That voice was Beyond's.
The moment the first syllable was heard, Netero instantly recognized it.
However, his footsteps didn't hesitate in the slightest. He strode into the brightly lit room as if he already knew Beyond was here.
The passage leading here sloped slightly downward, but the room was level and unaffected.
The room's interior was spacious. The brick walls were embedded with the energy stones of the bronze mechanical lifeforms, and the light source came from the glow of these energy stones.
Beyond stood in the center of the room, his upright body like a sword, radiating unconcealed sharpness.
After uttering that sentence, he watched intently as Netero walked into the room with a calm expression. Gradually, a smile appeared on his face.
Why was he smiling?
Even he himself didn't know.
"Just you alone? Sometimes being too confident isn't a good thing." Netero took in the room's environment at a glance. For the first time, his right hand dropped to his side, and he threw Beyond's earlier words back at him.
"Haha." Beyond burst into laughter, saying seriously, "Clearly old, yet you insist on showing off. Are you forcing me... to send you off ahead of time?"
"This has always been my expectation of you." Netero revealed a dangerous smile.
"Given the situation, even if I'm unwilling to bear the infamous title of patricide, now I can only fulfill your expectations." Beyond's rugged face gradually showed traces of coldness.
The corner of Netero's mouth lifted, intense fighting spirit appearing in his eyes. His knees bent slightly, his left hand dropped to his lower stance, and his right hand hovered before his chest, wholeheartedly adopting an opening stance that balanced offense and defense.
Having been trapped here for so long, wasn't this the moment he had been waiting for?
Capture, or kill on the spot.
There was no longer a need to deliberately choose.
Or rather, there was no room for choice.
Seeing Netero straightforwardly assume his stance, Beyond casually began checking the fit of his arm guards. As he checked, he said in a cold tone, "The people who came with me are no simple individuals."
"..." Netero remained silent.
"Your people won't be able to handle that group. So, you're always like this. Once your eyes are captivated by something, there's no room for anything else."
Beyond finished checking his arm guards just as his sentence ended.
In an instant, Nen more vibrant and powerful than Netero's suddenly emanated from his body.
"In the end, you haven't changed at all, my beloved father."
Beyond also adopted a posture similar to Tai Chi: his right hand primarily above, left hand primarily below, both palms facing each other in the air.
This posture somewhat resembled Netero's opening stance but had clear differences.
"I won't let this battle end too quickly. Before my teammates return, I will properly satisfy your unreasonable desire for battle."
General against general, soldier against soldier.
This was an opportunity Netero had waited months for, so he had taken the risk to come.
Originally prepared to fight many alone, Beyond's confidence gave him the outcome he most hoped to see.
And Beyond's statement reflected another kind of absolute confidence in his teammates.
Beyond believed that the Pro Hunters Netero valued would be defeated by his own teammates.
"Underestimating opponents will lead to losses. I should have taught you that countless times."
A sharp edge shone in Netero's eyes as he suddenly took action.
The two were far apart: Netero near the entrance, Beyond in the room's center.
At this distance, it wasn't enough for the battle to erupt instantly.
But Netero acted, and he achieved it.
A golden arm of the Guanyin appeared above and behind Beyond.
Following Netero's extremely subtle movement, the palm on the Guanyin's arm, carrying tremendous force, slammed toward the back of Beyond's head.
Beyond's right hand shot up like lightning, blocking above the back of his head.
The Guanyin's palm struck squarely on Beyond's right arm guard.
A ring of air pressure erupted from the point of impact.
Without any special action from Beyond, the Guanyin's palm, even its arm, shattered into specks of light upon hitting the arm guard, dissipating into the air.
As if shattered by its own strike.
In other words, crushed by the force of its own palm.
"Underestimate you? Though I believe your chances of winning are zero, I've never underestimated you from start to finish." Beyond slowly lowered his hand, his expression turning completely cold as his smile vanished.
"However, your angles of attack, timing, speed, palm techniques, and most importantly, 'strength', have long been memorized by my body."
Netero said no more. Stepping forward, both hands struck out simultaneously.
The golden Guanyin didn't manifest behind Netero, nor before Beyond.
Instead, golden arms seemed to traverse the void. Before the Guanyin form fully materialized, maintaining its current shape, they struck toward Beyond from behind.
With the second wave of palm strikes incoming, Beyond no longer raised his arms to block. Instead, he released his En with extreme confidence and began walking forward with an irregular gait.
Using Nen to perceive, he momentarily discerned the trajectories of the palm strikes. Thus, within that irregular movement, he precisely dodged the strikes from behind.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Guanyin palms passed Beyond's body, striking the ground with resounding booms.
The intensity of the sound was enough to judge the power of the strikes, yet several palms hitting the ground didn't cause any cracks in the brick floor.
Netero advanced, Beyond also advanced.
The distance between them was closing.
Netero used the constraint of having the Guanyin not fully manifest while consuming equal Nen to increase the attack range.
Normally, the power of such attacks would be correspondingly weakened.
However, Netero's Guanyin palm strikes weren't weakened.
He wasn't surprised that Beyond could block a strike so easily, but the fact that strikes on the ground caused no damage did surprise him.
Beyond surprise, it wasn't dismay or confusion, but delight.
He and Beyond were deep underground in a room structured like an ant nest. If the battle caused the room to collapse, it wasn't an outcome he wanted to see.
"This way, I can go all out."
Netero focused entirely on the distance between himself and Beyond.
However, he didn't know that Beyond, who possessed more information, had deliberately chosen this as the battleground.
Because this former safe zone not only had astonishingly hard bricks but also the energy stones embedded in the walls provided absolute shock absorption. No matter how intense the fight, there was little worry about the walls being breached.
…
Both sides, trapped in the underground ruins, had maneuvered for a long time using edible vines.
Finally, after thoroughly investigating the distribution of bronze mechanical lifeforms and obtaining substantial intelligence, they had engaged in close combat.
Above ground, there were still a staggering number of bronze mechanical lifeforms and highly dangerous scarecrows.
At this very moment, a figure stealthily arrived, entering the field of view of the bronze mechanical lifeforms and scarecrows.