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Chapter 110: Counter
It was a Nen Beast.
At the same time, the sounds of combat erupted behind them. Ronin caught sight of horribly deformed figures pouring through the main entrance.
Looking at the twisted abominations, Ronin confirmed his initial theory. Ryan was a Manipulator. The men pouring into the room were all under his control, tethered to him by those grotesque, pulsating blood tumors.
As for the Nen Beast...
Ronin watched the massive blood slime churn and ripple, a wave of revulsion washing over him. The stench of iron and rot was suffocating. Through the semi-translucent, scarlet membrane, he could see human corpses suspended inside the beast, some already half-digested into sludge.
Ryan was hiding safely behind the colossal slime. His face, however, was ashen. If the Nen Beast hadn't formed in time to absorb Ronin's punch, he would have been blown to pieces. The sheer killing intent behind that strike had been so overwhelming that Ryan had genuinely hallucinated his dead great-grandmother waving at him from the afterlife.
Ryan stared at Ronin, his mind racing. The fire ability terrified him the most. The intelligence reports from the other Elders hadn't mentioned a single word about fire. They had only warned him that Ronin possessed monstrous physical strength, capable of bending a tank's main cannon with a single punch.
For an Enhancer to reach such a terrifying peak of physical power, it should have been impossible for them to master a completely unrelated elemental transmutation ability. Yet, here he was. The boy was an absolute prodigy.
If I can turn him into a Blood Tumor Puppet... it would be a masterpiece!
Ronin didn't care what Ryan was thinking. He was currently weighing Kurapika's agenda. Kurapika wanted to leave a spy—a piece on the board—inside Meteor City. They didn't need to rule the place, but a well-placed pawn could feed them critical intelligence on the Phantom Troupe and act as a thorn in their side.
Spence hadn't been an option. Ronin had slaughtered his entire estate. Theodore was equally useless; the man was an extremist fanatic, and judging by his ragged clothes, he had no real resources or intelligence network to exploit.
But Ryan was perfect. He dressed like an aristocrat, possessed vast wealth, operated a highly visible charity front, had a loyal butler, and his villa was still largely intact. If they killed Ryan, replaced him with a disguise, and bought off the butler, they could keep this Garbage Mountain empire running smoothly.
They had no interest in mass murder, but planting a reliable informant here was highly beneficial. If this faction grew strong enough, Ronin briefly entertained the idea of building his own Limitless Fortress right here in Meteor City. But that was a pipe dream for the distant future. Who knew if a Thunder Emperor or a Man with the Jagan would ever show up in this world.
His eyes shifted, the crimson irises locking into the intricate pinwheel pattern of the Mangekyou Sharingan.
This disgusting, blood-soaked slime was practically begging to be burned.
"Amaterasu!"
The word he had waited so long to say finally slipped from his lips. Instantly, inextinguishable black flames ignited on the surface of the massive slime. The monstrosity thrashed violently, churning its horrifying contents in a desperate attempt to put out the fire, but it was useless.
Meanwhile, the defense at the entrance had been breached. The sheer volume of Blood Tumor Puppets had forced Kurapika, Neon, and Shizuku onto the defensive, allowing more of the deformed soldiers to slip past them and rush into the room to assist Ryan.
"Perhaps we can negotiate," Ryan offered, his voice strained.
The blood slime was completely incapable of shedding its burning flesh fast enough to stop the black flames from spreading. As the beast rapidly shrank under the intense heat, true panic began to set in.
It wasn't that Ryan was weak. It was that Ronin's abilities countered him so perfectly it was almost comical.
"Negotiate what?" Ronin replied coldly, crossing his fingers into a cross shape.
With a soft poof, a perfect duplicate materialized beside him. The Shadow Clone immediately turned its back to Ryan, facing the incoming horde of Blood Tumor Puppets, while the original Ronin took a slow, menacing step toward the elder.
Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu. A barrage of small, highly controlled fireballs erupted from the clone's mouth, raining down on the charging puppets like a meteor shower. The puppets possessed a glaring weakness—the grotesque, jutting blood tumor acting as their second brain—but the Phoenix Flower Jutsu wasn't designed for pinpoint sniping.
Ronin didn't care about capturing these men alive. If he really needed loyal, tireless workers, he could just use the Edo Tensei. Reanimated corpses were the ultimate labor force: they never slept, didn't need pay, didn't eat, and were practically indestructible. The only downside was needing a living sacrifice to cast the jutsu.
The carpet bombing of fire consumed the front lines. However, these puppets weren't entirely helpless. The blood tumors pushed their physical limits beyond human capacity. A few of the stronger ones either dodged the flames with raw speed or powered through the burns, closing the distance to the Shadow Clone.
They were met with glowing blue blades extending from the clone's hands. The Chakra Scalpels sliced through them with terrifying precision.
Ryan watched in horror. Not a single puppet could push past the clone. The gap in sheer combat power was staggering.
With the blood slime finally reduced to ash, the Amaterasu flames flickered out. Desperate, Ryan conjured a massive, spear-like syringe into his hands. It was his last resort.
Seeing the weapon, Ronin instantly deduced Ryan's entire Nen affinity. He was a Manipulator who had dipped heavily into Conjuration and Emission. It was a highly orthodox, balanced fighting style. He used the blood to control his army for offense, and the massive slime for defense.
Unfortunately for Ryan, his puppets could only fight using raw, Enhancement-style brawling. Stripped of whatever unique Nen abilities they had possessed in life, they couldn't unleash even a fraction of their true potential. That was why they were being butchered by a single Shadow Clone using basic taijutsu and Chakra Scalpels.
When it came to close-quarters combat, Ronin was the undisputed master.
Ronin had to admit, Ryan was genuinely powerful. A lifetime of accumulating resources and refining his Nen had made him a formidable Elder. If Ronin hadn't possessed the black flames of Amaterasu to effortlessly bypass that terrifying absolute defense, this fight would have been significantly harder. Breaking through that slime would have been a nightmare for almost anyone else.
Unfortunately, Ryan had run into him. A man wielding the Mangekyou Sharingan and an arsenal of ninjutsu.
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