"They're here!"
The arena host's voice burst with adrenaline.
"Returning from his period of seclusion, the Reaper's first opponent in a Floor Master match is… Hisoka Morow!"
"And challenging for the first time as a Floor Master himself… Chrollo Lucilfer!"
As her voice echoed across the dome, two figures stepped into the arena, one from each side.
Chrollo: the sleek, black-cloaked, dark-eyed leader of the Phantom Troupe, elegance and menace fused into one.
Hisoka: the flamboyant magician, flame-red hair blazing, body adorned in the symbols of playing cards—clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds—a jester from hell grinning at the gallows.
As the referee entered to perform the final checks, the crowd erupted.
Joey scanned the faces around him—flushed, howling, delirious.
These weren't casual fans. These were bloodthirsty connoisseurs of carnage, members of Heaven's Arena's highest echelons. Each one had either wealth, strength, or an addiction to violence.
Even Joey, surrounded by this fever-pitched madness, felt his blood quicken.
But while the crowd roared, his fingers moved in silence.
From beneath his cuff, a tiny beetle peeled away, fluttering out—one of many transformed by Gold Experience.
Onstage, the pre-fight banter between Hisoka and Chrollo had just begun.
Only a few words in, and the announcer's voice exploded again:
"Chrollo Lucilfer has declared a death match!
Hisoka has accepted! This fight will only end in death—the loser dies, the winner lives!"
The referee stepped back and raised a hand.
"You may use any weapon. Gamble your honor and life. Let the battle… begin!"
His final word echoed, curled with tension.
At the exact moment the death match began, a man in a suit in the audience reached for his neck—and vanished.
Obliterated.
No sound. No flash. No scream. Just gone.
None of the nearby spectators even noticed—eyes glued to the ring, breath held for the clash of monsters.
But Joey noticed.
He saw a twitch ripple across several bodies he'd been tracking. A flicker in posture. A narrowing of eyes. The kind of stiffness that meant "what the hell just happened?"
Gerrard turned to whisper something to Meikō, his red-haired secretary.
Joey didn't turn his head. He didn't need to.
He knew.
Someone was now watching him—just as he had watched them.
Anyone not caught up in the spectacle was a suspect.
Just like how he had identified Gerrard's bodyguards.
The logic was cold and cruel, but effective. Joey accepted that. So did Gerrard.
The difference?
Joey trusted his instincts.
Gerrard didn't care if innocents got caught in the crossfire.
"Sir, please present identification and remove your mask and sunglasses."
A man in an arena security uniform spoke with stiff courtesy—but his hand hovered near his weapon, ready to kill on suspicion.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Relentless attacks! Brutal! No mercy!
The commentator's voice drowned the tension.
Onstage, Chrollo had already unleashed his ability—the legendary Skill Hunter.
He'd activated a stolen power: Convert Hands, taken from the Troupe's Shalnark, using the referee as a living puppet to chain together devastating attacks on Hisoka.
Joey turned to the security guard with a scowl.
"Huh? You serious?" he growled, deliberately hostile.
Still, he handed over his ID and removed the disguise.
His makeup was subtle but sharp—shadowed jawline, hollowed cheeks.
Sharp gold hair. Open collar. An elegant thug.
He looked like someone who'd stab you for sport, not a soft civilian.
The guard studied his ID, eyes flicking back and forth.
Then the crowd screamed:
"He's dead?!?" "No way!!" "He really died?!"
Joey snatched back his ID.
"You done yet? This service is trash. I swear I'll file a complaint."
He turned back toward the fight, ignoring the scowl the guard gave him.
The guards pushed through the crowd toward another location.
What they didn't notice was the tiny beetle that had latched onto one of them—silent, unseen, riding along as they moved.
Another beetle peeled off toward a different marked target.
Joey, calm as ice, stared at the ring.
Onstage, Hisoka and Chrollo paused—one of the referees lay dead, chest burst open in a shower of flesh.
Neither fighter reacted.
They just stared at each other, lips moving.
Only they knew what was being said.
The announcer babbled nonsense, unable to interpret the tension.
No one cared about the dead man.
In fact, the audience only grew more ecstatic.
Joey narrowed his eyes. He remembered:
Skill Hunter – a Specialist-type ability that steals other Nen abilities after certain conditions are met.
Once stolen, the ability becomes permanent, unless the original user dies.
Unlike Leol's IOU Phone Booth, which only borrows powers for an hour, Chrollo could hoard powers indefinitely.
Even abilities from the dead, so long as they'd been stolen before death.
Joey recalled one:
"Sun and Moon", an ability that brands targets with a sun and moon symbol.
When both symbols touch—explosion.
It reminded Joey of Killer Queen's First Bomb. Both required physical touch to detonate.
But while Sun and Moon was multipliable, Killer Queen could only mark one target at a time.
In power?
Well—Killer Queen could erase. Sun and Moon could only blow up.
Still, it was a neat mechanic.
On the stage, Chrollo created a clone of the dead referee.
A different power now—Gallery Fake, from Kortopi.
Touch an object. Make a replica.
Then another—he stamped the clone's forehead with a seal.
Joey knew this one too:
Order Stamp – a manipulation-type power like Shalnark's antenna.
But where Shalnark allowed fine control, Order Stamp was brute force: limited commands, but could be applied to large groups.
Reminded him of Illumi's needlemen—disposable drones.
Chrollo was chaining abilities.
Combining stolen powers.
Orchestrating a complex combat symphony.
Joey remained still, eyes burning.
He was absorbing it all—how Chrollo shifted Nen, how he controlled aura output, how he managed his cooldowns and range.
He was learning.
Because Joey too had multiple abilities.
And seeing a master tactician like Chrollo combine them in real-time?
Priceless.
But he also knew…
Using Gyo like this meant someone would notice.
Didn't matter.
Because Chrollo was now leaping across the arena—
Right toward a section not far from Joey's seat.
Joey's lips curled into a slow smile.
It was time.