Menchi and her companions were not in good shape. The vibrations and high temperature from the explosion had made their bodies sluggish, slowing the flow of their aura.
At that critical moment, even with Fant and Rita blocking from the front, the remaining three instinctively unleashed their Nen at full power to defend themselves.
Their journey out of the desert was temporarily interrupted. Oboro built a makeshift shelter of stones to help the three recover from their injuries.
During this time, he hunted nearby, never straying too far and constantly monitoring the vital signs of his wounded companions.
A few days later, Menchi was the first to regain consciousness.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Oboro sitting beside her, preparing food that carried the unmistakable scent of fresh blood. Half of her face, the side facing him, bore a shocking burn scar.
"Don't speak, rest," Oboro said calmly.
Menchi's mouth was dry and her body completely drained. She listened to his words and remained silent.
First she assessed her own condition, then she rolled her eyes to survey her surroundings.
She saw Gabwich and Anthony lying nearby, but Fant and Rita were nowhere to be seen.
In an instant, Menchi's eyes reddened and tears began to flow.
She understood what had happened.
"Before coming here, everyone was already aware of the risks," Oboro sensed her emotions, but offered no comfort. "All we can do is accept their fate with dignity. Their deaths warn those of us who survived to remain ever vigilant against the dangers that lurk in the shadows."
"They were our partners, our saviors."
After he finished, Menchi turned her head away, her neck twitching slightly with suppressed emotion.
Half a day later, Anthony awoke as well.
His reaction mirrored Menchi's, though his emotions were even stronger. However, his weakened body prevented him from making any sudden movements or even raising his voice. In the end, he could only burst into tears, his face contorted in agony.
Even with the mental preparation, the reality was still hard to accept.
What made it worse was the suddenness, there hadn't even been time to process what was happening.
"I'm sorry, it's all my fault."
When Gabwich finally opened his eyes, he immediately sank into a deep self-recrimination.
If he hadn't made that noise, the insects might not have gathered.
"This extreme fire temperature affected not only bodies, but souls," Oboro distributed water and food to his teammates, his voice deep with regret. "I did not have time to collect their souls. Don't let their sacrifices be in vain. Live well"
""
No one spoke that night.
The next day, even though her body had not yet recovered, Menchi forced herself to stand up. In her words, if she couldn't overcome such a minor setback in the Dark Continent, she might as well die. She refused to be a burden to the team.
Her eyes had changed.
Not only hers, but Anthony and Gabwich's temperaments seemed to have changed as well.
The deaths of Fant and Rita had affected all three of them deeply.
Soon, Gabwich and Anthony divided their duties as usual.
They pushed their exhausted bodies to work.
Oboro didn't stop them, recognizing this as their way of dealing with grief.
Anthony cut off his cherished long hair and adopted a short style reminiscent of Fant's.
As for Gabwich, he became withdrawn and silent.
Less than a month into their exploration of the Dark Continent, the team had suffered a devastating blow.
In certain crises, even the protection of powerful Nen users could not guarantee everyone's safety.
Just like that, their team of six became four, and they continued to move forward.
Time passed slowly.
Though their strength hadn't improved dramatically, the change in their mentality and adaptation to this continent allowed Menchi and the others to remain calm in the face of strange creatures, no longer succumbing to fear or panic.
Their daily activities became more disciplined.
After overcoming the psychological trauma, Oboro consciously controlled the battlefield when hunting for prey, allowing the other three to participate under safe conditions. His primary goal was to strengthen them and increase their chances of survival.
Their survival strategy, at least temporarily, was simple. They avoided any contact with supernatural forces, anomalies, or unknown rules. At the first sign of anything unusual, they retreated immediately.
They only hunted or attacked creatures for which they had detailed information and intelligence.
Or when they thoroughly understood the capabilities of the target.
After crossing the desert for half a year, they finally discovered an oasis.
But their expressions weren't joyful, just cautious.
The emergence of a new area potentially heralded a new food chain, a new ecological environment, and more unfamiliar species. By now, the team had gained a considerable understanding of the Dark Continent.
Although humans are inherently weak, their adaptability is remarkable.
With experience and tempering in monster battles, Menchi and the others hadn't improved as dramatically as they would have by absorbing souls compared to when they started, but they had made a qualitative leap.
This improvement was comprehensive.
Over the course of six months, Oboro had killed hundreds of monsters and absorbed their souls.
This finally caused a slight change in his status panel.
His position in the food chain remained at the bottom.
But its ecological score had changed from 25 to 27.
A modest 2 point increase, but progress nonetheless.
The growth is likely due to his deepening understanding of the continent's environment and finding ways to integrate into it.
"Earth Devourer."
On the way to the oasis, Menchi, who walked to the side without any warning, suddenly spoke without expression.
When she finished, the nearby sand suddenly collapsed, and all the yellow sand poured into the ground like a sea current. Oboro stood motionless while Menchi, holding a knife in both hands, immediately followed the sand flow and fell into the dark, deep underground cave. In the dim light, she could already see a gaping, bloody mouth awaiting her arrival.
Crawling underground was a milky-white worm with no eyes or other visible organs. This creature identified food by smell and wasn't very large, only a few dozen meters long. This was considered a small life form in the Dark Continent, and these worms typically hunted creatures with relatively weak life force, which explained why they targeted the humans but not Oboro.
To larger life forms, these worms were just a nuisance, not even big enough to fill the gaps between their teeth. Most giant predators ignored them, just as they had ignored the mice and strange birds Oboro had encountered when he first arrived.
After Menchi willingly jumped into the sand pit, Gabwich and Anthony followed suit, stepping into the yellow swirl of sand one after the other.
Soon after, Oboro heard the Earth Devourer's roar. The sand stopped flowing, but the ground continued to tremble. Clearly, the underground worm had been attacked and was fighting back.
In the desert, they had temporarily named every creature they hunted or encountered.
Generally, the sand and gravel where Earth Devourers hide is relatively loose, with softer geology. These slight changes would have gone unnoticed by Menchi and the others before, but now they did not need Oboro to remind them, they could handle the situation well on their own.
This was growth.
After a while, a small bulge appeared in the sand, and three people covered in viscous slime crawled out one by one.
The battle was over.
Currently, the three of them could barely hunt some smaller creatures together, provided the danger wasn't too high.
For larger threats, they still relied on Oboro.
If nothing else, surviving in this harsh environment while maintaining and using their Nen for extended periods of time invisibly strengthened their life force.
When he saw the oasis, Oboro had already determined its location.
They were on the far left of his mental 'map', and if they continued on and crossed the oasis, they should encounter a group of thatched huts of various sizes.
As they entered the oasis, the heat in the air dropped considerably, replaced by a gentle breeze.
The lush vegetation in front of them dwarfed anything in the human world by tens or even hundreds of times, though not as extreme as the legendary World Tree due to the differences in plant families, it was still awe-inspiring.
For this continent, the oasis in front of them was like a green meadow.
But the four of them, Oboro and his companions, moved like insects in the shadows of towering branches and leaves.
Shortly after entering the oasis, Oboro heard a buzzing sound. Several giant crustaceans flew down to the leaves above their heads and looked down at the four black dots hiding under the branches. More appeared in front and behind, more than a dozen in all, and Oboro's team was surrounded.
But there was no panic.
Oboro just looked at the insects and in the next second, he slashed his hand through the air.
All the surrounding plants were cut in half, some even shattered into pieces, and as for the insects resting on the leaves, before they could attack, their bodies made a crunching sound and burst into droplets of liquid that rained down.
Menchi and the others quickly dodged, not daring to touch the liquid. Who knew if it was poisonous?
As someone who had absorbed countless souls and possessed enormous energy, what Oboro had gained in the past six months far exceeded his years of progress in the human world. Even though his system panel had changed and no longer displayed specific values showing only a two-point increase, his Nen abilities continued to develop unabated.
Be it in attack range, aura power, defense, or the physical transformations brought on by his enhanced attributes.
Oboro's physical strength now surpassed what it had been when he first set foot on the Dark Continent, and the range of his long-range attacks had increased to nearly a mile.
Furthermore, his Nen abilities continued to evolve.
He now possessed many more techniques.
For example, even though he didn't understand the body structure of alien species, he could identify the weak points of living creatures by directly observing their aura, and then use precision strikes or aura manipulation to inflict devastating damage. No matter how the body structures varied, the energy flow remained constant; most creatures hadn't escaped this basic principle.
After the kill, Oboro didn't release his ghostly aura mist, but the souls released by the insects automatically flew towards him like metal to a magnet and poured into his body.
After walking a short distance, another insect swooped down.
This time they didn't have to act.
A black centipede crawling among the plants stood upright, its sharp, massive mouthparts catching a flying insect directly. Its landing shook the ground before it began to devour its prey. Menchi and the others tensed slightly. They hadn't noticed the centipede because it could change color like a chameleon while waiting for prey. Only when it moved did its original pigmentation reappear, and apparently the centipede hadn't targeted them because of their suppressed life energy.
The four of them had maintained Zetsu to keep their aura in a low-frequency state, and by now, their various Nen techniques had reached an "incomparably profound" level, at least from the perspective of human Nen ability.
"There's something here," Oboro said.
He could feel the "energy" of this oasis. In such a barren desert, such abundant energy would definitely give birth to something extraordinary.
The flying insects and centipedes were dangerous, but they also indicated that "hope" was nearby.
And it was different from the kind of "hope" they had encountered before.
The hope they had discovered before, including the alchemical plants that Beyond had once found, represented "hope" from a human perspective. Some sparse vegetation in the desert had similar characteristics. For example, they had once encountered a strange "cactus" the size of a house.
The sap it secreted was a pure natural preservative; anything coated with it remained in its original state indefinitely.
It seemed to be unaffected by time, weather, environment, or any other factor.
If it were applied to the human world, its effects would be unimaginable.
This kind of conservation could be applied to countless substances, and that alone would bring endless benefits to mankind.
But there are many levels and kinds of hope.
This type was beyond anything they could imagine.
In the human world, there was the unmanned stone that represented the Five Great Hopes. A single piece could support people who consumed terrifying amounts of electricity. There was also ternary water, which could become the basis for all liquids, and so on. These were such hopes.
What they were looking for was something like longevity rice or herbs that could cure all diseases.
Something applicable to individuals, or to strength, survival, "hope" more suited to their current circumstances.
Even if they found hope in energy, it would be useless.
Besides, the cactus couldn't be brought back to the human world. As a plant, it would wither away from its roots.
The Lizard Tonic and Octopus Ink could be restored, but their effectiveness couldn't reach the level of "hope".
They could only be regarded as treasures.
Oboro's words caused Menchi and the others to exchange knowing glances.
Then Oboro bent his elbow and aimed at the nearby centipede.
The centipede continued to eat.
When Oboro freed himself from Zetsu and unleashed his aura, the centipede finally sensed danger and let out a hissing sound.
It jumped sideways and came flying over in an instant.
His reaction was quick.
BANG!
But Oboro's fist was faster without even making contact.
He stepped forward, bent down and struck.
The terrifying force caused the air between the centipede and Oboro to continuously explode, shattering the surrounding plants. Oboro's attack wasn't a gradual buildup of power, but rather a direct bypass of space to hit its target.
However, this blow only knocked the centipede to the ground and hurled it far away, failing to pierce its shell; the metallic armor covering the centipede's body was extraordinarily durable.
That was enough for Oboro.
He transformed his fist into an open palm and immediately visualized the aura state of the centipede. The monster's body burned with soul fire, with thin lines connecting various body parts to the flame. The denser and thicker the lines, the more the target's spirit was concentrated there, indicating its most vital areas.
These were also their weaknesses.
Oboro raised his hand and slashed through the air!
The invisible blade formed by the tremendous force instantly targeted the junction at the bottom of the centipede's head where the shell segments joined, and sliced it off!
Boom!
The centipede's head was severed.
A deep, trench-like pit formed in the ground beneath the corpse.
"The field of vision of these insects is extremely wide, seemingly without blind spots," Menchi observed calmly. "Even in the Zetsu state and walking under cover, they detected us. Of course, it could also be their hunting habit of specializing in life forms with minimal energy. Therefore, even with our Zetsu cloaking, they could still sense us."
The three had seen their captain hunt countless times.
She openly shared her observations.
Entering unfamiliar territory meant leaving her comfort zone and having to adapt and understand everything from scratch.
Gabwich immediately took out a small notebook and recorded her findings.
Anthony went over to examine the fluids spilled by the dead insects.
"Unlike before, the deeper we go, the more likely we are to encounter supernatural, strange, and rule-based life forms," Oboro noted calmly, his aura receding. "They are not as rare as in the desert. Stay alert."
"Let's look for hope first."
"Yes," they replied in unison.