The battle arena was buried 30 floors beneath Zaban City.
Carved from black stone and infused with layers of suppressive aura fields, it had witnessed the deaths of gods in training.
A single ring. No audience. Just silence.
Two hunters-to-be.
One would walk out with a license.
The other… would walk out broken.
⸻
On one side: Kaen.
Nen still trembling from his Dream Palace awakening. Aura radiant — like a newborn sun in human shape.
A storm wrapped in calm.
On the other: Rago Yui.
Candidate #12. Terrorist Hunter aspirant.
He wore a steel mask etched with ancient war curses and a straight black coat.
His aura didn't glow.
It hissed.
A toxin. A virus. A violation.
⸻
Kaen watched him without blinking.
Kurapika, from the observation booth, whispered, "He's part of the Yaboku Cult. Nen extremists. They weaponize belief."
Leorio added, "They say Rago's nen was banned in East Gorteau. Caused a whole town to… forget they ever lived."
Killua leaned forward, eyes sharp. "This won't be a fair fight."
⸻
The referee raised a hand.
"Begin."
Silence.
Neither moved.
Then Rago whispered:
"Tell me your dream."
Kaen smirked. "To walk through fiction and make it real."
Rago nodded.
"Then I'll bury your corpse in imagination."
⸻
BOOM.
Rago's nen surged — not outward, but inward.
His body erased itself for a moment, flickering like a corrupted video.
Nen Type: Memory Terrorism.
Ability: IdeoCide.
It infects your thoughts — rewrites memories of your body, one neuron at a time.
If he convinces your aura that your arm never existed, it vanishes.
If he infects your memory of pain, you can bleed out smiling.
This isn't a fight.
It's a psychic hostage situation.
⸻
Kaen's leg twitched.
His right hand grew numb.
Already infected.
Already losing pieces of self.
Rago walked forward, calm and rotting.
"Dreams are lies you haven't buried yet."
Kaen raised his left hand — palm open.
And whispered:
"Mind Palace: Room of Remembrance."
FLASH.
Time fractured.
A thousand pieces of Kaen's life flickered like feathers caught in wind — memories he didn't know he'd kept:
• A song his mother hummed when she cooked miso.
• A bruise from falling down Whale Island cliffs at age 8.
• The sound of Gon laughing in the wind.
He anchored to those.
And the infection stopped spreading.
⸻
Rago paused.
A twitch in his lip. First time he'd failed to overwrite someone's self.
Kaen breathed slow.
"You can't erase what I've locked in the Palace."
Rago responded by detonating his own aura.
His mask cracked.
His skin peeled like paper in flame — revealing something not human.
Veins of nen that pulsed with other people's memories.
Screaming children. Exploding towers. Executions. Religion.
"This is what I am," he hissed. "A nation's worth of trauma weaponized into a mind-bomb."
He vanished.
Kaen braced.
Too slow.
⸻
Rago appeared behind him — hand to Kaen's skull.
"I just deleted your memory of dodging me."
It worked.
Kaen didn't move.
Didn't remember why he should.
And Rago plunged his aura knife into Kaen's back — a scream of corrupted will slamming into spinal thoughts.
Kaen fell to one knee.
Blood spilling.
Breath stuttering.
So this is fear, he thought. Real fear.
Dreams are nothing here. He's rewriting my mind live.
But then…
He smiled.
⸻
"Thank you," Kaen whispered.
Rago hesitated.
"Why?"
Kaen looked up.
Bloodied. Wide-eyed. Grinning like he understood the shape of the universe.
"Because now I know what to imagine."
⸻
He clapped his hands.
"Mind Palace: Dream Hunter's Gate."
The floor split open — not physically, but cognitively.
An impossible construct bloomed around him. Not real. Not illusion.
Something in-between.
Kaen's aura reshaped the world into a conceptual dreamspace.
A place where thought becomes law.
A zone where he decides what's remembered… and what is not.
NEW ABILITY: "Dream Hunter's Gate"
A field where Kaen can declare which imagined truths override real ones, if his conviction is high enough.
In this space, belief becomes physical.
⸻
He stood tall.
"I believe I dodged you."
Reality blinked.
Suddenly — Kaen was ten feet away, untouched.
Rago screamed.
"NO! THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS!"
Kaen advanced.
"It is now."
He reached into the air — pulled a sword from possibility itself.
Blade made of memory-light.
And he spoke:
"I believe this blade severs thought from madness."
He struck.
One cut.
Rago dropped.
Not dead.
Just… disconnected.
His aura collapsed into silence.
His body trembled.
And he whispered:
"I… forgot how to hate you."
⸻
WINNER: Kaen.
⸻
The Dream Hunter had been born.
Not by brute force.
Not by copying.
But by believing so hard in the impossible…
That the world made room for it.
⸻
To be continued in Chapter 18: The Hunter's License – A Name Written in Fire