Hunter: I became stronger even after I died.

Chapter 438 Uninvited Guest

The Chimera's stone egg was placed in a secret realm deep within the Dead Eye sinkhole of Petrus.

Previously, while studying the "divine word," Moro had attempted to use its power to connect the entrance to the secret realm with the portal.

In this way, the value of the secret realm can be maximized.

However, this idea was ultimately a bit far-fetched.

Without the necessary capabilities, it would be virtually impossible to realize such a vision.

Fortunately, the time and effort he invested were not wasted. Through repeated research, he managed to improve the accuracy of the "Flying Star Leap" ability.

Furthermore, they have mastered the technique of engraving "stars" on the coins with the character "神" (god), thus perfectly solving the problem of the constraints on the fraudulent flying stars.

Now, with the goal of exploring the Dark Continent, expertise in the field of divinity can provide crucial assistance.

If there's any regret, it's that we couldn't transform the secret realm into something like a four-dimensional apartment.

That evening.

Moro reached the depths of the Eye of Petrus sinkhole.

He had previously placed a star-shaped divine symbol nearby, allowing him to travel at a speed far exceeding that of an airship by constantly switching between flying stars.

After entering the depths of the sinkhole, he followed the entrance with practiced ease and arrived at the mural engraved with a floating, top-shaped island.

After a while.

A flash of white light flashed.

Moro appeared on a mountaintop in the secret realm.

He walked straight to a tree not far away.

A stone pebble, about the size of a basketball, lay quietly under the tree. It was gray and hard, with thick veins covering its surface.

This stone egg is what Chimera transformed into after his death.

Moro stepped forward and held the stone egg in his hands.

"74% of the death energy... I don't know if that's enough."

Moro looked down and glanced at the energy ring of the fifth growth ring, where it had accumulated to about 74%.

Having already filled the fourth ring of life and thus having a chance to go back in time, the nearly three-quarters of the death energy reserves in this fifth ring of life can be considered quite abundant.

With a slight thought, Moro began to inject death energy into the stone egg.

In an instant, a black aura rose from the rings and slowly seeped into the stone egg.

As energy continues to transfer, the energy in the fifth growth ring decreases rapidly.

60%, 50%, 40%…

When the energy level dropped to around 35%, the stone egg finally stopped absorbing death thoughts.

Just then, the thick veins on the surface of the stone pebble suddenly trembled and began to pulsate rhythmically like a heartbeat.

A vibrant pulse of life emanated from within the stone egg.

Moro felt the pulse of life emanating from his palm.

"It only absorbed nearly 40% of the death energy, which is not bad."

Originally, Moro was even prepared for the possibility that all 74% of his Death Energy would be exhausted, given the uncertainty about how much Death Energy he would need to inject. However, the current result was clearly much better than he had expected.

He looked down at the stone egg whose surface veins were still pulsating regularly.

As he was observing intently, those thick veins suddenly developed fine cracks at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Seeing this, Moro gently picked up the stone pebble and placed it on the stone table beside him.

In just a second or two, the number of cracks on the surface of the stone pebble suddenly increased.

With a few crisp cracking sounds, the outer shell of the entire stone egg broke off, revealing a small tail.

The tail was covered with dark red scales, and at the end was still a lump of flesh that had not yet unfolded.

With a loud bang, the fleshy growth at the tail slammed into the remaining shell, shattering it.

Immediately afterwards, the chimera smashed through the remaining shell, revealing its complete form.

Its appearance is not much different from before, but its body is slightly bloated, with two wings on its back, a round bird head on its long neck, and three feather crests sticking tightly to its neck which is covered with mucus.

The difference lies in the fact that its tail, torso, and even its folded fleshy wings all have dark red scales.

Moro observed the changes in Chimera.

The chimera, hatching from the egg once again, seemed much more composed, no longer exhibiting the same novelty it felt when first exposed to sunlight and air.

Suddenly, its neck arched, and it raised its head. Its eyes, which had been narrowed to slits, slowly opened, and its gaze fell on Moro beside the stone table.

"Roar!"

The moment it saw Moro, it immediately spread its wings and pounced.

Moro smiled slightly and caught the chimera that lunged at him steadily.

"Roar...roar..."

The little guy shook his head and rubbed against Moro's arm, looking extremely excited.

Just then, Moro suddenly noticed that a hazy white light was faintly emerging from the surface of the Chimera's body.

The light was extremely faint, like a thin veil gently enveloping his body.

"It really has awakened."

A knowing glint flashed in Moro's eyes.

The thin veil of white light enveloping the chimera's body is life energy.

That is, the manifestation of thought.

Before turning into a stone egg, Chimera possessed many unique characteristics, but he was never able to master the ability to use Nen.

This has inadvertently limited the breakthroughs that chimera can achieve at the biological level.

Having experienced this brush with death, the Chimera finally awakened this power.

In a sense, Chimera, like Moro, underwent the baptism of death energy, thus experiencing the process of "becoming stronger even after death".

"Chimera, you must be very hungry. I've prepared a big meal for you."

Moro gently stroked the chimera's little head with his fingertips.

The chimera narrowed its eyes and let out a soft roar.

It was reborn with its memories and consciousness intact, and not only could it understand Moreau's words, but it also truly felt hungry.

Afterwards, Moro led the Chimera away from the secret realm and headed to the Demon Realm outside.

The return journey would take another half a day. Before setting off, Moro specially hunted a wild beast in the nearby mountains so that the chimera could fill its stomach first.

This is its first meal after its rebirth.

Moro carefully peeled off the animal skin, took the freshest and most tender flesh, and prepared the meal for it himself.

But his thoughtful gesture was clearly unnecessary.

Although the current chimera is in its juvenile stage, it is born with a powerful means of feeding.

It spreads the fleshy growth at the end of its tail, revealing dense, sharp mouthparts inside, which it then inserts into the prey's body.

Gulu gulu...

The tail, like a straw, efficiently transported flesh and blood into the chimera's body.

Moro watched from the side.

To his surprise, the chimera was growing at a visible rate while eating efficiently.

"The growth rate has accelerated."

Moro looked surprised.

After its rebirth, the Chimera's growth rate in terms of eating was many times faster than before.

Judging from this phenomenon, as long as the Chimera returns to the Fourth Dimension Apartment and eats the corpses of those Chimera soldiers, it can probably return to its mature state in a short time.

A moment.

The chimera managed to devour an entire beast.

After finishing its meal, its size changed dramatically from that of a domestic cat to that of a giant dog.

The entire growth process only takes about ten minutes.

"The existence of mythical beasts is truly like a creature from imagination, full of unbelievable things."

Moro pondered to himself.

Humans have very limited knowledge of mythical beasts, and opportunities to even get up close are extremely rare.

Compared to the various magical beasts controlled by humans, mythical beasts that are born with fantasy attributes are much rarer and more numerous.

As for the Chimera, Moro was unsure whether it still possessed the ability to turn into stone eggs after death.

If so, after a new round of rebirth, will its inherent talents and abilities be further enhanced?

Moreover, in a sense, as long as the energy of death is continuously supplied, the Chimera is essentially an immortal being.

In comparison, while tree rings can grant Morrow the ability to rewind time after death, the number of rings is ultimately limited.

Thinking of this, Moro reached out his right hand and stroked the chimera's head.

"The ultimate life form that is neither dead nor indestructible, you've already taken your place..."

"Roar?"

Chimera didn't understand what Moro meant, and realizing she couldn't figure it out, she squinted her eyes and enjoyed the caresses.

........................

It was midnight.

Moro took the chimera back to the four-dimensional apartment.

Now, most of the rooms in the apartment are used to store those thousands of flesh eggs.

From hatching and killing to disposing of the carcass, the entire process requires proper scheduling.

For example, the corpses can be collected and moved to a specific room, while ensuring that other rooms do not have too many chimera soldiers staying at once, otherwise the difficulty of hunting will increase significantly.

The scheduling work naturally fell to Nob, who only had the "apartment key".

To this, Nob simply dismissed it as a trivial matter, demonstrating his willingness to cooperate fully with every request from Morrow.

Thanks to Nob's dedicated help, Kurt and the others leveled up smoothly.

When Morrow returned, Pons had reached level 60, Kurt was just one step away from level 70, and Menchi had jumped straight to level 75.

Bisky, who joined later, is now at level 90.

This is because the Love Practice Song upgrade ability, after being improved through the growth rings, has a level system that corresponds to the range of human beings from the lowest to the highest.

Based on this, Bisky, who was already a first-rate cultivator, could easily raise her level back to her original range.

However, after Lv.90, the difficulty of leveling up will depend on Bisky's own talent.

If her innate talent is destined to reach Lv.100, which represents the upper limit of humanity, then her leveling up will not be so difficult.

This is precisely what makes the "Love Practice Song" version so powerful.

For those with exceptional talent, its existence is essentially to provide those geniuses with a shortcut to rapid advancement through life-or-death battles.

For those with average talent, it offers a direct path to the top.

After reviewing Bisky and the others' level and status information, Morrow had a more intuitive understanding of this.

Without disturbing Bisky and the others who were leveling up, Morrow led Chimera to the room where the corpses of Chimera soldiers were stored.

He had just signaled that the chimera could eat as much as it wanted when the little guy excitedly pounced in, wagging its tail with its mouthparts and began to devour everything in sight.

Moro stood quietly to the side, watching the chimera eat at a rapid pace.

With the intake of large amounts of highly nutritious food, its body, which was originally as large as a giant dog, is expanding at a visible rate.

In just over ten minutes, the Chimera had grown to almost the size of a car.

If this trend continues, reaching the level of large trucks is clearly only a matter of time.

When it reaches that size, it will be large enough to carry humans in flight.

However, the ideal form is still the same as before, about the size of two blue whales.

If it can continue to grow, it will either become a behemoth comparable to the Dark Continent, or it will maintain the status quo.
The worst-case scenario is being stuck in the middle. Their size is insufficient to contend with the behemoths of the Dark Continent, and their conspicuousness makes them easy prey for other creatures.

Thinking about these things now seems pointless.

Moro shook his head slightly.

With the return of the Chimera, the Chimera soldier corpses piled up in the four-dimensional apartment room finally began to be digested.

Moreover, the chimera's mouthparts are like powerful vacuum cleaners, not letting go of even a tiny bit of blood when it eats, which saves the trouble of cleaning the room afterwards.

For the rest of the time, Moro let the chimera eat like crazy.

He had originally considered using these chimera soldiers to gain experience points, but considering that his level was already high, he ultimately gave up on this plan.

After all, from the perspective of conversion value, it is obviously more appropriate to leave these experience babies to Kurt and his group.

"The upgrade ability of Love Practice is indeed very powerful, but in the selection of the infected person, it must be based on absolute trust... There are not many people who meet the conditions."

Moro mentally sifted through suitable candidates.

He thought of Hua Shidoulang and Kalista, but he wasn't sure if they, as martial artists, would be interested in the Dark Continent.

He even thought of Kim.

Previously, taking advantage of the opportunity to study the "message in a bottle," he accepted Jin's invitation and agreed to explore the Dark Continent together in the future.

Now that I'm already preparing for the trip, I might as well take the initiative to ask Kim about her wishes.

However, given Jin's abilities, he probably doesn't need to rely on "Love Practice" to break through the limits of his talent.

Finally, Moro remembered Sambica, whom he hadn't contacted in a long time.

Given her profession as a virus hunter and doctor, she is undoubtedly an indispensable professional in exploring the Dark Continent.

In Moro's view, Sambica's abilities were beyond question, and inviting her to join the team would be ideal.

"Let's find some time to visit Sambika."

Moro thought to himself.

If Sambika has no interest in exploring the Dark Continent, he naturally won't force him.

Conversely, if there is such a desire, even if it is only a little, he will do his best to persuade his Sambika counterparts.

........................

A few days passed quickly.

Only a few hundred chimera soldiers remain in the four-dimensional apartment.

Peng Si successfully leveled up to Lv.70, but the leveling speed slowed down significantly afterward.

Menchi and Kurt both broke through to Lv.80. As the experience decay mechanism began to take effect, leveling up became increasingly difficult.

Bisky, with her efficient monster-clearing ability, managed to push her level to Lv.91 using a massive amount of experience.

During her quest to level up, she gained a deeper understanding of the mechanics of the Love Etude in the Year Rings version, which led her to have the same thought as Moro: to give up on continuing to level up.

In her judgment, even if all the remaining chimera soldiers were cleared out, it would probably be difficult to break through to Lv.92.

Therefore, it would be better to leave it to Peng Si and the others who need more experience.

In addition to leveling up, Kal't's new abilities have also been fully developed.

With the level rewards from "Love Practice," the difficulty of creating Nen abilities has been greatly reduced. The only thing to consider is how to make the ability match one's own Nen attribute to maximize its value.

Kurt's new ability is essentially to control the three corpses: the King Ant, Neferpitou, and Yupi.

By incorporating the concepts of paper dolls and shikigami, she can use her newly developed manipulation abilities to directly store three corpse puppets within the paper dolls.

Surprisingly, by using paper figures as a bond between them, her control over the corpse puppets became significantly more precise.

This phenomenon is difficult to explain using common sense.

Perhaps the power of Nen originates from within, and often when you believe "that something should be this way," the power of Nen will respond accordingly.

After transforming the three corpses into shikigami, in addition to improving control precision, Kalto can also enhance the autonomy of the shikigami by nurturing the paper figures.

This method is similar to Illumi's Warming Needle technique and is a common tactic used by Manipulation users.

But Kurt's potential is clearly higher, and the effect is more direct.

In theory, as long as the paper dolls bound to the three shikigami are nurtured to a certain extent, they may be able to develop basic intelligence, just like spirit beasts, even if they cannot develop complete intelligence.

At that time, the control precision will be further improved.

However, the most powerful aspect of this ability still lies in the strength of the three corpses: the King Ant, Neferpitou, and Youpi.

It can be said that the higher the precision of Kal't's control, the more effectively the shikigami can demonstrate their strength in battle.

Morrow never expected that the biggest beneficiary of the three bodies that were preserved intact back then would be Kurt.

With this ability, Kurt could probably easily defeat Menchi by controlling just one Yupi.

If you can control three shikigami at the same time, defeating Hisoka won't be a problem.

…………

Six days after the Chimera Ant extermination event ended.

Netero quickly mobilized several teams led by members of the Twelve Zodiacs and successfully wiped out the Chimera Ant remnants who had escaped from the NGL.

This swift and decisive action effectively curbed the further spread of the harm and brought the entire incident to a temporary close.

However, two groups of chimeric ants actually escaped the extermination.

That is, the low-key Melena, and Zairo, who is preparing to make a big splash in Meteor City.

What they have in common is that they have clear goals, strong execution ability, and a clear strategic mind.

In contrast, the other chimera ants that managed to escape the NGL, while knowing how to use their subordinates to attract the attention of the hunter teams, lacked the ability to plan for the future.

The main reason is that they cannot control their inner desires and will inevitably make repeated actions that expose their whereabouts, ultimately becoming obvious targets in the eyes of the pursuing team.

With the crackdown on the Chimera Ant remnants coming to an end, Pariston's plans over the past few days are beginning to show results.

Driven by multiple factors and faced with the reality that someone had to take responsibility, Netero voluntarily resigned from his position as president of the Hunter Association.

However, as the former president, he has the power to decide how the next president will be elected.

Nitero didn't mess around with this matter; on the contrary, he took it very seriously.

After careful consideration, he adopted the simplest and most direct voting method, allowing each candidate to win support based on their own appeal.

His only intervention was to publicly recommend Qi Duo for the election in his personal capacity at the same time as announcing the start of the election.

This move undoubtedly gave Qiduo a huge advantage from the very beginning.

After doing all this, Netero seemed no longer concerned about the final election results. After giving a few instructions to the Bean Man, he left Schwadani and headed to where Linne was.

Everything that needed to be done has been done.

Now, Netero only wants to use Lin Nie's abilities to recover his body as quickly as possible.

While the election conference was in full swing inside the Hunter Association building, Netero arrived alone in a demonic realm on the continent of Eurubian.

Deep within this magical realm, a tranquil lake is nestled amidst a forest, with a covered wooden cabin built along its shore.

This is where Lin Nie lived in seclusion.

As soon as Nitero arrived, Lin Nie was already waiting outside the door.

Perhaps due to her advanced age, her body had shrunk considerably, resembling a dwarf, with wrinkles covering her face and an aura of silence emanating from her.

At this time, apart from still being tall, Netero was not much different from Lin Nie in other aspects.

"Isaac, you... you're getting old too."

Lin Nie raised his head and stared at Nitero with his eyes open.

Perhaps it was seeing Netero's severely worn-out appearance that made her realize, in a daze, that he had truly aged.

Netero chuckled, "You're not a young man anymore, are you...?"

"But you're different."

Lin Nie's voice was soft, yet it carried the weight of years.

Nitero paused for a moment upon hearing this, then asked directly, "Given my current condition, how long would it take?"

Lin Nie naturally understood what he meant and slowly said, "At least a month."

"Pretty fast."

Netero nodded.

He actually hoped it would be faster, but he also understood that some things cannot be forced.

"come in."

Lin Nie turned around and slowly walked into the wooden house.

Nitro followed him inside and immediately saw that the kitchen counter by the window was already filled with a dazzling array of ingredients and medicinal herbs.

"Lin Nie, I'm troubling you again."

His tone was tinged with emotion.

Upon hearing this, Lin Nie suddenly stopped and, just like when he was young, couldn't help but roll his eyes at Netero.

"If you had known this much back then, Jag and I wouldn't have been so exhausted."

"Hoo ho."

Nitro awkwardly raised his hand and touched his head.

Back when the three of them were training together, he certainly caused Lin Nie and Jiege a lot of trouble.

Lin Nie pointed to the recliner in the living room and said softly, "Sit down for a while. I'm getting old, and my legs aren't as nimble as they used to be. I can't prepare dishes as quickly as I used to when I was young."

"Take your time, don't rush."

Hearing her say that, Netero's anxiety suddenly subsided considerably.

After a long time.

Sitting in the recliner, Nitero smelled a slightly familiar scent, as well as a very strong medicinal aroma.

Lin Nie's transformation ability can exponentially activate the effects of ingredients and herbs during the cooking process.

Therefore, her medicinal cuisine has remarkable effects in regulating the body.

Netero lowered his eyes slightly, inevitably recalling many past memories, and felt a surge of emotion.

"Adding an extra set of chopsticks and a bowl shouldn't be too much trouble, right?"

Just then, the voice of an uninvited guest came from the porch.

Nitro and Lin Nie looked towards the door almost simultaneously, only to see Bjorn push the door open and enter, looking completely at ease.

He ushered into the house as if taking over, scrutinizing the two elderly people's current appearance, his tone tinged with a hint of感慨 (gǎnkǎi, a complex emotion encompassing regret, remark, and a touch of melancholy).

"It's been a long time, my beloved father, and Lin Nie... I never imagined you'd both grown so old."

"..."

Nitero remained calm and silently rose to his feet.

On the other side, Lin Nie slowly put down the ladle in his hand, a fierce glint flashing in his slightly open eyes.

"Seeing you all like this now..."

Compared to Yang De's calm and resolute tone:
"I am now even more convinced that when it comes to the hope of 'what is pursued,' 'Nitromy' is the most important."

Life is too short.

Life is too short to see all the world's scenery or walk all the roads one longs to travel.

Therefore,

Only then can the importance of Nitromethorphan be truly demonstrated.

Yang De felt something at that moment.

His dream is to conquer the Dark Continent.

This is something that cannot be accomplished by relying solely on the limited lifespan of humans.

"Ugh."

Seeing that Byrd was still emphasizing the importance of gaining hope, Netero sighed softly with a sense of helplessness.

(End of this chapter)