"Bang!"
The man landed like a cannonball.
The deck cracked beneath him.
The entire ship tilted under the weight of his impact. Wood groaned. Nails popped.
It was less an arrival—more a warning shot.
He knelt where he landed:
A short-haired, muscular man in a pristine white suit, reminiscent of Vergo from One Piece. He didn't move, didn't speak.
But nobody could ignore him.
His presence filled the air like smoke.
Jon's eyes narrowed. Even he couldn't help but glance.
He shifted into a bizarre, low posture—arms twisted, spine bent, skin unraveling into string
.Stone Free enhanced him in ways that defied human anatomy.
If someone had filmed it, it would've gone instantly viral.
This was the kind of clip the algorithm lived for.
The mysterious man had dropped vertically, like a character farming Aura just by existing.
Because Jon fell prone so suddenly, the guns originally aimed at him now instinctively swung toward the new threat.
But Jon wasn't relying on instinct.
King Crimson's time erasure was on cooldown. It couldn't be spammed so easily right now.
And worse—its activation sent a ripple through reality that everyone could feel.
This wasn't time stop—it was time skipped, and the disorientation it caused was disruptive, unmistakable.
Too much usage would alert even the dullest of everyday people in this world.
So for now, Jon dodged—following the age-old creed: Better them than me.
He glanced at the white-suited man.
He looks like he can take it... right?
The bullets flew.
But something was off.
Some of them morphed in midair.
A few bullets turned into tomatoes.
Others into soybeans.
They zipped through the air with rich, cartoonish expressions—like tiny gremlins out of Six Pistols from JoJo.
Jon's eyes narrowed.
That transformation meant one thing:
This isn't Redbeard's ability. The true Nen user is still hiding.
Suddenly, Jon didn't feel so confident.
The man in white didn't flinch.
He remained crouched, then slowly raised one arm and swept the dark cloak behind him.
FWOOSH.
The cloak spun in his hand like a vortex. It caught the transformed bullets effortlessly, the Nen-infused fruits splatting harmlessly against it.
Tomatoes burst. Soybeans cracked.
But the cloak?
Untouched.
He stood firm as a statue while the gunfire raged for a full ten seconds.
When the final shot echoed out, he let the cloak fall with a sharp flick.
Jon opened his mouth to warn him.
"DANGER!" he yelled.
Too late.
From the shadows—another pirate stepped forward.
He raised a custom-modified handgun, massive and brutal in design.
It resembled a Desert Eagle from Jon's past life, but this wasn't Earth.
In the Hunter world, this gun had twice the power. It matched light sniper rifles in force—but came with recoil so vicious it broke bones.
Only the stronger humans dared use it.
BANG.BANG.BANG.
Three shots fired.
Three golden flashes.
The shooter screamed—his hand bursting open from the recoil. The gun tore free, snapping back into his face and knocking him unconscious.
But the damage was done.
Jon's Epitaph activated.
In his foresight, he saw the man in white riddled with bullets, blood spraying, body toppling from the deck like discarded cargo.
Damn it... you made such a cool entrance, and now you're dying in ten seconds? That's embarrassing.
Jon clenched his jaw.
One less lightning rod meant more bullets for him.
"Well done, Joseph!" a nearby pirate shouted, giddy.
Cheers erupted.
The death of the "monster" had reignited their bloodlust.
All eyes turned back to Jon, hungry, fanatic.
He could feel their gaze: You're next.
But Jon was ready.
He'd already seen this.
He dove back into the chaos, weaving through pirates and flying bullets.
Meanwhile, behind the enemy lines, prisoners continued to free themselves.
The tide was shifting again.
"That's not our fight…" muttered one prisoner, watching Jon clash with pirates like a demon in a storm.
Some jumped into the sea.
But most stayed.
Most fought.
The last of the ropes snapped.
The riot became a war.
And at last—
King Crimson's cooldown ended.
The pirates were reloading slowly, cocky from their supposed victory.
Their burst-fire rifles took time to reset.
And that arrogance will cost them.
After knocking down two pirates, Jon activated Epitaph again. The other pirates had finished reloading and raised their guns, all aiming directly at him.
"King Crimson — Erase Time."
The world cracked apart. In the blink of an eye, time vanished.
One second passed.Jon got up and rolled to the edge of the ship.
Two seconds passed.Gunfire erupted—bullets rained down on the spot Jon had just vacated. But by then, he had already vaulted over the railing and plunged down.
Three seconds passed.The barrage continued, unaware their target was no longer there. Jon had descended fully, halting just centimeters above the ocean. With Ripple energy concentrated in his fingertips and toes, he clung to the ship's wall like a spider.
As the final second ticked away, everyone on deck froze.Why had they just fired?No one remembered.
The whole world blinked and lost three seconds. Even the rebelling prisoners were left bewildered—one moment they were charging into battle, the next, their allies had vanished and reappeared among the pirates.
"What just happened?! Wasn't he right in front of us?""Why am I standing here now?"
They had no answers. Jon's vanishing act had sown confusion. And with their attention in disarray, the bold examinees seized the moment to strike, catching the pirates off-guard.
Meanwhile, Jon—still hanging from the ship's wall—was just as surprised.Because he saw the man who should have died floating just meters below, bobbing in the sea… staring right back at him.
Their eyes met.
Both looked utterly dumbfounded.
"Wasn't he dead?"Jon's thoughts raced. Didn't I see him riddled with bullets and falling off the ship like a bloodied ragdoll? What happened to that heroic sacrifice?! Why's he just floating there like a tourist?!
Down in the water, the man's expression said it all:"How the hell did I get caught?"
"My name is Matt. I'm very desperate. I'm just lying here in the water, pretending to be dead. How did he find me? My whole image is ruined. Also—how did he get away without a scratch? And why didn't those dumb pirates chase him?! Do they not know how to finish a job? And how the hell is he sticking to the wall like that?! I didn't even sense any Nen from him!"
Jon squinted.Matt was still smeared with blood, but Jon noticed something odd: the wounds were gone.
No bullet holes. No fresh bleeding. Just dried, crusted stains.
Healing ability? Jon guessed. But that much damage—recovered instantly? That'd cost a mountain of Nen.It would also explain why Matt was still down there—maybe his energy was spent.
But something still didn't add up.
If he was bleeding into the ocean, sharks should've come by now. This wasn't far from Barowe Island. Sharks here could smell a drop of blood from kilometers away.
Then Jon noticed something strange:The blood on Matt's clothes... hadn't dissolved.And its color was too vivid—bright red. Not the usual dark, clotted hue of real blood.
Jon's mind snapped back to the moment Matt was hit—The bullets had turned into tomatoes.
"...Tomato juice?"That would explain the stains—and the lack of injuries.
So he wasn't actually shot. The ability must've converted the bullets. But whose ability was it? The pirates? No—it didn't match their style.Could it be Matt's own ability? Or maybe someone else on Jon's side helping from the shadows?
Both of them just stared. Neither spoke. The silence was... awkward.
But Jon didn't press. There wasn't time.Epitaph showed him the battle above was heating up. The prisoners, mostly unarmed, were no match for the pirates' firepower. While some had fled into the sea, a number of brave examinees had taken the lead and were holding the line.
They were skilled—stronger than the average person—but they wouldn't last forever.
Jon's King Crimson was ready again, its cooldown finished. But he hesitated.Because Matt was clearly a Nen user.
If Matt later reported what he saw to someone like the Chairman of the Hunter Association, Jon's secret would be blown wide open.
Most people could be confused by time erasure. But not experienced Nen users.They'd start asking dangerous questions:Why could Jon move freely during time deletion while others couldn't?Why did the world always change around him without explanation?
It would ruin the mystique of King Crimson.
The true strength of the ability wasn't just its power—it was the fear of the unknown, the mystery that made it impossible to predict or counter. Like Diavolo, who hid both his face and his power, Jon knew that secrecy was his greatest shield.
After all, Diavolo had ruled Passione for years, and no one even knew who he was until the very end.
Jon had no intention of throwing that away.