__________ POV Ashton__________
This is quite fortunate, I only decided to visit this city since is the closest to my laboratory.
Well, it wasn't a fully developed city when I went to sleep, so I'm guessing a few months have passed.
I guessed the Zoldycks would be here, didn't think I'd find them in this state.
And since this horde is here, one can also guess that the Barrier has already fallen. Now that I think about it, the barrier might have been the ultimate goal of these gods.
Not much to do about it now, I guess we don't even need it anymore. I can now take care of things mostly by myself. And it also seems that the Zoldycks got much stronger than before.
I guess humanity isn't that defenceless. We're also lucky to not be inside the Dark Continent, I don't know if I can survive an endless swarm.
As I am now, my Nen is abundant, but it's nowhere near what it was before I transferred bodies. I guess I am still a newborn, currently, I am somewhere around the same level as Maha in Nen.
But my body has the abilities and strengths of all of the beasts that I created it out of. Like Brion's control over nature, the perfect Stealth of Pap, the hypnotic bell of the Hellbell.
I am much stronger as I am now, despite my lesser Nen capabilities. The best thing about these abilities is that they have little to do with Nen. I can use them as I please, they only drain my stamina, but my stamina is almost endless at this point.
I should be able to create quite a few interesting moves just with Brion's ability, I've yet to try and combine it with Nen either, so this fight will be more of a test run.
"Ashton! What happened to you?" Zeno also came by and spoke to me. He's in a much worse state than Maha.
"Well, my body was irreparable, so I made a new one! More details some other time." Zeno just nodded and looked at the forest that I raised.
I guess it's time I start taking the beasts out. No reason to postpone the inevitable.
__________ POV Narration__________
Ashton observed the flying beasts with a glint in
his black eyes. The horde near the trenches was already mostly taken care of.
Suddenly, the trees on the ground started growing more and more, eventually, their branches extended far enough to grasp some of the beasts that formed the horde.
Ashton smiled as he started dragging the beasts down with the branches, slowly, the flying beasts were all grounded. Countless trees and countless branches pulled down the thousands of beasts. The Zoldycks watched as some of the treed seemed to grow flowers and release strange spores. One could see then when using Gyo, but it was a rather strange sight.
At least until they finally realized what their purpose was. Maha could see as the beasts seemed to start growing branches and roots out of their bodies.
It was a gruesome scene, it almost made the old assassin tremble. But it wasn't out of fear, it was out of excitement.
The numerous beasts that drove him and his family into a corner were currently being systematically slaughtered right in front of him, they were being ripped apart by the trees and being turned into fertiliser for the soil.
Ashton observed his new powers with a satisfied smile. He wasn't even tired when doing any of that, it took the same amount of energy to move his hand around, simply negligible.
The spores he released from the flowers were something that Brion used as a defence mechanism, Ashton could now do it too, but he could also release it by blooming flowers using his ability. Brion was also likely able to do such a thing, but Ashton hadn't inhaled any of the gases released by the flowers in that fight to see if there were also any spores in there.
Ashton continued to test various combinations and moves against the flying beats, the ones I the ground were also all killed.
Ashton even allowed one of the flying beasts to get a hot closer to the walls. Maha saw that and prepared to slash it down from the sky, but he didn't get the chance.
Ashton's tail moved at unbelievable speeds, Maha could hardly follow them with his eyes, the tail snapped and the tip of it opened up to reveal a row of sharp and jagged teeth.
The beast's head was swallowed up in one split second and Ashton's smiling expression didn't change one bit.
"This body will take some getting used to..." He looked at the headless body of the beast that just fell to the side and hit the wall with little force.
Maha looked at Ashton with a few thoughts in his mind. 'Well, you were already monstrous in strength before, but you were still reachable, still not invulnerable. But now... Now you're in a league of your own.'
Maha just shook his head while putting his thoughts away. In truth, Ashton was always the strongest human, but Maha still had some confidence in at least injuring him.
Now, there was simply none of that. But they were fighting towards the same goal now. Protecting humanity.
"Seems like the attack is over..." Zeno said while trying to look for any still living monsters. The fight had only taken around 3 minutes after Ashton arrived. It wasn't even a fair confrontation, it was just slaughter.
"Pretty much. There will be more though, we need to prepare for that." Ashton said while the trees started retracting into the ground, revealing the hills of corpses that had formed.
Beasts were piled on top of each other, there was simply no way to see the actual dirt underneath them.
Ashton looked at his body with a smile. Not only was he this powerful, but he could also feel it, the possibility to grow even further. Something that he had missed in the last years of his old body.
He wasn't a man obsessed with strength, but he damn well knew how necessary it was to survive in the world. He hated the idea of others being over him, so, he needed absolute strength, now he was closer to that than ever before.
He didn't even need relics anymore, with minimal training, he would be able to match up to his teacher as well.
After a few more minutes of conversation, the rest of the Zoldycks also reached that side of the wall.
"Ashton..." Killua said while looking at the man in front of him. He seemed so familiar, yet so different at the same time. The young assassin looked at his deep black eyes and gulped.
'I guess we're going to have to keep our grievances about Pitou to ourselves...' It would've been a stupid move to even talk to Ashton about that. But, unfortunately for Killua, Gon wasn't exactly a subtle individual.
"Hey!" The green-haired child shouted to Ashton, waving his hands around and attracting Ashton's attention.
"What? Oh, Gon, glad to see you're still healthy." The Chimaera Ant spoke with composure. In truth, he had somewhat forgotten about the Freecs child.
"Why are you sheltering that Royal Guard?! She killed Kite and many others!" He shouted in 'righteous' anger.
The elders of the Zoldyck family weren't quite perturbed by that, Killua was scared to see how blunt Gon was.
Maha and Zeno didn't think that Ashton was going to take a child's cries as something offensive. He was also an old man after all.
"Well, Gon, so have I, so have you, so has your father, so has Kite. Killing people barely matters at this point." Ashton's words didn't seem to sit right to Gon though.
"B-but the people we killed are not innocents..." Ashton was tempted to just ignore the kid, but he didn't feel like dealing with him at a later time, so it was better to address the issues as soon as they came up.
"Well, that's completely subjective, isn't it? Kite is no innocent man. And, to the Pitou back then, humans were just pets, toys, food, whatever. Would you sympathize with livestock that's about to be killed and cooked?"
Gon was somewhat forced to somewhat shut his mouth after that. Ashton just sighed as he remembered that he hadn't even bothered warning Pitou about Kite. He clearly had quite the mess to stop now.
He didn't think Pitou was in any danger though, she was his associate, she was likely protected. Even without protection, she should've been strong enough to run off by herself.
"Well, I believe we all have a lot to talk about... I think calling a meeting with everyone is the next step..." Said Silva while looking at the state of his family. Many were injured, and Zeno definitely needed medical attention.
"I think getting the wounded treated should be the top priority now." Said Ashton while looking around both the Zoldyck members and the army they were leading.
"Well, we have time now. I'll surround the continent in my spores if needed. I will turn anything that tries to enter into a living tree." Ashton said with a toothy smile. Maha could see that his tooth seemed to be razor-sharp and somewhat shiny.
"We'll get to work for now. Turning away the reinforcements that are to arrive is also a given." Silva said while he started to give orders to all of the people around him.
Ashton just sat down at the side of the wall and looked at the sea in the distance. He smiled as he thought about the prospect of meeting his Teacher once more. 'There's no need to run this time... I'll be waiting!'
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