nen strength to absorb damage and buffer the first wave of explosions.
Fant had always served as the team's "bodyguard," older, more mature, more sacrificial.
The corpse behind him was Rita.
She had died with both hands touching the ground, apparently using her Manipulation Hatsu to force the vegetation to form a protective shield. Though only a few of her plant seeds remained, she had faithfully carried them on her journey.
Beyond the two bodies lay Menchi and the other two men, unconscious but alive.
Their skin glowed an angry red from severe burns, but they were still breathing.
If they stayed any longer, the lingering heat would kill them.
Oboro closed his eyes, stepped forward to touch the shoulders of his fallen comrades, then gathered the three survivors and fled.
Death had come suddenly, without warning.
Although he had released his ghostly aura beforehand, Oboro hadn't sensed the approach of the insects.
Soul detection was related to spirit perception. These insects had no "consciousness," they followed pure instinct, so their aura fluctuations were minimal.
To larger creatures, human auras appeared weak, but to these insects, they represented perfect prey.
The Dark Continent's food chain wasn't singular, but consisted of countless overlapping hierarchies.
Large creatures hunted their peers, while smaller lifeforms operated within their own circles.
Oboro realized his basic misunderstanding. Aura strength could measure a species' power, but the principle didn't apply universally to all life forms on the Dark Continent.
It was especially useless against creatures with supernatural abilities, strange characteristics, or complex rules.
An insect's aura might be minuscule, but its danger could be terrifying.
Aura strength could not be equated with threat level.
Oboro had learned a devastating lesson, paid for with the lives of two teammates. His thinking remained limited by human parameters.
These insects represented extraordinary power, ultimate fire elements whose explosions could burn him even in the soul state.
They melted his Nen aura like snow in summer.
Essentially, the life energy he released had been destroyed by an external attack.
Supernatural power meant reaching such extremes that it could ignore standard Nen effects.
Nen effects depended on personal will. "Soul Matter" was supposed to be untouchable by outside forces.
But this was pure, concentrated power.
Half an hour later, the badly injured Oboro laid the unconscious survivors on solid ground and looked up at the night sky.
"We went too deep," he muttered.
Even after only two weeks of travel, he suspected that Netero, Beyond, and the others hadn't penetrated this far into the continent. More likely, they had stayed close to the coast.
"Sound," Oboro whispered.
The insects were attracted to sound, sensing even the slightest vibrations with extraordinary sensitivity.
Gabwich's soft whisper had triggered the swarm's deadly response.
"It could have been avoided."
Oboro examined his burned, peeling flesh with furrowed brows.
If he'd noticed earlier, if he'd ordered everyone to be quiet, maybe even stopped their heartbeats temporarily, they might have escaped disaster.
But now, regret changed nothing.
His eyes flickered with determination as he fell silent, already planning their next move.