Chương 12: Overflowing Life Energy

Aren had been watching Oss from the start. The man was crude, loud, and disgusting, but he was not stupid. A coward who survived in Meteor City long enough to lead a pack usually had one true talent: knowing when to stab someone who was looking somewhere else. The moment Oss pulled the dagger, Aren had already moved toward Machi. He still arrived half a breath late. The blade tore into his abdomen. Pain exploded through him. Hot blood soaked his clothes and ran between his fingers.

The wound was deeper than anything he had taken since waking in this world. Machi caught him from behind.

"Aren!" Her voice cracked. She pressed both hands against the wound, as if she could hold his life inside by force. Blood slipped through her fingers anyway.

"Don't move. Don't move, I'll..." She did not know what she would do. Oss stared for one stunned second, then laughed.

"Gehahahaha! You idiot. You actually took it for her." His eyes slid toward Machi. The panic on her face made his grin stretch wider. If Aren died here, she would be easy to control. A hostage. A prize. Maybe even the reward he had been saving for later. Oss licked blood from the corner of his mouth. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"You should have stayed out of the way, Boss." Aren did not answer. Something was happening inside him. Oss's dagger had not been an ordinary attack. Aura had ridden the blade into Aren's body and smashed open the dormant aura nodes inside him. That was baptism. A Nen user forcing someone else's aura nodes open through violence. For an ordinary person, it was a gamble between awakening and death. For Aren, it became something else. Life energy surged out of him. It rose like steam from a boiling sea. Five meters.

Six. Higher. The air around Aren warped beneath the pressure. Dust scattered from the ground. The weaker hyenas who were still alive stumbled back with white faces. Aura was life energy. Nen was the technique used to control it, to shape it into defense, offense, and abilities that ordinary people could never understand. Aren had fused with the Undying. His reservoir of life force was nearly endless. That did not mean his output was infinite. A lake could be vast while the mouth of the river remained narrow.

His body still had limits on how much power could pour out at once. But even that limited opening was enough to drown the area in aura. The wound in his abdomen stopped bleeding. Torn flesh tightened. Muscle drew itself together. Skin crawled over the gash and sealed as if time had been pulled backward across his body. Machi felt it happen beneath her hands. Her breathing stopped.

"Aren...?" Oss's laughter died. The aura around Aren was visible even to him. It was too dense, too heavy, too alive.

"What the hell are you?" Aren lowered his gaze. Fragments of memory rose from his old life. Wing teaching Gon and Killua. The idea of aura flowing from the body, then being held close. The first lesson after awakening. Ten. Do not let the aura spill away. Hold it around the body. Let it circulate. Wrap yourself in your own life energy. Aren closed his eyes for one breath. The raging aura did not vanish. It folded inward.

A wall formed around him, soft and weightless, yet thick enough to feel like invisible clothing. The leaking storm settled into a steady layer clinging to his skin. Ten. He had done it. More aura continued to rise from the depths of his body, pressing against the layer. His life force did not stop growing. It wanted to overflow. It wanted to expand. But now, at least, it had a shape. Aren opened his eyes. The air around him sank. Oss took a step back. Aren smiled.

"Oss," he said softly, "how should I thank you?" The aura around him darkened. Malice spread outward in a slow, suffocating wave. Machi stood behind him, hands still stained with his blood, and watched the world around Aren change.