A day later, in a hospital in another city, Xiang Nan finally saw Orban—unconscious, hooked up to machines, looking like he'd been dragged through hell and barely stitched back together.
Tubes were sticking out of him everywhere, and monitors were the only things keeping track of his fading life signs.
His body was wrecked. Missing limbs. Torn flesh. He looked more like a busted rag doll than a person.
"I found him like this. No consciousness left," Beishi said calmly as Xiang Nan stepped into the room.
"My guess? He barely managed to return to the main world in his final lucid moment."
Xiang Nan said nothing.
He moved closer and checked Orban's vitals.
The doctors had done their best—pumping him full of nutrients, giving him blood transfusions, stitching up wounds—but honestly, it was all too little, too late.
Judging by the weak trickle of life energy still left in him, Orban might make it another two or three days. After that, he'd just... fade out.
His aura was leaking uncontrollably—draining into the air like a punctured balloon.
That could only mean one thing: his soul—his will—was almost completely broken.
"Good thing he absorbed some Altana before entering the multiverse," Xiang Nan muttered. "Otherwise, with damage like this, he'd be gone already."
He activated his Nen ability: Hands of Love.
His gloves materialized in a vivid red this time, and a digital-style patient record appeared in his hand. Anyone he had ever treated before had a file auto-saved in his Nen archive, making future healing attempts far more efficient.
"No clue what kind of nightmare they ran into out there…" Beishi sighed.
Both he and Xiang Nan were already Extinction Level 7 players. They'd cleared Level 8 and were preparing for Round 9. But seeing Orban torn up like this—and Pigeon dead—meant the next round was on a whole new level.
Orban wasn't some lightweight, either. He'd absorbed the life force of an entire planet. His power should've been well above any synced-up player.
And yet here he was—barely alive.
Xiang Nan got to work immediately.
Using underworld contacts and resources, he'd already prepped several organ donors—living ones.
Right there in front of Beishi, he treated Orban like a high-level biological repair job—fixing what could be saved, replacing what couldn't. In most doctors' eyes, Orban was a lost cause. But after several grueling hours, Xiang Nan had rebuilt him from the brink of death.
Of course, it wasn't the original Orban anymore. Some of his limbs, organs—they belonged to other people now.
As the operation neared its end, Beishi noticed Orban's aura getting unstable again. But the medical monitors? They looked a hell of a lot better than before.
"Normal tissue transplants are usually fine for Nen users, but this is a special case. The parts I used don't match his original body structure, and the donors' physical attributes are different too. There's a clear mismatch. So even though the surgery's done, his Nen flow is messed up. Some of your life energy is rooted in your body's origin. Right now, his is basically... patched together," Xiang Nan explained.
"If he wants to stabilize his Nen and rebuild his aura capacity, it's gonna take a long time—rest, training, and patience."
By the time he finished, the sky outside had already darkened.
This was the most complex, demanding surgery Xiang Nan had ever performed.
Orban had truly been on the edge of death.
"His biggest challenge now is avoiding rejection—getting the new parts to sync with his body. That takes time," Xiang Nan added. "Altana will help... a little."
The red gloves faded as Xiang Nan collapsed into a chair, drained.
Beishi was shaken—on the inside, at least. He kept his expression calm, but he was stunned by what he'd seen.
Xiang Nan's Nen abilities were insane. It wasn't resurrection, exactly, but dragging someone this wrecked back from death? That was something else.
"Now... we just wait for him to wake up."
"Thank god his brain's still intact. If that was damaged too…"
Xiang Nan trailed off, visibly relieved.
"Whatever happened out there, whatever world they landed in... we'll only know when he opens his eyes," Beishi said softly.
Orban's vitals started improving fast—so fast that it triggered alarms up the chain.
The hospital execs came to see it for themselves.
When they learned that the surgery had been done by one guy, alone, inside a regular hospital room, they were floored.
But when they found out Xiang Nan was a licensed medical-type Hunter, they finally relaxed—just a bit.
Even so, the higher-ups decided this whole thing needed to be written up and published as a medical case study.
They asked Xiang Nan for every detail.
He told them everything—well, everything they could understand.
Much of the procedure relied on Nen, stuff way beyond normal human knowledge. Some of the technical details went right over the heads of even trained doctors.
Didn't matter. The hospital still wanted to use it to push research forward.
And just like that, unintentionally, Xiang Nan had taken his first real step down the road of a professional, full-time Hunter.
…
A few days later, Orban was still unconscious.
Beishi glanced at Xiang Nan. "Pigeon's dead. That leaves four of us. We'll need someone new for the next multiverse dive."
"Yeah," Xiang Nan replied with a nod.
Neither of them said it, but Pigeon's death still lingered.
It wasn't easy to form real bonds between players.
"Pigeon used On abilities. He was fundamentally different from us. On strength is based more on spiritual energy and trauma than physical stats. And his powers were tied to Jed—the source of all those grudges."
Xiang Nan added, "Which means Altana didn't do much for him. Out of all of us, he probably benefited the least."
In hindsight, Pigeon's limited growth made his death kind of inevitable.
"Oh, right… I almost forgot about Jed," Beishi said. "If we're following canon, he should be leading the Shadows in a trap for Netero at Heaven's Arena, right? But we've heard nothing. Gon and Killua are already on Greed Island…"
"Someone might've triggered that questline early," Xiang Nan said. "Or maybe the butterfly effect kicked in and diverted the story."
"Could be either…"
Just then, a faint rustling came from the hospital bed.
Both of them instantly turned.
The guy who had walked the edge of death—was finally waking up.