Ronin watched the aura sphere hurtling toward him and instantly understood the Ant King's attack style.
Since the King couldn't get close enough to strike directly, he was using long-range attacks to avoid triggering his own intercept-type Nen.
The crude shape of the sphere made it clear the Ant King was acting on pure instinct.
Amenotokotachi vanished. Water Style: Water Wall Technique activated in the same breath.
The sphere slammed into the sudden wall of water and exploded, the blast also hiding Ronin's figure behind the churning liquid.
A flicker of wariness crossed the Ant King's eyes. The ground beneath his feet turned to thick mud the next instant.
Earth Style: Swamp of the Underworld.
It was the same technique Jiraiya had used in the manga to ambush Orochimaru's giant summoned snake.
Ronin wasn't trying to trap the Ant King with it. He was changing the terrain on purpose.
This was a test.
The Ant King's "infinity" layer only activated after an attack was launched.
If Ronin used an ability without any intent to harm the Ant King, would the intercept-type Nen still trigger?
After all, the King's power wasn't true Infinity.
The sudden shift caught the Ant King off guard. For the first time his stance faltered as his foot sank into the swamp.
Ronin's Sharingan saw everything clearly.
The moment the swamp formed, the space around the Ant King's foot shrank for a split second. But the instant the King lifted his foot and stepped down again, the shrinking effect disappeared.
Even when Ronin tried to make the Swamp of the Underworld as non-aggressive as possible, the Ant King's Nen still registered it as an attack and activated automatically.
That activation vanished the moment the Ant King deliberately stepped into the mud.
Ronin's eyes lit up. A theory clicked into place.
Any attack that tried to approach the Ant King would be neutralized. But if the Ant King himself moved forward, his passive defensive Nen would fail.
It was a classic double-edged sword.
The greater the benefit granted by the vow, the harsher the restriction it imposed.
A near-perfect intercept-type ability could only be maintained by keeping a purely defensive mindset. No active aggression allowed.
That fit the Ant King's situation while he was still inside the Queen perfectly.
Back then, his only requirement had been absolute safety.
Now that he was born, he needed more than safety. He needed the power to strike first.
But that clashed directly with the vow he had formed inside the Queen's body.
With the Ant King's natural talent, given enough time he might have found a way to patch the flaw or overcome the restriction.
Right now, time was exactly what he didn't have.
Ronin had arrived too soon.
The spreading swamp couldn't hold the Ant King for long. His attacks didn't require him to get close anyway—he literally couldn't get close.
Aura erupted from the King's feet. He tore free of the mud in one powerful leap while fresh spheres of aura formed in both hands.
The spheres shot out like bullets, screaming straight at Ronin.
Ronin kept it simple. He alternated Water Style and Earth Style in rapid succession. Earth Style reshaped the ground while Water Style precisely intercepted and neutralized every aura bomb.
At the same time the fierce exchange between Ronin and the Ant King raged on, the other two Chimera Ants launched their own attacks toward Ronin.
They never reached him.
Behind them came a tidal wave of giant spiders. In front of them, figures appeared the instant they moved, blocking their path.
Maschur's attack method was almost identical to the Ant King's.
No—more accurately, the style the Ant King was copying was the same one Maschur had been using all along.
Dozens of aura bombs blasted from Maschur's hands, spreading out in a wide net that swallowed the lion-featured Chimera Ant.
At the same time a shadow slipped silently through the darkness, gliding closer to the lion Ant's own shadow.
The monkey-featured Chimera Ant on the other side was driven back by a sudden storm of javelins.
Colin had stayed ready the entire time since entering the cave.
The moment Ronin gave the order, he ignored whatever Benket might think and unleashed his ability straight at the monkey Ant.
Outside the cave, Colin had seen exactly what would have happened without Ronin's intervention. He and Benket could easily have been injured in the giant snake's counterattack. Their team might have suffered even more casualties.
He owed Ronin a debt.
If Ronin was willing to take on the Ant King alone, Colin had no problem going all out to keep the disgusting monkey Ant busy—or even kill it.
The retreating monkey Ant suddenly found itself surrounded by giant spiders lunging in to bite and tear.
The monkey moved with incredible agility, twisting and dodging while its hands ripped several massive spider legs free in quick succession.
Every time it tore off one of those scythe-like legs, it hurled the limb back like a javelin toward Benket's team.
Its targets weren't just Colin. It was aiming at every human who had entered the cave.
And from the way it moved, it was clearly trying to identify the weakest members of the group so it could pick them off first.
Benket stopped worrying about anything else.
Two small spheres appeared in his hands. He tossed them to the ground. Thick white smoke exploded outward, swallowing the entire team and cutting off the monkey Ant's line of sight.
The monkey Ant instinctively pushed its life energy into the smoke, but it still couldn't detect any human presence.
Suspicion flashed in its cunning eyes. Then its mouth split into a grin. It turned and hurled the bloody spider leg straight at Ronin instead.
In that exact instant a javelin exploded out of the smoke and flashed toward the monkey.
The monkey's eyes widened. It twisted aside, claws scraping against the shaft.
The force knocked the javelin off course, but a round disk had attached itself to the tail end.
The disk detonated the moment it passed the monkey. Blue lightning surged along the metal shaft and into the Ant's body.
In a single heartbeat the monkey's sparse fur began to smoke and char. But its eyes only grew more savage. The claw that had touched the javelin clamped down, and with a roar of power it spun and hurled the weapon back the way it came.
At that same moment a scream tore through the air.
The lion Ant.
The monkey whipped its head around in disbelief.
A dagger had somehow buried itself deep in the lion Ant's neck. Blood sprayed in a high arc.
The lion Ant raised its claws and slammed them down toward the ground with all its strength.
Its paws struck nothing but soft, yielding mud. The impact sent a massive spray of swamp water and sludge flying in every direction.