Zeno Zoldyck

Zeno Zoldyck (ゼノ＝ゾルディック, Zeno Zorudikku) is a professional assassin and an extremely skilled Nen practitioner, as well as the grandfather of Killua Zoldyck and father of Silva Zoldyck.

Appearance
Zeno is an old man of medium height with grey white hair that stands up on his head, and has a Fu Manchu mustache. He also wears alternating signs on his garb that say either "A Kill A Day" or "Never Retire". Most of the time he is seen with his hands behind his back and his back hunched forward.

Personality


While Zeno is a witty old man, his advancing age has not dampened his quick thinking and speed in battle. Despite his senior citizen status, he is a very formidable tactician and a skilled user of Nen. He remains calm and collected at all times and displays a unique sense of pragmatism. He takes satisfaction in being an efficient assassin and that seems to be his only conceit. Killing is just a job to him and emotion doesn't enter into it. He only risks his life if there is a reward to be gained. Zeno has high hopes on Killua, that is why he trusts the boy's ability.

While Zeno is violent and will kill without hesitation, he only does so when it is required to complete a contract; he avoids injuring innocents at all costs. Upon injuring Komugi accidentally, Zeno lost all desire to complete the contract on the Chimera Ant King and left, only after ensuring the fight between the King and the Chairman would not further injure civilians.

Background
Zeno is the previous patriarch of the Zoldyck family. He only had one son Silva, who was born from an unnamed mother. He is the grandson of Maha Zoldyck. Being a member of the Zoldycks, Zeno was trained in a tender age the art of assassination. He developed a great resistance against all types of poisons, and high tolerance of electricity.

He appears to be on good terms with the Hunters Association's Chairman Netero, who hired Zeno to assault Ming Jol-ik's palace in East Gorteau in order to catch the Chimera Ant King off guard.

Zoldyck Family arc
Zeno is first seen when he orders Milluki to let Killua go from the isolation chamber. He also tells Killua that his father Silva wants to talk to him. After Killua has left, he asks Milluki about his opinion on Killua. Milluki thinks that Killua is one of the best in the entire history of the Zoldyck family but he lets his emotion rise up on the surface, which makes Killua a failure as an assassin.

Yorknew City arc


After the massacre of a large number of Mafia gangsters by the Phantom Troupe, Zeno and Silva are hired by the Ten Mafia Dons to assassinate them. In the auction building in Yorknew City, after a number of other assassins who were also hired by the Mafia are killed, Zeno feels that this is not the job for them. Still, the two Zoldycks begin to search for the enemies in the building using Zeno's En, and finally they face Chrollo Lucilfer, the Troupe's leader. Chrollo admits to himself that it is quite difficult for him to take them on at the same time. Silva tells Zeno to be careful because Chrollo is capable of stealing other people's abilities.



Taking those words to heart, Zeno proceeds to attack Chrollo with Silva being the backup. Realizing that Zeno is an incredible fighter, Chrollo at first wants to steal his abilities but Zeno quickly deduces that he could only do so after a difficult set of conditions has been satisfied. And so, he uses his Dragon Head technique to constantly keep Chrollo at a distance. As the fight goes on, Chrollo has a moment of distraction because he has to watch Silva as well while dodging Zeno's attacks. Zeno takes the opportunity to close in and pin him against the wall while shouting to Silva to kill Chrollo without paying attention to him. Silva immediately throws two huge balls of aura at them, causing a large explosion at the ground level of the auction building.

Suddenly Illumi interrupts their fight by calling and telling Silva that the Ten Dons have been killed. With this, Silva and Zeno spare Chrollo's life because their clients were the Ten Dons; and now that they have been killed, he is no longer the target of the Zoldycks. When he and Silva are leaving, Chrollo asks Zeno about who he thinks would win in a one-on-one between him and Chrollo, to which Zeno replies that he himself would most probably win if Chrollo fought with stealing intent, but if Chrollo fought to kill then it would be a different story.

Chimera Ant arc


During the Chimera Ant arc, it's revealed that Zeno is an acquaintance of Chairman Netero of the Hunters Association, and is hired by him to assist him in an assault on the Ant King Meruem's palace, formerly belonging to the dictator Ming Jol-ik, in the Republic of East Gorteau. The two of them fly to the palace on a dragon created from Zeno's Nen. When they arrive, they are detected by Neferpitou and Shaiapouf. Zeno then breaks the dragon into a myriad of smaller dragons, which rain down upon the palace from the sky. At the same time, he and Netero dive towards the palace. The dragons pierce through the palace and seriously injure Komugi, a normal human girl, by accident. Seeing that he has accidentally harmed an innocent and the King's caring attitude towards her, Zeno decides to quit the job, but not before making a Nen dragon to carry Netero and the King to a remote location so that they could battle each other with minimum human casualties.

While leaving, he meets Gon and his grandson Killua, who are members of the Extermination Team of Hunters and ant defectors that have infiltrated into the palace, and tells them to judge what have happened inside — an ant trying to save the life of a human girl — for themselves. He encounters another ant, Cheetu, outside the palace, who follows him and tries to pick a fight with him to show off his new techniques. Zeno ignores Cheetu's incitement and tells him to look behind him. Thinking that Zeno is trying to use the oldest trick in the book on him, Cheetu keeps following Zeno, and his head is suddenly smashed by a descending Silva, who has come to pick up his father, in a single punch. The two Zoldycks leave the Republic of East Gorteau on a dragon. Zeno tells his son that he met Killua, and that Killua may have removed Illumi's needle from his brain, and that the mission was the most incredible experience he has ever had because time seemed to start moving really slowly, which implies that facing the King was the closest to death he has ever been.

13th Hunter Chairman Election arc
Zeno does not formally appear during this arc. However, Killua mentions that like Silva, Zeno wants to keep Alluka close in order to control him, and that Zeno doesn't want Killua to be in danger. Regarding Zeno's relationship with the rest of the family, he has a give-and-take relationship with Silva and Illumi, and favors Killua most among his grandchildren.

Abilities & Powers
Zeno's enviable mastery over Nen. His training as an assassin, the experience gleaned over the years of activity and his calm and analytic mind make him an extremely powerful fighter. His name alone is enough to frighten most opponents, with good reason. Chrollo Lucilfer, the leader of the Phantom Troupe, would require his full strength to stand a chance against him. When the two clashed, Chrollo focused almost exclusively on him despite Silva's presence, although it must be specified that Zeno took the offensive first. Neferpitou, a member of the Royal Guard, grew very excited to confront him, having sensed his power through their En, while Zeno was undaunted by the immense aura of the Ant.

Immense Strength: Zeno can effortlessly lift debris bigger than him. He landed uninjured after leaping off his Nen dragon at a height of at least two thousand meters (the length of one of the tendrils of Neferpitou's En).

Immense Speed and Reflexes: Zeno can match Chrollo and Silva in speed. His reactions are fast enough to allow him to catch Chrollo's kick while at the same time unleashing a barrage of punches with his free hand.

Enhanced Agility: Zeno can cover long distances with only one jump. He landed gracefully after a free fall of two kilometers.

Immense Stamina: Although he complains using En is tiring, he deployed it with a radius of 100 m, which is twice the area a typical master can cover.

High Intelligence: Zeno has a keen intellect and a considerable amount of experience to back it up. He is extremely analytic in a battle, predicting the actions of genius fighters like Chrollo and coming up with perfect countermeasures in an instant.

Master Hand to Hand Combatant: Zeno might be superior to Chrollo in physical combat; he drew blood from the latter with a strike with the side of his hand, and later restrained him by grabbing his leg, keeping him off balance and cornering him with a series of extremely fast punches.

Nen
Zeno is an extremely skilled Nen user, undoubtedly one of the finest to have been introduced so far. He is a Transmuter. Using also Emission skills, he can create dragons that act as means of transport for himself or other people in a straight line for a prolonged amount of time, aside from employing them in battle, to devastating effects. At the sight of Zeno's Ryu, Chrollo, who is considered a genius in his own right, deduced he would not be able to stop the assassin's next attack with his defense alone and resorted to his Hatsu. Another example of Zeno's superior aura proficiency is given by his En: a Nen master can produce En with a 50 m radius, while Zeno is easily capable of releasing his En over a 100 m radius and even stated that he could increase it to a 300 m radius if he so elected.

Trivia

 * Zeno is the only character who talks directly to the reader in the manga, explaining Isaac Netero's past, his ties to the Zoldycks, and the phenomenon for which the perception of time is compressed during a tough fight, all in an interview-like fashion. He also clearly stated that he is not as powerful as the late chairman.
 * Zeno compared himself and Isaac Netero to the elements of Yin and Yang respectively.

Anime and Manga Differences

 * Zeno's exceptional En range was mentioned but not shown in the 2011 anime.

Intertextuality and References

 * Zeno's Dragon Lance ability resembles Hiei's Dragon of the Darkness Flame from YuYu Hakusho.

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